Good luck sleeping after watching these terrifying scenes! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most nightmare-inducing scenes from the “Willy Wonka” franchise.
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00:00 "You're going to love this. Just love it."
00:03 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most nightmare-inducing scenes from the Willy Wonka franchise.
00:10 "I was worried it was getting a little dodgy in the middle part, but then that finale... Wow!"
00:16 Jeez, talk about tonal whiplash.
00:25 Charlie finds his golden ticket and runs home to the glorious strains of the Oscar-nominated score.
00:30 "Run straight home and don't stop till you get there!"
00:33 This scene inspires a ton of glee and has been endlessly parodied throughout the years.
00:49 But then, Charlie enters some dark and creepy tunnel and encounters who he believes to be Mr. Slugworth.
00:55 Slugworth offers him money in exchange for Wonka's everlasting gobstopper,
01:00 and the dude could not be more sketchy.
01:02 "Mr. Wonka is at this moment working on a fantastic invention.
01:06 The everlasting gobstopper.
01:09 If he succeeds, he'll ruin me.
01:12 So all I want you to do is to get hold of just one everlasting gobstopper and bring it to me so that I can find the secret formula."
01:18 He appears out of nowhere like some horror slasher,
01:21 talks way too close to the camera, and then places his hands on Charlie's shoulders.
01:26 "Think it over, will you?
01:28 A new house for your family, and good food and comfort for the rest of their lives.
01:34 And don't forget the name.
01:36 Everlasting Gobstopper."
01:38 The entire scene is wickedly uncomfortable,
01:41 and it brings all that golden ticket joy to a screeching halt.
01:46 9. The Kids Leave the Factory - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
01:51 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory omits the scene where the kids leave the factory,
01:55 with Wonka simply stating that they'll be alright.
01:58 "Mr. Wonka, what's gonna happen to the other kids?
02:00 Augustus, Veruca?"
02:02 "My dear boy, I promise you they'll be quite alright.
02:05 When they leave here, they'll be completely restored to their normal, terrible old selves.
02:10 But maybe they'll be a little bit wiser for the wear."
02:13 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is more faithful to the novel,
02:17 and includes the kids walking out of the factory, but we kinda wish they didn't.
02:21 Violet doesn't seem to have any bones,
02:24 and she flops around like one of those sticky lizards you get at arcades.
02:28 "Look, Mother, I'm much more flexible now."
02:30 "Yes, but you're blue."
02:32 Meanwhile, Mike TV has been stretched well past the point of normalcy
02:37 and stands about 10 feet tall.
02:38 Even worse, he's about as thin as a piece of paper.
02:42 Please don't tell us the kids are stuck like this.
02:45 Number 8.
02:47 The Wonka Mobile
02:48 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
02:50 Willy Wonka has a flair for the dramatic,
02:53 and he saves the best for late in the game.
02:55 The Wonka Mobile has to be one of the weirdest scenes in the movie,
02:59 featuring all sorts of surreal inclusions.
03:02 "Behold the Wonka Mobile, thing of beauty, of joy forever.
03:06 Places please, the dance is about to begin."
03:09 The sound design is arguably the highlight of this scene,
03:12 featuring bizarre music, a persistent bubbling noise,
03:16 and the farting cream shooting out of the pipes.
03:18 "Swifter than eagles, stronger than lions!"
03:22 And once again, it paints Wonka himself in a dark and uncaring light,
03:29 ignoring the screams of children while joyfully singing a song.
03:33 "It's getting in my eye!"
03:34 "Oh, it's even in my shoes!"
03:37 "I'm soaked! It'll never come off!"
03:40 There's nothing inherently sinister about the scene,
03:43 but all these different facets come together
03:46 to craft an atmosphere of intense weirdness.
03:48 Number 7.
03:50 Violet's Transformation
03:52 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
03:53 Violet's transformation in Willy Wonka is quite creepy,
03:57 and a classic scene in its own right.
04:00 "You're blowing up!"
04:01 "I feel funny!"
04:02 "I'm not surprised."
04:03 "What's happening?"
04:04 "You're blowing up like a balloon!"
04:05 "Like a blueberry."
