A few weeks ago, I watched the recent Wonka movie that’s a prequel to Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (if you’re talking movies, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in book form, unless you’re talking about the Tim Burton version, which I kind of try to ignore).

I really enjoyed the movie and found it utterly delightful. My face hurt from smiling by the end of it, and there were a few moments that brought tears to my eyes. They did a good job of making it look like it took place in the same world as the 1970s movie, where it was ambiguously sort of European, but also with American touches, and no firm European setting. And I could see this Wonka as a younger version of Gene Wilder’s character. I could see this becoming a comfort movie (I need to get the DVD) because it definitely made me feel good, and there were parts that made my heart soar.

I have an odd history with this story world. The original Willie Wonka film remains the only movie I ever had to be carried out of because it scared me too much. I made it through all the Disney films fine, but when I was about 4, the scene where the girl turned into a blueberry freaked me out to the point my parents had to carry me out of the theater (ironically, I now eat blueberries just about every day). I didn’t see the whole movie until I was in my 30s. I wasn’t avoiding it or afraid of it. It had just never occurred to me to watch it until I was visiting my parents and it came on cable, and we all watched it (since my parents hadn’t seen the rest of it, either).

I had, however, read the books. My fourth-grade teacher had a routine of reading a chapter of a book to us every day after recess as a way of getting us settled down, and I think she must have been a fantasy fan because most of what she read us would fall into the fantasy category. She really must have liked Roald Dahl because she read a lot of those to us, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I did my usual thing of getting impatient with the one chapter a day pace and checked the books out of the library to read for myself. I don’t think I knew there was a sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory until she started reading that one.

So by the time I finally saw the movie all the way through, I knew the story and had my own mental images based on adding the parts I’d seen of the movie (and clips I’d seen over the years) to the imagery in the books, which made the movie weirdly familiar.

I’ve seen the Tim Burton one, but found it unsettling and not very much fun.

Now I kind of want to watch Wonka and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as a double feature and see how they fit together, but I have to admit that I still find the original movie a bit unsettling. It might be even more unsettling with the whiplash from the much sweeter and less freaky prequel.