We editors at Collider.com could have written about some of the scariest kids movies, or the saddest kids movies, but thanks to a casual Slack conversation that ended up plumbing the depths of our childhood horror, we decided to go for a more personal take: what movies reallyfreaked us out? Because most of them weren’t intended to have that effect. Adults often forget that for little kids, something that appears seemingly innocuous can end up beingterrifying. Or in other cases, you may watchThe NeverEnding Storytoday and still cry over Artax (as I did just this past weekend). Fight the sadness!
Below, each of the editors have picked one movie that really messed us up as kids; basically, the movies or scenes we never forgot, even though we may have wanted to. These certainly aren’t the only ones (and most of us agree with each others' picks as being similarly scary or affecting –Return to Ozwill haunt me to mygrave), so enjoy this trip down memory lane, and let us know some of your picks in the comments.– Allison Keene
Return to Oz
I honestly can’t recall what age I was when I first saw the dementedWizard of OzsequelReturn to Oz, but I’m fairly certain you can never be old enough to witness the horrors within this particular movie. I could work a VCR before I could talk and I frequented Blockbustera lotas a youngster, so when I’d find myself browsing the aisles of Blockbuster on a Friday night, my decisions were based primarily on what image was on the box.Return to Ozcaught my eye for two reasons: 1) It looks colorful and harmless enough—a young girl surrounded by fun-looking creatures! And 2) As a kid I had a weird obsession with sequels. For some reason I thought a sequel was a “new and improved” version of an original film, so as a result I saw way too many sequels before I actually saw the original films.
I certainly knew ofThe Wizard of Ozat this point—I was probably between the ages of 5 and 9 or so—but I can’t be certain I had seen theJudy Garlandclassic before I made the fateful decision to rentReturn to Oz. If you’re lucky enough to be unfamiliar withReturn to Oz, it’s a direct yet unofficial sequel toThe Wizard of Ozthat was released in 1985 and finds a young Dorothy returning to Oz, only to find the Emerald City in ruins and the Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion turned to stone.
The first thing Dorothy sees when she awakes is her chicken Billina (subbed for Toto), who can now talk. That right there should’ve been a warning sign, but then Dorothy is pursued by “Wheelers”, which are humans who have wheels instead of hands and feet, which full-on confirms that writer/directorWalter Murchdecided to turn hisWizard of Ozsequel into a body horror film.
Indeed, that’s what I remember the most aboutReturn to Oz—seeing bodies contorted or defamed in ways that are unnatural. You know, the stuff that kids movies were made for. The most iconic/horrific sequence in the film finds Dorothy snooping around Princess Mombi’s palace, only to discover a room full of human heads in glass cases. She opens one case, which reveals Mombi’s head sitting there, alone, without a body. She reaches in to grab something, awakens the head, then all the heads start screaming as Dorothy runs for her life.
Return to Ozisn’t exactly a Halloween film, or even a horror film, but it scarred the minds of plenty of kids throughout the 80s and 90s. I, for one, remain traumatized, and I still don’t understand how in the world this movie got made, let alone released.— Adam Chitwood
The Great Muppet Caper
The most horrifying shot in cinematic history according to five-year-old Vinnie Mancuso is the moment Sweetums the goddamn Muppet runs toward the camera in theopening numberofThe Great Muppet Caper. Reader, I fled. Not the room, I fled the house. The appearance of eight-foot-tall puppet ogre beast Sweetums instilled such terror in me within one seconds of screen time I still consider that Muppet among the great horror monsters like Dracula, the Wolfman, and Kate Mara’s wig inFantastic Four. Have youseenSweetums? The Muppets’ most Lynchian creation looks like a bastard child between a regional theater Beauty and the Beast and a Party City Chewbacca. I fully believe repressed memories of Sweetums are the reason I didn’t want to seeSoloin theaters. Sweetums is why I don’t trust dogs that weigh more than six pounds on a personal level. It took me over a decade to finally see the next two seconds of that scene, in which Sweetums comedically falls down a manhole. No, it did not make me feel better. It made me fear the image of a grime-covered Sweetums living amongst/feeding off of rats in the sewer.ITwould be the scariest movie in horror history if it opened with Sweetums’ mutant bulldog-ass face peeping out of that sewer grate. Sweetums the Muppet saying “we all float down here” would break my mind like an ill-fated character in an H.P. Lovecraft story. I refuse to even imagine it. Irefuse.
