I’m not what people would call a “horror guy”. Most of the time when I watch horror films, it’s usually behind my couch — the works of Guillermo del Toro and Jordan Peele are an exception (mainly because of how compelling those two make their films.) But looking back at my childhood, there are a lot of films that had some downright terrifying or traumatic moments. The Pagemaster seemed like a feature-length experiment in trying to scare kids into never reading, and the less said about The Fox and the Hound, the better. But there’s one film that gave me recurring nightmares in my childhood: Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Most people see Robert Zemeckis’ semi-animated comedy as a masterpiece, and those people are right. I mostly remember it for the terrifying presence of Christopher Lloyd’s Judge Doom.
Judge Doom’s First Appearance Shows How Scary He Is

Judge Doom was a very creepy figure from the moment he stepped onto the screen. With his long black coat, matching hat and dark shades, he oozes malice. When I first saw this movie at the age of 10, I thought he was the long-lost brother of Raiders of the Lost Ark’s Toht; I also told my dad, “This guy has weasels working for him! Of course he’s the bad guy!” Not only does Doom tower over Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) and insult his drinking on the job, but he also reveals what he plans to do if he catches Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer), who at this point, is believed to have killed Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye). Doom reveals “The Dip”, a mixture of chemicals that will remove a toon’s rubbery nature, and picks up a living shoe to put in the Dip. This scene was absolutely horrifying to me; the way the shoe slowly screams before it’s lowered into the dip is only eclipsed by the grim smile on Doom’s face. What makes it worse is that the shoe wasn’t doing anything wrong. Even Eddie, who hates toons due to the loss of his brother, is shaken by Doom’s cruelty. But if I thought the Dip was the worst scene in the film, I was wholly unprepared for what comes next.
The Big ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ Freaks Me Out to This Day

Who Framed Roger Rabbit hooked me as a kid, and still does as an adult. The infamous meeting between Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse shocked me as a kid — even before I knew about film studios, I knew that they both had their own worlds to explore (I was still a ways off from discovering the magic of comic books). Roger’s goofy, happy-go-lucky nature contrasting with Eddie’s burnt-out cynicism was also a plus, and long before Barbie hit the screens, Jessica Rabbit was giving me an inkling of how differently the world views women compared to how it treats men. But all of that pales in comparison to the film’s big reveal that Judge Doom is a toon, and the man who killed Eddie’s brother. A lot of people point to Doom’s glowing red eyes, combined with his voice going into a higher pitch, as sheer nightmare fuel, but I’d argue that everything about the reveal is horrifying.
First, there’s the fact that Doom is literally flattened by a steamroller; even if he weren’t a toon, that’s a gruesome way to go out. Then there’s the moment where he peels himself off the pavement. Everything about his movement screams ‘unnatural’. In fact, I’d say that Doom was the original sleep paralysis demon with the way he moved. Finally, there’s his perversion of cartoon gags. Where most cartoons usually use anvils and buzzsaws as sources of entertainment, Doom treats them as the deadly obstacles they are in real life, ensuring that I wouldn’t look at Looney Tunes the same way for a long while. In fact, it’s a miracle I could even watch cartoons after Roger Rabbit’s credits rolled. Robert Zemeckis might claim that Who Framed Roger Rabbit can’t get a sequel due to Jessica Rabbit being “too sexy” for Disney, but I know the real reason: he’ll never be able to top Judge Doom, and considering that Doom was an original creation for the movie, that’s speaks volumes.
One of My Favorite Anime Series Re-Ignited My ‘Roger Rabbit’ Nightmares

Image via VIZ

It would be a while until I watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit again. Judge Doom wound up haunting my nightmares for a week, and the fact that my school had decided to send us off to winter break with a screening of Gremlins only cemented my desire to stay away from the dark. But when I hit my teens and started delving more into the passions that shaped my writing career, one character brought the terror of Judge Doom racing back: Maximillion Pegasus from Yu-Gi-Oh! Pegasus, in addition to being the creator of the ‘Duel Monsters’ card game that fuels Yu-Gi-Oh!’s plot, serves as an antagonist to Yugi Muto in Yu-Gi-Oh! Season 1. It wasn’t Pegasus’ ability to read people’s minds with the Millenium Eye that was frightening, it was his deck, which contains cards based on cartoons! And a lot of these ‘Toon’ cards are utterly terrifying: the Dark Rabbit’s the answer to the question “What if Bugs Bunny was a raving psychopath?” and Bickuribox only cements that people are right to be terrified of jack-in-the-boxes. Pegasus also recalls that he based the Toon cards on his favorite childhood show Funny Bunny, and seeing the titular character’s resemblance to Roger Rabbit brought back a flood of memories. None of them were particularly pleasant.
Nowadays, I can get through Who Framed Roger Rabbit without flinching. It even led me in college to check out more of Robert Zemeckis’ work, including Back to the Future. The irony is not lost on me when watching Christopher Lloyd’s performance as Doc Brown that I’m also watching the same man who killed a cartoon shoe, and whose psychotic performance still lurks in my nightmares.