Unironically a fantastic film and book though
That’s the good stuff, right there.
‘The Big Friendly Giant’ yeah fuck this shit. More like Giants eating kids while they sleep because they can smell their flesh.
- Watership down
- Grave of the fireflies
- The big fucking giant
Trifecta of nightmares
Roald Dahl’s stories were nightmare fuel if they were written by anyone else, because his style just made it seem so goofy. Just think of fantastic mr. fox: the entire countryside is destroyed as a titan of the industrial age brutally hunts down pitiful animals trying to scrape by. The witches? Literal torture porn as children are changed into mice and put through all manners of hell.
Even his semi-autobiography was about how children tortured each other in boarding schools. I remember his tales of having to warm up a toilet for the older boy in charge of him, and how they were all whipped/caned by the older students.
The secret of NIMH?
How you gonna do Fleshlumpeater like that?
This movie about fireflies also looks cute, and it’s made by Studio Ghibli!
For a slice of US Gen X we can remember our parents having us all gather to watch this when it aired on TV. I was at a dinner party with like 20 kids total all under 13 years old. When the scene we all remember from this movie happened it was pure chaos for like 30 minutes. I remember my best friend’s dad, who was my priest, saying “Gee whiz! Why in the name of all that is holy would they put a bunny cartoon on prime time and kill the bunny without warning everyone!” Never heard a man say “Gee Whiz” with that much vitriol.
It was some terrifying stuff. The vision Fiver has. Holy crap. Even the intro with Frith and the animals…it was dark but epic. Young me was scared shitless, but older me kind of liked it (And was also scared shitless).
My mum did this. I made it to the first death (hawk) and ran crying into the kitchen where she was. I was 4.
Then my first husband did this! He got me the DVD and it is still unwatched in the plastic wrap.
My current husband downloaded plague dogs because it’s criterion and that rests unwatched on the hard drive because I cannot even watch anything by this director.
However, I did read the book Watership Down in college, and wasn’t traumatized. I also collect copies of the book Private Life of the Rabbit which Richard Adams used as a source book
Reminds me of something from the opposite end of the lifespan. When I was young, they didn’t clear the theater after a movie, and they sometimes had “double features” where they’d alternate between two movies and you could watch both for one ticket price. My dad’s aunt lived with us (she was probably in her 70s at this point), and one day a couple of her friends picked her up to go watch “a double features of animal movies” at the local theater. They dropped her off some hours later and her face was grey - she said it was horrible, and didn’t want to talk about it.
It turned out the double features was Day of the Animals and Night of the Grizzly, basically both horror movies. They didn’t think they were allowed to leave during the movie, so they stayed through both.
How has no one in the comments mentioned The Secret of NIMH yet?
Even worse, The Brave Frog (showa-era kids anime was seriously fucked up).
The secret of NIMH was brutal as a small child.
But what IS a watership?
Like an airship but for, you know, water.
Buoyancy Operated Aquatic Transport?
Like it’s made of water? Like a submarine??
It’s old English meaning kind of “uplands near a watery place”. Its an actual place near where I live, about 5 miles south of Newbury, Berkshire, England.
Andrew Lloyd Webber lives just to the North of it and De Haviland did his maiden flight to the West of it just on the other side of the A34 road.
The author lived there as a child, interestingly so did the author of Paddington Bear
Yo Paddington is wicked sick. He’s a rare sort of bear
Just like this lovely story about a husband and wife living their best life.
I was a happy sun child before watching that… Afterwards I was emo and hated the world for existing.
Seagull says piss off was a real edgy moment for 6 year old me
If you watch the trailer it’s kinda clear it was not meant for kids. Watched it in 4th grade, loved it.
Double featured with Pom Poko and you really hammer it home
I didn’t think the movie was all that bad, but I had a pretty good imagination so I remembered all the horrors from the book. The scene that did feel strange to me is when hazel is tripping balls. Something with that song had it plastered all over my memory.
