VINTAGE SCENE KIDS FULL

The sequence only lasts a few seconds, yet as kids, it seemed to last for ages, probably because the notion of being grabbed by loads of grasping hands felt like something from a half-forgotten fever dream. Take the scene above, where she stumbles down a hole and has her fall broken by dozens of gray hands poking out of the walls. What really disturbed us as kids wasn’t the Thin White Duke’s wardrobe, but some of the darker alleys Sarah finds on her journey through the labyrinth. And, as you’d expect by now, some of the images in Labyrinth are really disturbing–as Louisa Mellor pointed out in her look back at the movie. There’s Bowie’s revealing leggings to contend with, for a start. It’s a winning mix of catchy songs and superbly-designed creatures. “He didn’t think it was healthy for children to always feel safe.” Well, if Henson and Oz wanted to give us sleepless nights as kids, all we can say is: mission accomplished.Īnother fruitful collaboration between Jim Henson and illustrator Brian Froud, Labyrinth has grown into a much-loved cult classic about a teenage girl, Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), who finds herself stuck in the titular maze presided over by the Goblin King (David Bowie). “He thought it was fine to scare children,” Oz told SF Gate in 2007. Read more: The Princess Bride is a Perfect Fantasy MovieĪccording to Frank Oz, Henson wanted to make The Dark Crystal as an homage to the darker tones of Grimm’s fairy tales. Even as cynical grown-ups, we still find them pretty convincing… and more than a little scary.

As kids, we were so convinced by the Skeksis that we never stopped to consider that they weren’t living, breathing creatures. They’re great villains: intimidating and, as the dinner scene above proves, downright grotesque.

One of the film’s most memorable creations is the Skeksis–a race of evil creatures that resemble rotting vultures in long, elaborate gowns. Featuring concept designs by fantasy illustrator Brian Froud, it’s one of those films where every set, costume and puppet is packed with detail–a true labor of love from Henson and co-director Frank Oz. We didn’t necessarily recognize all the sexual undercurrents in this sequence as kids, but we knew, deep in our subconscious, that there was something truly disturbing about it.Īs an achievement in puppetry and artistry, The Dark Crystal is one of the late Jim Henson’s high watermarks. Or there’s the bit where the story’s young heroes encounter a talking skeleton with glowing red eyes.įor sheer, mentally-scarring weirdness, we’d go for the scene where the magician, Schmendrick (Alan Arkin) misuses a magic spell and turns a tree into a talking, suggestive-looking tree. Then there’s a sequence where a witch played by Angela Lansbury is killed by a vicious harpy. First there’s a formidable villain, the Red Bull, played by Frank Welker (most famous as the voice of Megatron). An animated fantasy from Rankin-Bass Productions, it features a starry cast of voice actors, including Jeff Bridges, Mia Farrow, and Christopher Lee–plus too many startling and surreal images to accurately count. As brought to the screen by director Walter Murch, however, the Wheelers are little short of terrifying: cackling, long-limbed, mask-wearing lunatics who hurtle around the shabbier areas of Oz like a cross between Richard O’Brien and a Ford Fiesta. As one commenter on YouTube helpfully points out, “They’re actually harmless since they have no hands to grab hold of anything – like any quadruped predator, they can still bite.”Ī brief anecdote, if you don’t mind: your humble writer saw The Last Unicorn on its theatrical release in 1982, and still hasn’t quite recovered from the experience. Frank Baum himself in his original Oz books. This brings us onto the Wheelers–characters that, to be fair, were created by L. Read more: Return to Oz – A Disturbing ’80s Fantasy Classic

VINTAGE SCENE KIDS FULL

Instead what you get is something closer to Mad Max 2–the land of Oz is broken down and full of danger, and there are horrifying, nightmare-inducing monsters everywhere you look. It’s a bit like going to Toys R Us to look at the Sylvanian Families and discovering that the building’s been turned into an abattoir. Picture this: you’ve watched The Wizard Of Oz every Christmas, and you’re excited about going to the cinema and seeing another light fantasy along the same lines.

Vintage scene kids