Jurassic Park for me. I had an amazing JP jumper when I was like…maybe 6. It was far too big for me but I loved dinosaurs. Naturally this meant I wanted to watch the film because…well I’m 6 and it’s got dinosaurs.
Ultimately I ended up watching it with my Mum and Dad. We got as far as the iconic T-Rex chase scene and I told them to turn it off. Didn’t go near the film for another few years.
I’ve now got my own 6 year old. There’s no scenario I could envisage where I even consider letting her watch a film as gory, tense and frightening as JP.
- The Secret of Nimh
- Little Nemo’s Adventures in Slumberland
- All Dogs Go to Heaven
- The Brave Little Toaster
- Others like these
Some children’s movies of this era liked to weave hallucinogenically dark themes into otherwise whimsical stories. Many of them played on common childhood guilt or fear of rejection, abandonment, and loss, used merely as props or dealt with in deeply problematic ways.
I will say though they can be great for tripping and/or to lambast with a peanut gallery of friends.
Not a movie, but it really traumatized me to the point I still see it today. When I was 5 or 6 I saw some PSA during children’s programming to get people to buckle up their children in a car. Some guy was driving, with his daughter in the back. She was showing him how she had learned to play a song on the recorder (the flute). Then he had to brake and I still see the flute rammed down her throat to this day. It was effective, though, as I am known to tell my kids to not run or play with something in their mouth.
It was the kid breaking into the substation to get his frisbee that was stuck in one of the insulators that did it for me. “Jimmmmmyyyy!!!” while smoke was pouring out of his shoes.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The human sacrifice scene was wild for me as a kid. I remember thinking “How’s he going to get out of this or be rescued?” Because every cartoon showed dangerous situations but always had an out. It blew my mind that he simply didn’t survive.
The mummy scarab scene for me. Had nightmares about that happening to my family.
Also princess momonoke made me afraid to go into the woods by myself for years.
I’ve now got my own 6 year old. There’s no scenario I could envisage where I even consider letting her watch a film as gory, tense and frightening as JP.
Every kid is different. My 3-year-old niece was over a few months ago.
Me: what do you want to watch? Niece: dinosaurs! Me: starts The Land Before Time Niece: no! I want to watch REAL DINOSAURS that EAT PEOPLE! Me: queues up Jurassic Park Niece: YEAH! RAWR!
It’s only a mild trauma, but I couldn’t sleep after Spy Kids and Monsters, Inc and was especially scared of the Robot Kids appearing in the dark for a few years.
I think this is due to me being too young to be able to catch the plot twists in the end. So those movies to me ended with no changes and the bad guys still doing well.
Fire in the sky. I know little green men aren’t actually here taking people but that movie still traumatised me as a kid and I still hate aliens to this day. Just seeing a “picture” of one will give me nightmares for a few days.
Stupid I know but I can’t help how my stupid mind works.
Close Encounters of The Third Kind scared me
Anything with what are usually called grey aliens or anything that looks like them scare me. Even the kaminoans from star wars make me feel quite uncomfortable lol.
Eyes have zero business being that big.
This is exactly the movie which caused me damage too. I would be trying to sleep and this movie would keep going through my head. Every small sound became a big deal. I think it was the idea of something happening to me while I slept and I wouldn’t even know until I was taken.
Years before this me and my cousins would somehow get rentals of movies like poltergeist, pet cemetery, nightmare on elm street, etc. Out of all of them it was fire in the sky which got to me.
Now the Hypocrisy song is stuck in my head
Hills have eyes (remake). Honestly still disturbing as an adult
I watched that when it came out but the scene with the father and the tree is still firmly planted in my head.
Yeah I was 12 when that came out and wow that movie went far. I remember hearing about people walking out of the theatre back then
The doll in Trilogy of Terror. I don’t remember how it traumatized me, which is probably a good thing.
Late one night when I was 8 or 9, I glanced at the tv and caught the horse scene from The Cell with zero context. I spent the next fifteen years convinced it was something I had dreamed. Apparently this is the most common way people encounter this movie.
Rising Sun, it opens with the violent rape and murder of a woman, it was rated R for a reason and we should have never been let into the theater even if it was my friends dad with us.
I think he wanted to see it and did not give a shit about what it might do to us.
The Blob, the 80’s version. I was around 5, snuck into a room where people were watching it. The guy being dragged into the sink made me terrified of using the toilet and I developed a turbo-pissing technique to minimise time spent on the bog.
By the time I was 13, I’d watched loads of 18s. Aliens, Predator, Terminator and more. My parents didn’t really believe in rating. I honestly don’t think it harmed me. My teachers probably worried about me bring this stuff into school, but unless that traumatized other kids, it’s fine. Maybe it desensitized me?
For my own kids, I judge it by the kid and movie, not the rating. If it’s a movie I don’t know, I’m read about it and rating is one of the things I’ll look at. I will a read more if it is an 18. My 14y and 9y are pretty resistant, but my 12y is sensitive like my spouse.
Salem’s Lot. The tapping at the window. The Master… I was way, way too young to see that
Freddie Kruger fucked me up for years lol
Why isn’t this one higher? It was designed to fuck you up.
