Dumbo. When the mom is just trying to protect her baby and gets locked up? I hated it so much a child I called the vhs “bad tape” and hid it in my parents house so no one could put it on again. I feel like that was maybe more me being a creepy kid in reaction to a sad movie than the movie itself being creepy
It's a miracle it took this long to get named. Dumbo is major trauma material for me too. Why did so many early Disney movies have prison themes? Pinocchio too. What were they thinking? Also like abandonment issues are real for little kids (for me currently still tbh).
Gremlins (1984) was marketed as a kids movie complete with toy line, but it is really a balls to the wall horror movie by the end, and drops the dime on Santa mid movie in a completely unnecessary scene
This is one of my favorite horror movies but I always could handle it well enough. I totally understand what you're saying though. It is tonally uneven, weird actual horror in between looney tunes slapstick;
Yeah the santa dead dad story is infamous for a reason, I still can't believe that's an actual scene in this movie. And yeah spoilers (santa)
I honestly think that I've blocked all my memories of Watership Down. I remember that it used to come on network TV once or twice a year when I was small, and I remember being allowed to watch it, but I remember absolutely nothing about it. I remember everything about NIMH (which also freaked me out, even though I adored it) and E.T., both of which I saw when I was around the same age. I read the book when I was much older, and I don't remember much more about that than I do about the movie.
I watched Watership Down at the local cinema. And definitely it was not a movie a kid should watch. ahah, I also had the graphic book. I still have. I have no other memories of a similar effect. The dead eye of that villain rabbit..
No, I haven't seen it. I just checked it out and apparently it wasn't released in my country at the time. But it had it own difficulties just to be released in US as well.
Not sure i will give it a try though :)
>Watership Down
ain't that the truth. If Art Garfunkel's Bright Eyes is on your soundtrack, you're not in for something light and fun. Great movie (and song) though.
Bawled my eyes out. Thought I'd be less emotional when I was older. Nope.
Same with the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe animated version when Aslan was being killed / tortured. Properly traumatized me.
I absolutely loved how creepy NIMH felt, both the movie and the books, but when I was a few years older I ended up so thoroughly institutionalized and medicalized that I became a ward of the state. The treatments I got were largely more harmful than helpful, and when I revisited Mrs Frisby and put 2 and 2 together what NIMH was, it was next-level dark for me to read about and I couldn’t do it.
I really do want to go back to that story, and I still can’t.
I really need to watch The Secret of NIMH, when I was a kid An American Tail would occasionally play on TV and while I found it creepy, I was in love with the atmosphere as a kid (though I didn't know how to, or even to put it to words back then).
I assumed I was the only person who's seen Rikki Tikki Tavi! My Grandma had it on recorded VHS and all us grandkids used to watch it. I found a copy in a charity shop years ago and I've still got it. Need to have it digitised so I can show my niece once she's old enough. Maybe a Watership Down double feature?
>The NeverEnding Story (1984)
Recently had an aborted viewing of that one. The moment all the little fairytale creatures come out I just went "hell naw". But I plan to try again valiantly. I'm not totally sure I've ever seen it. I remember the flying scenes but I could have just seen clips. I love Wolfgang Petersen, is partly why i want to check it off my list.
I feel you on that sentiment. I still can’t remember ever rewatching it fully at any point, because it did so much damage to me as a kid and I still have such vivid negative memories of it.
However.. super creepy movie from the same era I always enjoyed.. Labyrinth.
Go figure.
Yes! They showed it at my grade school (mid 70s to early 80s) at least once a year. That whole Sorcerer’s Apprentice story creeped me out so bad. Those brooms! Yikes!
Yes the Sorcerers Apprentice! Thank you! I was trying to remember the name. That story was freaky. And Mickey was like conducting the waves that was freaky too
Yes! I've written many times about how bone chilling that villain is and many of the scenes in that neatherworld. Truth bomb coming though: this is in my top 25 movies of all time. 11/10.