04:06 But better technology allowed Tim Burton
04:09 to craft a far scarier iteration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
04:13 For one thing, the violet color spreads across her face like a disease,
04:17 starting on the tip of her nose before engulfing her whole body.
04:21 It's quite disturbing.
04:22 "Her whole nose has gone purple."
04:24 "What do you mean?"
04:25 "Violet, you're turning violet!"
04:29 "What's happening?"
04:32 Violet also inflates to a ridiculous size,
04:35 her tiny little head perched atop an enormously round body
04:38 that begins to float.
04:40 Meanwhile, the building music only adds to the scene's tension.
04:43 "She's swelling up!"
04:45 "Like a blueberry."
04:50 Also, why does Wonka hide behind the machinery as she expands?
04:57 Surely he didn't think she would, you know, explode.
05:00 Jeez, this movie is dark!
05:02 Number 6.
05:04 Wonka's Meltdown
05:06 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
05:08 Much of the movie's scares come from the surreal nature of the factory,
05:12 but this scene is surprisingly tender and humane.
05:15 It's also terrifying for young children.
05:18 "I just wanted to ask about the chocolate.
05:19 The lifetime supply of chocolate for Charlie.
05:23 When does he get it?"
05:26 "He doesn't."
05:26 "Why not?"
05:28 "Because he broke the rules."
05:30 "What rules? We didn't see any rules, did we, Charlie?"
05:34 "Wrong, sir!"
05:34 Disappointed in Charlie's behavior,
05:37 Wonka falls into a depression and grows irritable at Grandpa Joe.
05:40 He screams at both Joe and Charlie,
05:43 his face growing ever more red by the second.
05:46 It's a creepy scene not in the weird Willy Wonka sense,
05:49 but because of its realism.
05:51 "It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal!
05:54 You stole fizzy lifting drinks!
05:57 You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed
06:00 and sterilized so you get nothing!
06:02 You lose!"
06:04 "Good day, sir!"
06:06 With other kids,
06:08 Wonka acted in a whimsical and humorously uncaring manner.
06:11 Here, he's finally showing some genuine emotion
06:14 and straight up yelling at the kid.
06:16 "You're a cheat and a swindler!
06:18 That's what you are!
06:19 How could you do a thing like this?
06:21 Build up a little boy's hopes
06:22 and then smash all his dreams to pieces!
06:24 You're an inhuman monster!"
06:27 "I said good day!"
06:28 The Wonka veil is dropped,
06:31 and it is not how we or Charlie expected the tour to end.
06:34 Number 5.
06:36 Veruca is mauled by squirrels,
06:39 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
06:40 Spoiled Veruca salt is shown the squirrel room,
06:43 in which a large number of squirrels
06:45 remove the nuts from their shells.
06:47 "These squirrels are specially trained to get the nuts out of shells."
06:50 Naturally, she wants one,
06:52 and when Wonka says no,
06:54 she goes to get one herself.
06:56 What follows is pure nightmare fuel.
06:59 The squirrels pounce on Veruca,
07:01 pin her limbs to the ground,
07:02 and violently knock on her head.
07:04 "What are they doing?"
07:09 "They're testing to see if she's a bad nut."
07:11 "Oh my goodness, she is a bad nut after all."
07:16 Realizing that she's a bad nut,
07:19 they drag her into a giant chute in the floor
07:21 and send her away to be incinerated.
07:23 Meanwhile, Wonka couldn't care less about the squirrel attack
07:26 or Veruca's potentially fatal fate.
07:29 "Now, she may be stuck in the chute just below the top,
07:32 if that's the case,
07:33 all you have to do is just reach in and pull her out."
07:36 What is this movie?
07:37 Number 4.
07:38 Augustus Gloop Goes Up the Pipe -
07:40 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
07:42 The first kid to be taken off the tour is Augustus Gloop,
07:46 who is sucked up a pipe after falling into the Chocolate River.
07:49 And what a horrifying, terrifying ordeal it is.
07:52 "Augustus, sweetheart, save some room for later."
07:57 "Oh, Augustus, please don't do that.
07:59 My chocolate must never be touched by human hands.
08:01 Please, don't do that.
08:02 Don't do that, you're contaminating my entire river."
