Mine is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Watership Down
My parents thought it was a nice cartoon about rabbits I guess. Weirdly, My nightmares where mostly about the intro with the special art style, mostly…
Oh it’s a nice cartoon about rabbits, very child-friendly! The fact that the Wikipedia article has a section called “Effects on children and BBFC classification” that opens with
Watership Down has developed a reputation as a distressing children’s text, with Ed Power of The Independent describing the film in a 40th anniversary retrospective as a “classic” but which “arguably traumatised an entire generation”.
sums it up pretty well!
Growing up in the 80s meant that pretty much any kids movie was going to be traumatizing. Gremlins: horrifying. Neverending Story: emotional damage. The Land Before Time: can’t think of dinosaurs without tearing up. It’s like the whole movie industry was explicitly devoted to fucking us up.
You also have the Dark Crystal, Water Ship Down, The Last Unicorn, Watcher in the Woods (which was a Disney movie!) and the Secret of NIMH. Seriously, kids movies in the eighties were horrifying.
I suspect a bunch of animators wanted their work to be taken seriously as art, but were stuck making kids movies, so they made kids movies that were shockingly dark to try to persuade people that animation was a versatile medium.
Hey, don’t forget Transformers: The Movie, the one in which all your heroes just fuckin’ died (so some greedy toy company execs could boost sales).
I vividly remember watching that movie in the theater. My brother and I were so hyped we were standing on our seats for the opening song. Then they had Optimus Prime cuss and we absolutely couldn’t believe it. When he died, I had never seen such bullshit. Optimus Prime can’t die, he was the toughest robot ever.
A Serbian Film. Any age is too young
Literally the only movie I’ve ever regretted watching.
There’s some others in the same genre too. Cannibal holocaust was one I think. Salo too, less intense but still pretty fucked up. The human centipede too.
So if you want more regrets in your life …
I guess i just don’t put them on the same level in my head. Visually shocking g vs morally horrifying. Salo i have avoided now since Serbian Film because I’m a little more cautious lol
Salk and Cannibal Holocaust are actually good movies. A Serbian Film sucks, but is has shock factor
Event Horizon.
I know it gets a bad rap, but it is a cult classic in my book. The most perfect symmetry of science fiction and body horror since Alien(s). Add on top of that a fantastic cast, a mildly campy vibe, and it somehow manages to hold up well even today in my opinion. Even though it scared the fuck out of me as a kid, I have a weird nostalgia for it now.
All of the issues with Event Horizon are because of the studio screwing up the story. And the footage of the good version of the movie was lost on the cutting room floor, so we’ll never see it.
Its such a good premise and so well executed that its still good despite its story & pacing issues. One of the best moments of my life was showing it to my Warhammer 40k loving friend for the first time. It blew his mind.
Event Horizon is an awesome movie.
There was so much I never knew about the production of the movie until the guys at Red Letter Media did a Re:View about it. I was kinda bummed that Mike and Jay didn’t like the movie, but it was cool to learn the history, warts and all.
I keep holding out hope that someday it might be remade or perhaps there could be a sequel from a competent team that enjoyed the first movie. I am generally against remake or reboot culture, but Event Horizon just always seemed like a perfect candidate for it to me.
Knew this one would be on the list. Factor in watching solo in the middle of the night and you have the recipe for staying up until morning.
Watching it solo in the middle of the night thinking it was just a regular sci-fi movie is what fucked me up. I was like “cool! spaceships! warp drives!” and then had my world fucking rocked.
Missed it as a kid, but our local cinema put it on the big screen a few months back. Can absolutely see why it’s a cult classic!
Stand By Me - The scene with the leaches. As a kid in a small country town with nothing to do on weekends but run around and swim in the local creek, I was so scared to ever do that again.
For me the movie was fine until the lingering shot on Ray Brower’s face.
same!!
The ring
Yeah, I saw the western version age… 12? Intrusive thoughts for weeks. Dude electrocuting himself in a bathtub was what did it for me for some reason
The Ring, age 8 or 9, did me in as well. The bathtub scene is also the one that messed with my head the most.
The Shining.
I remember asking dad “what’s wrong with that man (Jack Nicholson)?” and he told me that he had spiders in his brain. That was also really weird.
Bambi (seriously)
My friend and I went snooping and found her parents’ hard-core sex tape. Should not have watched that at 10 years old.
Got a good quick lesson in anatomy, though.
When I was about 5-6 I had fever and couldn’t sleep. I lived in a apartment complex and my mom had the neighbour from the next apartment over for coffee so I was sitting in the neighbours apartment while they had the doors open into the hall. Well, there I was, sitting alone in the dark, watching some sappy teens have a heart to heart while suddenly the earth opens under one of them and it gets brutally eaten the fuck alive while the other one screams in panic and tries to rescue it. Had some unforgettable nightmares that night.
Fucking Tremors man.
the exorcist. At age 8
My Catholic church going up bringing has made possession into a genuine fair even though I’m atheist now.
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Event Horizon. I couldn’t sleep for days as an 11 year old! Love it now, but man, way too scary.
Event horizon fucked me up for a while
Saving this whole thread for movie recommendations.
Four Rooms. I was 14 but very sheltered and that shit was nuts.
