Sober Sunday Reflections on...Movies That Ruined My Childhood

One of my frequent topics of conversations with friends is how, when we were kids (most of my friends being the same age as me), we used to have R-rated films actually marketed--or ostensibly marketed--towards kids. I can remember around the time Terminator 2 came out, it was a big thing, not just amongst adults old enough to legally purchase a ticket to see it, but amongst kids, too. When I was 5 or so (around the time the movie came out), my dad bought me T2 action figures (like these!) after I got my tonsils taken out. Imagine that happening now in the post-Columbine, all-violent-movies-lead-to-real-world-violence age. It doesn't. Or, if it does, I'm unaware of it because I'm too lazy to do research for these damned articles--preferring instead to rattle off the old-man cuff about the sad passing of how things used to be in my "day and age".

Pictured: me.

Curmudgeonly asides aside: one thing I really miss is how films used to affect me. Not that movies have become any less scarring or that the quality of films has declined (even with the proliferation of so much CGI and cheap shakey-cam gimmicks, who am I to say movies as a constantly evolving art-form have gotten any worse?)--I just haven't been able to lose myself in a film--feel a film spur then shoot its emotional ice-pick in my emotional eye-sockets a la the T-1000 in T2--like I did when I was younger--and the prime example of that--or maybe just the most extreme--is how long it's been since a movie truly shook me up; in effect, traumatizing me for life.

So, without further adieu, here is my sad, lamenting ode to movies that ruined my childhood:

1. T2

I figure I should do this chronologically--starting with the first movie to fuck me up and working my way forward from there. So, if I have to be honest I'll go with T2.

When T2 came out, it was huge. If I had to chart Arnold Schwarzenegger's career, I'd probably say T2 came out at its peak: at a time when he was doing lame fitness promos for kids (I wonder if the morbid obesity epidemic amongst children happened before or after celebrities stopped trying to get kids to jump rope and run on treadmills?) and being parodied indirectly on SNL by Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon. So, either because he was such a household name or the movie itself was so huge, I can remember everyone talking obsessively about it--in the same way that families rally around Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean fare now.

My babysitter at that time gave us--the kids who were in school--the option of taking a nap in the afternoon or watching a movie. I was at an age where other kids my age elected to take a nap, but there were big kids--older than me--who stayed up and watched movies and because I had no backbone (and still don't) and wanted the older kids to like me (even if they were the kids who harassed and bullied me everyday about my Where's Waldo? backpack), I would stay up too.

The movies we had to choose from were mostly then-popular movies from my babysitter's shitty taped-off-of-TV VHS collection (Ghost, T2, Ghost Dad) that we'd watch in regular rotation. The one that stuck with me the most, though, was T2. I think I identified with it maybe because it had a young kid-lead (Mr. Edward "Pecker" Furlong) but there were other things in the film that really fucking got to me. Specifically: liquid-metal bogeyman Robert Partrick who played the T1000.

 Pictured: Robert Patrick prophesying the number of films he will be recognized from....

To say he was evil would be inaccurate. He wasn't--he was simply a machine sent back in time to destroy (kill) John Connor--or anything that got in the way (Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Connor's foster parents, etc.) of him destroying (again: killing) John Connor. There was no real malice to what he was doing--but he was still creepy, as a character, in the same way that some serial killers are creepy: because they kill as if programmed to do so, with absolutely no concept of how "wrong" that is and--certainly--no remorse for all those they've killed. Worse still: this was a movie watched by millions of little kids like myself--and the plot revolved (essentially) around a shape-shifting robot-man hell-bent on killing a little kid. Again, imagine a movie like that coming out today, with action figures (like the one my dad bought me) and parents thinking nothing of it--celebrating the film as a harmless popcorn flick.

 "And here's where the invincible machine-man murders 10 year-old John Connor's foster parents. What say you kids to a game of catch after this?"

The one scene that really got to me was when the T-1000 came up from the floor, having chameleon-mirrored the black-and-white checker design of the tiles (because he can do that) and then walking up to a fat security guard and basically lobotomizing him to death with his T-1000 finger which he turned into a metal ice-pick (because he can do that, too).

At this time, I was just starting to take showers--that rare time in my 5 or 6 year-old life when I was left completely alone. Had I been attacked by some lurking menace (like the T-1000, say) there was a good chance my parents, who would be upstairs, couldn't hear me through the running shower water and the entire floor that separated us. I used to peel back the shower curtain in 30 second intervals--having to prep myself before each time--to examine the ceiling and floor closely, looking for any sign that the T-1000 would suddenly manifest and kill me--the thinking being: as long as I checked the ceiling and floor regularly, the T-1000 couldn't get me. In the movie it took him longer than 30 seconds to come up and reform and walk over to the security guard, so: say he wanted to kill me in my most vulnerable of moments--5 years-old and naked in the shower--as long as I kept an eye on the floor and ceiling, I could time my escape just right--between him coming out like a slow-moving water droplet and him reforming, then choosing whatever instrument-of-death he wanted to mold his body--or part of his body--into to kill me. 


2/3. Leprechaun/Wizard of Oz

Confession time: when I was a kid, I was deathly afraid of little people. My mom took me to MCL once--where old people go to eat bad food before they die--and, on the particular day she took me (whether she planned it or not is debatable, but, if it was planned, I'd like to retroactively take her to court for child abuse by way of horrific emotional scarring), they were hosting a meet-and-greet with one of the original munchkins--something I didn't find out about until my mom pointed him out to me, standing in the MCL doorway like a rock-star surrounded by cottage-cheese skinned old people with oxygen tanks.