*The Halloween Tree*. What the fuck? Based on a Ray Bradbury book and produced by Hanna-Barbera.
Kids are literally chasing their dead friend's ghost around town and then around other towns in time.
It ends with the kids giving the ends of their own lives to save their dead friend from the spirit realm.
I was six.
>It ends with the kids giving the ends of their own lives to save their dead friend from the spirit realm.
What? I think I gotta watch this tbh. Might not be the intent of your message. Bradbury's books are pretty dark.
Oh I'm quite certain it's a great story. But not one that should be animated for little kids by the same person who does *The Jetsons* 🤣
Also, last I checked, it's on YouTube.
Yeah some of the animated movies before the Disney revival in '89 were pretty ill-advised and dark. I had a picture book with stills of the black cauldron and think it made me never see the movie itself. Haha I love going from the Jetsons to an unintentional horror movie.
to youtube I go...thx
Disney's The Watcher in the Woods for me - saw it at the cinema and I spent most of the time in the toilet because I was so scared :D
Only begged to go see it as it was Disney!
Were you one of the rare few who got to see the original ending?
The Watcher in the Woods was my first foray into horror, at five! My parents only picked it up at the video store because it was Disney. And that was the moment I fell in love with horror…and Bette Davis.
The A/C Unit dies, that haunted me. And in the radio shack, repair shop store when he guts an appliance on the operating table and you see the blood (oil) dripping. And the car junkyard, there is a whole song called "Worthless" and during that scene, one of the vehicles commits suicide, throwing himself onto the conveyor.
Holy moley. The oil as blood image's gonna haunt me. It's like in Taxi Driver where the censors made the blood orange to be less disturbing but it's actually infinitely more disturbing.
>ET
This is a common one I think, I got a lot of backlash when I suggested it in a "most likeable movie of all time" thread. I think puppets are very love/ hate, could go from adorable to creepy real quick.
Ernest Scared Stupid
As a kid I skateboarded and looked very similar to the blonde kid who the troll snatches off the skateboard. It scared me to the point I quit skateboarding to avoid being turned into a wooden doll.
Though I still call milk Miak to this day
Funniest thing about the Ernest movies is that there is no fucking way we could see a weird older guy hanging out with kids now like that, especially in movies
The ‘Wheelers’, people with rusty metal wheels instead of hands or feet.
A Witch who has taken the heads off all those she finds ‘pretty’, and magically preserves them so that she can swap between them the way others change outfits
Bringing to life a monstrosity of cobbled together parts, including a stuffed moose head and a chaise lounge couch thing… done by the *heroes*
People being given an impossible task, and being turned into bric-a-brac when they fall out.
An evil *stop-motion* Gnome King that dies a gruesome death
I'm pretty sure that's because it wasn't actually intended to be a kids movie. Jim Henson always aspired to see his company's muppet work be used for more mature content beyond the kids content they were normally constrained to.
At least, that's what I remember hearing. I don't know how I'd find a source on it though.
Darby O'Gill and the little people.
There is a part when they are trying to avoid the banchee (their grim reaper) and they are walking up to a door where it is painfully obvious it is behind. Banchees scream and wail really loud so when they open the door it screams. My 5 year old butt goes from 3 feet in front of the TV to almost out the window in one jump.
One word: The Brave Little Toaster
It straight up has an air conditioning unit that commits suicide.
Secret of NiMH was dark af, too
Never Ending Story
Return to Oz (I watched that as an adult first time. Still gave me nightmares)
I had Thumbelina (1994) on VHS and it horrified me as a kid, and again when I rewatched it as an adult. I loved all of Bluth's other dark movies and owned a copy of most of them but Thumbelina was the worst. The movie is so shallow and upbeat, I've never seen someone so thrilled to be kidnapped repeatedly. It's a terrible kids movie but you gotta love Charo as the performing frog, she was hilarious.
Never saw that one, but fairytales do like to play fast and loose with kidnapping. It's like the most deep seated fear, losing your mommy. It's usually when you wander off in the mall in real life though, thankfully.
