Common sense tells us that the fastest way to break a young person’s brain is to show them horror movies and scenes of abject violence. But this is also a bit misleading: screen-based trauma doesn’t exclusively stem from an early diet of Freddy Krueger and Hostel. You could plonk your children in front of the most innocuous, PG-rated fluff and still give them long-lasting nightmares.
How else to explain the plight of The Independent’s Culture and Lifestyle desks, who’ve curated a list of the films that traumatised them as youngsters. Is there a Jeepers Creepers in the list? A Saw? No! Instead there are numerous entries from the Disney canon and a cosy childhood romance film that inexplicably ends with one of the young lovers being stung to death by bees.
