[Archive] 8 Creepy, Bizarre, or Otherwise Messed-up Family Movies & Musicals

8. Labyrinth (1986)

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First of all, “Labyrinth” features the scariest mullet of all time. Secondly, Jennifer Connelly’s uni-brow is unsettling to say the least.

Then there is a bizarre nightmarish landscape, mutant muppets, and David Bowie’s desire to sacrifice an infant for the eternal youth that he later got via botox.

Bowie plays the King of Goblins who kidnapped Connelly’s infant brother. The King lures Connelly’s to his labyrinth where he alternates between frightening her, threatening her brother, and attempting to seduce her with pedophile-o-rific serenades. Along the way Connelly is assisted by an assortment of living stuffed animals and little people. All kinds of freak going on here.

7. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

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Here is another movie that kids all across all lands get a hoot from. E.T. is so cute, right? Cute?! Are you freaking kidding me? He looks like a walking lizard with a magical laser on his finger.

The alien has an itchy finger, freaks out at the slightest thing, brought hordes of U.S. Secret Agents with firearms walkie talkies to bare down on young children, and from simple toys and electronic parts was able to manufacture an interstellar communication device to contact his people to rescue him – or pick him up after his recon of the area as a prelude to an invasion force. The fact that E.T.’s race of alien was in the Star Wars prequels pretty much solidifies that they are an evil race bent on destruction.

Whereas most of the movies on this list mistreats the psyche of children for no good reason other than to make them more controllable by adults, E.T. shows children the exact wrong thing to do in case of an alien invasion. One should not harbor an alien and help it escape. We have no idea what it’s up to. Come’on, man.

6. Wizard of Oz (1939)

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One could argue that Oz is intended to be scary; that the house being pulled up by a tornado and a green skin sorceress are supposed to freak one out.

That person would be correct. However, those are relatively benign when compared to evil flesh eating flying monkeys, renegade Oompa Loompas, folks murdered by houses falling on stop of them, and finally the three freaks of nature, the Tin-Man with his menacing axe; the Scarecrow – no kidding, a freaking living scarecrow; and a fat guy with a speech impediment dressed up in a lion costume. It’s like weirdo night in Branson, Missouri. These three are bad enough on their own, but once the renegade Oompa Loompas start their pagan chanting, a person is immediately plunged into a hypnotic shock in order, one would assume, to paralyze the viewer as prey for the flying flesh eating monkeys.

There is no part of “the Wizard of Oz” that is not a frightening freak out. The only thing missing is the three freaks and the Oompa Loompas joining hands and dancing around Dot and her poor dog chanting, “One of us, one of us, one of us.”

5. Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (1990)

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One would think that the final musings in one of the final films by brilliant Japanese auteur Akia Kurosawa would be peaceful offerings of a life well spent. Kurosawa’s life was not so easy, though, growing up in an occupied, warring, and eventually conquered Japan. And his “Dreams” show that tumultuous life in mind cleaving clarity.

The vignettes include a zombie army, a wailing demon, a nuclear meltdown near Mt. Fuji, and four mountaineers freezing to death in a snow storm. These moving images are frightening enough in the hands of an unrivaled artist like Kurosawa. However, the peaceful images are perhaps more likely to permeate one’s dreams. There are a few peaceful-like episodes of dreams, the most tranquil being the “Village of Water Mills,” but a less obviously disturbed one had the most sinister effect on me; That being the “Sunshine Through the Rain” which is at times a magically visual feast, but disturbs the viewer with the uncanny procession of the mythical fox wedding (video below).

4. Gremlins (1984)

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Hahaha hohoho. Just thinking about the premise of “Gremlins” makes my belly shake just like it would anyone able to see it under its PG rating. I mean, the movie is about a mysterious sentient guinea pig-teddy bear called a Mogwai who gives birth to slimy eggs pods that produce scaly evil monsters that in turn torture the Mogwai and murder humans. What’s not hilarious about that? Oh. Everything? Right.