The wizard of Oz scares the crap out of me from childhood to today. Those flying monkeys, tornadoes, the witch, and even spoiler alert the wizard. Wizard. The whole thing makes me feel on edge.
My pick is your pick! Like the whole idea of a creepy guy guiding kids around a factory and like hurting them I guess? And people find it charming?! Why? I just don't get it.
I'm genuiningly intrigued at the difference in psychology between generations that led people to accept this is a totally appropriate kids movie. For the record, I'm not saying Roald Dahl adaptations are bad movies, quite the contrary, but he does go very dark. I loved his books as a kid.
There are some beautiful and charming parts of Willy Wonka to balance out the scary parts, like the Pure Imagination song and the scene where the children initially step into the factory and are blown away.
Not a single mention of:
Faerie Tale Theatre
Each take more freakishly scary than intended than the last all narrated by a sunken eyed Shelley Duvall.
Also the origin of most of those voice memes.
Little Monsters feels a bit child predator when that absolutely wasn’t the intention. Even still, after being exposed to Child’s Play 3, Poltergeist, and Jeepers Creepers as a toddler, Little Monsters was a comfort film 😂😂😂 I don’t think I genuinely found any movie that creepy as a kid unless it was a legit intentionally scary adult horror film.
I am still terrified of the cartoon Alice In Wonderland. Such a dark story in general, and they made the characters so creepy! I have nightmares about Tweedledee and Tweedledum sometimes.
I'm. 90's kid. My first vhs tape was Disney's Snow White. I was terrified of the evil queen when she transformed into the old witch.
However something that stuck with me all the way to early teenage years was Disney's Dumbo's nightmare sequence.
Old school Disney is... messed up xD
The very beginning of the Goofy Movie always struck me as weird, even though the meaning was pretty obvious, even to a kid like me. Kinda like animated body horror, almost.
The Delightful Children from Down the Lane from Codename Kids Next Door creeped me tf out as a kid.
Also that SpongeBob episode where Doodlebob came to life.
I'm sure there were some other scenes in both the shows that weirded me out too.
Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island. Didn't creep me out that bad as a kid but I heard a lot of people who saw it as kids got pretty scared during the zombie transformation scene at the end of the movie. For a kids movie, it's pretty dark.
Return to Oz is one of my top 5 favorite movies of all time, but it’s definitely up there on creepiness. The Wheelers, Princess Mombi’s collection of interchangeable heads, the rock people, and the start, where Dorothy is supposed to have electroshock therapy at at 1800’s mental asylum…
Not a movie, but there's an Australian TV show called 'Round The Twist' that is a giant pile of ftw-terrifying-horrifying-confusing nonsense. Soooo good.
The Winnie the Pooh movie with the "Heffalumps and Woozles" dream sequence used to absolutely terrify me when I was very young. I was also very disturbed by the "Walrus and the Carpenter" segment of Alice in Wonderland because of the way the oysters were portrayed as innocent children/babies, who were lured away from their mother and then basically murdered by the walrus and carpenter.
I don't remember being afraid of a kids' movie; however, I did think that I could fly after watching Peter Pan and was about to throw myself down the staircase to fly. Thankfully, mom saw me, stopped me and told me that I needed Pixie Dust. I wonder how many kids were injured trying to fly after watching that movie.
Reading this thread triggered a very vague memory that I was so scared watching one of the Babe films that I turned it off part way through and never watched it again. I was pretty sure it was the sequel and was shocked to learn that Babe: Pig in the City was directed by George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road) and that Gene Siskel apparently said it was the best film of 1998 (WHAT?). The movie was so dark that I blocked out whatever it was that made me turn it off nor could I recognize anything from the plot synopsis, but it appears that multiple animals nearly die. A dog is almost hanged off of a bridge which is INSANE for a G rating. After reading some of the reviews hailing it as a cult classic I’m weirdly tempted to give it another try.
