Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a much-beloved, yet traumatic rite of passage that many of us encountered at the right age to delight and terrify in equal measure. The film is based on the Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which is arguably even darker than this 1971 cinematic adaptation. With the celebrated Dahl tome as inspiration, director Mel Stuart brings the spirit of the novel to life with aplomb, creating a world that is initially inviting, and eventually, quite imposing. The film catches up with young Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) shortly before he secures a coveted golden ticket, allowing him to set foot inside Willy Wonka’s mysterious chocolate factory.
Once Charlie and a handful of his youthful counterparts make their way inside the mysterious factory, each succumbs to temptation, which results in fitting, yet terrifying, consequences. The ramifications of their actions are surprisingly gruesome for a children’s movie, but this is no ordinary children’s movie.
With much love for the celebrated film, I am looking back on seven developments from this celebrated offering that terrified me and likely did the same to anyone else who experienced this cultural touchstone at an impressionable age.
7) Mr. Slugworth Tries to Corrupt Charlie Bucket
If you’ve seen the film, you know that the man who pulls Charlie aside after the lad triumphantly unwraps the golden ticket isn’t who he claims to be. The sinister-looking gentleman is a spy sent by Wonka to test Charlie’s moral fiber to see if he’s worthy of taking over the factory. Regardless of his true intent, the Slugworth imposter is intense and unsettling, his presence marks one of the first truly unnerving developments within the film, adequately setting the stage for what’s next.
In addition to being more than a little jarring, this sequence is also legitimately emotional as we see young Charlie confronted with the chance to do something unethical (sell the Everlasting Gobstopper prototype to the phony Slugworth) in exchange for the kind of security for which his family has long been desperate. That adds an additonal layer of intensity to this already uncomfortable exchange between boy and clandestine corporate spy.
6) Violet Beauregarde Becomes a Giant Blueberry
Who knew chewing gum would be the (near) end of the perpetually chatty Violet (Denise Nickerson)? When she finds herself unable to resist an experimental new gum Wonka is testing, Violet finds herself in a real bind, eventually turning blue and puffing up into a spherical shape.
This sequence is equal parts comical and terrifying because of how far removed the setup is from the realm of possibilities combined with how dark the subject matter actually is. Wonka’s factory is a place where the laws of life (and physics) rarely apply. Accordingly, most impressionable viewers did not know whether to laugh or sob when Violet met her unfortunate fate following a bout of ill-advised gum-chewing.
5) Charlie and Grandpa Joe’s Near-Death Experience
Like all of the children admitted to the factory, Charlie has a momentary lapse in judgment. Fortunately, his traumatic life lesson is slightly less dire than those of his peers and never goes so far as to truly end his tour of the factory.
The scene in question sees Charlie and Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson) surreptitiously sipping Wonka’s Fizzy Lifting Drink, which allows those who imbibe it to float. Although the pair eventually realize that they can lessen the effects of the tonic by burping, prior to that realization, the audience is left to watch in horror as Grandpa Joe and Charlie careen closer and closer to a ceiling fan-related demise. This is surprisingly dark stuff, guys.
4) Veruca Salt’s Trip Down the Egg Chute
Anyone who has seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory knows that Veruca Salt (Julie Dawn Cole) is a very strong-willed young woman. She doesn’t like hearing no, perhaps because her father (Roy Kinnear) goes out of his way to eschew boundaries (and common sense) in service of making his beloved daughter happy.
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Perhaps if she’d experienced more structure in her home life Veruca wouldn’t be so averse to accepting the idea that she simply can’t have everything she wants. As it stands, she has no such realization, which sees her demanding a golden goose, only to be deemed a bad egg by Wonka’s surprisingly sentient factory. Wonka leads us to believe that she stands to be incinerated when she reaches the furnace after she hits the bottom of the chute, a statement he finally debunks with an offhanded remark at the end of the film. No wonders we are still traumatized after all these years.
3) Mike Teavee’s Harrowing Brush With Screen Stardom
Mike (Paris Themmen) is a young man who likes to be entertained, unfortunately, he also lacks self-control and his parents do nothing to teach him about the numerous merits of moderation.
The lack of proper role modeling is especially evident when Mike outright ignores Mr. Wonka’s persistent warnings and jumps inside the Wonkavision machine in an ill-advised attempt to make his onscreen television debut. Mike’s ending is especially scary because his fate is slightly less ambiguous than that of most of his peers. We’re given cause to believe the other children are in serious peril, but we know without a doubt that Mike ends his tour in rough shape. By the time he exits the Wonkavision screen, Mike is small enough to fit inside his poor mother’s purse.
2) Augustus Gloop in the Chocolate River
Augustus (Michael Bollner) is a young man with a never-ending appetite, a character trait that doesn’t serve him particularly well in the chocolate factory. That’s right, young Augustus goes for a drink from the chocolate river only to fall in and get sucked into a pipe where he gets hopelessly stuck.
What makes this sequence so frightening is the idea that Augustus clearly appears to be on the verge of suffocation and his whimsical chocolatier host is just passively sitting by with nothing more than a look of mild amusement on his face.
1) The Tunnel of Terror
While many of the near misses Charlie and his counterparts experience in the factory are properly frightening, nothing in the film is scarier than the infamous tunnel sequence.
When Wonka and company board a boat inside the factory, what should have been an idyllic cruise through the massive building turns into something decidedly more sinister. Things get really uncomfortable when Wonka begins reciting a poem of sorts coupled with some particularly unsettling screen renderings. The pictorials playing on the boat ride include a millipede crawling over a man’s face and a brief clip of a chicken getting beheaded. This is not what most would consider family-friendly, G-rated stuff. That unrestrained approach, however, is likely a large part of what makes Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory such a long-lasting (and terrifying) memory for anyone who saw the film at a tender age.
What do you consider the most traumatic scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Be sure to let us know in the comments section below.
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