That wasn’t true for Gen-X kids, who had several movies marketed for kids that ended up violent, terrifying, and often with endings that left them shell-shocked and in tears. Many argue this led the generation to be stronger than others, but at the same time, it also helped fuel nightmares for decades to come.
The Dark Crystal (1982)
The Dark Crystal was a shocking movie released in 1982. It was a film using animatronics from Jim Henson Studios, the company that brought kids the beloved Sesame Street and the more adult-oriented The Muppet Show. However, this movie was barely acceptable for kids and traumatized an entire generation.
While there were no humans in the movie, and it was all via puppetry, this was a dark fantasy film that featured two Gelflings who seek to restore balance and overthrow the evil Skeksis by restoring a powerful crystal. This is a quest movie, and parents who saw the puppets might have thought it was for kids.
The violence, deaths, and torment of these creatures were shocking for families, and those who let their younger kids watch it had to deal with nightmares for a long time. However, it was also a movie that made a lasting impression on those kids, and it made a rebooted Netflix series recently a big hit.
The Last Unicorn (1982)
The Last Unicorn was a traditionally animated movie, and many parents assumed it was a film about a unicorn and a wizard on a quest together. There was nothing to worry about here, at least from the outside looking in. However, those who read the Peter S. Beagle novel knew better, and it traumatized little kids who watched it.
This story has body horror and humiliation, suppression, possession, and more that was way above the level of a grade school student whose parents might have thought this was just another cute little cartoon. From the start, when the Unicorn learns she might be the last of her kind, to the battle for her own survival, this is a terrifying tale.
The terrifying Red Bull trying to kill the Unicorn left lasting impressions on the kids, as did MommY Fortuna and her sad circus of animal illusions. If anything, the unicorns trapped at sea were deeply disturbing for younger audiences.
The NeverEnding Story (1984)
The NeverEnding Story is a beloved fantasy movie, and it is not overly tragic or traumatic. There are moments that are sad, and there are intense and scary moments, but they are often glossed over for the more wondrous actions as a young man tries to save a magical Child Empress.
However, there is one moment that traumatized the entire Gen-X childhood population. That moment is one that anyone who has seen the film can remember with clarity in their damaged minds to this very day. The young warrior Atreyu fails to pull his beloved horse Artax from the Swamp of Sadness.
As Atreyu cries after losing his beloved horse, an entire generation of Gen-X kids cried along with him. Yes, the Child Empress brings Atrax back at the end, but this death and its devastating effect on Atreyu are etched into the minds of every Gen-X child who watched The NeverEnding Story.
The Plague Dogs (1982)
In the 1980s, most parents just sat their kids down in front of the TV and turned on a cartoon and left them to watch it alone. This was a huge mistake in 1982, when the animated film The Plague Dogs arrived. The name alone should have warned most parents, but too many kids saw it and left traumatized.
This is a movie about violence toward animals that is impossible to shake. The story follows two dogs named Rowf and Snitter who are in a research lab in Great Britain. This shows how humans will perform vivisection and animal research without caring about the cruelty to the animals.
The two dogs go on the run after escaping, but end up hunted down by gunmen hired by the lab to eliminate the animals because of the fear that the dogs are spreading the bubonic plague. The entire sight of two dogs running for their lives as people try to murder them was something most kids will never forget.
The Brave Little Toaster (1987)
If there was one animated kids’ movie that completely took all Gen-X kids by surprise, it was The Brave Little Toaster. This looked like a movie that little kids could sit down to watch and enjoy a fun story with anthropomorphic household appliances having an adventure. However, it was more traumatic than that.
A young man has some old appliances he treasures in the family cottage, even though they are out of style and not as advanced as newer appliances. They are Toaster, Radio, Lampy, Blanky (an electric blanket), and Kirby (a vacuum cleaner). Much like in Toy Story, they pretend to be inanimate around humans.
Just as the young man goes to retrieve them, they end up thrown out and have to run for their lives, as they face destruction. When the movie moves to the junkyard and an evil crusher, the kids watching realize that things are hopeless for these brave little appliances. It is dark, scary, and a tough watch for little kids.