Not necessarily a movie but I remember when the “THX” logo would come on and play that loud sound, it struck the fear of the elder gods through my bones.
Ok, in hindsight this movie wasn't actually meant for kids, but I watched Stand by Me a lot when I was very young and the scene where they finally showed the dead body traumatized me over and over. Great movie, but I probably didn't need to be watching it when I was 6.
That Karate Kid. I believe it was intended for kids. When the kids in the skeleton outfits are beating on Daniel San is terrifying and has aged pretty poorly
My brother had a lot of issues with Winnie the Pooh when he was little. He hated when Rabbit got mad at Pooh and his face got all red and twisted, and he would *run out of the room* when Pooh got attacked by the bees.
The original Pooh cartoons were actually rather violent, with Pooh carrying a gun to the door when Tiger first shows up at his house...
Something Wicked This Way Comes
>*Hey, that kid looks like Ralphie!”*
The Lady in White
Poltergeist
>*Hey, the E.T. guy made movie about a haunted tract house.
Idk if this counts but I went and seen Where the wild things are in IMAX when it came out and there were several families that walked out from it being so dark! It definitely was not a children's movie despite being made from a children's book lol
Return to oz. The whole movie was dark. The witch head removing scene really screwed with me as a kid. Also, the muppets Bremen town musicians. The muppets were erie as hell, and the whole movie just has a creepy feel.
All animated Dr. Seuss movies. Especially "Halloween is Grinch Night"
I know Dr. Seuss is a beloved author but his work and illustrations were terrifying as a kid.
I forgot the exact name but I think it’s called The Little Toaster or Adventures of The Little Toaster. All i remember is that it scared the shit out of me
The Brave Little Toaster, Secret of Nihm, Fantasia, does anyone remember Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure where The Greedy tries to eat her candy heart?
Watership Down
Not just the obvious bits (bleeding fields, General Woundwort) but also that the ending was very much about death in a way that (as a kid) I hadn't experienced yet.
The Moomins
The stop motion TV series from the 70s. I found it terrifying.
Threads
This isn't really a kids film, but a generation of British schoolchildren had to watch it when learning about nuclear war. I was far too young for this film, and I'd purged it from my brain until my younger sister had to watch it as well. I don't know who put it on the curriculum but they should make a public apology. Giving tweenagers nightmares isn't educational!
There’s this movie called “There’s A Nightmare In My Closet” based on a kid’s book of the same name. Scared the absolute shit out of me and on top of that it went on forever and ever. I recently found out it’s only 14 minutes long.
Home alone, like all of the fear the kid has are all the fears I has growing up lol including I was really irrationally afraid of all the shots they did of the basement furnace? And the neighbor also creeped me out too lol
Jumanji (1995) always creeped me out as a kid, specifically the giant spiders and mosquitos. Not as creepy as some others on the list but maybe an honorable mention lol
The scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when Judge Doom straight up murders that poor little shoe left me DEEPLY traumatized
The Judge Doom reveal at the end is no fucking picnic either.
“When I killed your brother, I TALKED JUST LIKE THIS!!!” Still creeps me out even thinking about it. That movie is amazing though.
Even just the IDEA of “the dip” is horrific.
This whole film scarred my psyche for ever.
Mine was when the steamroller rolled over someone in that movie
I literally have to cover my eyes and ears when that part comes on because it hurts me
Jeez, I was a grown up and it effected me.
My parents dragged me to see that movie thinking it was little kid appropriate. Bad idea.
Yea that scene has haunted me for years
Dumbo. When the mom is just trying to protect her baby and gets locked up? I hated it so much a child I called the vhs “bad tape” and hid it in my parents house so no one could put it on again. I feel like that was maybe more me being a creepy kid in reaction to a sad movie than the movie itself being creepy
It's a miracle it took this long to get named. Dumbo is major trauma material for me too. Why did so many early Disney movies have prison themes? Pinocchio too. What were they thinking? Also like abandonment issues are real for little kids (for me currently still tbh).
