Probably the most well-known director in the world today, and has been for the last twenty or thirty years, Steven Spielberg is the king of the family-movie. Now, while he knows all too well how to make adult cinema – as anyone who has seen Saving Private Ryan, Munich, Lincoln, Minority Report and so on can testify – but nobody gets the families into the theatres quite like he can.

But while some of the movies would be must-watches for the kiddies, there are some scenes in here that will most likely psychologically scar them for life. Every child needs a good “kids” film that will traumatise them all the way into adulthood, and Spielberg has got these types of movies to spare!

 

JURASSIC PARK
Starting off with the most obvious one, but did Spielberg have it in for kids when he was making this movie? Admittedly, he didn’t kill any of them off, but he tortured them more than just about any of the surviving adults. They get tossed around in a car, one gets dumped off a cliff, then one gets sneezed on, then the other one gets electrocuted, and then they both get chased around a kitchen by knife-toe’d raptors.

Things didn’t pick up for the sequel, which started off with an innocent little girl getting attacked by DOZENS of tiny dinosaurs, and towards the end a young boy watches his dog got swallowed whole by a T-Rex.

Child Therapist Sessions Needed: 7

 

 

WAR OF THE WORLDS
The world is on the brink of coming to an end, which is pretty traumatizing in general, but again Spielberg puts kids right into the midst of peril. Tom Cruise barely manages to get his two children out of town before aliens blow up their neighbourhood, only for them to nearly drown on a sinking boat. Then Dakota Fanning watches her brother blow up (except not really), right after she watches an entire river of dead bodies float past. Nightmare-ish.

To be honest though, would we really have minded if Cruise’s two kids were killed off? Fanning wouldn’t stop screaming, and his son was an absolute brat. Would’ve made for an even more traumatising movie if Spielberg had done them both in.

Child Therapist Sessions Needed: 6

 

A.I. ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE
First of all, even watching Haley Joel Osmond playing a robot child is probably enough to creep kids out sufficiently, so we’re off to a good start. Then there’s the idea that a mother can, if the mood strikes her, drive her child out into the woods and just abandon them there if she no longer feels like being a mother to that child.

For the rest of the movie, the tech tyke gets lost trying to find his way back to his mother, while also seeking out a way to become a real boy, so he can give her mother the love that she wants for her child. All the while, the kids watching are still thinking “She just… left him there?”, while suspiciously eyeing their own mother, wondering if she’s thinking of doing the same thing…

Child Therapist Sessions Needed: 8

 

HOOK
It’s debatable which is worse for the child; being abandoned, or being taken away. The kids in Hook find they’ve been kidnapped by Captain Hook, and their Peter Pan(ing) father has to fly all the way to NeverLand to get them back. Then the kids start to lose the memory of their actual parents – subtle Stockholm Syndrome simile there – and when they do find their father has come to save them, he too has no memory of them.

Of course, this all plays second fiddle to the fact that the kids’ dad is played by Robin Williams. That’s enough to send most adults into a psychotic tail-spin.

Child Therapist Sessions Needed: 9

 

E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL
Oh my God… We can’t even talk about this film without wanting to cry, such is the cavernous depths of the mental and emotional scarring this film has laid. The cute alien wants to be friends, cos he got left here accidentally (we hope) by his family (ABANDONMENT? AGAIN, SPIELBERG?), and he cosies up with a kid who’s dad is not around. It’s like having a pet AND a best friend all rolled into one, and then what does Spielberg do towards the end? Slowly kill it off. Seriously, Steven, what gives?

Of course, the “happy” ending involves the kid getting abandoned by his new best mate, and probably a lifetime of being probed and tested by the CIA and the rest of the government. Cheers, ET.

Child Therapist Sessions Needed: 10