To think, with hindsight, showing The Neverending Story to a class of 6 year olds was a terrible idea?!

[AngeloMysterioso]

I was one of the 6 year olds in question.

The year was 1991. My teacher in primary school (infants year 1) put it on for us one day.

That shit gave me nightmares for I don’t even know how long. I worried the wolf was going to emerge from any given dark nook or cranny and try to kill me. I worried that the random statues that dotted the town where I lived were going to shoot lasers at me out of their terrifying stone eyes.

And of course, Artax… don’t even get me started on poor bloody Artax.

I haven’t watched it in a really long time so I’m sure the special effects and puppetry would look hilarious these days but still… AIBU to wonder what the fuck my teacher was thinking?!

Absolutely awful some of these stories! Children of a certain age are unable to process dark film/TV material and so should not be allowed to watch it as certain content can be very damaging to them, even if the content reflects themes from real life (death, disease etc). Completely irresponsible by the adults involved.

YANBU! My school also did this in the 80s - what were they thinking???? Watching that poor horse drown in a mud swamp, and the wolf beast - they must have been on glue showing that to little kids.

I remember one year when I was 7? 8? My Mum, during the Royal Variety Performance advert breaks would change channel and watch a few minutes of Predator. Those few short snippets were enough to scare the crap out of me for a long time, and I had to sleep with not even the tiniest gap in my curtains at night, because I thought the predator would see me through the gap and come and get me! Even now I don’t like gaps in my curtains.

This - where all the wires whip round her?

Was that Superman 3 with Richard Wilder - the comedian. I might have made that name up! Even the 'glass baddies' coming back from didn't bother me as much as that!

No he worked with Gene Wilder.

No he didn't I've everyone's names confused!!

Prior!!

Watcher in the Woods nightmares for years - Shown at a kids club I watched it a few years ago still terrifying!!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Watcher_in_the_Woods_(1980_film)

They are very careful now!
Our year 6 DS's class had to pick from U rated films at Christmas as the teacher said she couldn't show them PGs as their parents weren't present.

Return to Oz - the wheelers, the Queen with all the heads in glass cases. Scary but I loved it! Never ending Story was also fantastic but 10 year old me was thinking “put the fucking Amulet on the horse and ride out of the swamp” RIP Arrex

There are sanitised versions. Or just read the non-gory ones. I’ve read some to DS aged 5/6 and he enjoyed them (sanitised version of the Odyssey without all the shagging Circe and hanging of handmaidens, the Minotaur, Trojan Horse, Medusa).

Incidentally, I remember an amazing Tony Robinson series called “Odysseus the greatest hero of them all” on tv when I was a child, but can’t find it anywhere online - can anyone help? He also did a series on Boudicca.

@MummBRaaarrrTheEverLeaking I loved Flight of Dragons, I actually bought my kids a dvd copy of it from eBay a few years ago but I've lost the copy...where did you find the online version?

Oh god @ZenNudist I often think about the bloody Zoul dog things. Absolutely terrifying. I've been really scared of dogs ever since, but thought it was just me who was so traumatised by this. I'm glad there's someone else! I never understand people enjoying horror films when I can't even cope with Ghostbusters 😅

From archive.org 😀

https://archive.org/details/the-flight-of-dragons-1982-rankinbass

YANBU . First year senior we were shown a graphic video of a woman giving birth. I went green and had to leave the room. Gave me a lifelong fear of giving birth. Had a planned CS but it’s a shame really if I hadn’t felt so negatively about childbirth I would have loved more children.

I remember, at school, reading a book or story about a legendary character called Edward Mordake who supposedly had a face on the back of his head. (A bit like Quirrell/Voldemort in the first HP book.)

Apparently the face could laugh and whisper to him and stuff and he begged to have it removed but they wouldn’t so he killed himself. I had nightmares for months.

The Wheelers !! Ye gods yes i'd forgotten about them!

And Mombi was it? The Queen with all her heads all alive in the room of cases 😲

I vaguely remember that in the tick tok costume was one of the presenters from blue peter. I haven't googled to check so could be wrong.

I loved that Tony Robinson series on Odysseus, you can buy the books online still although the illustrations aren’t the same as the original. Best retelling of history for children before Horrible Histories.

I adored Mombi and her heads!! She seemed very glamorous to me, and to have the option of swapping out your face and hair at a whim seemed impossibly fun...

I loved that as a young teen.
You can get it on Audible.
https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Odysseus-The-Greatest-Hero-of-them-All-Audiobook/B006347LH2

Totally wrong. I won't watch it even now because the horse drowning upsets me so much. Plus there's a lot of really frightening material in it. It's not suitable for 6 year olds and I would be upset if a 6 year old of mine was being shown it.

My aunt was a teacher who worked with teens with literacy difficulties... She had a bunch of easy to read books about quite adult topics.

Aged around 9 I was in her classroom for a day and read through "My Hiroshima" ("I found the bodies of many of my friends," "I saw people with their skin hanging from their fingertips") and "This is the house that crack built" (people gunned down in fields, teen pregnancy and in-utero opiate addiction), both complete with illustrations.

I think the fact I can still remember the words and the pictures more than 20 years on is testament to the impact.

Yay, there's more than one of us!

I was terrified of this for years, but could not remember what film it was from at all!

Then watched it as an adult with DP and it all came flooding back. And it's the least scary thing ever!

Don't know why it had such an affect one as a kid, but I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Ugh those wheelers were terrifying! I still have that film - the Nome King is horrible as well

That is quite a disturbing movie.
I was shown watership down around 6 years old at school and had about 15+ years of recurring nightmares of being trapped in a rabbit warren being chased by the creepy rabbit from watership down. Probably contributed to my claustrophobia as well.

Watership down, I've only watched ot the once and that was enough. I have 4 dc and 2 are adults now and the younger 2 are teen/pre teen and none of them have watched it after how I go on about it

Loved return to oz but think I was older when I watched that

Ghostbusters is now classified 12A, though for sexual references rather than frightening scenes.