"Babe: Pig in the City"

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The original Babe movie was a charming fable replete with singing mice, a gallant piglet, and fluffy sheepdogs, all bathed in sunny, sweet light.  Then there came the sequel, Babe: Pig in the City, which, despite its ostensible G rating, is essentially a David Lynch film set in a Tim Burton world with a cast of Tod Browning freaks.

The following is a list of the Five Most Terrifying Scenes Ever in a Live-Action G-Rated Film:

* The kind farmer Hoggett plunges to the bottom of a dank well, smashes his fingers, and is severely injured by a falling engine.  

* A paraplegic terrier is hurled into the street from under the wheels of a truck, and the wheels of his wheelchair still spin as he lies prostrate in the middle of the road.

* An infant chimpanzee clings to a frayed, still-sparking electrical cord thirty feet above the floor, then loses his grasp as his mother looks on in horror.

* An elderly Mickey Rooney, dressed and made up as the world's saddest clown, has a nasty fall and accidentally sets fire to the children's ward of a hospital.  His performing animals barely escape the leaping flames; the clown himself eventually dies.

* A convulsing bull terrier dangles helplessly from a chain wrapped around his hind leg, the only thing preventing him from plunging headfirst into a river and drowning.

Not to mention how the clothed primates will hit you right in the uncanny valley, and then there's the strip search of Mrs. Hoggett, the firing squad that shoots at the duck, the poodle that seems to be a former hooker, and all the pig-nosed people that keep popping up... sheer horror, I tell you.


Lesson learned:
Bah, ram... ew.

Babe: Pig in the City.  Dir. George Miller.  Perf. Magda Szubanski, James Cromwell, Mary Stein.  Universal, 1998.
Babe: Pig in the City