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

Watership Down was written by Satan.

[lemonbella.livejournal.com]

I too was traumatised. A part of my six year old self died when I watched that film...with the ears and the mist and the fucking rabbit dying with a wire through its neck. I still can't even look at the cover of the book.

I firmly believe people can be divided into people who like the book and people who hate the book. The people who hate the book are all on some kind of medication in their adult life, but fairly unlikley to kill any rabbits. The people who like it: Serial Killers.

Re: Watership Down was written by Satan.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

The people who hate the book are all on some kind of medication in their adult life, but fairly unlikley to kill any rabbits. The people who like it: Serial Killers.

Perhaps we are on medication and adopted four rabbits at one time. And still stare at them longingly wherever we go. Not that there is a connection but oh my God, could it be Watership Down has informed my entire life?

This is all trufax, btw. TRUFAX.

Re: Watership Down was written by Satan.

[akacat]

No no, there's one other group of people who like Watership Down: those who were extremely emo teenagers when they read it.

Mind you, the medication is still necessary.

Re: Watership Down was written by Satan.

[fyrdrakken]

I loved Watership Down and currently have two happy, healthy, cossetted, slightly-overfed live bunnies.

Mind you, I've never seen the movie, and the book was a lot more... loving.

[burnishedvictory]

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - first movie I ever saw in theater. I think I was about 7 at the time. And yeah, it terrified me.

Fortunately, I was warned about Watership Down and avoided it. Still haven't seen it, actually. I don't think I'll be changing that anytime soon.

[akacat]

I'm a bit older than your usual demographic, so I only saw three of these as a kid:

* Bambi. I assume I cried, but I remember liking it. (No, it wasn't the original release, smarty-pants. Back in the days before DVDs, Disney re-released films to the theaters every 10 years or so.)

* Snow White. I saw this when I was three (see smarty-pants remark above) and I still vaguely remember shrieking in terror at one of the more dramatic scenes with the witch.

* Willy Wonka. Saw this one when I was 8 (original release) and loved it. Adored it. Maybe it helped that I'd read the book? It's too bad that Roald Dahl was (apparently) an ass, because I liked everything of his that I read.


I read Watership Down as a teenager, and damn was that a grim book. Taking a kid to see the movie should probably count as child abuse, unless it's a particularly grim child.


I never have seen Never Ending Story or Dark Crystal. The artsy bit of me is endlessly annoyed by the look of the puppets in both of those, and I refuse to see them.


Also, meh. Work is blocking the list of kid's books. :-(

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

Willy Wonka still creeps me out and I saw it as an adult.

[stungunbilly.livejournal.com]

That's because the purple Oompah-Loompahs are SCARY AS FUCK.
::shivers::

[the-emef.livejournal.com]

Fox and Hound is the saddest movie I've ever seen. I'd never seen it until, as a nanny, I watched it with my charges a few years ago. I cannot get over the fact that parents show this to children.

[schtroumph-c.livejournal.com]

I'm sure some scenes scared me or made me cry (Oh, Mondo, or Moundo. A kinda homeless kid the whole town loved, he learned to write his name on a rock with the postman, and he died, and everyone tried to live like before, but they never stopped crying, and me neither. That was a school outing), but I know that if I watched them now, I'll be okay.

Beside Godzilla, the last version. I don't know why, the scary scenes were cool scary, (like when he opened his eye, or when he was below the chopper, and with the bridge!) not traumatised scary, but everytime, I had nightmare about him the next night. And I still watch because I like this movie. And laugh how all the French are Jean-something.

Watched IT when I was young, had no problems.

Like all rule, there is one exception. When I was 5 or 6, the school made us see L'Ours (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095800/). To this day, I still refuse to watch the movies of Jean-Jacques Annaud.

I would have liked his last one, it has tigers! And the brother tigers are reunited and not dead in the end, if my brother didn't lie. But because of this film, I simply can't.

I don't even remember what happened, beside the scene that actually traumatised me. The rock fall, mama bear die scene. Filmed like these documentaries, where the crocodiles attack and eat an animal. I can still see the rock, and mama bear falling under it, and baby bear watching. I don't know if there was sound to accompany it, but if there was, I blocked it.

[fyrdrakken]

Hilariously, though I read Watership Down so many times the cover fell off my copy, I don't think I've ever seen the movie. Even though I know I'd read the book at least once or twice before it aired, because I vaguely remember my mother trying to get me to come inside and watch it since she knew I'd liked the book, but I was doing youthful outsidey things and couldn't drag myself away from them in time.

I wonder if it's available via Netflix' streaming thingy?

