The Exorcist, Nightmare On Elm Street, The Shining, The Thing, Halloween and The Evil Dead.
Some of the scariest films ever made……
Yet none of these films are as terrifying as Watership Down – also known as the Hampshire Bunny Massacre.
As part of our 31 Days Of Horror celebration of all things macabre, we take a look at some of the most frightening and shocking moments in family friendly movies.
Star Wars: The Original Trilogy (1975-1983)
Shocking Moment: A Farewell to Arms
Despite all being rated U, the original Star Wars trilogy features plenty of violent scenes – most of which involving the frequent dismemberment of hands or arms.
During the battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke’s hand is lopped off at the wrist by a well placed lightsabre swipe. It’s clearly a painful moment for Luke…. But perhaps, not quite as painful as the revelation that follows.
There’s also the cuddly Wampa on Hoth, and in the first Star Wars, we see Obi-Wan Kenobi cut Ponda Baba’s arm off during a scuffle in Mos Eisley Cantina. This obsession with dismemberment is so apparent throughout the films, that the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail wouldn’t be out of place.
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36 Comments
I was certainly fighting back a weep during the incinerator scene of Toy Story 3. Great list dude!
Can’t believe the rating on Poltergeist, that is some scary stuff!
Great list – some truly crazy moments for films with such low ratings. Add me to the list of those who can’t believe the Poltergeist rating!
Suddenly have the erge to have a Dahl/ Spielberg Double Bill..great list. Not sure which picture is freaking me out more, the bunny or the Ceti Eel.
Poltergeist was actually an X, not a 15, meaning you had to be 18 or over to see it; this was before the 15 rating was established, so it was re-classified after that rating started being used. In America it received an R rating from the MPAA but the filmmakers appealed it. At the time, there was no PG-13 rating so when the appeal was successful the film became a PG. Therefore you had the probably unique situation of a movie that is PG-rated in America have an (equivalent) 18-rating in Britain. Between this, Gremlins and Temple of Doom, Spielberg pretty much singlehandedly brought forward the age of the PG-13 in American blockbusters.
Good list except for the Ghostbuster’s thing for “paranormal sexual activity.” Really? The terror dogs left more of an impression on me than that throwaway piece involving Aykroyd ‘s belt and zipper. How about replacing that with the giant demonic rabbit Kevin McCarthy, as Uncle Walt, pulls out of the hat in the “It’s a Good Life” life segment of the Twilight Zone Movie (another effort involving Speilberg)? I’m also finding it kinda funny that nothing by Steven Sommers made the list, even though it seems he was really going for shocking with some of the ways in which the characters died in The Mummy movies and in Van Helsing, though those are all actually PG-13.
The elctro-shock scene in return to oz, hands down the most disturbing.
The electro-shock scene was not found in the OZ books and yet it is less disturbing than many events in the book series. TIN WOODSMAN OF OZ explains that a witch cursed a young woodsman to lop off a limb everytime he goes of to work in hopes of stopping him from marrying the witch’s servant girl. After each injury a tinsmith replaces each destroyed body part until there is no human left. A similar fate happens to a young soldier who falls in love with the same servant girl and in time the soldier becomes a Tin Soldier. The book ends when the Tin Soldier and the Tin Woodsman find the servant girl who took body parts from both of her lovers and pieced them together into a frankenstein monster and married it. One cannot get creepier than that.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE (1996), LOST WORLD: Jurassic Park and INDIANA JONES & THE LAST CRUSADE were all PG-13. There’s this thing called IMDB.com that’s really easy to check out and verify this information.
Thanks for your sarcastic comment. However, had you taken a moment to read anything within the article, or indeed simply the title, you would have noted the reference to the “U” rating which is not even used in American movie ratings. This would have given you a clue as to what classifications were used when determining what made it into this list.
The article refers to BBFC ratings not MPAA, if you go across the seas you find other nations not monsters.
