The SCARIEST MOVIE EVER WATCHED

At some point everyone is going to have a parenting fail moment. I am not personally a parent, but I have some parents, and let me assure you that as much as I love them they’ve made some questionable decisions. There are things I will never forgive them for (in the interest of still getting Christmas presents this year and being allowed to darken their doorway, I should note there are lovely things they’ve done that I’ll also never thank them for, so it really evens out) and that I’m convinced ruined my childhood and potentially warped my entire life. Oddly enough, the scary movies they let me watch as a child that super seriously traumatized me are not on that list.

I say oddly, because just the other day I was talking to people at work about the scariest movie of our childhood. Everyone else in the conversation said at some point, almost verbatim, “my parents really shouldn’t have let me watch it.” They did not say it in the tone of simply stating a fact, there was definitely some condemnation in their voices. Everyone else had pretty similar movies too: It, The Exorcist, Alien… you get the idea. They were naming legitimately scary movies.

And then there’s me.

Before I reveal the scariest movie of my childhood and potentially lose your respect for the rest of our acquaintanceship, let me explain why I don’t blame my parents for this fiasco. My parents did make some dubious calls on what I was allowed to watch. For instance it may not have been the best idea in the world to take me to see Jurassic Park in theaters at age 5. But I think we eventually realized and acknowledged that I was just one of those kids that are scared by basically everything. So while they became far more vigilant regarding my movie experience, they also accepted that it was basically a crapshoot. Even if I were to never watch a “scary” movie again, they couldn’t entirely prevent me from just happening to walk by a tv while a scary commercial was on. And yes, that would still be enough for endless nightmares.

It probably doesn’t help that even to this day I am fascinated by scary movies. So when I walked by that tv and the scary commercial was on, I didn’t walk away. I may have closed my eyes at some point, but I still listened to it.

Plus, my parents weren’t even around when I was exposed to this movie. I was at a neighbor’s house. There is absolutely nothing they could have said to prevent this from happening except maybe to make a rule whenever I was elsewhere that I couldn’t watch ANYTHING. Actually I wasn’t even really watching the movie. So the rule would have to be that no one else in the house could watch ANYTHING on ANY television on the off chance I walk by and become traumatized.

So with those boundaries established, are you ready for the scariest movie of my childhood?

It’s Mars Attacks.

If you’re unfamiliar with this movie, it is a comedy about an alien invasion featuring a ridiculous number of celebrities.The alien ships look like cheap flying saucers, the aliens tend to run around in spandex, and their guns turn you into Christmas colored skeletons. No blood, no gore, just a bright green pile of bones. Spoiler alert (with more spoilers to come, just fyi) – the secret weapon to defeating the aliens? Playing really bad music really loudly. I kid you not.

Not that I actually knew that as a child. My viewing experience went more like this:

·         I caught bits and pieces of the beginning as I wandered around doing whatever it was we were doing. I remember donuts, and there is in fact a donut shop scene in the movie. That’s about it.

·         Unfortunately I did see the part where a dove is killed. This starts a scene of mass human causalities, but I don’t think I actually saw anything after the bird incident.

·         I then locked myself in the bathroom for roughly a half hour, sobbing hysterically. During this time I could hear the people watching the movie laugh frequently. The kids I was playing with, who had not been watching the movie initially, were now all watching too.

·         This made me decide that things must be improving, so I briefly emerged in time for the President (played expertly by Jack Nicholson) to be stabbed through the heart by what seemed to be a dismembered hand.

·         I retreated back to the bathroom. I think I stayed there until I went home. I know I was tentatively planning on living there the rest of my life as it seemed secure, and there was access to both water and a toilet, so the only drawback was lack of food. I’m also pretty sure I made someone fetch me so I wouldn’t have to walk home by myself, despite the fact that I was literally right next door from my house. If that didn’t actually happen, know at least that I super duper wanted it to.

I suppose what we never really clarified is how does one choose the scariest movie of their childhood? What are the defining criteria? As you can tell from the description above, I didn’t even see the bulk of my “scariest movie.”

For me, I’m going not by the duration of time DURING the movie that I was scared, but the duration of time AFTER the movie. There were other movies that had lasting effects. For instance, after catching a few scenes of The Blob I no longer felt comfortable showering (which was really unfortunate since I didn’t trust baths either in case a shark emerged from the drain) for at least several weeks. I mean I did it, but each time felt like I was taking my life in my hands. But hands down, Mars Attacks had the most lasting trauma. From that point on anything involving aliens seemed horrifying. Not only other movies and shows, but even stores that had alien toys seemed unsafe.

Even more importantly, Mars Attacks was the movie that forced my parents to set some boundaries about nightmares. I was trying to escape to their room literally every single night. I can now better understand why that may have posed some problems. At some point they had to say no. So, I more or less moved into my brother’s room for roughly a year. That’s right, A YEAR. Every night I grabbed a bunch of teddy bears, formed a blockade between us on the bed, and prayed that when the aliens came for us I’d have enough time to run away. My brother was younger than me. I didn’t really expect him to do anything about the alien attack. Truthfully, I didn’t really expect my parents to be much help either. But having someone else in the room meant I had better odds of being the one to escape.

This movie also prompted me to decide for a few years that I was going to immediately get married after college, as that seemed to be the only acceptable way for a grownup to be allowed to sleep in bed with another grownup. That was my sole motivation to get married, which is probably why I’m still not married now that I know that’s not strictly true.

So there you go… my scariest movie and how it traumatized my childhood. If you’re a parent you may be feeling a little smug now because your children are not quite as insane. You’re welcome. You’re totally still going to traumatize them at some point though. That’s just how it is.

People normally laugh at this story, but SURELY there are others out there that had ridiculous repercussions to their scary movie viewings as children. If you know of one (or are one) tell the world! Or at least, tell me!