Like many ‘90s kids, I spent my childhood terrified of Miss Trunchbull from Matilda – and now, the movie is trending on Netflix. Adapted from the classic Roald Dahl book of the same name, Matilda stars Mara Wilson as the eponymous child prodigy, who develops psychokinetic powers and uses them to fight back against her abusive family and the ruthless headmistress of her school. The adaptation was directed by Danny DeVito, who also plays dual roles as Matilda’s reprehensible father and the film’s narrator. Rhea Perlman plays Matilda’s mother and Embeth Davidtz plays her kind-hearted teacher, Miss Honey.

Although everyone in the Matilda cast does a great job, it’s Pam Ferris who steals the show as the movie’s main villain, Miss Trunchbull, the tyrannical principal of Matilda’s school. There are two kinds of villains in children’s movies. There’s the kind who are fun to watch, like Ursula or Cruella de Vil, and there’s the kind who are so terrifying that they ruin childhoods, like the Other Mother from Coraline or Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Miss Trunchbull falls into the latter category. She traumatized many a young viewer – including me.

Danny DeVito’s Matilda Is Now Trending On Netflix

Matilda hit Netflix on July 1

Matilda arrived in the streaming library of Netflix on July 1, and it’s already trending on the site. Along with brand-new original releases like A Family Affair and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, Matilda has found a massive audience around the globe. And it’s hardly surprising; Matilda is a great movie. It’s a well-written, well-directed adaptation with a terrific cast. Wilson has the star power to carry a movie and the dramatic chops to make audiences empathize with her character. DeVito and Perlman share hilarious chemistry as a bickering married couple who can’t stand their own daughter.

Matilda takes DeVito’s signature pitch-black sense of humor, seen in his other directorial efforts like Death to Smoochy, The War of the Roses, and Throw Momma from the Train, and translates it into a kids’ movie. Matilda doesn’t have the hard-R crudeness of DeVito’s other comedies, but its sense of humor is just as delightfully dark. It’s one of the greatest Roald Dahl adaptations, because DeVito captures the unique approach that made Dahl so legendary: seeing just how far he can push the darkness of a story intended for children.

Miss Trunchbull Is Still The Scariest Kids Movie Villain From My Childhood

Matilda’s villain is a source of nightmare fuel

Although I would grow into a horror fanatic in my teenage years, as a young child, I was very easily scared. I was horrified when Lex Luthor arranged to have a police officer hit by a train in 1978’s Superman. I was horrified when Amos got caught in one of his own bear traps in The Fox and the Hound. And I wouldn’t even set foot in the shallow end of a swimming pool after watching Jaws. But all that fear was nothing compared to the sheer terror of Matilda’s Miss Trunchbull.

As a kid, watching Miss Trunchbull on a TV screen was scarier than being in trouble with an actual teacher at school. She has a torture device called “The Chokey” – a box full of nails and shards of broken glass where she locks unruly children – and in the nail-biting climactic sequence, she chases Matilda around her house with her hammer. For those born in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, Miss Trunchbull was arguably the scariest villain in kids’ cinema. With Matilda trending on Netflix, it looks like a new generation of kids are going to be terrified by her now.

Miss Trunchbull Gives Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s Terrifying Kids Movie Villain A Run For His Money

Miss Trunchbull wasn’t the first children’s movie villain to haunt childhoods

Although Miss Trunchbull was the scariest movie villain from my childhood, she wasn’t the first villain from a kids’ movie to terrify young viewers. The originator of this trope – the trope of a kids’ movie’s baddie being much, much scarier than they need to be – was the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The Child Catcher rides around the streets of Vulgaria with a giant cage on wheels, where he lures and imprisons children; he’s the stuff of nightmares, and way more terrifying than the villain of a whimsical comedy about a flying car had any right to be.

The Child Catcher didn’t appear in Ian Fleming’s original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang book, so he was an original creation for the movie adaptation – which, interestingly enough, was scripted by none other than Matilda author Roald Dahl. Clearly, Dahl enjoyed creating horrifying villains that would keep children up at night. And he didn’t stop there: he also created the Fleshlumpeater, the Grand High Witch, and, of course, Willy Wonka.