My initial reaction was the closest I've ever felt to primal fight-or-flight panic. I immediately felt all the blood run from my skin and a sinking, non-poop-related heaviness in my gut. I wanted to cover my eyes and at the same time watch to make sure what I was seeing was real--a real little person, not quite a kid and not quite an adult (right? that's how little people work?). My mom related to me enthusiastically: "Look, it's a munchkin!" (the only time anyone should ever utter those words--when pointing out an actual munchkin from the Wizard of Oz), thinking that I'd be on board and just as enthusiastic. But, alas: I wasn't. It was one thing to see them--the munchkins--on a TV screen, but quite another to encounter them in real life. Not to be offensive, but something about the situation was so surreal and so terrifying--like seeing a doll come to life. I couldn't believe it.

 On a scale of 1 to pants-shitting, these guys are up there with Santa Claus.

Fast-forward I don't know how many months or years later and Leprechaun is a huge movie. On grocery trips with my mom, I hang out in the movie rental section and I look at the box--sort of as a dare to myself. Seeing Warwick Davis, all make-up-ed up and looking grotesque as the sinister titular villain messes with my already fragile ability to comprehend little people and not completely shit myself in terror.

Then...the movie comes on TV.

My parents leave me alone to watch TV--for whatever reason. I guess they trust that I'm just going to watch Nickelodeon (it was a different time then...) and not accidentally discover late-night porn (which I did eventually) or borderline exploitation movies about sinister little folk. But, I do. I see the movie listed on the TV guide channel (remember that? with the scrolling movie titles and bad weather channel music?) and, after careful deliberation, decide, perhaps as a challenge to myself, to turn to the channel it will be on and watch it. I only make it maybe 5 minutes in--at around the time you hear Warwick Davis taunting the old lady with nursery rhymes--before switching it to SNICK (the late-night Nickelodeon entertainment block my parents assume I'm watching).

I can't explain my fear of little people--or if it's even a thing (a phobia?) shared with other people. But, after years of self-guided therapy--watching Warwick Davis in non-murderous fare like Willow and the always funny An Idiot Abroad--I finally got over my fear.

 For the most part....

(Edit: I forgot to mention it at the time I wrote this but the Oompa Loompa's from Willy Wonka...--all orange-faced and boner-hipped--had a pretty devastating effect on me, too.)




4/5. The Shining (1980 version and ABC miniseries)

Yeah, yeah. I know what you're thinking: this is supposed to be a 5 part list and I'm cheating because I've included two titles in the last 2 entries. But...you know what? I'm lazy. And these things take forever to write. So, back off!

I can't remember which version of the Shining I saw first: Kubrick's or the ABC miniseries, but I remember wanting to see it ever since my uncle--a tobacco-chewing man-child, who I worshiped as a child-child--told me about it.

We were on our way to an IU basketball game. My family--on my dad's side--has this habit of being as unintentionally awkward as possible. As much as I revered my uncle, he--like all my dad's brothers--had this weird tendency to never talk even in situations where he was expected to. We drove the full 45 minutes to Bloomington in his big truck with no radio and nary a word between us--just me sitting there awkwardly, occasionally taking peripheral glances at my uncle, spitting cherry chewing tobacco into an empty pop bottle, which he always had near him at all times. Then, out of nowhere, still hawk-gazing at the road, he asks me: "You ever see the Shining?"

"No," I say. "What's that?"

Five minutes--or what feels like five minutes--passes. He reaches for the spit-filled pop bottle, spits, then sucks up the lingering spittle from his mustache and bottom lip. "It's a movie about a guy. He goes to this hotel for the winter. With his family."

Long pause.

Me: "Wow, that sounds---."

"The guy--," my uncle continues, cutting me off, "is supposed to take care of the hotel. Just him and his family staying at this hotel." Because my uncle so seldom talks--and when he does it's so slow and deliberate--I never know when he's finished and when I'm expected to say something, so he frequently cuts me off--as he did here. "Anyway, time passes. And he gets cabin fever. Some spooky things start happening at the hotel. Ghosts. And he goes crazy. Tries to kill his family."

I don't know why--but that synopsis alone sucked me in. Probably because at that time my uncle was the coolest person in the world. He was young-ish, had his own cabin on a lake which he invited my dad, my sister and me to and he played and gave me his old video games. Anything he talked about sounded amazing.

"No Pedo"

So, also around this time, the ABC miniseries comes out. I can't remember if I watched that first or the other one, but both fucked with me. I specifically remember watching the second act of the ABC miniseries and having to turn off the TV at the lady-in-room-217 part. It was the only time I've ever been so scared out of my mind by something that I had to physically get up and run. And, I didn't run to any place in particular--I just got up and started running, then pacing around the living room trying to make sense of the fucked-up-edness of what I just saw.

 Scene in question. Be forewarned: this scene still haunts me today.

For weeks afterwards, I avoided bathrooms. Especially ones--like the bathroom we had downstairs--that had bathtubs: the natural haunting-grounds of the lady in room 217. If I took a shower, I made it as quick as possible. If I had shampoo in my hair, I'd keep my eyes open because I was so paranoid. For the 30 minutes or so between being dropped off from school and my dad getting home, I'd hold in my pee--not wanting to get caught in a situation where the decrepit ghost of 217 could attack me and no one was around to hear me screaming for help.










So, in conclusion (the spiffiest way to end any piece of writing): the movies I watched as a kid probably play a large part in how neurotic I am today. If I could go back in time, it's impossible to say whether I'd choose to not watch these movies at such an impressionable age--because as a kid being scared out of your wits is somehow so alluring. But one thing I will say is that I miss that feeling of not only being excited about something because you know it has the potential to fuck with you so profoundly but also the general feeling of being affected so deeply by a movie. Either because I'm old and jaded or the movies I watch now aren't as terrifying as movies like the Shining--but it's been a long time since a movie really stuck with me. So, here's to the sad passing of that time in my life and hoping that it might come back.