So yeah that Muppet song messed me up pretty good, is what I’m saying.— Vinnie Mancuso
The Brave Little Toaster
I wasn’t allowed to watch traditionally scary movies as a kid, but there are still plenty that absolutely terrified me, includingThe Secret of Nimh(see below) and theJabberwockyfromThrough the Lookingglass(and others that were so sad I could never watch again, likeBambi!) But one that really informed my childhood and beyond wasThe Brave Little Toaster, which we had on VHS and I continued to watch over and over again, drawn to it like a moth to flame. There are several things thatThe Brave Little Toasterdid to mess me up, including giving me a lifelong suspicion that inanimate objects have thoughts and feelings. I also had a crush on Lampy. There’s a lot to unpack here. But there are also the truly terrifying scenes like when the appliances are about to be crushed and cubed at the junkyard (I’ve avoided junkyards since then), as well as when the air conditioner explodes into an early grave because he’s so angry, not to mention the nightmare sequence when Rob (the human “master” of these appliances — yes, they all call himmaster), and Toaster are tortured by an evil smiling clown dressed as a firefighter (!).
The Brave Little Toasteris pretty much a nonstop horror about how these appliances are in constant danger of being destroyed, mangled, pulled-apart, or otherwise killed as they search desperately for their master. It’s a definite precursor to some ofToy Story’s most emotionally intense scenes, and is quite similarly a wonderfullytraumaticromp that will have you apologizing to objects in your house forever.— Allison Keene
NeverEnding Story
When I think about what screwed me up most as a kid, it wasn’t the things that scared me. Sure,Anjelica Hustonwas a regular face in my nightmares afterThe Witches(fortunately my Addams Family obsession cured me of that particular affliction pretty quickly), but I was also captivated by the creepy imagery in films likeReturn to OzandThe Dark Crystal. The films and movie moments that floored me were always emotional. And man, kids movies are crazy emotional. There’s heartbreak and tragedy in almost all of the Disney greats (I’m still not over Mufasa). Films likeBridge to TeribithiaandMy Girlare a blunt lesson in mortality. But the one that really messed me up was the infamous Artax scene inThe NeverEnding Story.
That’s because the sequence is straight up emotional warfare. It’s an assault. Look, a lot ofThe NeverEnding Storyis a bummer, but Artax’s death is next level messed up. In case the scene wasn’t seared into your brain as a child, the moment in question finds the hero Atreyu leading his beloved horse Artax into the Swamp of Sadness; admittedly, a bad idea. When the horse gets stuck in the swamp, he slowly sinks into the black muck while Atreyu begs and pleads with him not to let himself die. And he fucking does. He just stands there and sinks in his own sadness while the hero weeps and begs. Honestly parents, what the hell? How is this a movie for kids? Anyway I’m crying now because of damn Artax again, and that my friends is easily the movie moment that messed me up for life. —Haleigh Foutch
Ernest Scared Stupid
To understand why this movie scared me as a child, you have to know that plot ofErnest Scared Stupidis surprisingly creepy despite the protagonist and hero, Ernest (Jim Varney), being laughably dumb. The film’s villain is a demonic troll who transforms children into wooden dolls. And in the movie, the villain almost succeeds! Pretty much all of the innocent kids get transformed into wooden dolls, which was very creepy and unsettling for me to see when I was a kid. In retrospect, it should have been even more disturbing if I had considered that the fate of the children rested on Ernest P. Worrell, a man so dumb his stupidity is touted in the title of the movie. This was not the lightheartedErnest Goes to CamporErnest Goes to Jail. This was Ernest fighting a demon troll, and I clearly had no faith in his ability to save the day because I knew in my heart those children were doomed. –Matt Goldberg
The Secret of NIMH
One would think that animated movies featuring talking animals would be all sunshine and rainbows. And then there’sThe Secret of NIMH. A dark undercurrent rolls through the entirety of the story, punctuated with truly terrifying moments. The critters referenced by the title are survivors of a series of scientific experiments, a plot point that’s laid out in a psychedelic scene featuring one of the film’s scariest characters. It’s not surprising that creatures like the rat-eating cat Dragon and the villainous rat Jenner are drawn to be scary, but it’s unusual to find that the protagonist’s mystical allies are every bit as terrifying. Nicodemus, a wizened old rat, has glowing eyes like coals and a long, flowing mane; The Great Owl is cut from the same cloth; both of these characters are ominous by design and the display of their powers make for some potent nightmare fuel.
If you barely managed to surviveThe Secret of NIMHas a kid, though, then I have some bad news for you. While the horrors of lab experimentation on animals takes a back seat for a moment, the savagery of the animal kingdom (and the cruelty of man) takes center stage in this horror-fantasy classic,Watership Down, which also bears mentioning. There’s a rabbit who experiences visions when he has a seizures, a near-death experience of another rabbit caught in a trap, and brutal battles against both friends and enemies alike. As for which creature is the most haunting, it might be a tie between the bloody General Woundwort and the Black Rabbit of Inlé, the rabbit’s version of the Grim Reaper. It’s fun for the kids! —Dave Trumbore