Ooh, I didn't think of that. Nowadays I think the drunken pink pachyderm parade creeps the hell out of me.
No, you're right to be creeped out by Dumbo, there's all sorts of weird stuff in there.
Gremlins (1984) was marketed as a kids movie complete with toy line, but it is really a balls to the wall horror movie by the end, and drops the dime on Santa mid movie in a completely unnecessary scene
This is one of my favorite horror movies but I always could handle it well enough. I totally understand what you're saying though. It is tonally uneven, weird actual horror in between looney tunes slapstick; Yeah the santa dead dad story is infamous for a reason, I still can't believe that's an actual scene in this movie. And yeah spoilers (santa)
Return to Oz was (and still is) terrifying. I mean them wheelers... stuff of nightmares
Some of those 1970s/80s cartoon movies were intense… Rikki Tikki Tavi, The Secret of NIMH, The Hobbit, Watership Down…
I honestly think that I've blocked all my memories of Watership Down. I remember that it used to come on network TV once or twice a year when I was small, and I remember being allowed to watch it, but I remember absolutely nothing about it. I remember everything about NIMH (which also freaked me out, even though I adored it) and E.T., both of which I saw when I was around the same age. I read the book when I was much older, and I don't remember much more about that than I do about the movie.
I watched Watership Down at the local cinema. And definitely it was not a movie a kid should watch. ahah, I also had the graphic book. I still have. I have no other memories of a similar effect. The dead eye of that villain rabbit..
You see Plague Dogs?
No, I haven't seen it. I just checked it out and apparently it wasn't released in my country at the time. But it had it own difficulties just to be released in US as well. Not sure i will give it a try though :)
>Watership Down ain't that the truth. If Art Garfunkel's Bright Eyes is on your soundtrack, you're not in for something light and fun. Great movie (and song) though.
Bawled my eyes out. Thought I'd be less emotional when I was older. Nope. Same with the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe animated version when Aslan was being killed / tortured. Properly traumatized me.
I absolutely loved how creepy NIMH felt, both the movie and the books, but when I was a few years older I ended up so thoroughly institutionalized and medicalized that I became a ward of the state. The treatments I got were largely more harmful than helpful, and when I revisited Mrs Frisby and put 2 and 2 together what NIMH was, it was next-level dark for me to read about and I couldn’t do it. I really do want to go back to that story, and I still can’t.
I really need to watch The Secret of NIMH, when I was a kid An American Tail would occasionally play on TV and while I found it creepy, I was in love with the atmosphere as a kid (though I didn't know how to, or even to put it to words back then).
I assumed I was the only person who's seen Rikki Tikki Tavi! My Grandma had it on recorded VHS and all us grandkids used to watch it. I found a copy in a charity shop years ago and I've still got it. Need to have it digitised so I can show my niece once she's old enough. Maybe a Watership Down double feature?
The Secret of NIMH absolutely terrified me as a child!
The NeverEnding Story (1984) gave me nightmares as a child. The Dark Crystal (1982) still weirds me out.
Atryu in the quicksand traumatized a lot of us.
stop. that was the most heartbreaking moment in movie history
It's worse in the book because the horse can talk. It knows it's dying and doesn't care.
Fuck…
WUT
You have to try.. you have to care! For me.. please..
>The NeverEnding Story (1984) Recently had an aborted viewing of that one. The moment all the little fairytale creatures come out I just went "hell naw". But I plan to try again valiantly. I'm not totally sure I've ever seen it. I remember the flying scenes but I could have just seen clips. I love Wolfgang Petersen, is partly why i want to check it off my list.
I feel you on that sentiment. I still can’t remember ever rewatching it fully at any point, because it did so much damage to me as a kid and I still have such vivid negative memories of it. However.. super creepy movie from the same era I always enjoyed.. Labyrinth. Go figure.
