it's like the special edition guide to nightmares

Gakked from Fyrdrakken:

Top 10 Films That Traumatise Small Children and 10 Great Children's Books For People Who Hate Their Children

I'm going to make a point about the movies one, since the books one is just laughable.

Watership fucking Down - if you are like me and saw that shit during the impressionable pre-eight-years-old age, you might have come out of it with a strong terror of a.) mist and b.) life. Who the hell gives that to a kid to watch? Network TV, that's who. I mean, if I was going to ever say "What makes me unable to watch a horror movie or anything involving fog", this movie is the reason. I cannot talk about this rationally because I do not remember any of it but I remember terror, and despair, and a general feeling that the world not only sucked, but it would only get worse from here on out.

People. I cannot read the book. I have looked at it and felt my entire body twitch in sheer horror. And I remember the opening sequence and the ears and the legs and how the entire world was out to kill them. Kill them all. Adn by them, I mean, me, because I was below-eight and lookie there, I identified with the small, soft creature being everyone's dinner.

Adding:

The Secret of NIMH (not listed in top 11) - to this day, I still can't comprehend anyone sane put that in a movie theatre for anyone below the age of fifteen. I have the children's edition book somewhere. Again, let me point out, I cannot remember any of it. But I remember watching, and I remember fear. Overwhelming fear.

Agree with their list? Disagree? I have a couple of others that doubtless I'll be flashbacking to over the next few days. I mean, Bambi hurt, and Ole Yeller hurt, but just looking at The Dark Crystal is stirring things deep in my psyche that may mean yes, I did see that, and there are very good reasons I do not remember it.

Yes, yes, yes, my mood is indeed distressed.

ETA: WHY THE HELL DID I GO BACK AND WATCH THAT DAMN HAZEL CLIP? RABBIT TURNED TO LEAVES AND RED EYED STYLIZED DEAD RABBITS! WELCOME TRAUMATIC CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCE. THERE GOES MY SLEEP FOR A FEW DAYS.

ETA 2: Right, so I've just--helped everyone relive their traumatic childhood media experiences. Um. You're welcome? IT'S NOT LIKE I WILL BE SLEEPING EITHER OKAY?

Comments

[jetsilver]

Up until *at least* 13 years old, I lay awake at night, carefully in the *exact centre* of my bed so there was minimum chance of it Getting Me from either side, terrified of the Black Rabbit of Inle.

I read the book first when I was 10. Loved it, but ... yes. Black Rabbit Terror.

[seperis]

*twitch* I still can't sleep with any part of my body hanging over the edge of the mattress. I need a buffer zone from the edge.

[lanning]

Oh, hon. That list is weak. No The Yearling? No Old Yeller? No The Wizard of Oz! Jesus, those fucking trees terrified me for decades! Trees! That talk! And *hit* you! Christ on a cracker. Give me the dead bunnies any time. *g*

I adore Watership Down, but I'd never take a kid to see it. But then, I had the advantage of reading the book first.

[seperis]

I think one or two of those made the honourable mention.

Oh man, those death trees.

[cofax7]

I was abnormally sensitive to scary things as a small child. As in, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer gave me nightmares! (The Bumble Monster, you know?)

So I'm very glad that I read Watership Down and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH at the proper age, long before either movie came out. And actually, I've never seen either movie, although I hear WS is actually pretty good. If scary.

[seperis]

*twitch* Scary. SCARY.

[mrshamill]

WHY THE HELL ISN'T DUMBO ON THE MOVIE LIST??? HUH?? NOT ONLY DID HE LOSE HIS MOTHER, SHE WAS ACCUSED OF BEING BIPOLAR!!!

Ahem. Sorry. Didn't mean to shout. What a list. I'm going to go to my corner now.

[lian]

preach it, sister. Dumbo. SO TRAUMATISING.

DDD:

[miracled.livejournal.com]

Oh man, that scene in Neverending Story made me bawl every single time I saw it for years!

[seperis]

Everyone is convincing me never to go near that movie ever.

[zulu]

Those book descriptions were hilarious.

The movie that got me when I was five was Little Shop Of Horrors (PLANT EATS PEOPLE! AX MURDERS! DENTISTS!), but I suppose I never should've been allowed to watch it in the first place.

[seperis]

Ooh. I saw that when I was--tennish. And it did not exactly fill me with happiness either.

