5 Movies That Aren’t Supposed to be Scary That Scare Me
Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka haunts my dreams.
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
A single, middle aged man invites a group of children to his chocolate factory, who wouldn’t be scared? Gene Wilder’s performance as Willy Wonka has haunted me since I first saw it as a child. I know he’s supposed to be eccentric but the fact that I can’t figure him out just creeps me out. And don’t get me started on that co-sleeping situation that Charlie’s grandparents have going on… Willy Wonka is low-key scary.
2. The Wizard of Oz
Dorothy, Lion and Scarecrow are a-okay in my book, and while the Wicked Witch of the West is terrifying she’s got nothing on the flying monkeys! I think my fear of the Wicked Witch of the West is deep rooted in some childhood trauma. My birthday is 2 days before Halloween, so on Halloween before I turned 1 my mom decided to dress me up as the Wicked Witch of the West. While I was still napping she painted my face green and got me dressed in my costume and when I woke up she showed me my face in the mirror and she said the look in my eyes was of pure terror. Who wouldn’t be scared of waking up green?? But I’ll take a surprise green face any day over the horrifying flying monkeys. I’ve legitimately had nightmares about the flying monkeys and I hope I never have one again because 30 year old me would be just as scared as 10 year old me was.
Seriously, how am I not going to be terrified of the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz?
The creepy animation in James and the Giant Peach reads more Coraline than Disney princess.
3. James and the Giant Peach
Call me crazy but I don’t want to crawl into a peach and become friends with giant insects! I don’t call that an adventure, I call that torture. In addition to giant spiders, and gothic style stop-motion, you’ve got James’s traumatic backstory. He’s an orphan because his parents were killed by a stampeding rhinoceros. Roald Dahl was really trying to scare generations of kids and make them never want to go to the zoo, or go anywhere near bugs. The adults in this movie are terrifying too. Poor James is raised by his ugly and frankly abusive aunts. And this is supposed to be a movie for kids? James and the Giant Peach is dark as hell and I think it will always creep me out.
I will never think of haircuts and topiaries in the same way after watching Edward Scissorhands.
4. Edward Scissorhands
A strong case could be made for adding every Tim Burton movie to this list. His signature gothic-fantasy is supposed to juxtapose romance with edge and while the highly stylized worlds he creates are always a little off-putting, there’s something extra unnerving about a man with scissors for hands. A man who just wants love, but his hands are literal tools of destruction. And I just have so many unanswered questions for Edward. How does he go to the bathroom?? This is a movie that keeps me up at night as I spiral down the scissors-for-hands rabbit hole.
Normal kids saw Toy Story and wished that their toys would come alive and play with them. I hid all of my toys because I was convinced they would attack me in my sleep. You could say that I’ve always had an overly active imagination…
5. Toy story
I know that inanimate objects don’t live a rich, unseen life while I’m out of the room. I know that my things aren’t sad when I clean my room and donate things that I no longer use. I know that my childhood toys aren’t lonely because I no longer play with them. But like, what if? This is the kind of guilt that I don’t need in my life, yet here we are. The sadness of this beautiful franchise haunts me. As a kid I kept toys in my parent’s room for weeks after I saw Toy Story because I was afraid that they would come alive at night and attack me. Thank God I never saw Chucky because there’s no way I would have recovered.
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