The Dark Truth Behind The Goonies

When we're first introduced to Sloth the giant, physically deformed brother of Jake and Francis Jake is singing opera to him and yelling at him for interrupting. Sloth is chained in a room in the basement of the restaurant, with only a small TV for entertainment. Sloth is making big scary noises, and

When we're first introduced to Sloth — the giant, physically deformed brother of Jake and Francis — Jake is singing opera to him and yelling at him for interrupting. Sloth is chained in a room in the basement of the restaurant, with only a small TV for entertainment. Sloth is making big scary noises, and Mikey, in hiding, looks totally freaked out. He takes pity on the "thing in the room" (since we don't know yet what Sloth's face looks like) and pushes his food closer to him. Sloth turns around, revealing his terrifying visage, and Mikey turns tail and runs. Sloth is, for all rights and purposes, introduced as a monster.

Now, if you're paying attention, Sloth is yelling "food please," a phrase that Mikey picks up on. Hey, even monsters need to eat. But later on, when Ma Fratelli tells the boys to put Chunk in with their brother, the two prisoners bond over a Baby Ruth. We find out Sloth is a sweetheart and, in the scene on the pirate ship, we find out that he's the way he is because his mother dropped him as a baby. Into a vat of acid, apparently.

So, if you ignore the narrative progression, and just focus on how he's been that way the whole time, and was kept CHAINED TO THE WALL WITH ZOO CHAINS — by his own family at that — you realize that this is, no doubt, the darkest and most awful thing about The Goonies. And yet, it gets glossed over big time (torture never seemed so light-hearted!). Poor Sloth. At least he gets to go live with Chunk's family at the end — plus, in the novelization, we learn he even gets his own Bar Mitzvah. Mazel Tov, Sloth.

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