[lian]

Even right while I was watching Watership Down I could not fathom how anyone in their right mind would let me see this film. I cowered in terror. My parents were usually a lot more circumspect. :(

[montanaharper]

I've never been one to get easily creeped out by stuff. I don't think I've ever had nightmares based on a book or a movie, and I used to fall asleep listening to a horror radio show when I was a pre-teen. The things I do know I got freaked out by as a kid were Fantasia (Night on Bald Mountain, ugh) at about age four or five, and (according to my mother) Young Frankenstein. No, I do not know how to explain that one, honestly.

Admittedly, some movies made me cry as an adolescent (I'm looking at you, E.T.), but that was generally because I'm a sap for certain tropes. (I cried at Titanic too, sue me. *g*)

[mamadeb]

Funny how few of those movies I actually saw - most are products of the late seventies and eighties (presumably when the author of the column was a small child.) The only one that I watched when I was of trauma-age was Willy Wonka, and I LOVED it. Gave my younger brother nightmares, though.

My traumatic movie? Wizard of Oz, and the Flying Monkeys. Still don't like that part.

(What's bugging me? The columnist called Hazel "she." Hazel's *male*. I've never seen the movie, but I've read the book.)

[starfish]

Hazel's *male*
Heh. I caught that too.

[omens]

Pinocchio needs to be on that list. Bambi certainly scarred me as a child. And I never read or saw Watership Down as a child but I caught it as a twenty year old, on tv - I've still only ever seen half but I was definitely hypnotised (and horrified).

I was a totally wussy kid and I remember Wizard of Oz and Charlie & the Chocolate Factory freaking me out, too. Ditto with the falling off the train bridge part in Annie.

My kid tho, loves Dark Crystal and Empire Strikes Back but he's totally afraid of Dobby in Harry Potter... hee. So who knows, right??

[waldorph]

Oh, Pinocchio- absolutely! I was totally horrified by Pinocchio as a kid!

[swordage]

Oh my gosh, there are two movies my mother made me watch (srsly, she would not let me leave the room, thanks so much biological mother) that traumatized me for life. One was a Stephen King thing, I think, with killer cars that were led by an evil big-rig, and they were picking off the people who had a bazooka and stuff. It was scary. I remember blood spatter on grills and that's about it.

The other one, I've never been able to find anyone who knows it - it had these rabbits, okay, that for some reason were being engineered genetically/nuclearly to be big and stuff. But they were also aggressive, okay? So the little daughter of one of the dudes wants one, and gets one, and she loses it! And it goes and breeds GIANT MAN-EATING BUNNIES that live in CAVES and EAT PEOPLE. AUGH.

That said I also have a definite zombie phobia and when I turn off the lights at night I have to leap into bed because THE ZOMBIES ARE UNDER THERE. GODDAMN ZOMBIES INFEST EVERYTHING.

[allegraconbrio]

Man-eating bunnies~!

I've seen it - I think, maybe. Are you thinking of Night of the Lepus? (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069005/plotsummary) Your summary sounds a bit like Night of the Lepus, but not quite how I remember, that is except for the man-eating bunnies! (and they were scary)

Ah, the fantastic B-Movies I saw on late night television when I was a teenager. Brilliant.

[idlerat]

I read Watership Down before the movie came out, and it was upsetting (I also really liked it) - but I was older, maybe 13. I did see the movie later. And nonetheless watching that clip just now I started crying my eyes out. It doesn't scare me or freak me out, it just makes it seem like the world is simply too sad, horrible, and tragic a place to live in, life is worthless and we might as well just give up. I can see if you threw in the way the other elements would scare a kid it would just be the most horrifying freak out of all time.

Babe in the City was bad enough, and I was in my 30s!

[seperis]

Yes, this. Watership Down is not where you go to find life affirmation.

[sami]

... since my childhood was already pretty traumatic, I think this is one of those ways in which undiagnosed ADHD was good to me. I didn't get taken to or encouraged to watch movies once, because in addition to being something of a Sensitive Child, I couldn't keep still long enough for a whole film and I'd get distracted.

So while the Dark Crystal gave me nightmares, the only part about it I really remember is the giant cockroaches (this may be where my cockroach Problem comes from, mind you), the others... half of them I've never seen, and those I know I was exposed to, I don't remember many of the bad bits because I wasn't paying attention.

[seperis]

Holy God, cockroaches?????

[cereta]

I dunno, I kind of couldn't get past the fact that that they got gender of several characters wrong, not to mention plot details. I'm a stickler ;).