08:04 This is a shocking scene,
08:06 coming out of nowhere and promising an undercurrent of darkness to the tour.
08:09 Furthermore, viewers may be surprised at Wonka's blasé attitude,
08:14 as he doesn't seem to care about this kid who is actively drowning in the river.
08:19 "My chocolate, my beautiful chocolate."
08:22 "Don't just stand there, do something."
08:26 "Help, police, murder."
08:28 In fact, he seems way more concerned about the chocolate than he does the kid.
08:32 That image of Augustus getting stuck in the pipe triggers all sorts of fears,
08:37 intense claustrophobia among them.
08:39 And it's one that sticks with you long after the movie's over.
08:42 "He'll be made into marshmallows in five seconds."
08:45 "Impossible, my dear lady, that's absurd, unthinkable."
08:48 "Why?"
08:48 "Because that pipe doesn't go to the marshmallow room, it goes to the fudge room."
08:51 "You terrible man."
08:52 Number 3.
08:53 The Burning Dummies -
08:55 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
08:56 The start of the tour is depicted very differently in both films.
09:01 The original is far more playful,
09:03 with Wonka doing a cute flip and toying with the audience.
09:06 Yeah, it shows his penchant for trollish behavior, but it's all in good fun.
09:18 Enter Tim Burton,
09:19 who Tim-Burton's the whole thing with a wickedly creepy song and dance number.
09:24 "Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka, the amazing chocolate cheater.
09:27 "Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka, everybody give a cheer."
09:31 The kids are treated to some singing ventriloquist dummies,
09:34 all of which proceed to burn and melt when the pyrotechnics go off.
09:38 The slowed down song, the melting plastic,
09:44 and worst of all, the eyeball popping out of its head,
09:47 it's all grotesque and not very fun at all.
09:49 Number 2.
09:51 The Fizzy Lifting Scene
09:53 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
09:55 The original 1971 film takes a number of deviations from the novel,
10:00 including the fizzy lifting drink sequence.
10:02 "Let's take a drink, Charlie. Nobody's watching."
10:04 "Yeah."
10:04 "A small one won't hurt us. Whoops."
10:06 A scene unique to the film,
10:09 it shows Grandpa Joe and Charlie consuming the drinks and floating towards the ceiling,
10:13 where they are nearly sliced to ribbons by a fan.
10:17 Like the Slugworth scene, this is a major case of tonal whiplash.
10:21 "Mr. Wonka's gonna like this." "We can't stand up here all day."
10:24 "You're right, Charlie."
10:25 The scene begins innocently enough,
10:27 and is even quite fun as Joe and Charlie float around and do flips.
10:31 But then things take a horrifying and ominous turn as they slowly ascend towards the fan.
10:36 The scene is rife with tension,
10:38 and while we know that Charlie will not be killed,
10:41 it is nevertheless extremely nerve-wracking.
10:44 "I can't stop. I can't stop." "What do we do?"
10:47 "Grab hold of something quick." "There's nothing to grab onto."
10:50 "Help! Help! We're gonna get killed!"
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11:07 Number 1. The Boat Tunnel - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
11:14 Of course number one is the boat tunnel. How could it not be the boat tunnel?
11:19 This scene has gone down in the annals of movie history
11:22 and has scarred millions of kids around the world.
11:25 "Wow, what a boat!" "Oh, looks good enough to eat."
11:28 "That's quite a nice little canoe you've got there, Wonka."
11:31 In fact, it was even included on Bravo's list of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments,
11:36 being placed at number 74.
11:39 With the strobing color lights, creepy visuals,
11:42 chilling sound design and Wonka's deranged behavior,
11:45 this scene has become wildly infamous. "What is this, a freak out?"
11:49 "Hey, this isn't funny, Wonka!" It's basically a dare for children.
11:53 Watch it without closing your eyes or turning away and you are one tough cookie.
11:57 We don't know what compelled the filmmakers to include this scene,
12:00 but they traumatized us all in doing so.
12:03 Did any of these scenes give you nightmares as a kid?
12:13 Let us know in the comments below.
12:15 "What a nightmare." "Daddy, I do not want a boat like this."
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12:27 [Music]