Another Spielberg film you could add to the list is, “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind”. I haven’t seen it for a while but I’m pretty sure there’s some bad language, touchy subjects (Family breaking up) and a long scene where the dad is having a huge breakdown while shouting at the mother, and all with kids looking on.
Why isn’t Judge Doom dipping that helpless shoe into “the dip” on this list!!?? Who Framed Roger Rabbit FTW.
You’re absolutely right, that’s a tough watch – still has the power to make me feel sad for ages. The bit where Judge Doom first turns into a toon was pretty scary too.
One shocking moment is when they shot ol’ yeller…
The previously stated shoe dipping scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? should definitely be on the list.
Also, the scene in Gremlins where Billy’s Mom fights the newly hatched Gremlins in the kitchen (melting on in the microwave and blending another)!
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/modern_problems/
Near the end, there’s a scene where Chevy Chase’s love interest is in bed and she sits up revealing a nip slip.
Also, there is an entire genre of Rapture-based fantasy including such classics as A Thief in the Night
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070795/
While it may debatable about how “family friendly” these movies are, they were shown in churches all over America.
“…with director Nicolas Roeg unafraid to tone down the frightening aspects of the novel.”
I don’t think you said what you meant, there.
Gremlins was cert 15 I am sure of it, so was Airplane.. And I’m almost pretty certain poltergeist was never a PG?! Unless I’ve led a different life all these years.
The bit at the end of roger rabbit… When the villain gets flattened by the steam roller?!
I still can’t get over that face-ripping scene in Poltergeist was a PG is some places for a time …. mental,
Poltergeist was very advanced in effects at it’s time. I was 12 yrs old when it came to my town and many of my classmates went the same night. About 80% of the people in the theater bailed before it was over. It should have had an R rating without a doubt.
How about “Beneath the Planet of the Apes”? Very violent, everybody dies at the end, the world blows up good, end credits. Rated G !!
I’ve always found terrifying the scene early in “The Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy is flying through the air in the house and she looks out the window and sees the wicked witch of the east(?) bicycling through the air and laughing at Dorothy. The horrifying music plays a big role: da-DA da-DA da-DA-DA! da-DA da-DA da-DA-DA!
Jenny Agutter is shown full frontal nude in both Logan’s Run and Walkabout, both rated PG, and both movies also feature additional nudity.
What about Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing? That was PG and there was a ton of nudity on top of quite a bit of violence.
Plague dogs.
Beetlejuice.
PG.
Killer food, face peel, a beheaded Alec Baldwin. An F-bomb and multiple sexual innuendos, courtesy of Micheal Keaton.
Should’ve definitely been on the list.
I always found Watcher in the Woods terrifying when I was younger, especially the hall of mirrors scene and when the little girl becomes possessed. Also the scene in Superman 3 when the woman gets trapped in the computer and is turned into a robot gave me nightmares!
How about of Disney’s Blackhole where the villain is shown in Hell encased in his robot for all eternity.
Beetlejuice was certificate 15…
Um, I’m fairly certain the Dark Crystal is PG (maybe PG-13?) and that entire movie with the vulture-like puppet things was traumatizing as a kid.
I really have no idea why the Mission Impossible scene wasn’t cut half a second earlier.
Watching the film Hook as a kid I never liked the part where the pirate is locked in a chest and scorpions are thrown in. Also Disneys Fantasia is quite frightening during ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ where all the ghosts and skeltons rise from their graves and dance around.
I always found Legend and the Neverending story a bit shocking when I was younger and I remember once watching Legend on my own and screaming the house down I got suck a big fright.
Yeah, “Watership Down” was like…
I saw this list… “Watership Down”? This must be fan fiction! What the heck did I just see? A bloodthirsty rabbit, that’s what. I think they never saw the movie at all, just the cute trailer. (I saw only that too)
Also, I’m same on Star Wars. I would rate them 12, and all of them together 15! Also, in “Scooby-Doo: The Movie (live-action”, Scrappy well… urinates on Daphne in a flashback.