‘Jumanji’ and Its Traumatizing Plants Can Go Back into Board Game Hell Where They Belong

The year of our lord nineteen hundred and ninety-six brought with it many good things. Alanis Morissette won the most deserved Grammy for Jagged Little Pill. The Coen brothers released Fargo, a movie that would win Frances McDormand her first Oscar. 3rd Rock from the Sun happened. But 1996 will always be a year tinged in horror for me. Why? Because that’s the year my grandparents showed me Jumanji, the first movie that ever terrified me.

“Why would two adults who presumably love you show you a movie about a child turning into a monkey?” you may be asking. My grandparents had good reason for thinking my early childhood self would be cool enough to hang with Robin Williams and baby Kirsten Dunst. Under their watch, I had sang along with Scar and those creepy hyenas in The Lion King. I sided with the toys who came to life to hurt Sid in Toy Story. I had basked in the terrifying glory that was Stephen Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. My 4-year-old self had a fairly high tolerance for the scarier side of children’s movies.

And then Jumanji came to VHS on May 14, 1996 and everything changed.

Looking back, I’m impressed with how much of the movie I endured because Jumanji is low-key terrifying. It starts with a small child getting sucked into a board game and a swarm of bats driving another small child out of the house. The only thing stopping the original Jumanji from being a never-ending onslaught of nightmare fuel is the fact that ’90s CGI was pretty terrible. But I lasted through those trials, dear reader. I sat through killer giant mosquitos, a troop of troublesome monkeys, a bloodthirsty lion, and a crazed jungle man, which to be fair wasn’t that scary because Robin Williams was incapable of causing children pain. I was on fire.

That’s when disaster struck. After a break in the dice-rolling action, Alan (Williams) recruits the second half of the OG Jumanji squad, Bonnie Hunt’s Sarah. As soon as she returns to the game, Jumanji releases its worst horror yet — a swarm of carnivorous plants that invade the house. Why? Because Jumanji hates everyone but it especially hates Sarah.

I can remember certain vague details from this moment in my life — petals opening, a vine grabbing some character’s limb, sheer panic. But to hear my grandparents tell it, I ran screaming from the television and buried my head in a sofa until those devil vines disappeared. Much like a gigantic bud trying to eat a little boy, I had changed but not for the better.

Since that first screening, I’ve rewatched Jumanji and grown to love it. How could I not? As anyone who’s witnessed it knows it’s an excellent film and a glorious platform to let Robin Williams be Robin Williams. But that night Jumanji betrayed me. Prior to spring of 1996 I was incapable of disliking movies. The word “movie” was synonymous with a delightful life experience, one filled with joy, friends, family, and if I was lucky popcorn. Jumanji‘s demon flowers took that innocence away from my movie-watching experience, making me more cynical and likely preventing me from ever being an effective plant mommy. And for that I will never fully forgive it.

Where to stream Jumanji