| Allison Vincent |
Willow plays at the Trylon Cinema from Friday, September 5th, through Sunday, September 7th. For tickets, showtimes, and other series information, visit trylon.org.
I want to start by making it clear that I love all of these movies. They are core memories for me as a kid partly because they scared the hell out of me, but mostly because, despite losing nights of sleep, they enthralled me. They are full of rich storylines, characters, themes, and dazzling effects. This is not going to be a tired diatribe of back in my day kids were tougher, not little iPad snowflakes HOOYAH! No.
Firstly, I’m a late 80s/90s kid. We drank out of hoses and played outside until the sun set, and yadda yadda yadda, but we were by no means Green Berets. I would not define my childhood as “tough.” Unsupervised? Yes. But that’s 80s capitalism, baby!
Many of the instances of seeing movies too young are the direct result of two main culprits: 1) the PG-13 rating did not exist until July 1st, 1984 so the berth between PG and R was wiiiiiiide, and 2) unless there was gratuitous sex or nudity, my dad could not understand why I couldn’t watch something he was watching. And thus, I present to you my top five movies I absolutely adored as a kid (think 4-7 years old) that also scared the bejesus out of me.
1. Willow
There is just so much scary shit in this movie, frankly. The crossroads-skeletons, Val Kilmer is generally terrifying for the first ⅓ of the film, and they even invented a slur for the Nelwyns because that is how mean this world is. Because the Nelwyns and fairies are small relative to the power-holding individuals in the world, it is easy to relate to them as a kid. So, when they are in peril, it is quite upsetting, but also empowering because they outperform everyone’s expectations of them and kick righteous ass.
But, the scene that reeeeeally got me as a kid was THE ENTIRE OPENING SEQUENCE. OH MY GOD. It is terrifying from T to B putting Disney to shame by murdering not just Elora Danan’s mom, but the woman who sneaks her out of the castle within seconds of her escaping with the baby to save her from the evil queen. Our girl is ripped to smithereens by a pack of ferocious rat dogs after sending Elora down the river ala Moses. Also, Bavmorda is OBSESSED with murdering this baby, y’all. Yikes on bikes, Ron Howard and George Lucas. This is all before the title card, naturally.
By the time we get to the final battle with the two-headed dragon, Madmardigan dropping a record number of bodies with a sword and crossbow, and Fin Raziel morphing into all manner of creatures, any remaining fears had subsided and I was able to settle into the dark fantasy experience that I love so much.
2. GREMLINS
There is also quite a lot for a child to be afraid of in this movie. My dad showed it to me when I was, like, four, because Gremlins 2 was coming out and he wanted to catch me up on lore before taking me to the theater to see the new one. Well, that didn’t happen because I had a meltdown of epic proportions and wasn’t able to finish the film on my first watch because it scared the ever-loving shit outta me.
The “bad gremlins” that bubble and evolve from little furballs to the more aggressive versions of poor, sweet Gizmo are concerning to say the least. The viewer can tell that there is something off about this new batch of “Mogwai,” the Cantonese word meaning “little monster.” Then, when the new guys get wet, they metamorphose into some Ridley Scott’s Alien looking eggs only to hatch revealing, well, little monsters. The scene when Francis Lee McCain is alone in the kitchen with the gremlins, dominating them like the badass homemaker she is, is straight out of a horror movie. Phoebe Cates’s incredible monologue about her father getting caught in the chimney and dying dressed as Santa (also, a morbid shove into the “Santa isn’t real” realization for kids) is not only a beautiful performance, but it is also soul-crushingly sad.
But the thing that triggered my movie ending meltdown was the science teacher having his fingies bitten off under his desk. Jesus. Christ.
For Christmas that year, my dad gave me a stuffed Gizmo plushie, and when I tell you I fucking lost it, dear reader, boy howdy did I.
“Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what you’ve brought into our house? You need to take this back right away! It can’t get wet! NO ONE FEED IT! DID YOU NOT WATCH THE SAME MOVIE I WATCHED?!”
I refused to let it out of my sight because I was so stressed out by the possible consequences. The plushie lived in the linen closet until I was able to grasp the suspension of disbelief between narrative and merchandise.
3. THE WITCHES:
I know what you’re thinking- the scene where all the witches remove their human masks and transform into the titular witches, right? And I say to you, dear reader, not even close.
