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As I pointed out in my Poltergeist review, I didn't watch much horror as a boy. That's probably a good thing, as even the non-horror flicks I enjoyed often scared the bejesus out of me. You kids today don't know how lucky you have it with your wussy Shreks and your lamewad Pikachus! Children of the 1980s are still in therapy over what Hollywood deemed "family films" back then. The following non-horror mind-screws should prove my point.

Return to Oz (1985)

In high school, I brought Return to Oz to a Halloween movie marathon. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid. Everyone scoffed. "A Wizard of Oz sequel? That's supposed to scare us?" I didn't hear a lot of mockery after the movie started. In fact, nobody said a word until about halfway through, when a friend of mine whispered "Can we please turn this off?" I'm not sure who thought this movie was appropriate for children. It gave me nightmares for nearly a decade.

Dorothy finds a key with an Oz symbol on it, shows it to Auntie Em and Uncle Henry as proof that Oz exists, and is sent to an insane asylum! An evil insane asylum where they give our young heroine electro-shock therapy! That's how this "childrens' film" starts! Once Dorothy gets to Oz, it's a speeding night train of horrors. How about that Nome King? Good LORD! Winged monkeys aren't scary enough anymore, let's give the kids The Wheelers -- sadistic shrieking psychopaths with roller skates instead of hands and feet! Kids today won't be satisfied with just a standard wicked witch, let's really ramp that up too, and ruin their lives! The sequence with the witch's cabinets full of human heads easily rivals anything in the Nightmare on Elm Street series for sheer terror. "Dorothy Gaaaaaale!!!!"

Even the heroes are horrifying! Jack Pumpkinhead? A hybrid stick n' pumpkin creature who calls Dorothy "Mother"? That's your good guy? Not cool, Return to Oz. Not cool.

The Neverending Story (1984)

Along the same lines as Return to Oz, The Neverending Story feels way too dark, weird, and just...wrong to be a kids' movie. I feel my eyes welling up now remembering Atreyu's horse slowly sinking into quicksand and dying. I can't even talk about the Gmork, that big wolfy vampire thing. And a storm called "The Nothing?" Sweet fancy Moses! Also, again, the heroes should not be scarier than the villains! The racing snail? The Rockbiter? That bat-dude? And Falkor? A big flying dog/dragon mutation with disgusting scaly eggs on his skin? We were supposed to root for this hellacious beast?

Another scream-inducing aspect -- one of the worst theme songs in all of 80's film. And that's saying a whole lot!

He may not be that great a director, but Barry Sonnenfeld is good enough for comedic sci-fi/fantasy fare like the Men in Black and Addams Family movies. When he doesn't have cool production design or special effects to fall back on, he tends to deliver worthless titles like Big Trouble and RV. Of course, he has exceptions: Wild Wild West was an awful effects-driven pic and Get Shorty was a great film without any fantastic elements. Still, we must be thankful that his next project deals with the supernatural. Based on the myth of Pandora's Box, the movie is simply titled The Box, and is about a directionless college graduate who is tricked into opening the infamous container, unleashing the evil out unto the world.

The script is being written by Evan Spiliotopoulos, who penned Pooh's Heffalump Movie (as well as its direct-to-video Halloween-set sequel) and has worked on scripts for other animated pics, including The Jungle Book 2, Tarzan II and Lion King 1½. For the future he's also written an animated version of The Nutty Professor, which features the voice of Jerry Lewis rather than Eddie Murphy, and the animated sci-fi film Terra. Although The Box will be a live-action "summer event film", it is likely to have a lot of the same family-friendliness as his 'toon work (though he also wrote the erotic thriller, Bare Witness). Let's just hope it is isn't as childish as The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, which is also a modern version of the Pandora myth, or as silly as Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, which deals with the box as a threatening archaeological find. It is surprising that there hasn't been a great update of the myth, actually. The Box won't be it; but it should at least be as entertaining as any Sonnenfeld effort. The director is still currently linked to the Zach Braff-co-scripted Andrew Harry's Meadow as his next project, but The Box could be his first priority, as 20th Century Fox is fast-tracking its production.