Most disturbing scene ever

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Well, well. You were disturbed? Thank goodness somebody else noticed. I'm old enough to be your mother. In fact, in 1980, my daughter and her friends were 10, and I was going to drop them off on Saturday afternoon, then pick them up after the movie. (In those days we weren't so afraid that our kids would be molested or we would be arrested for neglect if we let them go to the movies alone.) But at the last minute I decided to join them. I remember the lights going down, the credits playing as the happy family parked their camper on the cliff and proceeded to collect firewood and cook dinner. The little boy was wearing an LA team sweatshirt as I recall, driving the point home that he was JUST LIKE US, nice suburban kid! Granted, this was important to the story-- the naivete of the kid.) Then the camper went over the cliff, followed by the kid climbing down the cliff to spend the night with his dead parents while rats walked over his body. To say that I was appalled doesn't sum it up. I looked left and right of me. No popcorn was being eaten. These ten year old girls understood the whole gory scene. They were starring in stunned silence at the screen. They could have been watching a torrid sex scene, but probably wouldn't have completely understood what they were seeing. They could have been watching an act of movie violence, cops and robbers, and it wouldn't have been their first or last, or they could have been watching Michael Myers or Jason hack somebody up. They could have handled the unreality of those movies. But this was DEEPLY AND PERSONALLY terrifying for them.

I had to decide whether to take them home immediately, or wait it out. We stayed. The rest was socially redeeming-- I mean, the movie was serious about its theme, and the first scenes were justified in that context. But I wasn't expecting such a thing in a family movie, and felt sick to think I had almost left the kids to see this alone. All the kids survived, but you can tell that it actually seared my brain.

Wow whats with all the post deleted?!!?

Yeah i just managed to find this film again after searching for years thanks to the imdb message posts 'need to know' section!

all i could remember from this film was the caravan going over the cliff and being heavily traumatised as a child. It is a very important film for me however and i do believe that children shouldn't be shielded from human tragedy. I remember hugging my parents when i got home, it just taught me how important and fragile life is. A good life lesson.

No doubt! See my recent post in the "Saw this movie as a young kid..." thread. I actually just found the movie's title after searching for years!
(Like, did I dream up that disturbing scene..?)

Ha! Nice to see I wasn't alone. I think I was 8 when I saw this movie in the theatre, and it's *painfully* rare when I see a scene that just plain hit me hard. This one did.

Of note: At that time, my parents had a camper, and were fond of taking mountain drives.

Yes, I was downright *terrified* when I saw that movie!

I actually just had some renewed interest in it after watching "R.V." with my daughter, and mentioned how scary it was when Robin William's character was driving so close to the edge. She asked me why I was scared, so I related the scene from "The Earthling."

Still a wonderful movie. I'm watching it for the first time after 20+ years as I write this.

I was also traumatized when I saw this scene, actually it's the only scene I remember! I watched it alot on TV when I was between 6-8 years old. I had forgotten the name of it until IMDB helped me find it a few years ago. Last night, while perusing TV listings, I was surprised to see that it's coming on this month. I have it set to record on my DVR. I can't wait to see if it lives up to how I remember it as a child! (I'm sure it won't, but it will still be fun to watch again.)

Yes. I saw this film on TV when I was a kid and even though I didn't know the name of the film or the actors in it, I always recalled that shocking scene. Recently something made me think of it again so I wanted to find the name of the film, described the scene I recalled on Google and found the title. The full movie is on YouTube but has hardcoded subtitles in a foreign language.