Gateways to Horror

Why the 90s was the best decade to get kids into horror.

I feel like the 80s gets a lot of attention when it comes to gateway horror or just horror in general, and it’s warranted. The 1980s to me is still the pinnacle of monster movies. Practical effects reached new heights that they sadly would never reach again thanks in part to Jurassic Park changing the way the industry approached monster effects. That CGI ripple effect moved through the 90s until we were left with a twenty-first century landscape where practical monster effects were few and far between.

However, the 90s are often overlooked when it comes to what I believe to be the best time to be a kid who had any passing interest in horror (in part because I was a kid in the 90s). My reasoning here is this, yes the 80s were a magical time to be a cinema-obsessed child, but VHS was still a rarity for the early part of the decade and there were definitely few options to catch movies on TV. However, as someone who grew up in the 90s, we truly had the best of both worlds.

From a young age, I was exposed to all the classics of the 80s, but I was also going to the movies every weekend in the 90s, seeing a lot of things that I was probably too young to be seeing. And as someone who realized he loved horror from a young age, I wanted to take a closer look at this golden decade to examine many of the films I grew up watching from the 80s and 90s that I felt were gateways to horror, or in my case, just strengthened my ever-growing love of horror.

I’m going to break this post up into three sections to make this easier to organize my thoughts. First, I’ll be examining things that may not have been horror, but were dark children’s films. Films that today probably would not exist and yet back then, somehow still were being marketed to kids—and probably scarred many for life. Second, I’ll be looking at dark fantasy, as the 80s and some of the 90s were rife with fantasy films, many were aimed at kids, but still felt like they were bordering on horror at times. Finally, I’ll be looking at actual horror designed for kids, these are probably the most direct gateways many horror fans today might fondly remember from their childhoods.

Darkness is Spreading

This is probably the place most familiar to all kids who either grew up in the 80s and 90s, or just had cool parents who introduced them to these in later decades. The movies that had dark elements, but were not what I would describe as straight horror. Or straight fantasy, since that’s my second section.

Some of the things I wanted to examine here are stuff like Cloak & Dagger, Dick Tracy, Howard the Duck, Little Monsters, Scrooged, The Goonies, The Sandlot, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Young Sherlock Holmes, and pretty much anything from Tim Burton in the 80s/90s.

Now, there’s a lot more films than this out there that fit into this nebulous category of dark children’s films, but these are some of my personal favorites and that’s why I wanted to focus on them specifically. I could go on and on about what each meant to me and when I discovered them, but this post would get very long, very quickly (and it still might already be too long for some folks). So for the sake of brevity, I’m going to highlight aspects of each that felt like little tastes of horror for young minds to be frightened with and get a sense of why as adults we love horror. We like the danger, the thrill. It’s a brief adrenaline rush, that moment of fight or flight where we know we don’t really need to do either, but it’s a response to what we’re seeing as if it was really there in front of us. And of course the immediate release when we know we’re still safe in our homes (or movie theater).

I feel like the early works of Tim Burton are a good place to start, each of these films from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure up through Batman Returns all flirted with horror, but aren’t really what I’d call horror. Each has plenty of comedy, but also a lot of messed up and dark stuff. I don’t know a single kid who wasn’t freaked out by Large Marge in Pee Wee, the various undead people in Beetlejuice (especially that room of lost souls), the Joker killing a lot of people in vicious ways in Batman, too many moments to count in Batman Returns, and even little things in Edward Scissorhands like his first appearance. Burton in many ways felt like the pinnacle of gateway horror for most 90s kids. He certainly birthed a number of goths.

Then there’s the 80s kids films that felt like they maybe went to far. That weren’t as much flirting with horror as much as the horrors of the real world.

Cloak and Dagger is essentially an adult spy film starring a kid, the danger always feels real literally up to the point he’s forced to shoot a man to death to save his own life. Movies like that could only be made in the 80s, a decade where kids weren’t talked down to, but treated like adults when it came to handling mature themes.

Young Sherlock Holmes was like that too. It was a detective story first and foremost, but had the main characters (who were teens) dealing with death at every turn. There’s also a lot of pretty freaky moments that are full tilt horror thanks to a hallucinogenic dart many characters are struck with.