The gremlins birthed by the cute and cuddly Gizmo the Mogwai are some of the most ruthless and cunning killers ever put on screen. The fact that sometimes they could dress up, smoke a cigar, and joke around just made their level of depravity that much higher. They wanted nothing more than to break stuff an kill people. It was their only goal in life. “Gremlins” gets by with a PG rating while some sappy schlock like “American Pie” is considered not appropriate for youths under 17. Good grief.

3. Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

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Trip inside the mind of the increasingly fucked up Beatles in the late 60s and all one is rewarded with is this intently uncomfortable film that spawned the iconic phrase, “I am the walrus.” Philosophers of the ages have argued just what being “the Walrus” might mean as a symbolic relationship between the daily outlook of the band, its leadership, and quarrels. However, the movie otherwise features disgusting, agitating, and headache inducing scenes of morbid psychodelia reflecting the myopic destitution of the Beatles post Peppers, Pre Abbey Road attitude.

This shit makes the humanity hating The Wall by Pink Floyd seem a well reasoned and dispassionate argument in comparison.

The Fab Four, being quintessential envelope pushers, succeeded in branding a movie that is nearly un-watchable in its sadistic visual vulgarity, but at the same time features a mostly strong musical effort with many iconic songs on the soundtrack. However, the commentary on the tracks posses the group’s most scathing views on society before finally giving way to the suddenly ironic “All you need is love” as the last song.

Before viewing “Magical Mystery Tour,” I recommend an attitude of artistic detachment. Although the movie seems to be tailored for those on acid or mushrooms, I would not recommend the experience.

2. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

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Kids are tough sumbitches, no doubt about it. They make it through big whopping lies from their parents like the Easter Bunny, Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and other manipulative fables designed to solidify parental and societal dominance. The majority of them still grow up to be relatively decent people albeit with their parent instilled tendency to lie in spectacular fashion. Perhaps one of the most evil and vile creations of adult sadism is the glad-to-be-born-into-slavery Rudolph the freaking Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Allegorically racist and literally demented, the 1964 stop animation scare-fest stars what appear to be living dolls as humans, snow creatures, and reindeer, who live in a dystopian community in a freezing neither-region supposedly located at Earth’s North Pole. Led by The Great White One, Santa, the little brown reindeer compete in humiliating games in order to gain the privileged to serve Master Santa.

Additionally the movie features one of the first real monsters that a child will be introduced to: The ridiculously named “Bubbles,” The Gigantic Long-Fanged Monster who wants to gore children, Santa, and reindeer alike. Lost in all of this horror is the zany mish mash of mythologies which are sure to confuse the piss out of a kid once he recovers from the fright of nightmarish living dolls, etc.

Yes, sir. If one’s aim is to subject a child to something that seeds the psyche and frightens the hell out of them, he couldn’t do much better than Red Rudolph.

1. Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971)

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Quite simply one of the most twisted and frightening films ever made, Wonka has mastered the con in which somehow people are able to believe that this twisted nightmare of mayhem is a kid’s movie. Children are knocked off in grotesque fashion in Wonka – something that is rare in “horror” films even today. The death scenes are violent lessons for children with the symbolic murdering of childhood vices. Then interwoven amidst the demise of the bratty and obnoxious “bad” children are performances by the ever-present army of deviant Lilliputians, the Oompa Loompa.

Children are manipulated across all cultures with outright lies and dire warning-filled stories told by parents trying to force a child to adhere to an adult’s definition of behaving well. The most famous icon of Western culture, Santa Clause, is the greatest example of that device. Misbehave in our eyes, children, and you will have treats withheld and be rendered an outcast. Wonka takes that threat much further and actually infers that “bad” children will suffer a tortuous death if they dare misbehave. Hey mom and dad: Nice work plopping ones kid down in front of the television while this snuff film plays. Try interacting with the child instead of using a DVD as a baby sitter.