Just from the DVD cover you can tell The Dark Crystal is obviously not a movie about ponies and rainbows. Jim Henson’s 1982 venture into dark fantasy, which first crawled into theaters 35 years ago today, journeys to a land of shadows, sorcery, prophecies, and twisted creatures that look like some vulture-dinosaur hybrid.

Watch The Dark Crystal once—that half-dazed late-night type of watching—and you may go to bed vaguely disturbed by all those gnarly hands and strange noises. Now watch it again, and really watch. If imminent death is not leering in your face every other second, it’s still stalking you. Things that aren’t supposed to be alive could trample your bones. You could have your very life essence drained until you both look and feel mummified. Danger is the only thing looming in the future, whether you see it in a reflecting pool or the Crystal itself. None of these ghastly creatures and phenomena would ever have even come into being if it weren't for the powerful and often dreadful magic that overshadows the land of Thra.

Before the biting fairies and goblins of Labyrinth took you through dangers untold and hardships unknown, it was the unearthly forces in The Dark Crystal that scared the essence out of you, however much you tried to convince yourself the Skeksis were only puppets. Dare to follow the Gelflings into the Castle of the Crystal to witness 7 times that magic should really freak you out.