The stay-at-home dad The trauma of ‘kid’ movies

The trauma of ‘kid’ movies

In the first few seconds of “The Goonies,” there’s a dead body hanging by the neck in a jail cell.

Fans of “The Goonies” know it’s a fake-out - one of the bad guys plays dead in order to trick the guard and race out the jail’s front door. Still, it looks like a dead body for a second, and, oh yeah, there are actual dead bodies later in the film, including one that keeps falling on top of poor Chunk.

I remembered none of this when I decided to show “The Goonies” to my four kids last week. The 3 and 5-year-old weren’t paying attention, so no harm no foul there. My almost 7-year-old son cackled with glee whenever he saw a skeleton appear in the film (“That’s a dead body too!”). Should I be worried about him?

My 9-year-old daughter freaked out. Legitimate heebie-jeebies.

Had I remembered the dead bodies in “The Goonies,” I might have chosen an alternative movie for the night. Nevertheless, my wife and I handled the situation delicately, reminding our daughter that it’s just a movie while still cautioning her that evil in the world exists and that something terrible could happen to any one of us at any time, assuming we don’t all get annihilated by an asteroid or super-volcano.

The sarcasm doesn’t really register in written form, huh? In truth, I felt bad about freaking her out, and I tried my best to deescalate the fear, even explaining to her the makeup they had to use on the body to make it look “cold.” Movie magic, kids! Bambi’s mom isn’t dead either! She’s a happily-retired cartoon deer living in Punta Gorda.

A funny thing happened after the movie ended - she wanted to watch the movie again. It reminded me of my own reaction as a 9-year-old seeing “Jurassic Park” for the first time. What were my parents thinking when they took me to the theater to see a life-size, real-looking Tyrannosaurus Rex devour a man sitting on a toilet? I was terrified, but I still wanted to see the movie again and again and again. To this day, it’s my favorite movie of all time.

So far I’ve had mixed results showing my children “non-kiddie” films. They generally leave the room whenever I flip on Turner Classic Movies, and even something as spectacular as “Hamilton” proved to be too lengthy for them. Well, plus my 7-year-old thinks the show peaks with “My Shot,” which happens in the first 10 minutes. Don’t get me wrong; “My Shot” is BANGIN’, but how can you just dismiss “Satisfied” or “The Room Where it Happened” like that? Pay attention, kid! Feel the emotion!

The original “Star Wars” didn’t enthrall my kids, either (“Where’s BB-8?”). “The Dark Crystal” confused them (me too). The meta-brilliance of “Galaxy Quest” went straight over their heads (they do, however, regard Alan Rickman as the BOSS).

A couple summers ago while on vacation on the Oregon Coast (“Goonies” land!), we took all four kids to a screening of “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” at an old theater located near our hotel. Our littlest slept through the entire thing while the older three sat enthralled for the duration of the Steven Spielberg classic (the popcorn, soda and candy could have had something to do with it).

Then came the scene where E.T. turns white and “dies.” Sorry for the 38-year-old spoilers. My oldest son covered his eyes for most of the sequence, but he didn’t care about E.T.’s health status. He thought the white looked scary, like a “wrinkly ghost” waiting for the right moment to jump alive and devour that nice man with the keys.

He didn’t trust the revitalized E.T. for the rest of the movie, either. When E.T. and Elliott flew on the bike, he expected E.T. to jettison the poor boy into a tree stump. Even after the movie, he kept talking about how scary E.T. was in white form, and while I’ve done my best to explain it to him, he still talks about the crusty-white, “dead” Extra-Terrestrial to this day.

My oldest kids know how much I love “Jurassic Park, and now my son especially wants to watch it.” They’ve seen me play the “Roller Coaster Tycoon”-esque video game “Jurassic World Evolution” from time to time and have even witnessed a video game T-Rex break out of its pen to smash up a Ford Explorer full of tasty humans. I was the same age as my daughter when I first saw “Jurassic Park,” so it’s probably the perfect time to show them, right?

Then I think: How are they going to react to the lawyer on the toilet? What about Sam Jackson’s arm? Will they find Jeff Goldblum charming?

More importantly, will it give them nightmares like it gave me, and will those nightmares be irrelevant if they ultimately come to love the movie?

For now, I think I’ll wait. It’s already hard enough hearing my kids describe “E.T.” as the terror-equivalent of “The Shining.” Ultimately, I’m not afraid if “Jurassic Park” scares them. Really, I’m afraid they won’t like it. And then where will they live after I disown them?