Many of us remember watching movies and feeling unease (and in many cases straight up terror) when we just didn’t "get it." The thought occurred to me when my son who fast forwards past the first forty-five minutes of Return of the Jedi couldn’t wait to see what the sarlacc pit looked like in Lego Star Wars II. It came up again when we after we went to see
Wall-E. He simply didn’t understand why the earth was a mess and if that really was what the future held. He pressed for answers, but he was obviously confused by it and it bothered him a great deal. Days later and his new mission in life is to save the planet. It seems that much of what we love about geek culture today stemmed from something that terrified us as children.
So it is that we hearken back to those moments of fright and confusion that stuck with us through the years.
Here’s my list of top 10 mind jobs:
- Watching Aliens
before the age of 10
- The ending of Time Bandits
- Captured spy scene from The Last Starfighter
- All of Wizards
- The zombie/witch dolls of Unico
- Crying at the finale of Godzilla 1985
- The balloons from The Prisoner
- Nazi face melting in the Raiders of the Lost Ark
- The alien screams in X-COM
- Death of the Skeksie Emperor in The Dark Crystal
Let us know what tweaked your brainmeats as a kid!