No, what stayed with me for sincerely the rest of my life is that fucking painting where a little girl was trapped and forced to live out the rest of her life watching her family from inside the frame until she died. How existentially terrifying. It is still one of the scariest premises I’ve ever had to ponder. Roald Dahl is such a genius, but also a huge dick for that. This throwaway example of how maniacal the witches were lives rent free in my head in perpetuity. I really do believe it might be the most deeply horrifying thing I’ve ever seen in a film, partly because of just how creative it is and also because of the term of the torture.
4. THE NEVERENDING STORY:
Yes. The death of Artax. Horrendous. The stuff of nightmares. For sure. He sinks into the fucking swamp of sadness while his best friend scream-pleads with him, “you have to try or you’ll die.” I’m tearing up just thinking about it. Of course as a child, the reverberations of the swinging trauma bat to the face is tuned to losing a beloved animal friend, which FUUUUUUUUCK, right? But as an adult, the pitch of those reverberations shifts into that of losing someone to depression. Begging for someone to fight for themselves because you love them and them not being able to is absolutely devastating. It also did nothing to quell my childhood fear of sinking in quicksand/mud/tar/other substances.
Artax’s death is so devastating that it is easy to forget that we begin with Sebastian dealing with his mother’s death and being bullied at school and his dad essentially saying, “Yeah, life’s tough, get over it?” So then this poor kid picks up the apparent SADDEST BOOK IN THE WORLD for comfort. The other thing that always really got me about part one that I couldn’t quite articulate as a kid was the Rockbiter laying out the premise of the Nothing slowly consuming Fantasia. I didn’t have the vocabulary for “clinical depression,” “existential crisis,” and “nihilism” quite yet, but watching him almost be devoured by the Nothing in forest and losing his home is haunting. Tough stuff abounds in the mean streets of Fantasia, I guess.
5. WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT:
So, this is my favorite movie of all time. I watched it constantly as a child. 1,000% I first saw it waaaay too early because my dad saw there was animation and immediately thought, “Kids movie,” and then never bothered to update that opinion. I knew every line and adored the juxtaposition of cartoon and 40s realism. As a gay woman, it is clear to me now that Jessica Rabbit was a foundational figure in my Queer awakening. The frenetic pace of Toon Town and the moody noir-esque baseline of Hollywood make for a chaotic and captivating setting where comedy, romance, horror, crime drama, and classic cartoons can all meld together in a glorious experiential soup.
But, there’s that one scene that I always dreaded getting through on each re-watch. The scene in question is so upsetting to me that I decided not to use the actual photo. We are talking about when Judge Doom puts the little anthropomorphized shoe into the dip and MURDERS HIM BEFORE OUR VERY EYES. Of course, the animators made this little guy adorable. We immediately fall in love with him and Doom snatches him from the ground, and slowly melts him in the dip as he screams, shimmying and shaking with agony. What. The fuck. The scene shows us how deplorably cruel Judge Doom, brilliantly played by human cartoon character Christopher Lloyd, really is. It is doubly troubling when the Judge’s secret, that he himself is a toon, is revealed. The call is always coming from inside the house, am I right, homophobes? His little cadre of toon weasels as a kind of gangster gestapo scream with the same dramatic satire as Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui giving the film significantly more depth than just some interesting cartoon mash up. The themes of genocide, oppression, racism, fascism, exploitation, and greed are intricately woven into a narrative that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.
Closing Thoughts:
That’s the thing I love about movies that aren’t afraid to pull punches with kids. They build our resilience, plant seeds for understanding big ideas and complex concepts that, perhaps we can’t articulate as young people, but we can ponder, or store away for later. If and when we do encounter some of those scenarios in our lives, we have a template for how to overcome them. We can conceptualize what life on the other side of hardship might look like.
I often turn to movies when hard things happen. It’s helpful to see characters persevere, to show kindness, to be brave, to believe in themselves, even when the deck is stacked to the heavens against them. Movies give us a meter stick to understand ourselves and our world better and to process life in a relatively safe way.
I still have nightmares about that fucking painting, though.
Your Turn!
*Note: I had a blast chatting with friends about movies from childhood that scared them in preparation to write this piece, so I want to know: What movies scared you as a kid, but have stuck with you in a positive way as an adult? Bonus points if they were marketed as “for kids!” Leave them in the comments below!
Edited by Olga Tchepikova-Treon