22 of the Most Accidentally Disturbing Movie Scenes

If you grew up in the ‘80s (or on ancient VHS tapes in the ‘90s and aughts), you’re all too aware that creative types can set out to deliver fun for the whole family and end up serving pure terror. This was the decade when Hollywood decided to make a sequel to The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy gets nonconsensual electroshock therapy, and that’s not even the part that gives children nightmares. Sometimes, scenes intended to be a little disturbing just overshoot the hell out of their mark and land squarely in pants-soiling territory.

For Redditor RexBanner1886, “one particular moment” of 1996’s Mars Attacks! “really got to” them. Just after the cartoonish death of a soldier played by Jack Black, “the film then cuts to the soldier’s loving, proud parents, who have been watching the massacre live on television,” they told r/Movies. “Black’s father, Joe Don Baker, reacts to his son’s death by trying to change the channel and mumbling, ‘It didn’t happen, it didn’t happen.’ I still think this is a startlingly dark and horrific — and pretty realistic — depiction of how a parent might immediately begin processing seeing their child’s horrific death.”

They then asked for more “moments in films more disturbing than the creators likely intended,” so get ready to relive your childhood trauma.