With the dawn of homeÂ video, a big part of growing up was watching countless movies.
Most kids' movies are supposed to be colorful, funny, and safe entertainment for impressionable
minds to enjoy.
However, in the 80's and 90's, that wasn't always the case.
With wild, untamed imaginations, kids can be scared of almost anything.
What parents thought was a harmless, G-Rated movie actually scared us half to death.
Other times, we might have been over at a friend's house and walked into a room at the
wrong time, witnessing a movie not intended for us and unable to shake the horrific images
from our brains.
Whatever the case may be, these movies left a lasting scar, and we're forever changed
because of it.
I'm Mike with List25 and Here are 25 Movies That Scared Us As Kids.
25.
Legend (1985) Those of you who grew up in the 80's and 90's
probably at some point witnessed the horror show known asÂ Legend,Â starring everyone's
favorite running man, Tom Cruise.
Creepy, eerie, surreal, bizarre, there's really not a good enough adjective to describe this
movie complete with weird looking hooked-nosed goblins and a villain that looks like Satan.
24.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day No one thinks this movie is meant for kids,
but that didn't stop you from walking in while it was playing in the living room at exactly
the wrong moment.
That nuclear apocalypse scene showing Linda Hamilton's screaming, fiery skeleton clinging
to the chain-link fence still haunts your nightmares.
23.
Labyrinth Oh boy, where to start with this one?
From the creepy, talking hands that get all handsy with Jennifer Connelly to the old gremlin
lady in the giant trash dump, this nightmare fuel, compliments of Jim Henson's crazed mind,
had you wrecked for weeks as a kid.
On top of that, things certainly got uncomfortable when old man David Bowie was hitting on the
very 16-year-old Jennifer Connelly.
22.
Watership Down Perhaps at one time, your parents called out
and said, "Hey kids, let's watch this movie about bunnies.
It'll be great fun!"
Instead, you watched an hour and thirty-one-minute bunny bloodbath.
From dogs violently turning the rabbits into roadkill to Holly's traumatic dream of the
warren's destruction, this hare terror likely induced another awful bout of childhood bed
wetting.
Thanks, Mom and Dad.
21.
Bambi Similarly, this Disney childhood cartoon of
frolicking woodland creatures seems innocent enough until Bambi's mother is gunned down.
The feeling of being lost and alone is terrifying for any child, so watching it happen to a
helpless deer likely sent you wailing to your mother, clinging to her leg, and refusing
to let go.
20.
The Witches Just because a movie was adapted from a Roald
Dahl book doesn't mean it won't have you crying underneath your bed for days.
Case in point, the scene where Anjelica Huston takes off her human skin and becomes a grotesque
witch.
19.
The Brave Little Toaster With a story about a cute little toaster,
you'd think this would be a safe bet.
You'd be wrong.
From the fire dream sequence where a malevolent grinning clown rises from the flames and unleashes
a wave of deadly forks to the death scene where all the appliances slowly sink into
an inescapable bog, it's like one big practical joke on kids.
Except, no one's laughing.
18.
E.T.
This is a tricky one.
For some,Â E.T.Â was a beloved, whimsical and fun coming-of-age movie.
Others, however, were instantly freaked by E.T. and even as adults don't want to go near
it.
From the weird way E.T. said, "Ouuuucccch" while holding out a glowing finger to the
scary scene where E.T. is dying and calling out for Eliot, to some degree it makes sense
why kids might be a bit uncomfortable around this movie.
17.
Dumbo For the most part, this movie is just about
a floppy-eared elephant that people mock, except when you get to the scene where said
child elephant gets accidentally drunk and witnesses an eerie display of pink, smiling
elephants, nightmarishly parading around.
If you're like us, you probably repressed this memory.
16.
The Neverending Story This movie had its fair share of odd and creepy
moments, but what truly scared us to death was when Atreyu and Artax went through the
Swamp of Sadness.
If you recall, Artax refuses to move and slowly descends into the deep while Atreyu desperately
tries to save him.
He fails and Artax dies.
Excuse us while we go have a good cry.
15.
Pet Sematary Here's another one we probably shouldn't have
watched as kids, but nevertheless, here we are.
From the sister Zelda to the demon cat to the terrifying resurrected boy, you probably
never looked at animals, or cemeteries for that matter, the same way again.
14.
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory Everyone agrees this movie is aÂ fun, magical
time full of chocolate and wonders.
That is, until Willy Wonka, the children, and their parents, take an LCD-laced boat
ride down a tunnel into madness.
