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.
I’m American, but these are my examples:
- The Incredibles was the biggest offender in my childhood: it was sensory overload for me from the workplace scene to the jokes to the villain all done in a viciously brutal Pixar story formula.
- Despicable Me was another contender because that film I don’t consider friendly to kids now, because characters are jerks and the villains are the minor ones pulling all the strings (Miss Hattie and Mr. Perkins scared me badly).
- Tangled, mostly because of Mother Goethe verbally abusing Rapunzel and stabbing her boyfriend in the stomach only to get killed.
- Wreck-It Ralph also has everyone hating on Ralph for being a villain, Vanellope gets shoved into a puddle of chocolate by her own kind, Calhoun is an abusive bastard, Turbo doesn’t even belong in a movie meant for kids as a villain even though he dies a goofball later.
- Transformers: Age of Extinction, mostly because of Joshua Joyce abusing his role although the rest of the movie was okay.
- Marvel’s Avengers was fine, but Bruce Banner/Hulk and Loki were convincingly scary.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
- The Boy and The Beast was a brutal coming-of-age film, but I saw it when I was a teenager.
- Black Panther, most overrated Marvel movie
- Moana, for an unpleasant fomula film
- Zootopia, worst movie ever made
You could say any film is going to scare me.
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 doll in Trilogy of Terror. I don’t remember how it traumatized me, which is probably a good thing.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