Dick Tracy was first and foremost a crime thriller, but it was campy and PG. However, it also had a LOT of people being viciously murdered (albeit bloodlessly). Not to mention Madonna in a completely see-through dress (kid me was very thankful for this decision, but I’m sure Disney was not, they must have not been paying attention during this scene, probably why it’s still nowhere to be found on Disney+).

Howard the Duck may not seem like a kids film, and yet it was PG. It also featured several naked duck women and an incredible monster near the end. But it’s the freaky body horror stuff going on with Jeffrey Jones that qualifies it for gateway horror IMO.

The Goonies and The Sandlot may not seem to fit here, but I wanted to give them a mention because they fit into the idea of how the stories kids tell each other are often scarier than the real thing. They both get our imaginations going early on and prepare us for possibly a scarier journey then they actually deliver. For that, I consider them a gateway to horror, even if just a very minor one.

I can’t say the same about Little Monsters, though, which is terrifying. Parents who thought this was going to be a funny safe kids movie with Fred Savage were dead wrong. This film has children in danger at many moments and one literally has their head ripped off (this was done as a joke, but kid me wasn’t laughing, I was horrified). The villain even has his face ripped off at the end to reveal a pretty frightening monster underneath. Basically, this isn’t a horror film, but it has all the hallmarks of horror and can be downright scary at times.

Scrooged is another film that felt misleading. I don’t know if it’s really considered a kids movie, but I watched it as a kid and it had Bill Murray, and while many people are probably like “where is Ghostbusters in this post?” well, it’s not here because Ghostbusters mostly feels safe, Scrooge does not. There is some freaky stuff happening in this movie and if you think it’s just going to be a silly A Christmas Carol parody with Bill Murray, you are in for quite a surprise. This was from the director of The Omen after all.

Finally, I wanted to mention Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which might seem odd, but only if you haven’t seen it. I think everyone can agree, Judge Doom is the stuff of nightmares. I don’t know a single kid who wasn’t scarred for life watching him mercilessly dip that cartoon shoe into the dip as slow as possible as if to savor its pain.

Dark Fantasy

Wow, so I don’t even know where to begin here except that anyone making fantasy in the 80s and 90s seemed to want to scare the shit out of any kids watching. And I applaud them for that. I grew up loving things like Return to Oz, The Witches, Willow, The Neverending Story, The Princess Bride, The Dark Crystal, and Legend, and they all have moments that range from scary to pure nightmare fuel.

I’m going to start with the one that scared me the most, Return to Oz, because despite how terrifying I found the film, I revisited it a lot. However, I caution anyone introducing it to their kids. This may be a Disney film and a sequel to a Hollywood classic, but it’s pulling inspiration from the books and from anyone who’s actually read the books, they were pretty fucked up. I’ve only read the first one in all honesty, but I remember the poppy fields being pretty freaky as the Wicked Witch of the West sent all her minions there to grab Dorothy. The Scarecrow proceeded to snap the necks of the crows, the Tin Woodsman chopped up the wolves with his axe, and the Cowardly Lion went after the Winkies.

Well, Return to Oz doesn’t give us that, but what it does give us is far scarier. A mental hospital where Dorothy is almost given electroshock therapy, a river where her friend drowns, possibly the scariest threat she’s ever faced in the insane Wheelers, a witch named Mombi who has sentient severed heads that gave me nightmares, and even a Nome King brought to terrifying life by a mix of stop motion and a great performance.

The Witches I almost want to call straight horror, but it’s based on Roald Dahl book, so of course, parents must have thought the movie was super safe for kids since this is the guy who gave us Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! I guess they forgot the parts of that where he basically murdered a bunch of mean kids. But for any kid watching The Witches, the threat of that film feels very real and very scary. I think the scariest part was actually just implied, the little girl who is trapped in a painting and forced to grow old and die there. But the witches themselves are just about as scary as possible and had to be pushing the limits for PG at that time. The idea of being chased by evil witches when nobody knew they were anything other than ordinary women scared the crap out of me as a kid. Men were always the ones snatching kids, they were supposed to be the ones to fear, women were supposed to be safe and this film seriously fucked with my head.

Legend is another that feels like it really wants to be a horror film, despite being fantasy. It’s partly why I can’t stand the Jerry Goldsmith score. Yes, I love his work generally, but he wrote his score like it was meant to be over a Disney film and yet the design of everything on screen looked like it had been ripped out of a horror film! So I am team Tangerine Dream all day. But the creature designs alone in this are probably Rob Bottin’s finest hour. If you weren’t into monsters before seeing this film, you likely will be after. It 100% deserves the title of gateway horror for the stunning creature designs, but the general tone of the film is pretty freaky too, much darker than any other fantasy film of that era—especially when you get to the dungeons where guys appear to be hacking people up and baking them into pies.