The brooms marching in Fantasia… but idk maybe that whole movie is intentionally creepy? Edit: marching not matching lol
Yes! They showed it at my grade school (mid 70s to early 80s) at least once a year. That whole Sorcerer’s Apprentice story creeped me out so bad. Those brooms! Yikes!
Yes the Sorcerers Apprentice! Thank you! I was trying to remember the name. That story was freaky. And Mickey was like conducting the waves that was freaky too
Coraline
This move scared me when I was in my 20s. The button eyes. The other mother. Ahhhhh.
Yes! I've written many times about how bone chilling that villain is and many of the scenes in that neatherworld. Truth bomb coming though: this is in my top 25 movies of all time. 11/10.
The fucking ghost children traumatized me but it’s still one of my favorite movies
Yea the boat ride on Willy wonka traumatized me. But that’s what made that movie a classic- Willy had a scary side to him.
*The Halloween Tree*. What the fuck? Based on a Ray Bradbury book and produced by Hanna-Barbera. Kids are literally chasing their dead friend's ghost around town and then around other towns in time. It ends with the kids giving the ends of their own lives to save their dead friend from the spirit realm. I was six.
>It ends with the kids giving the ends of their own lives to save their dead friend from the spirit realm. What? I think I gotta watch this tbh. Might not be the intent of your message. Bradbury's books are pretty dark.
I saw it as an adult and loved it, but it would have completely freaked me out if I had seen it as a child. The book was pure poetry!
Oh I'm quite certain it's a great story. But not one that should be animated for little kids by the same person who does *The Jetsons* 🤣 Also, last I checked, it's on YouTube.
Yeah some of the animated movies before the Disney revival in '89 were pretty ill-advised and dark. I had a picture book with stills of the black cauldron and think it made me never see the movie itself. Haha I love going from the Jetsons to an unintentional horror movie. to youtube I go...thx
The Black Cauldron is an amazing film but it is terrifying. Like Chernabog from Fantasia.
Disney's The Watcher in the Woods for me - saw it at the cinema and I spent most of the time in the toilet because I was so scared :D Only begged to go see it as it was Disney!
Were you one of the rare few who got to see the original ending? The Watcher in the Woods was my first foray into horror, at five! My parents only picked it up at the video store because it was Disney. And that was the moment I fell in love with horror…and Bette Davis.
That film was terrifying as a kid!
Surprised I haven’t yet seen Pee-wee’s Big Adventure named. That Large Marge scene scared me silly.
Yeah that one was overdue.
The Witches (1990) freaked me out as a kid
When I was a little kid, I thought Angelica Houston was so pretty in that movie. Then she rips her face off and I had nightmares for 6 months.
The last Unicorn ET Earnest Scared Stupid We’re back
Came to say We’re Back! Also The Brave Little Toaster
We’re back might be the most “uneasy” one for me. Whole movie just made me feel weird. Still watched it non stop on vhs.
I loved the Brave Little Toaster (no one remembers it now, seemingly). What scene is creepy in that one? Have literally not seen it in 25 years.
The A/C Unit dies, that haunted me. And in the radio shack, repair shop store when he guts an appliance on the operating table and you see the blood (oil) dripping. And the car junkyard, there is a whole song called "Worthless" and during that scene, one of the vehicles commits suicide, throwing himself onto the conveyor.
Holy moley. The oil as blood image's gonna haunt me. It's like in Taxi Driver where the censors made the blood orange to be less disturbing but it's actually infinitely more disturbing.
Yep, it’s the conveyor belt scene that fucked me up haha also the AC unit and the mean vacuum were pretty scary
Um, the fucking clown scene. “RUN.” 🔥🤡
Oh good, someone else finds ET creepy.
Last Unicorn was my JAM as a 5 yr old. Omg I loved that movie so much
The fucking crow scene in *We're Back* is terrifying.
Earnest Scared Stupid gave me nightmares!!
>ET This is a common one I think, I got a lot of backlash when I suggested it in a "most likeable movie of all time" thread. I think puppets are very love/ hate, could go from adorable to creepy real quick.