[seperis]

*g* I just remember them by the scariness factor. I can't remember most of the plot details on them either.

[brownbetty]

Man, I was a bit of an odd one, because I had nightmares about a screenplay of The Big Friendly Giant.

[seperis]

People mentioned that one a lot. *shivers* I kind of want to see it.

[waldorph]

Jenn. JENN. Basically YOU ARE JUST NOT A GOOD PERSON.

And I have said that to you twice today. *twitch*twitch*

The Fox and the Hound...Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.... *will NEVER SLEEP AGAIN, OKAY?!*

[seperis]

...I kind of accept that. But I feel better that no one else will sleep well either?

[ranalore]

Clearly, my triggers are not either authors' triggers, except for Watership Down, which I have blocked from my mind and will continue to do so. Also, I must echo the question, where the fuck is Pinocchio on the movie list? That shit was TERRIFYING.

[amalthia]

oh man, ET scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. That and the Dark Crystal.

The Land Before Time was rather traumatizing as well.

Yes, this

[seperis]

Though I have never seen The Land Before Time.

[rainbow]

Most of those (books and movies) came out when I was too old to be bothered by them. The exception: Bambi.

The other two movies that traumatised me were Planet of the Apes at the drivein when I was 7. I think I was safely asleep in the back, woke up, saw the apes chasing a guy, and had hysterics. For soem reason I wasn't taken to the drivein again for *years*.

The other was The Birds, which my babysitter let me stay up and watch iwth her when I was in first grade. Oops. She wasn't my babysitter again after that...

Those books? Some of them are just damned creepy for kids!
And are evidently meant to be, unless they're for use with abused kids to get them to talk about it?

But I read a book that traumatised me for *years* -- a book of Christian Happy Stories for Children at the drs office when I was 8 or 9. In one, two boys are in the hospital, and one is very ill. The other tells me that Jesus walks thru the ward every night, and if you raise your hand, he'll take you to heaven so you won't suffer any more.

I (seriously!) was terrified to have my hands out from under the covers at night until I was in my late teens. What if he was checking out my house and I rubbed my nose at the wrong time, adn BOOM, dragged off to heaven by this scary guy with blood on his hands???

*ahem*

Hi! I'm not sure how I ended up here; I've been following random links.

[eleveninches.livejournal.com]

The Never Ending Story and Willy Wonka both scarred me for life when I was kid. Oh, and also Bambi, which, btw, is not a great movie for a kid who was raised by a single mother.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Oh man. I am so glad I didn't watch Neverending Story. I'll keep it that way.

[verhalten.livejournal.com]

Oh, jeebus. I haven't read the articles yet as I'm on my way out the door, but you are so on the money with Watership Down. Tears and terror. That's all a young child stands to gain from that movie.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

There is nothing you can take from that movie but the horror that is life as a helpless creature.

[linden-jay.livejournal.com]

I didn't even make it through the Dark Crystal. Things started crumbling into dust, and I started crying and that was just IT, thank you very much. And the Never Ending Story is just seriously messed up.

I think ET should be on that list as well though. Apparently I had a nervous breakdown in the movie theatre midway through that one, once the scientists got him. *shudder*

[eleveninches.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I still can't watch ET.

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

I have read the vast majority of books on that list. I feel this probably says something about me, but I'm not sure I want to know what.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

...oh wow, they exist? *twitch* I am--kind of terrified.

[trobadora]

Huh. That kind of stuff never bothered me. Death and destruction and depression were all fine with me! But I was known to hide behind my mother whenever something hit my embarrassment squick - like, you know, someone being caught doing something they shouldn't, which, alas, happens all too frequently in children's books and films. *g* (And no one ever warns for that! *grumbles*)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*pets* I was never thrilled with that either, though it developed later.

[romyra.livejournal.com]

Duuuuuude.....Watership Down......I don't think I'll ever forget those rabbits and the blood. That pretty much messed me up....well that and IT. To this day I hate Clowns....I have issues with McDonalds especially if there is a clown anywhere near one. And lord old Ronald McDonlad commercials? I keep waiting for him to turn to the camera with a balloon and say.."They float...we all flaot down here"...*gah*...*shudders*. That movie worked me over and I saw it when I was between 10-12.

[romyra.livejournal.com]

Bad spelling 'cause I'm still having the shivers?....I HAZ IT!