[imwalde.livejournal.com]

OH MAN, when Judge Doom puts that adorable little shoe toon in the vat of acid, as it shivers in fear - SO TRAUMATIZING! I don't think I've ever rewatched Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

The Skeses also scared the crap out of me, and I think I've blocked The Neverending Story from my consciousness, because sometimes I think I've never seen it, but then I see screencaps or clips and I remember the Nothing, and promptly don't choose to chase down that memory. *shudders*

I read Watership Down as an adult, and loved that book. Never seen the movie.

I read Animal Farm as summer reading before 8th grade and I cried and cried. Orwell might be pleased to hear that since being upset was presumably the point, but still.

SPN and X-Files have freaked me out at times, but it's Doctor Who that has had episodes so scary I lost sleep. I COULD NOT believe it when I heard it was theoretically a children's show. (The eps were the "Are you my mummy" one and Blink.)

[mylenn.livejournal.com]

See, I had never seen Watership down and after watching those two clips I am SO GLAD I NEVER WILL. I can totally see how that would scar for life. :)

[jackycomelately.livejournal.com]

For me it was the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. The poor doorknob: "I'm drowning! I'm drowning!" Yikes! The Watership Down movie was terrifying! The gassing scene and yes, I agree about Hazel's death. However, the book is amazing. We read the first few chapters at school in grade seven in some kind of handout. I remember being so frustrated: Where's the rest? I got my adult library card so I could be on the waiting list to get it out. After reading it, I purchased the library copy at the annual book sale a year or so later — how fickle of them I thought. I still have it and regularly re-read it.

[azdaja-dafema.livejournal.com]

:O the Fox and the Hound! That made me cry so much. That said, I really liked the Dark Crystal and the wiff-waffy fox thing. And Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And Neverending Story, actually. *rewatches clip of Neverending Story*

...I had forgotten that scene. *tears*

I am clever enough NEVER TO TOUCH THE WATERSHIP DOWN LINK. Oh no. Not me. I'm not putting myself through that, ever again.

[carla-scribbles.livejournal.com]

Oh man. I am delurking right now solely for the purpose of sharing the fact that I seriously think my childhood fiction trauma > everyone else's: when I was about, oh, nine, my grandmother (who, God love her, is a lovely person, but has never been in touch with reality) gave me Jane Yolen's Briar Rose (http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/briar.html).

I don't think she'd actually read it first. I don't think she'd read the back cover. And I'd managed to completely repress that experience until RIGHT NOW.

(I actually haven't seen most of the above movies, or only saw them after I was old enough not to be freaked out. Although apparently I was completely wrecked after The Lion King.)

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Just like they were saying! From Uncomfortable Plot Summaries (http://www.postmodernbarney.com/2009/04/uncomfortable-plot-summaries/)

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: Deranged pedophile big-business industrialist tortures and mutilates young children.

E.T.: Out-of-control pet causes mayhem, sadness.

LABYRINTH: Girl is negligent baby-sitter.

LASSIE COME HOME: Family abandons beloved pet, forcing it to engage in a dangerous cross-country journey.

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS: Layabout stepdaughter shacks up with seven miners.

THE GOONIES: Physically abused, retarded man finds love with overweight preteen.

THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY: Family abandons beloved pets, forcing them to engage in a dangerous cross-country journey.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS: Dangerous insurgent invades neighboring country.

WALL-E: Obsolete robot disrupts big business, disrupts lives of millions of innocent civilians.

In comments:

Wizard of Oz: Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again

CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG: Crackpot widower fantasizes that his father and children are abducted, leaving him free to engage in cosplay with daughter of candy magnate.

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER: Deformed boy humiliated and exiled until dictator finds him exploitable.

Willow: Dwarf kidnaps, endangers infant

Time Bandits: Dwarves kidnap, endanger small boy.

CHARLOTTE’S WEB: Spin artist hypes unremarkable swine, abandons children.

Alice in Wonderland: Drug addled child ignores stranger danger

GREEN EGGS AND HAM: Deranged stalker tries to force rotten food upon terrified, angry protagonist. Similar ending to NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR.

THE CAT IN THE HAT: Teenage house-party gets drastically out of hand.

Mary Poppins - Witch babysits children. Parents are too busy to care.

THE LITTLE MERMAID: Nymphomaniac girl temporarily succeeds in mad quest to pry her legs apart.

HOME ALONE: Abandoned child barely escapes sodomy by homosexual vagrants

Peter Pan - even in dreams children cannot escape abusive father figure

ANNIE - Billionaire uses necklace to bribe untraceable child to move in with him.

THE LION KING: Outcast violently ruins experiment in social harmony.

The Sound of Music: Gold-digging nanny disrupts single father’s family relationships and marriage plans.

TOY STORY: Selfish, backstabbing sheriff tries to rub out rival.

TOY STORY 2: Selfish, backstabbing sheriff steals private collector’s property, cheats him of thousands of dollars.

