Too Young For Heart Attacks: Don't show your kids

Just imagine being five years old and seeing this movie for the first time. Dead kids, freaky flashbacks, toddlers killing adults... I was both shaken and stirred after seeing this movie. Although it does nothing to me now, this movie will always have a special place in my internal fear cabinet.

I couldn't have been more than five or six when I saw Scanners. Kids are going to start to think that Jimmy Kline sitting next to them in class can blow their damn head off with a single thought.

The Gate is pretty low scare value stuff as an adult. But as a six year old? The stuff of utter nightmares! Hands under the bed, pits full of little clay monsters, dead people in the walls, monsters that pretend to be parents... It also seemed more scary because all the protagonists are children. There wasn't some big adult around to save the day. Yeah, I was traumatized.

While you watch this clip, imagine how you would feel if this were happening to you at this kid's age.
(The youtube video doesn't embed so just follow the link to youtube)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud8JDmgeY1w&feature=player_embedded

This movie could take the scary bone of a kid and give it a double compound fracture. I was about seven when I watched this, and it made my skin crawl. It also convinced me that anyone acting strange was the thing, for weeks.

This movie is strange. Times that by a thousand when you're six, and you don't know what the hell is going on from beginning to end. Not gross or scary, as much as confusing and occasionally disturbing for a fragile young mind.

I was around seven when I watched this movie for the first time. Watching Jeff Goldblum turn into the fly made my skin crawl. When his teeth and fingernails started coming off... I think I'm still bothered by that to this day. Not painful at all for adults, but pure horror for kids.

I watched this movie with my father on HBO when I was really young, maybe four. And an Alien ripped out of a guy. An ALIEN RIPPED Out of a GUY'S BODY!

When I saw that spidery thing slinking around the ship, I pretty much assumed there had to be at least one living in my bedroom closet. Waiting. Just waiting... I felt that way for a couple of years.

This movie is really not a horror movie. Actually, it's a pretty decent relationship thriller starring and directed by Clint Eastwood.

But when you're no more than 5, it's a terrifying experience in being extremely afraid. There's screaming, blood, knife attacks... stuff kids just aren't ready for.

Marathon Man is a pretty good story with some great actors. Roy Scheider, Dustin Hoffman, and the great Laurence Olivier.

Yeah, kids don't care about that stuff. Neither did I, when I was all but six and watching stabbing, torture, more torture, and shootings.

Flowers in the Attic is a story that revolves around kids that get locked up in the attic, and are systematically mistreated by their mother and grandmother. That's not the kind of thing you want to see when you completely rely on your parents for daily living. I was terrified of the grandmother, played by Louise Fletcher.

Twilight Zone is a show that can be enjoyed in adulthood for it's interesting stories, good writing, and creepy revelations. However, as a kid it's the stuff of sleepless nights, and jumping at shadows.

You remember that episode when that crazy kid was able to turn that dude's head into a jack in the box? Yeah, good luck thinking of anything else when you're only seven years old.

The Twilight Zone movie was pretty interesting. Although it borrowed from plots of previous episodes of the show, it was still a fun watch. It wasn't as fun when I was seven, getting assaulted by the downer ending of each segment.

Nine years old is not the right age to be watching "The Wall."

I repeat: Nine years old is not the right age to be watching "The Wall."

I was thinking about this movie in school for days during the lessons, unable to think of anything else. Pretty much everything that happened in this movie had an adverse effect on my fragile mind.

Although it's entirely possible that watching this and the other movies in this list is why I eventually had a strong desire to be creative. I can't say for sure.