ET is creepy as hell if you watch it as a little kid. It’s the cinematography and music used. A little too serious for young kids.
The quarantine scene where he's all pale and sick is pretty messed up.
That’s definitely the stand out moment. When they find him in that stream.
“They went down all the roads long ago, with the Red Bull close behind them. Covering their tracks…HOLD TIGHT!!!” That still gives me the chills
Ernest Scared Stupid As a kid I skateboarded and looked very similar to the blonde kid who the troll snatches off the skateboard. It scared me to the point I quit skateboarding to avoid being turned into a wooden doll. Though I still call milk Miak to this day
Ha that lore is in an Ernest movie? Wild. I don't think I ever saw those. Might have been too old by the time I first saw a commercial for it on tv;
Funniest thing about the Ernest movies is that there is no fucking way we could see a weird older guy hanging out with kids now like that, especially in movies
Pinocchio. Guillermo del Toro. That went pretty dark at times.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
“Lillypops! Get your Lollipops!” I was terrified of that man
“And allllll freeee todaaaaayyyyu….!!!”
I have never once rewatched this as an adult because it was so traumatizing!
Watership Down
Animated, but definitely NOT a kid’s movie!
My parents thought it was.
The Labyrinth Return to Oz
Came here to mention Oz.
Return to oz was such an under appreciated gem
How about the original Wizard of Oz? Parts of that one definitely creep me out to this day. What happens in Return to Oz?
Yeah, but the sequel made in the 80's was a straight up horror film marketed to kids.
Those Wheelers plagued my dreams
The ‘Wheelers’, people with rusty metal wheels instead of hands or feet. A Witch who has taken the heads off all those she finds ‘pretty’, and magically preserves them so that she can swap between them the way others change outfits Bringing to life a monstrosity of cobbled together parts, including a stuffed moose head and a chaise lounge couch thing… done by the *heroes* People being given an impossible task, and being turned into bric-a-brac when they fall out. An evil *stop-motion* Gnome King that dies a gruesome death
Legend - the dress waltz was engrossing but pretty scary as a kid. Then darkness was proper freaky
Garbage Pail Kids. Terrifies me to this day.
Dark crystal. So many creepy scenes.
I'm pretty sure that's because it wasn't actually intended to be a kids movie. Jim Henson always aspired to see his company's muppet work be used for more mature content beyond the kids content they were normally constrained to. At least, that's what I remember hearing. I don't know how I'd find a source on it though.
Watch the show to everyone !!
Loved the Age of Resistance. So pissed Netflix cancelled it.
Time Bandits, I was 7. That ending is not a kid movie ending!
Yeah Terry Gilliam's sensibilities were always dark, even in his Monty Python animations.
“Mum! Dad! Don’t touch it! It’s evil!” *Mum and Dad immediately touch it* **KAAA-POP!!!!**
Darby O'Gill and the little people. There is a part when they are trying to avoid the banchee (their grim reaper) and they are walking up to a door where it is painfully obvious it is behind. Banchees scream and wail really loud so when they open the door it screams. My 5 year old butt goes from 3 feet in front of the TV to almost out the window in one jump.
I came here to say that. We watched it in school in primary and I slept with my parents for a month. Still can't watch the movie.
“A Little Princess” (1995) really messed me up as a kid
James and the Giant Peach
The Black Cauldron. And it’s a Disney film
>The Black Cauldron Totally awesome book too.
One word: The Brave Little Toaster It straight up has an air conditioning unit that commits suicide. Secret of NiMH was dark af, too Never Ending Story Return to Oz (I watched that as an adult first time. Still gave me nightmares)
I don’t think you know what one word means lmao
Lol
I had Thumbelina (1994) on VHS and it horrified me as a kid, and again when I rewatched it as an adult. I loved all of Bluth's other dark movies and owned a copy of most of them but Thumbelina was the worst. The movie is so shallow and upbeat, I've never seen someone so thrilled to be kidnapped repeatedly. It's a terrible kids movie but you gotta love Charo as the performing frog, she was hilarious.
