This week, inspired by the great new stop motion animated release Paranorman, we delve in to a list of kids or family films that are frightening, demented and often just plain old messed up. We then end things with another edition of Love it/Hate it.
New episodes of Adjust Your Tracking are released every Thursday, so make sure to come back and check out what Joe and Erik are discussing every week. We’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section, or feel free to email adjustyourtracking@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/adjustyourtrack. We’re on iTunes now, so make sure to subscribe to the show by clicking the link below. Also, leaving reviews and rating the show on iTunes is really helpful in getting more attention and attracting more listeners, so please do so if you like what we do. You can also stream the episode on the embedded player below.
WARNING: Explicit language is used in this podcast.
Haven’t even finished listening to this yet but just had to say LOVED the Gremlins theme! One my favorite atypical “Christmas” movies of all time, right up there with Millions.
From a child’s perspective, the children’s film that most “fucked me up” was definitely ET. I saw it theatrically, at night, at a very young age and just didn’t enjoy it AT ALL. The way ET walked around like a hobbling old troll, the bloody looking floppy heart thing he had, the way he looked when he was “dead” in the freezer, and the harrowing noises he made whether scared or just surprised. Whenever he went to touch Elliot I was completely convinced he was about to eat his face off. Had to dismantle the pile of stuffed animals in my closet so I could open it without fear that summer.
Speaking as an adult, Grave of the Fireflies upset me more than any film I’ve ever watched. It probably REALLY didn’t help that by coincidence my wife and I spent all day before we watched it at a friend’s house laughing and playing with their children. Then on a random whim we said “hey, it’s late but we’re not sleepy…are there any Ghibli films we’ve never seen?” It was the most toxic possible (unintentional) combo experience possible, the emotional equivalent of mixing unsafe-to-mix industrial chemicals. The film is harrowingly sincere and excellently made, but I don’t think I ever want to see even a still from it again. I didn’t sleep for two days, felt constantly nauseated, and just sort of constantly wondered if humanity deserves to go on. I think I eventually just binged on a bunch of cheesy comedies and comfort foods to recover.
Unicorn chaser and honorable mention (since both of those stories are frightening even to retell) on a warmer note: the moment-from-a-kids-movie that effects me most as a grown up, in a film I absolutely love to rewatch despite my utter inability to avoid misting up…comes from Brad Bird before his Pixar days…
“SUUUUUUUUUPERMAN.”