Tonight I re-watched Agnes of God. Boy, that Jane Fonda isn’t much of an actress, is she? She seems to be of the “You can tell I’m acting because I’m SMOKING and I’m TALKING LOUDER” method, which is what I remember of my college boyfriend’s theater group.
I’m a little surprised I watched this movie as a CHILD, but actually it was probably totally okay because I realize on re-watching it I didn’t understand ONE SINGLE THING that was going on. For one thing, I didn’t realize the first time that Meg Tilly (Agnes) was supposed to be young. Nor did I understand she was supposed to be crazy, so, uh. I guess the blood might have upset me, but I don’t remember it. This time around it upset me more that there is a HUGE CHUNK left out of the solution to the mystery. As a child I thought I just didn’t understand it, but NO.
I DIDN’T see Witness, but I always think I did because I get it confused with Agnes of God. For some reason. They did come out the same year, but that’s all I’ve got by way of explanation.
The most traumatic movie I can’t believe I watched as a child was Time After Time, which (spoiler from 1979!) has a scene in which a girl hides in her closet while her best friend is killed by Jack the Ripper, who thinks the best friend is the girl. There is blood EVERYWHERE afterward. What traumatized me was not so much the blood (although, !!!) but the fact that the girl KNEW Jack the Ripper was coming for her at her apartment (she saw a newspaper from the future) but DIDN’T LEAVE because she was so paralyzed and upset. She just sits there weeping, waiting to be brutally murdered. THEN, she suddenly panics when he arrives and she hides, and just then her friend arrives.
I loved the movie Oliver!, except for the scene (spoiler from 1968!) where nice, nice Nancy is BEATEN TO DEATH, which I couldn’t BELIEVE was TRUE. Like, at first I just thought her boyfriend was beating her up, but then it turned out she was DEAD?? And Oliver SAW it happen?? Horrifying! At that stage I think I was innocent of the idea that men sometimes kill women they’re romantically involved with. Really, it’s a shocking concept.
I think I would have loved E.T. if I hadn’t been so repulsed by the slimy, ugly alien. All my friends thought he was so! cute! and had E.T. dolls and t-shirts and stuff, but the look of him made me feel sick and gave me bad dreams. His heart! glowing through his translucent skin! BARF.
Oh, I hated E.T. He freaked me out beyond belief as a child and I still can’t watch that movie. HATED IT. The glowing heart still gives me the heebs.
Also Agnes of God? When I was a super dramatic teenager who wanted to be a theatre actress – a GREAT theatre actress – my audition monologue was the crazy one from Agnes of God. And I never saw the movie and I never really knew the plot but MAN. I acted the HELL out of that monologue. Complete with tears and choked up voice.
E.T. is an ALIEN? YOU’VE RUINED IT!
I was TERRIFIED of ET when I was a kid. I always worried that he was hiding under my bed with Animal from the Muppets, plotting how they would grab my legs if I stood too close to the bed.
I never liked E.T. For that reason. Also when we were like 11, Miss Grace pointed out to me that one at some point someone calls a kid “penis breath!” and that is kind of horrifying, too.
Ok glad I’m not the only non-ET person out there. I watched it when I was little and it TERRIFIED me – I had no idea it was supposed to be a “feel good” movie – I thought it was a horror film. Later I watched it and it also had the nauseating affect. He is NOT cute and gah the heart and when he turns WHITE? Forget it..
I feel compelled to share that in all of my early years of watching Dirty Dancing I had NO CLUE what all of that “Penny situation” and “Dr. visit” stuff was about AT ALL. Once while a friend was over we were watching and she asked me. In an effort to look cool and all-knowing I told her (in a holier than thou tone mind you) that obviously it was b/c the man’s penis was dirty when it went inside of her – thus, giving her an infection.
I don’t know whether this makes the situation better or worse, but in *Time After Time* Amy isn’t paralyzed and weeping waiting for Jack the Ripper — she’s napping.
She and Wells make plans for her to go to a hotel before Jack arrives, then he leaves to try to find the killer, he’s (iirc) arrested for one of the other murders while she takes some pills and ends up sleeping through the alarm.
