Movies I wish I hadn’t seen: The NeverEnding Story

As I have previously explained, I grew up in Canada with Canadian parents, so there are a lot of movies that everyone in the entire United States has seen -- EXCEPT ME.

But there are also movies that I made it to adulthood without seeing ... only to have Jesse get all up in arms over the travesty and force me to sit down and watch them. Sometimes, the movies that were cool as kids are still cool as adults – like all the Indiana Jones movies. Those are good.

And other times, I sit there watching what Jesse insists was “a totally awesome movie” that “defined his childhood” and I start to want to drive a Q-tip through my eardrum into my brain.

The NeverEnding Story was one of those movies. If you haven’t seen it, DON’T. I’ll tell you all the important parts here.

The Neverending Story is about some lonely weirdo of a kid who gets a magical book from a probable child molester.

 

The kid sneaks up into the attic of his school or something to creepily read the book all by himself with a flashlight.
 

To be fair, the kid might be right: I don’t know how I’d react if a child molester gave me a weird magical book to read. Maybe I’d build a fort entirely out of spoons and then go read the book in there.

The book, which has the impossible title "The NeverEnding Story," (I mean seriously, it obviously has an end or else it wouldn't have a back cover. It's not like it's a blog or something online where the author could just keep writing it until they die and someone else takes over. THE STORY HAS TO F*CKING END EVENTUALLY) ... ummm, where was I? Oh yes -- the story is about this young prince or something who has to reclaim his kingdom. I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying that close of attention. But the prince has to go on lots of adventures first. So he takes his magical horse and rides off into the wilderness of this imaginary world.

At one point, the young prince and his magical horse stumble into a swamp that is supposedly filled with sadness. Like if the swamp water touches you, it infects you with depression. The prince himself is okay because he’s riding the horse, but the horse becomes totally emo and depressed and whiny.

Then the prince yells the stupidest thing ever said in a movie, and the only line worth remembering from this entire epic piece of garbage of a film:

Incidentally, it is extremely fun to just scream “DON’T LET THE SADNESS OF THE SWAMP GET TO YOU!” whenever you have occasion to. Perhaps your kid steps in a puddle:

 

Perhaps you’re watching Forrest Gump:

 

Perhaps you’re making a sandwich:

 It is never not the right time to yell this.

But I guess the sadness of the swamp gets to the horse, and the weird kid reading the book by himself in an attic does some of the worst fake-crying in the history of child actors. And besides, who cries THAT HARD while reading a book alone? No wonder he doesn't have any friends.

Then, the movie mysteriously ends and Happy Gilmore comes on, because seriously I could not watch one more second of that crap. And then Jesse apologizes for making me watch any of it, but I forgive him because at least one good thing came out of it:

 

What a poor sport, amirite? If he didn't want me busting in there to scream about swamps, he should have locked the door.