The rest of the films I wanted to mention here will be quicker because it’s really moments for these that get me. The Neverending Story has the Gmork, which gave my brother nightmares for a long time. Willow had those trolls, which felt way scarier than everything else in that movie (except Bavmorda, naturally played by Jean Marsh, who also scared the shit out of me as Mombi in Return to Oz!). The Dark Crystal had that scene where a podling has their life essence sucked out (that scene still freaks me out, it’s so fucked up). The Princess Bride has the shrieking eels and that “Boo!” lady, both of which scared me as a kid.

Kids Horror

So, now we’re in the final section here, you might ask, “What is kids horror?” Well, for me at least, it means what it says, it’s horror involving kids. And for the purposes of gateway horror, I will also specify that means horror written for kids (sorry It, you don’t make the cut). Also, if you’re wondering why The Monster Squad isn’t mentioned here it’s because I didn’t discover that film until college (but yes, it’s one of my all-time favorites now).

Before diving into some of the kid horror films in this section, I need to talk about books. Because for any kid growing up in the 90s, there was no bigger gateway to horror than Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and the Goosebumps series. The former I still question how it got into the library as the cover alone gave most kids nightmares and if it didn’t, one of the other illustrations inside surely did. But the stories within were mostly all classic urban legends and just getting this book into schools was such an excellent gateway to horror for many young readers. I don’t know any kid who didn’t have a copy of this when I was in grade school. The Goosebumps books were a lot safer, but again, they were super popular in the 90s, and that really helped introduce a lot of kids to horror who didn’t have cool parents letting them watch scary movies at home.

I also need to give a shoutout to 90s television, specifically Are You Afraid of the Dark? Adults might have been able to get their horror fix on the small screen from stuff like Tales from the Crypt, but us kids had this incredible show that felt anything but safe. All the episodes had kids as the main characters and many ended with those characters about to die or trapped in some horrible nightmare scenario. I specifically remember the Nosferatu episode giving me nightmares for the implication that a monster could exit the silver screen and stalk its victims in the real world.

As for the films themselves, I think there’s no better place to start than Gremlins. While maybe not straight horror (especially the sequel which went full screwball comedy), Gremlins was an incredible gateway to horror for many kids. It was scary, but not too scary. Safe, but not too safe. It effortlessly balanced horror and comedy in a way that to me makes it the quintessential gateway horror film for most kids.

Jurassic Park might have been more of a straight horror in the book, but the movie at times feels like an adventure film. Unfortunately, as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom proved (another great gateway horror film IMO), some adventures can turn into horror when circumstances change. The idea of dinosaurs on the loose is definitely a horrifying concept, but Spielberg manages to hold things back just enough that this becomes a safe gateway to horror for kids (as opposed to Temple of Doom, which many parents thought went too far). I will still give a shoutout to all three Indiana Jones films (there are more? I don’t know what you’re talking about) for being great gateways to horror as well. They were fun movies, that could get scary when they wanted to and those little hints of horror in many Spielberg films (both ones he directed and produced) I think helped grow a generation of horror fans.

Though I wouldn’t call this kids horror, I’d finally like to give a shoutout to The Mummy (the 1999 one) for being another good gateway horror film, even though I was already a teen when I saw it. It’s another that falls into that Indiana Jones camp of being adventure and horror, though this is definitely a more overt horror film due to it being a remake of a classic horror film. It’s fun, funny, and at times scary. I think had I been a kid when this came out, it might have been my Gremlins.

Flirting with Horror

And with that I think we’ve reached the end of things. I honestly thought I’d have more films to mention in that final section, but as with most of us, our gateways to horror usually weren’t actual horror films, but films that flirted with horror.

Through our imagination and curiosity, the many gateways to horror that were available to us kids in the 90s likely created a lot of lifelong horror fans. But I can only really speak for myself and my brother since we basically shared the same experiences. I’m curious for those of you who are still with us at the end here, what were your gateways to horror as a kid? Any other movies, tv shows, or books you loved that I didn’t mention here? I’m curious what I might have forgotten or was unaware of myself as a child.