20 Movies That Could've Been Horror Movies
14. Matilda
Danny DeVito's 1996 adaptation of Roald Dahl's Matilda is an unassailable classic family comedy, and also one of the most nightmarish coming-of-age films ever made.
That's largely because Dahl's story subjects its title character (Mara Wilson) and much of its young ensemble to so much abuse at the hands of the adults charged with caring for them.
Matilda is neglected at best by her charlatan parents (DeVito and Rhea Perlman), while she and her classmates are physically and mentally abused by their tyrannical school principal, Miss Trunchbull (Pam Ferris).
Trunchbull literally has a spiked closet called the Chokey, tosses a girl into orbit by her pigtails, and somehow made an entire generation of young viewers shudder at the most delicious-looking chocolate cake you've ever seen.
In all of its elevated glory, Matilda feels like an ultimate expression of the idea that growing up can be absolutely hell. It may not be horror, but to anyone who watched it as a young'un, it was downright petrifying.