At first, everyone foolishly pretends they aren't sitting before a psychotic lunatic,
but then Wonka whispers an eerie tune that grows into a manic yelling.
With flashing red lights all around and horrific video in the background, all that candy-like
ecstasy from your childhood mind is stripped away and plunged into a barreling hellscape.
13.
Tremors Remember in this movie where Kevin Bacon and
his co-star Fred Ward find a farmer's horrified face in the ground, or when one of the Tremors
sucks an entire car underneath the earth?
Yeah, we do too.
If you were like us, after watching this film, you stuck to walking on pavement for quite
some time.
12.
The Haunting In this film, a group of people take part
in a sleep study at a mansion and learn about its haunted past.
Looking back, it's not exactly all that original or scary, but for a young kid who went to
the theater to see it with his friends, it was pretty stinking scary.
11.
Beetlejuice This one is just overall weird, dark, and
spooky, but the one scene where Beetlejuice turns into a weird looking snake and freaks
out the houseguests put it over the top.
10.
The Dark Crystal Returning once again to the demented mind
of Jim Henson, we find ourselves witnessing horrors beyond all reckoning.
From "podlings" strapped down and having their essence drained to the deadness behind the
heroes eyes, who in their right mind thought this would be a good kids movie?
Jim Henson, apparently.
9.
Wizard of Oz From tornadoes to witches to flying monkeys,
what wasn't terrifying about this movie?
Of course, the wicked witch of the west takes the cake as the most terrifying part of the
movie, especially when she starts to melt.
8.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Putting aside the awful title, this movie
about a car inventor taking his family into a magical fantasy world has one of the most
terrifying scenes of all time.
The scene involves a long-nosed creeper dressed like a jester riding his carriage of wonders
down the street.
With a high-pitched voice, he lures little kids with lollipops and ice cream, calling
out for them like an innocentÂ candy man.
Once he successfully lures two children into his carriage, he reveals it's actually a den
of horrors and swiftly kidnaps the children while they scream behind metal bars.
7.
Fun and Fancy Free Acting as a sort of Disney cartoon compilation,
for the most part, this movie is harmless and full of fun Mickey Mouse cartoons.
Then they had to ruin it with the creepiest ventriloquist dummy act of all time, thrusting
a fun movie into a very weird place.
6.
IT (1990) This TV-miniseries they made into a 3 hour
and 12-minute film chronicles the terrors of Pennywise the Clown and his savage efforts
to kill and consume every member of the Losers Club.
Without a doubt, Tim Curry as Pennywise haunted our thoughts for weeks after witnessing this
movie.
5.
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie In an attempt to cash in on the Garbage Pail
Kids trend, Hollywood made one of the creepiest kids movies of all time.
The weirdos, it turns out, are the garbage pail kids, bringing out a whole new definition
for the Uncanny Valley.
With weird animatronics and scary puppet designs, what should have been a cute kids movie turned
into a total horror show.
4.
Jaws We all know the ominous music.
With a prettyÂ silly looking animatronic shark, this film took advantage of viewer
imagination to scare them.
Since kids have an imagination kicked into overdrive, it didn't take much to scare us
into never wanting to swim in the ocean again.
3.
The Secret of NIMH On the surface, this G-rated children's movie
about a mouse trying to save her village shouldn't be too scary.
But the gloomy atmosphere and the particularly creepy owl, not to mention the mouse's constant
fight for survival, really put it in a dark place.
What most kids don't know is the story was based upon disturbing lab experiments with
mice at the National Institute of Mental Health, a.k.a.
NIMH.
2.
The Indiana Jones Movies With a PG-13 rating, most little kids probably
shouldn't have been watching the Indiana Jones films, but we did anyway.
From faces being melted off, Indian shaman ripping hearts out of chests, and child slavery
to hideous ghosts and heads getting lopped off, it's safe to say every child was considerably
scared while watching these films.
1.
Fire in the Sky An alien abduction horror film from 1993,
if you were a child that casually ended up watching this, there's no doubt your life
was considerably changed and there was no going back.
Though slightly cheesy in hindsight, this movie still has some pretty frightening scenes,
including the strange alien experimentation scene on a human.
So, what movies sacred you the most as a kid?
Let us know in the comments below, or tweet your answer to us @List25.
Enjoying our lists?
Be sure to click that subscribe button on the bottom right and the notification bell
so you don't miss out on new ones every Monday through Friday.
Share them with friends and help us consistantly conciliate curiosity.
And if you want even more lists check out these videos here or just head to our website
at list25.com