She wakes up with just minutes to spare before the future’s newspaper account says she is killed. Then — again, iirc — you cut to Wells basically confessing to the police to get them to go to Amy’s apartment. They arrive (and this is the part I remember as traumatizing), they open the door and the (mostly unscene) killing is so violent, one of the policemen throws up.
You don’t find out until later that Amy has been kidnapped by Jack and the victim was a friend Amy had forgotten she had asked to dinner. I think the closet-hiding was all in your mind.
We weren’t allowed to watch E.T. Everybody knows that aliens are really demons! ;)
I have a vivid memory from The Witness that freaked me out as a kid. I think it was a guy getting covered with corn until he died? Sounds weird but it was scary!
I read Agnes of God. Hard to really understand but probably better than the movie.
It is extremely crazy to think back to the movies I watched as a kid with my older sisters. The one I remember the most was called “Bad Ronald.”
The kid killed a girl and then his mother hid him in the walls of the house. The mother died, the house was sold and Ronald stayed in the walls. The new family had two teenage girls and Ronald continued to spy on the girls through a peephole in the wall.
Naturally he attempted to kill the girl toward the end. I believe I was seven when I watched that movie.
Christina- YES! I totally didn’t understand why Baby’s doctor dad was SO MEAN about Penny! She just got SICK, GEEZ!! What’s wrong with NEEDING MEDICAL CARE?? Then I saw it again when I was older and I was like OHHHHHHHHHH.
Leslie – Huh! Probably from a nightmare I had about it afterward! And OH, now that you mention it, I remember the officer throwing up!!! But why DOES Amy stay in the apartment AND TAKE PILLS, instead of going to the hotel? And then, where WAS Amy while her friend was being killed? Oh, crap, am I going to have to re-watch that movie?
The movie that still really freaks me out is Children of the Corn. “Malachai…Malachai” ::shudder:: For some stupid reason, during high school at a sleepover with my two best friends we rented that and CotC II (VHS!). Oh dear. We bravely made it through the first one nervously huddled together on the couch. What made it worse is my mother is one of those anti-curtain/valances ONLY people, so there was that creepy “someone could be watching us right now…” feeling in the air. We tried watching the second one but turned it off after 10 minutes because it was just too…much. Later on in HS they forced two more movies into the franchise which I will never see.
Oh my gosh. I saw dirty dancing when I was 7 and just thought her dad was mean and had no idea why Penny needed a doctor!
Witness made it impossible for me to go to a public bathroom alone for years and years. Ooo, I wish you hadn’t mentioned it. Shudder…
My favorite movie as a kid was Die Hard so there probably is no accounting for taste!
Alien. I saw the movie Alien as a kid, and it freaked me right out. Especially the bit where Ripley is sneaking past the creature to go suit up and flush it out–and she can’t even take the time to ADJUST HER UNDERWEAR! GAH!
I also must admit that 2001 creeped me out. Not the smooth-voiced, psychotic HAL, oh no–it was the people in deep sleep on the ship. To a young child they seemed like Vampires! In Coffins! Which translated to my fear of going down to the DARK basement to the deep-freezer (it’s shaped like a COFFIN! with a LID!).
I vaguely remember Time after Time (but WHY don’t I remember the BLOODY scene?). I did buy the book in the library cast-off sale last fall. In the BOOK, she IS in the closet when Jack the Ripper shows up and turns her girlfriend inside-out. (Eeeeeeww!) (Did you perhaps read the book, Swistle?) And NOW I gotta go find my book again (did I donate that back?)–and probably watch the movie, too. (BTW: the book is written kinda lame, but I remember the movie being pretty awesome..?)
Long story short, I can’t BELIEVE some of the movies I got to see as a kid!
My most watched childhood movies: Meatballs, The Jerk, Blues Brothers, Alligator, Romancing the Stone, and Kramer Vs. Kramer. Holy crap. I think I will follow your lead since this shit clearly deserves it’s own blog post. Seriously?! ALLIGATOR?
Swistle, you are the silliest.
CAQuincy – OH! Maybe so! I mean, I definitely saw the movie, but maybe I later read the book too!
