1. Willy Wonka's Boat Ride
Confession: I have never taken LSD. It never seemed appealing to me. The colors, the shapes, and the misconception that Phish is a good band all just seemed like too much for me to handle. But the main reason I've avoided hallucinogenic drugs was because at a young age I'd already been privy to what can only be described as a Salvador Dali fever-dream. The scene in which Gene Wilder's mad chocolatier takes his tourists on a trip down a chocolate river in a boat powered only by the brute force of Oompa-Loompas should have left the audience with a sense of whimsical glee. Instead, we delve into a darkened tunnel to be welcomed by utter darkness giving way to flashing lights and colors. As Wonka admits he himself has no way to see where the hell the boat is going, we see images of a chicken being decapitated and an insect that could fairly be referred to as a "billipede" crawling over a man's face be displayed on the tunnel walls. Then, singing. But not the World-Of-Pure-Imagination kind. The kind of singing you'd here out of Peter Lorre's child murderer in M if he were only inclined to croon rather than whistle from Norwegian symphonies. Has Wonka gone totally crazy? Or are we just being toyed with? Is it raining, is it snowing? Is a hurricane a-blowing? Does it matter? Before Wonka even reaches his final blood-boiling scream, those passengers in the boat have... well, let's just say that river probably didn't start out as a chocolate one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zail7Gdqro Are you still going to be able to get a full night of sleep? Did I miss a seminal moment of your childhood fears? Leave a comment below or tweet me @BeastDuels.