The Secret of NIMH (1982)
Anyone who watched The Secret of NIMH as Gen-X kids had nightmares, and anyone who says they didn’t is lying. It was deeply disturbing, and seeing the mother mouse trying to save her children from an uncaring world was more than traumatizing. Having villains as terrifying as those here only added to the nightmare fuel.
There are so many terrifying moments in this movie for little kids. The owl was a monstrous creature, covered in cobwebs and eating moths. The scene where they were trapped in a birdcage and almost drowned also left an impression. When Mrs. Brisby almost watched her kids die in the end, no kid watching this movie was okay.
This is the one movie that developed such a terrifying reputation that parents actually figured out it might not be the best watch for their Gen-X kids, but for many younger children, it was too late by this time, and the nightmares remain vivid to this day.
Watership Down (1978)
While most Gen-X kids were still tiny when this movie came out, Watership Down was an animated film that no child should have ever watched unattended. Released in 1978 and based on the 1972 novel by Richard Adams, this is a movie about death and destruction and how the cycle of life can destroy an entire society.
That is not a story made for kids, but in this case, the movie was marketed to children and traumatized all of Gen-X. Watership Down follows a small group of rabbits who live in their natural environment, but when their warren is destroyed, they seek to find a new home, which leads them into perilous danger
With the film solidly putting the viewers in the point of view of the rabbits, it made the dangers of the wild and the survival of the fittest that much more effective. With death a real possibility, this is a movie that had adult themes all packaged for kids to watch, which traumatized an entire generation.
Scruffy (1980)
Scruffy is a lesser-known movie that traumatized Gen-X kids. Similar to Plague Dogs, this is a film about putting little dogs’ lives in peril, but this time it was a little more realistic and less violent. Instead of a lab trying to murder two dogs spreading a possible plague, it is life trying to beat down and destroy a stray.
Scruffy is a puppy who ends up separated from her human owners, along with his mother, only for his mom to end up dying when two hunters shoot her, mistaking her for a wild dog. This leaves Scruffy orphaned and on his own. He attempts to find a new home while avoiding the shelter that will kill him after a week.
This theme is simple. Life is terrible, and when someone is left on their own, with no one to rely on, the chances for survival are low. The lesson is that people should help each other because no one should be neglected and lost. This sees a little puppy terrorized and almost killed more than once, and it traumatized any kid who watched it.
The Witches (1990)
The Witches came out late for Gen-X kids, and most in that age group were teens at the time. However, that didn’t stop it from being a tough movie to watch and one with some traumatic moments and scenes. This movie is about a witch coven that remains young by sacrificing kids.
Of course, making little kids the victims of almost ageless witches is terrifying on its own. The one thing that saves this from being exploitive for kids is that it’s not an animated cartoon, and is a live-action film, which likely helped protect some younger kids from getting sat down to watch it alone.
However, the moment that Angelica Huston’s Grand High Witch turns from a human-looking, yet terrifying woman into a monstrous creature is one that is still ingrained in many Gen-X jkids’ memoirs.
Where the Red Fern Grows (1974)
This is a movie that came out when most Gen-X kids were tiny, but it has such a legacy that it traumatized kids both with the movie and the source novel, which was inexplicably assigned to read in elementary schools across the Midwest at the time. The Wilson Rawls novel was assigned reading for kids, and it was horrifying.
Where the Red Fern Grows is about a young boy named Billy Coleman who owned a pair of Redbone Coonhounds he used for coon hunting. Billy bought these puppies, named Dan and Ann, with his own money and raised them from puppies to become prized hunting dogs.
However, this movie (and the novel) ended with one of the most traumatic and distressing moments in Gen-X history. A lion attacks Billy and Dan, and Ann saves him. However, Dan dies in the battle, and Ann, depressed, dies of sadness and starvation, leaving little Billy, and every Gen-X kid who read/saw this, traumatized.