Everything by Roald Dahl is disturbing and scary! Did anyone here read “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”? That freaked the HELL out of me as a kid!
And all of the adults in Dahl’s stories are twisted and evil. shudders
Dahl wrote Matilda? What a great movie? Did anyone see it? I was home with nothing to do on a Saturday and caught it - it’s fabulous. A little heavy for kids, maybe (some innuendos I don’t think they’d understand), but, shoot, what a cool flick.
And can you get any creepier than “James and the Giant Peach”? Wasn’t it Tim Burton who directed the animation one they did? Cool, but creepy.
I also read “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator”. Was waiting for the movie on that one.
Guess I’m gonna have to go back and re-read some of those childhood books!
Actually, 'twas Henry Selick, who also directed “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” produced and written by Burton. Excellent animator.
Yeah, see. He rescued them and expects them to put up with this crap. For all we know, the Oompa Loompas weren’t persecuted. Why do we believe Wonka, anyway? We just met him! He’s hardly credible. Of course he would want us to think he’s charitable and benevolent.
The Grandpa thing? Hmm. Interesting theory. Crazy thing was how I never thought there was anything the least bit weird about an…octogenarian, was it? (he was 96 in the book but looked considerably younger in the film) rising up and cutting a caper.
Another injustice:
The candy store owner allowing all the upper/middle class kids with plenty of candy money to roam his store, eating lollipops, chocolates, and gummy frogs for free. And singing to them. Then when Charlie comes in later on, he’s pretty abrupt with him. Alright, he’s not that abrupt, he’s pretty nice actually. But still…sort of got to me. That horrible unjust candy store owner! 
Ok, but what about the part where they’re on the chocolate river and they go into that tunnel?! There is a chicken getting its head chopped off! That gave me nightmares for years, and I was afraid to walk down the hallway in our house at night for probably 3 or 4 years.
I read that one, and absolutely loved it.
I despise Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory though. I’m 27, and, while I’ll watch it if it’s on TV, it scares the crap out of me. I used to have nightmares about the Oompah-Loompahs, and the big fan in the ceiling.
I love this move as do my children. My three year old gets very upset if anyone interupts her viewing.
The first time I watched it with them they thought that it was too cool that mommy was singing and saying all the songs and poems along with WW.
Those children were horrible little monsters. Charlie was the only one who got his ticket honestly, and he had manners! How dare they try to teach children of the 70’s morals buy showing that if you are rude, gluttonous, and obnoxious you get what is comming to you.
BTW the woman who played Violet lives in my town now. A few months ago they showed the movie in one of our long forgotten theaters that they reopen on thursdays now for like $2 a show. The only time my kids would have ever been able to see it on the big screen. Myself for that matter since I was born in 71. Couldn’t see it since they made a big deal about it and it was jam packed and no way I could take all the kids down in that crowd with one in a wheel chair. They did have Violet down there signing autographs.
I found out recently that my wife hates the movie, and also hates the fact that every single one of her boyfriends has loved it.
You great big greedy nincompoops.
How long can we allow this beast
To gorge and guzzle, sup and feast
On everything he wanted to?
Great Scott! It simply wouldn’t do!
I ABSOLUTELY love Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory! And of course it’s disturbing! It’s supposed to be, at least a bit. But it’s a good self-rightous disturbing. I am a huge huge fan.
Yay! I hadn’t thought about that movie in a long time. ::smiles::
If it weren’t for the chicken getting its head cut off, I’d like the movie. Or even if it had been a fake chicken getting its head cut off. I just can’t separate the killing of an animal (ok a bird) from the rest of the entertainment of the movie. I am just too bleeding heart I guess.
I loved the book.
I always figured Wonka as having a fractured personality. Actually if you look at the evidence in the book and film it’s pretty clear that he was under tremendous strain and became somewhat of a paranoid because of it all. Slugwort and his spies drove him over the brink. The man was indeed a genius in candy as well as applied mechanics (see “WonkaVator”) and it has been noted (forgot by whom) the genius and madness often go hand in hand. Read the Glass Elevator for more insight into his kooky mind set.
Mostly though what I got from the film was that Wonka represented the British Impreialist attitude which was at odds with the changing class system within the British Empire. Look at the stereotypical depictions of villains and heroes: Veruca was a snobbish upper class elitist, Augustus was a german pig, Tommy was an americal TV addled hyperactive and wanton fool, Violet was a gum chewing embarrasment, and finally the icon of British heroism Charlie who is orphaned (probably a war orphan) and who’s mother works to sustain him and four grandparents. Only true heroes come from the working class.
Also let us not forget the Oompa Lumpas: Complete and utter Wogs. Little people from far away who toil endlessly w/o civil rights but they are happy to do so because in their own native lands there are horrible dangers that the empire…I mean that Wonka must protect them from out of the goodness of his heart. They even sing songs and impart wisdom, thus illustrating the assimilation of alien cultures in the Empire.
I actually did a paper on this for two classes. Creative writing (the assignment was to express a unique concept, and I had never heard anyone else express this idea before) and Political Science (the unit was on propoganda and I did this for additional credit).
What about ‘The witches’ with the really nice ladies who get all vile at the annual convention? That pretty much still gives me the shivers when I think about it,especially since the naughty kids who got caught were all turned into mice…I can’t believe that THAT escaped the censorships laws at the time , I mean witchcraft,depravity, the suggestion of lesbian orgies etc.
A truly terrifying tale was ‘The BFG’ who lived with a carnivorous horde of huge cavemen and preyed on small children by snatching them from their beds in the middle of the night.Dahl’s adult storied are no less warped like the woman from ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ who kills her husband with a frozen leg of lamb and then prepares supper for the detective handling the case.Naughty but nice.
You mean it was ROALD DAHL who wrote the leg of lamb murder story? That was my favorite of all favorite Alfred Hitchcock episodes – Barbara Bel Geddes serving the murder weapon to the police at the end gets me every time!
OOPS! Sent the last post off without this tidbit:
For all his strangeness, Dahl DID see his then-wife, Patricia Neal, through her debilitating stroke. (They did divorce years later, however. A pity, since I am also a Neal fan.)
Uhm, how can he be an orphan if he has a mother?
I saw this movie for the first time about a year ago. My first reaction was, “This is NOT a children’s movie!” It seemed too creepy and psychadellic for children, especially the freaky tunnel scene.
If children love it and identify with it so much, how can it not be a children’s movie? This film was a staple of my youth, and though I will say horrible things about Mr. Wonka and his vile, non-minimum wage treatment of the Oompa Loompas (think “Fry and the Slurm Factory”) I still love the movie. I don’t think kids are all that disturbed by it- it’s a lot of fun…way more fun than a Disney movie, man. I really don’t think it will disturb kids; it wasn’t until i was older that i realized the boat ride was supposed to be frightening.
Didn’t Roald Dahl write a story about Gremlins that was the basis for the 1984 movie directed by Joe Dante? I would love to read it, because I’m sure it’s pretty twisted.
-Anake
I could see bringing horrible punishments upon children who are rude, selfish dishonest and gluttinous. Excessive gum-chewing, however, is not really the kind of offence for which a child should be tortured. I have a brother-in-law with a property maintenence business who disagrees, but then he would.
that movie traumatized me when I was in 1st grade. I still can’t watch that movie straight through. I don’t remember why, but it really freaked me out