Ha! I never got more than ten minutes into “The Dark Crystal.” I was convinced those buzzard things were waiting for the old buzzard thing to die so they could eat him. I flipped the hell out.
I still haven’t seen it. I wonder if I could handle it now, at 34 years old?
I haven’t seen any of those except E.T. but when I re-watch movies and sometimes even series from my childhood (hello! Golden Girls!) I am amazed at how little I *really* understood.
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” scared the bajebus out of me. The whole fat-kid-in-the-pipe thing still gives me the chills. And when the chick blew up into a giant blueberry from a piece of gum?! Horrifying. And don’t even get me started on Oompa Loompas.
You’ve never actually seen Witness?? Forget about the scary and the suspense, both of which are there. It’s one of my favorites! Wonderful performances all around. Bonus 1: Harrison Ford is amazing and beyond dreamy. (This from someone who never liked Han Solo) and 2: Wonderful performance by Alexander Godunov (and again, file under “dreamy”) And yes, I am old
One word: Jaws.
I saw it the summer I was 9. Oh, and of course my mom liked to show off how she could swim way off shore IN THE OCEAN when we went to Cape Cod that SAME summer. I stood on shore screaming for her to “Come Back!!” Heck, I couldn’t even swim in a pool for awhile after that movie.
Seriously, I have a picture of me and my Mom with E.T., i’m talking lifesize scary alien, and I’m bawling and trying to escape. I even have an E.T. shirt on. If I can find it i’ll email it to you.
I had one of those red-along book/record (old!) things when I was younger of E.T. But in the book’s pictures, they really cuted him up, because when I did see the movie, I freaked OUT.
I still can’t watch alien movies. When my sister, mom, and I watched Signs, they were laughing at how corny everything was and I was sweatily clutching pillows for protection.
Still cannot get in the ocean without thinking about Jaws. Which was a huge problem since one of my fave childhood movies was SPLASH!!
OMIGOD, Splash! I was going to live life as a bathtub mermaid.
Oh, Jaws! I never saw the movie, all I saw was the COVER of the BOOK! That was PLENTY!
Splash, I loved Splash! Isn’t it funny that when she said her name was Madison, Madison was considered a totally crazy/hilarious non-name choice?
I don’t like ET either! I must have been too young when I saw it. The way ET looked and his voice freaked me out.
Just last week I put Time After Time on my netflix list. I loved that movie.
And I hated ET. Just plain old flat out hated it.
It’s funny what traumatizes kids and what doesn’t. My two-year-old niece is in love with Coraline, and everybody else doesn’t really like it because of the creepy factor. Now, we’d never seen it, but she kept on asking for “Movie Coraline, pease!”, so we bought one. I’m not sure I like it, either, but Evie does, so I guarantee we’ll be watching it fairly often!
Elephant Man.
omfgahahahahaaaaaahhhhh.
Elephant. Man.
does anyone remember ‘Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane’…w/ a really young (but as always, superclever) Jodie Foster?? Super creepy too, since all I remember about it is the ultracreepy MAN that is trying to get her through the whole movie. Yes, get her. But since Jodie is her usual self, she outsmarts him good in the end. Then creepy man does not, I repeat…does not get her.
but still I wonder, why the heck was I watching that movie?why wasn’t I watching like, gilligans island or threes company?
I really LMAO about the whole gross E.T. perspective. I never really looked @ him that way, but now that I think about it…i bet he stunk too. Unless he had a magical alien PH balance. Doubt it. What about his breath?? The scariest thing about ET?? The way he ran & waddled towards you when he became overwhemed & his voice got louder…the stuff nightmares are made of.
swistle, caquincy…u 2 are hilarious. Thx cardiogirl, I’m compelled to add ‘Bad Ronald’ to my Netflix Q!
I remember watching Agnes of God a lot. How?! Was it on TV often? Anyway, I don’t remember being spooked by that one, but Watcher in the Woods scared me as a kid. My husband and I watched it on Halloween a couple years ago and laughed like loons through the whole thing, so that was definitely just a kid thing. I remember reading the book as a teen, years after I’d seen the movie, though, and thinking the book was good. Witness is impressive.