Rewatching movies from your childhood can be fun, but it can also bring up thoughts like, “How on Earth did my parents let me watch this?!”
This prompted people online to share the movies from their childhood that scared them as kids. We’re still having nightmares over some of these.
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Fantasia
A user wrote about their experience with the movie Fantasia, saying, “It messed me up as a little kid I had nightmares for weeks. To me, Mickey was a chill, safe dude. Not the main protagonist in a drug-fuelled nightmare.”
The Polar Express
One person wrote about The Polar Express, saying, “GOOD GOD, who let Robert Zemeckis make motion capture animated movies?!”
I have to say, I have heard a lot of people cite this one as a scary childhood movie. Who watches scary movies on Christmas?
A Little Princess
“Without giving spoilers, everything from when she has to become a servant at her school to pay her father’s debts onward was so awful to watch as a kid. I remember crying every time, and I still do as an adult,” one user wrote of their experience watching A Little Princess.
James and the Giant Peach
A user shared how they felt watching Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach as a kid, saying, “The rhino storm cloud freaked me out as a kid and its entire reason for being is incredibly dark if you think about it.”
The Little Mermaid
“Ursula terrified me as a child, and whenever she would grow all big, I would legit just turn off the movie because it was too scary,” a user shared about The Little Mermaid.
“It’s funny comparing my experience with Ursula to my four-year-old niece’s because the kid is obsessed with Ursula and just absolutely loves her,” they added.
Alice in Wonderland
“When the Walrus tricks the baby oysters — who are drawn dressed as ACTUAL babies in bonnets — to leave the safety of their home and then the Walrus EATS THEM ALIVE. What the actual heck?!” a person shared about Alice in Wonderland.
I have to confess I also find this movie a little unsettling.
Toy Story
“Toys coming alive is a HORROR, not something to be all mystical about. I thought to myself, ‘These things were really in my room, watching me while I sleep and who knows what else?’” one person wrote about Toy Story.
“I couldn’t have any human or animal-looking toys after that, it was too creepy,” they said.
Anastasia
Another person named an animated movie, this time Anastasia, “Rasputin’s song comes out of NOWHERE and is a NIGHTMARE. It’s literally a song about wanting to murder a child sung by a corpse-man who’s falling apart.”
Yeah, that bit was a little scary…
Ernest Scared Stupid
“I think I may have walked out halfway through. I’m 43 now and my mom still makes fun of me,” one person shared about Ernest Scared Stupid.
Sometimes a moment where you panicked over movies or toys as a child will turn into an inside joke for the whole family, I guess this was one of them.
Madeline: Lost in Paris
“Does ANYONE remember this movie?! The whole premise of the movie was so messed up — Madeline gets kidnapped by this guy who is pretending to be her uncle, and he forces her into slave labor with these orphaned girls in a lace shop,” one user shared about Madeline: Lost in Paris.
Yeah, that doesn’t sound like childhood fun.
Monsters, Inc.
“Honestly? The big scream-sucking machine scared the s**t out of me as a kid. No one thinks about it, but like…forcing kids to scream and then collecting it??? It’s dark. It still scares me. It’s horrifying,” one person shared.
It’s a movie about monsters whose job is to scare kids, so I guess it worked.
Born Free
One user shared that Born Free makes them sob, “To this day, when I hear that song, I BAWL! I mean, BAWL!”
They added, “And even though I haven’t seen the movie more than twice because it IS so heart-wrenching, just thinking about the couple reuniting with Elsa the lioness (and also her cubs) is enough to bring tears to my eyes.”
Jurassic Park
While many people go through a dinosaur phase as kids, this online user certainly had the opposite.
They wrote about what it was like after watching Jurassic Park, saying, “I had nightmares about dinosaurs for years. I couldn’t even watch Land Before Time because of it!”
Matilda
One user shared another Roald Dahl story, Matilda, saying, “To this day, I can’t finish watching it. It freaked me out so much as a child. The coffin-sized closet filled with nails, and the awful principal that would throw kids out of windows or grab their pigtails to hammer throw them for fun.”
Frankenweenie
One person wrote about the Disney animated movie Frankenweenie, saying, “My parents took me to see it in theatres and I was traumatized for life.”
Yup, many movies were terrifying for us as kids and are still scary to watch as adults, but it all adds to the experience.
