Okay, maybe this should be titled "Five Movies I Saw Way Too Young" but whatever. As long as I've been a movie-buff, I've been curious about those films dubbed as "taboo." Thanks to channels like IFC and HBO I was able to see a bunch of them without having to ask my parents to rent them for me. So here' s the list of films that scarred me for life.
#5 Leprechaun
My Age: 5
How It Scarred Me For Life: This movie scared me so bad that I hated being Irish for a few years. Okay, so maybe this movie isn't really that scary, but when you're five anything with demented midgets is gonna frighten the mess out of you.
#4 Titanic
My Age: 7
How It Scarred Me For Life: This was my first ever nude/sex scene. Me and my cousin (who was, coincidentally, younger than me)holed up in my room right before Hurricane Georges and watched this film. It wasn't so much the nudity that bothered me, it was the sinking scenes. Seeing hundreds of dead, frozen, floating bodies isn't exactly a walk in the park for a seven year-old. I ran out of the room about halfway through the second tape and cried in my mom's lap. I made her promise that her and my dad would never go on a cruise. They never have.
#3 Cleopatra
My Age: 8
How It Scarred Me For Life: This isn't the Elizabeth Taylor movie, this was some random made-for-TV miniseries. Of course, since it was a made-for-TV miniseries, they injected in as much lusty fumblings and innuendo as humanly possible. But what was really traumatizing was the birth of Cleopatra's son Cesarean. I was watching it with my mom and she instructed me to cover my eyes. I refused, and she warned me "Okay, but you're not gonna like it." No. No I did not. It was terrifying for a kid like me. So from then on in I always listened to my mom.
#2 Boogie Nights
My Age: 14
How It Scarred Me For Life: Four words: thirteen inch prosthetic penis. Yes, you read rightly. Mark Wahlberg's legendary porn star character Dirk Diggler shows us his happy bits in the last five minutes of the film. Other than that, the rest of the movie isn't that dirty at all. But at fourteen it's pretty traumatizing to sit through a two-hour film about the rise and fall of a porn star and think near the end, "Oh that wasn't that bad at all...OH MY GOD!!! IS THAT REAL?!" Not a very pleasant surprise at all.
#1 The Exorcist
My Age: 10
How It Scarred Me For Life: Chalk this up to pure cat-killing curiosity. My mom talked about walking out of The Exorcist when my dad took her to see it, and my dad talked about it scaring him back to mass after watching it. That kind of horror seems pretty powerful. So one day when I was home alone I watched this film on AMC. It was edited (heavily) and it still scared the bejeesus out of me. That is intensity. I've only ever seen the real version once, and I freaked out so bad that I slept with my that night. But maybe I'm just a baby. My I get freaked out so bad because I'm Catholic. Or maybe because this is the SCARIEST FREAKING MOVIE OF ALL TIME!
#5 Leprechaun
My Age: 5
How It Scarred Me For Life: This movie scared me so bad that I hated being Irish for a few years. Okay, so maybe this movie isn't really that scary, but when you're five anything with demented midgets is gonna frighten the mess out of you.
#4 Titanic
My Age: 7
How It Scarred Me For Life: This was my first ever nude/sex scene. Me and my cousin (who was, coincidentally, younger than me)holed up in my room right before Hurricane Georges and watched this film. It wasn't so much the nudity that bothered me, it was the sinking scenes. Seeing hundreds of dead, frozen, floating bodies isn't exactly a walk in the park for a seven year-old. I ran out of the room about halfway through the second tape and cried in my mom's lap. I made her promise that her and my dad would never go on a cruise. They never have.
#3 Cleopatra
My Age: 8
How It Scarred Me For Life: This isn't the Elizabeth Taylor movie, this was some random made-for-TV miniseries. Of course, since it was a made-for-TV miniseries, they injected in as much lusty fumblings and innuendo as humanly possible. But what was really traumatizing was the birth of Cleopatra's son Cesarean. I was watching it with my mom and she instructed me to cover my eyes. I refused, and she warned me "Okay, but you're not gonna like it." No. No I did not. It was terrifying for a kid like me. So from then on in I always listened to my mom.
#2 Boogie Nights
My Age: 14
How It Scarred Me For Life: Four words: thirteen inch prosthetic penis. Yes, you read rightly. Mark Wahlberg's legendary porn star character Dirk Diggler shows us his happy bits in the last five minutes of the film. Other than that, the rest of the movie isn't that dirty at all. But at fourteen it's pretty traumatizing to sit through a two-hour film about the rise and fall of a porn star and think near the end, "Oh that wasn't that bad at all...OH MY GOD!!! IS THAT REAL?!" Not a very pleasant surprise at all.
#1 The Exorcist
My Age: 10
How It Scarred Me For Life: Chalk this up to pure cat-killing curiosity. My mom talked about walking out of The Exorcist when my dad took her to see it, and my dad talked about it scaring him back to mass after watching it. That kind of horror seems pretty powerful. So one day when I was home alone I watched this film on AMC. It was edited (heavily) and it still scared the bejeesus out of me. That is intensity. I've only ever seen the real version once, and I freaked out so bad that I slept with my that night. But maybe I'm just a baby. My I get freaked out so bad because I'm Catholic. Or maybe because this is the SCARIEST FREAKING MOVIE OF ALL TIME!
So what were the films that you saw way too young? And are you permanently damaged from then now?
2 comments:
I'd have to say Night of the Living Dead by Tom Savini (the 90s version). I must have seen when I was 9 or 10 and it freaked the hell out of me. I wasn't able to see the end because we had to leave, so my overly active imagination took over and came up with the worst things I could think of.
Oh and I'd have to add some various X-Files episodes because, you know, they also came up with some pretty fucked up thing and never give you the happy ending you were hoping for.
I'd have to totally agree. Although I saw tRomero's original Living Dead when I was about 12, it wasn't until 28 Days Later that I developed my phobia of zombies. And as for the X-Files....oooh....a couple of episodes of that when I was a kid and I DEFINITLEY remembered to say my prayers at night.
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