This movie PERMANENTLY traumatized me
To this day, only one movie, out of the thousands of films I've seen over the years, ever truly traumatized me. That movie is E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial.
I was an 80s baby, and in the years after the movie's release, naturally my mom bought it on VHS thinking it would be a cute, uplifting film for a young kid to watch. What she didn't realize is that she had made a big, BIG mistake.
All it took was witnessing the cornfield scene for the very first time as an impressionable 5-year-old, and the die had been cast. This was a horror film as far as my childhood self was concerned.
So many scenes and details disturbed me overwhelmingly, in particular these:
• Music/sound effects at beginning (so eerie)
• FBI chase scene at beginning (the screeching figure running through the ferns)
• Cornfield scene
• E.T.'s hand coming out of the bushes to grab Reese's Pieces candies
• Back-and-forth exchange of the baseball from the tool shed
• Closet scene with E.T. among the dolls
• Gertie encountering E.T. for the first time
• Government listening in on the household from a van on the street
• E.T. bloated and face-down in the pond
• Elliott's mom encountering E.T. for the first time in the bathroom
• Scientists entering the house in astronaut suits
It's pretty much one scary/creepy/eerie scene after another.
When I was little, I was too afraid to even open my eyes lying in bed at night in fear that that sausage-skinned monster would be squatting there next to my bed, waiting to gnaw my face off with his jagged E.T. teeth. I was absolutely terrified. E.T. was (and still is) a recurring subject in my nightmares. I still can't sleep with my closet door open.
Whenever I'm surprised by an advertisement with E.T., a photo on a website, or even if anyone ever mentions the movie casually, a jolt shoots down my spine, and my heart rate instantly jumps. This is the effect he still has on me as a grown adult!
Despite the movie's impact on my life, I somehow still feel captivated by the story, and watch it again every few years because I get a thrill from it.
Has this movie affected/disturbed/traumatized anyone else as much as it did me?