This is somewhat relatable for me, having come from a strict fundamentalist Christian upbringing where most movies/TV/music weren't allowed. Though your cult sounds more restrictive.

I missed out on most of the Spielberg/Lucas axis growing up, except for Jaws, which I was big into for a year or so. Star Wars came later, and that was largely meh for me. As was E.T. when I rewatched it at 8 or 9. Strangely, I hardly ever watched "kids" movies growing up. It was all mainly films for teens or adults. For me, my "formative film" was Aliens, a movie I loved and which became the gold standard for anything action or people vs. beasts or alien related so much it even made Jurassic Park feel obsolete when I saw that on VHS.

If I'd been old enough to go on my own, I'd have been the one guy in the theater seeing The Thing over E.T. when it premiered. To me, it's a weak, mawkish story even by kid's movie standards, held together mainly by its superb direction and musical score. See Mac and Me as an example for when your director isn't a genius. Only Spielberg could have ever pulled it off. But I was a Cameron kid at that point, and Spielberg's schmaltz never appealed to me.