What film did you watch when you were too young, and how did it traumatize you?
What film did you watch when you were too young, and how did it traumatize you?
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.
It's only a mild trauma, but I couldn't sleep after Spy Kids and Monsters, Inc and was especially scared of the Robot Kids appearing in the dark for a few years.
I think this is due to me being too young to be able to catch the plot twists in the end. So those movies to me ended with no changes and the bad guys still doing well.
- The Secret of Nimh
- Little Nemo’s Adventures in Slumberland
- All Dogs Go to Heaven
- The Brave Little Toaster
- Others like these
Some children’s movies of this era liked to weave hallucinogenically dark themes into otherwise whimsical stories. Many of them played on common childhood guilt or fear of rejection, abandonment, and loss, used merely as props or dealt with in deeply problematic ways.
I will say though they can be great for tripping and/or to lambast with a peanut gallery of friends.
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.
The Blob, the 80's version. I was around 5, snuck into a room where people were watching it. The guy being dragged into the sink made me terrified of using the toilet and I developed a turbo-pissing technique to minimise time spent on the bog.
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.
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 mummy scarab scene for me. Had nightmares about that happening to my family.
Also princess momonoke made me afraid to go into the woods by myself for years.
Rising Sun, it opens with the violent rape and murder of a woman, it was rated R for a reason and we should have never been let into the theater even if it was my friends dad with us.
I think he wanted to see it and did not give a shit about what it might do to us.
The doll in Trilogy of Terror. I don't remember how it traumatized me, which is probably a good thing.
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
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.
Every kid is different. My 3-year-old niece was over a few months ago.
Me: what do you want to watch? Niece: dinosaurs! Me: starts The Land Before Time Niece: no! I want to watch REAL DINOSAURS that EAT PEOPLE! Me: queues up Jurassic Park Niece: YEAH! RAWR!
The Legacy (1978)
Fuck knows what my dad was thinking 😅
Threads. We were shown it at school, about 12 or 13, told we should see it because it might happen. Didn't sleep a full night after that until 2005.
My mum thought I was ready for The Thing way too soon. Fast forward like 30 years and it's right up there in my all-time favourites now.
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Freddie Kruger fucked me up for years lol
Why isn't this one higher? It was designed to fuck you up.
IT. I refused to shower without another person in the room for weeks.
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.
Now the Hypocrisy song is stuck in my head
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.
Close Encounters of The Third Kind scared me
Anything with what are usually called grey aliens or anything that looks like them scare me. Even the kaminoans from star wars make me feel quite uncomfortable lol.
Eyes have zero business being that big.
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From dusk till dawn
Late one night when I was 8 or 9, I glanced at the tv and caught the horse scene from The Cell with zero context. I spent the next fifteen years convinced it was something I had dreamed. Apparently this is the most common way people encounter this movie.
The opening scene for Terminator 2: Judgement Day. I already had a deep seated fear of spontaneous combustion, so watching that didn't help in the slightest.
Watched beastmaster, purely because I had seen my Mum and older siblings watching it, and it looked pretty harmless at first glance, something like He-Man which I liked at the time.
I asked a bunch but was always told no, so one day I snuck down in the middle of the night to watch it, needless to say, it was not like He-Man.
The Matrix at 7 years old messed me up a bit, what with the whole mouth melting together-scene and all.
I was way little, like maybe 5, when the first Jumanji came out. We saw it in theater: the moving plants and giant mosquitos scared the absolute fuck out of me.
Parents had to take me out of the showing, and snuck me into Toy Story instead - much better! :D
By the time I was 13, I'd watched loads of 18s. Aliens, Predator, Terminator and more. My parents didn't really believe in rating. I honestly don't think it harmed me. My teachers probably worried about me bring this stuff into school, but unless that traumatized other kids, it's fine. Maybe it desensitized me?
For my own kids, I judge it by the kid and movie, not the rating. If it's a movie I don't know, I'm read about it and rating is one of the things I'll look at. I will a read more if it is an 18. My 14y and 9y are pretty resistant, but my 12y is sensitive like my spouse.
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For me it was the original blob (which was back then already vintage almost) and this fucked me. I never actually turned anything off except when some of the neighbors gave me a „cool movie about cars“ and then the rat and bucket scene of fast and furious made me turn it off.
Return To Oz was mine. Took me decades to bring myself to rewatch it.
I am using traumatized is the most loose sense here.
Talos the Mummy when I was ~10. First film where the villain won. Not Thanos level of wining because multi movie plot. Just all the good guys trying to stop him fail.
Carry On Screaming. Nightmares for years.
Clockwork orange, those eye stretchers!!!
I watched Jurassic Park when I was like 6 and absolutely loved it. Little Nemo Adventures in Slumber land however absolutely terrified me at about the same age.
ET. Some of the scenes are pretty intense. Not sure what my parents were thinking.
The Fly. Probably accounts for some of my hatred of flies lol
Didn't really mess me up but I watched Fear and Loathing when I was like 12. My friend recorded some shitty Wesley Snipes movie off Sky movies and insisted on loaning me the tape. I watched it once and can't even remember it. But Fear and Loathing was on after it and that movie blew my mind. I ended up taking a shit load of drugs as a teenager. Probably wouldn't have made a difference but I do wonder if that movie left me more open to trying them at the time.
Definitely should not have watched Beverly Hills Cop. The nonstop swearing and stupid ‘banana in the tailpipe’ type pranks were not good influences.
Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. I was like 7. I was okay-ish with those. Chucky, on the other hand, was too much.
When I was seven, my father had custody of my brother and me for the weekend, and he took us to the video store to rent something. I rented final fantasy mystic quest and my brother rented a clockwork Orange.
I wouldn't say it messed me up, but it definitely soured me on the idea of torture being a form of acceptable punishment and made me question the priorities of law enforcement.
The whole concept of a "milk bar" actually make perfect sense to me at the time.
Final fantasy mystic quest was really fun and was the first final fantasy game I managed to actually beat, though I had to buy a copy at funcoland and swapped it out with the one I rented from the video store.
Salem's Lot. The tapping at the window. The Master... I was way, way too young to see that
Aliens, I saw it before Alien. Parasitism and wanting to escape life through death are interesting concepts. Ultimately I came to my conclusions about suffering and how consciousness repeatedly emerges in the world alone. Still haven't found anyone who "gets it" but it feels really basic, what I believe. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems kind of childish to fear death the way people do. One of my horrible family members is very decrepit now and everyone is acting like he has to be as selfish and horrible about it as he is but I know I won't be like that. I wouldn't be like that, with palliative care and surrounded by loved ones. He's ungrateful. I hate him. I hope he dies soon. He will.