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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mine is Jaws. I was around six, going to a Disney movie, saw the poster and convinced my baby sitter to watch it. Bad mistake!
Same. 30 odd years later and I still have a mild panic when I enter the sea.
The Legacy (1978)
Fuck knows what my dad was thinking 😅
IT. I refused to shower without another person in the room for weeks.
Threads. We were shown it at school, about 12 or 13, told we should see it because it might happen. Didn't sleep a full night after that until 2005.
My mum thought I was ready for The Thing way too soon. Fast forward like 30 years and it's right up there in my all-time favourites now.
Freddie Kruger fucked me up for years lol
Why isn't this one higher? It was designed to fuck you up.
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.
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!
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.
Now the Hypocrisy song is stuck in my head
The doll in Trilogy of Terror. I don't remember how it traumatized me, which is probably a good thing.
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
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.
The Matrix at 7 years old messed me up a bit, what with the whole mouth melting together-scene and all.
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.
From dusk till dawn
Watched beastmaster, purely because I had seen my Mum and older siblings watching it, and it looked pretty harmless at first glance, something like He-Man which I liked at the time.
I asked a bunch but was always told no, so one day I snuck down in the middle of the night to watch it, needless to say, it was not like He-Man.
I was way little, like maybe 5, when the first Jumanji came out. We saw it in theater: the moving plants and giant mosquitos scared the absolute fuck out of me.
Parents had to take me out of the showing, and snuck me into Toy Story instead - much better! :D
The opening scene for Terminator 2: Judgement Day. I already had a deep seated fear of spontaneous combustion, so watching that didn't help in the slightest.
Salem's Lot. The tapping at the window. The Master... I was way, way too young to see that
Return To Oz was mine. Took me decades to bring myself to rewatch it.
Was it Jack falling into the swirling abyss? Thay freaked me out. I think the concept of nothingness/dying hit me hard then.
So much of it was nightmare fuel, it's hard to choose, but I think it was the scene where Dorothy's friends have been turned into ornaments that haunted me the most.
Oh with the wooden sawhorse and she had to choose them! I think i need to watch this again (in the daylight, with curtains fully up)
ET. Some of the scenes are pretty intense. Not sure what my parents were thinking.
For me it was the original blob (which was back then already vintage almost) and this fucked me. I never actually turned anything off except when some of the neighbors gave me a „cool movie about cars“ and then the rat and bucket scene of fast and furious made me turn it off.
Definitely should not have watched Beverly Hills Cop. The nonstop swearing and stupid ‘banana in the tailpipe’ type pranks were not good influences.
Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. I was like 7. I was okay-ish with those. Chucky, on the other hand, was too much.
I am using traumatized is the most loose sense here.
Talos the Mummy when I was ~10. First film where the villain won. Not Thanos level of wining because multi movie plot. Just all the good guys trying to stop him fail.
Clockwork orange, those eye stretchers!!!
Carry On Screaming. Nightmares for years.
The Fly. Probably accounts for some of my hatred of flies lol
I watched Jurassic Park when I was like 6 and absolutely loved it. Little Nemo Adventures in Slumber land however absolutely terrified me at about the same age.