THE PRINCESS BRIDE: Man tortures ill boy with book of inappropriate subject matter and continues despites child’s begging.


OBV. CHILDREN SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO WATCH MOVIES!!!

:)

[aylaelphaba.livejournal.com]

Your movie summaries are hilarious! Especially The Little Mermaid.

[(Anonymous)]

...has anyone mentioned GREMLINS? Cause even now, at 32, I can't turn off the lights in my room until I'm *in* the bed, thank you kindly. Whoever the sadist was that called that one a family film(!!) should have been forced to listen to the wails of traumatized kidlets. For the last twenty years. And also possibly fed to Gizmo.

Seriously, letting little kids watch that thing is just cruel.
The last line was particularly unnecessary, I've always thought.

a non-Disney mermaid and "The Fox and the Hound"

[aylaelphaba.livejournal.com]

The first movie that truly traumatised me was a non-Disney version of The Little Mermaid. It's closer to the Hans Christian Andersen story--the little mermaid dies in the end. I was about seven or eight when I saw that, and it was just awful.

Then, there was The Fox and the Hound. I was nine, and had been so excited by the previews that showed an adorable little puppy and a sweet little fox cub. But then the puppy and fox cub grow up. And the fox gets abandoned on a rainy day, and the old lady cries. And then the hound hates the fox. I hated that movie.

[stungunbilly.livejournal.com]

Okay, so the one that REALLY scared me was none of the above; I read the book Watership Down at ten and thought it was amazing. What traumatized me at the age of seven was the movie The Yellow Submarine.

BLUE MEANIES. Aaargh.

[aquila1nz.livejournal.com]

Book, not movie, but whoever thought it appropriate to package John Steinbeck's The Red Pony as a kid's book. Giving that book to a horse crazy 8 year old was just cruel.

[gehirnstuerm.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'm late, but I have to add my most traumatizing children's movie experience:

The first Care Bears Movie. The Care Bears I loved, but OMG that evil green face in the magician's book? I was SO terrified.

omg! childhood trauma found!

[pingback-bot.livejournal.com]

User incapricious referenced to your post from omg! childhood trauma found! (http://incapricious.livejournal.com/173847.html) saying: [...] and none of them ever recognized it. It was sort of frustrating. And then today, posted about traumatic childhood books and movies (http://seperis.livejournal.com/729120.html)and I mentioned that there was a horror movie that I remembered that apparently didn't exist, and she ... [...]

[aylaelphaba.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the cartoon movie of The Little Match Girl. I rented it from the library when I was ten, I think. So freaking sad!!!

speaking of children's books...

[aylaelphaba.livejournal.com]

A friend sent me this clip from the Daily Show, about political children's books: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=104533&title=one-state,-two-state

Such heartwarming titles as "Help, Mommy! There are liberals under my bed!"

[quinn220.livejournal.com]

OMG, I can't NOT add my trauma in here.
I read the beginning of Watership Down when I was incredibly young, probably seven, and I still can't even THINK the title or, God forbid, see the cover and not feel sick.

The first four movies I saw as a kid though were ...hell, I still don't know what the adults were thinking. First movie-> orphans in war-torn Germany witness a man stuff a squirming puppy in a bag and throw it off a bridge, so decide to save animals? Some freaked out sh*t like that. Something to do with post-war starvation, flooding, and having no parents.

2. Walkabout-> My parents went out to eat and left the TV to babysit us in a hotelroom. They put it on and told us to watch it, thinking it was an Australian nature show.
In it, a man comes home from work, tells his family they're going on a picnic, takes them out to a remote spot in the desert and opens fire on them. Their mom's shot, he accidently blows himself and the car up, and the two kids almost die out in the desert. But an aborigine boy finds them and stops his visionquest to save them. Later, he hangs himself because of that, and the little boy and girl find him swinging in a tree, covered in flies.

It also seemed to have some weird sexual overtones, something about the girl and the aborigine boy feeling something for each other- so he runs out and kills himself. Or, at least that's something I connected in my head when I was a kid.

My dad still does impressions of how big mine and my brother's eyes were, when they came back.

3. The Illustrated Man-> Every tattoo is a story. Unfortunately I remember the story of the guy with the beautiful family that he loves, and he goes to a council meeting and is informed that the world is going to end that night, so 'here's a pill to give each of your kids' so they die and don't have to suffer. His wife freaks, he agrees he won't do it, they wake up the next morning, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, he got up in the night and fed the kids their pills.

4. Finally-> seven years old, first sleepover, Brownies. Brownie leader lets us watch the late show. Something black-and-white about this guy who digs up his ancestors and they've all scratched the shit out of the inside of their tombs because THEY WERE BURIED ALIVE AND NO ONE COULD TELL.

*does the heeby-jeeby dance*