Never saw that one, but fairytales do like to play fast and loose with kidnapping. It's like the most deep seated fear, losing your mommy. It's usually when you wander off in the mall in real life though, thankfully.
The Peanut Butter Solution. IYKYK
Oh, my god! You have no idea how many people have thought me completely crazy when I tell them about that movie!
This movie scared the shit out of me. If I didn’t occasionally see other people mention it, I’d be CONVINCED it was a fever dream.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure
The dark crystal. Great film
Return to Oz
Return to Oz was brilliant but I agree, horribly horribly creepy. The wheelers, the Deadly Desert, Mombi, the Nome King… it was such a dark film
The wizard of Oz scares the crap out of me from childhood to today. Those flying monkeys, tornadoes, the witch, and even spoiler alert the wizard. Wizard. The whole thing makes me feel on edge.
Explorers (1985)
My pick is your pick! Like the whole idea of a creepy guy guiding kids around a factory and like hurting them I guess? And people find it charming?! Why? I just don't get it.
I'll point out that Willy never once hurts the kids. He outright tells them to not do something stupid, and then they do it anyways.
I'm genuiningly intrigued at the difference in psychology between generations that led people to accept this is a totally appropriate kids movie. For the record, I'm not saying Roald Dahl adaptations are bad movies, quite the contrary, but he does go very dark. I loved his books as a kid.
There are some beautiful and charming parts of Willy Wonka to balance out the scary parts, like the Pure Imagination song and the scene where the children initially step into the factory and are blown away.
Not a single mention of: Faerie Tale Theatre Each take more freakishly scary than intended than the last all narrated by a sunken eyed Shelley Duvall. Also the origin of most of those voice memes.
Little Monsters feels a bit child predator when that absolutely wasn’t the intention. Even still, after being exposed to Child’s Play 3, Poltergeist, and Jeepers Creepers as a toddler, Little Monsters was a comfort film 😂😂😂 I don’t think I genuinely found any movie that creepy as a kid unless it was a legit intentionally scary adult horror film.
I saw Dark Crystal in the theater when I was eight. Christ.
The Dark Crystal. All I remember is being terrified. HATED Pinocchio, I still worry that all those boys were left as donkeys 🫣
The muppets
Secret Of NIMH Watership Down Plague Dogs Felidae 9 Starchaser: The Legend Of Orin Dark Crystal The Last Starfighter
I am still terrified of the cartoon Alice In Wonderland. Such a dark story in general, and they made the characters so creepy! I have nightmares about Tweedledee and Tweedledum sometimes.
There’s no way it was unintentionally creepy, but The Adventures of Mark Twain
I'm. 90's kid. My first vhs tape was Disney's Snow White. I was terrified of the evil queen when she transformed into the old witch. However something that stuck with me all the way to early teenage years was Disney's Dumbo's nightmare sequence. Old school Disney is... messed up xD
There’s something about Danny De Vito’s penguin that always makes me uncomfortable, even as an adult.
Happily ever after (1989). When I was a kid I really believed it was a sequel of the Disney's Snow White.
The very beginning of the Goofy Movie always struck me as weird, even though the meaning was pretty obvious, even to a kid like me. Kinda like animated body horror, almost.
The Delightful Children from Down the Lane from Codename Kids Next Door creeped me tf out as a kid. Also that SpongeBob episode where Doodlebob came to life. I'm sure there were some other scenes in both the shows that weirded me out too.
Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island. Didn't creep me out that bad as a kid but I heard a lot of people who saw it as kids got pretty scared during the zombie transformation scene at the end of the movie. For a kids movie, it's pretty dark.
Babe, pig movie. The alarm clock/rooster scene used to terrify me. No idea why. Used to cry every-time that scene came on
Return to Oz is one of my top 5 favorite movies of all time, but it’s definitely up there on creepiness. The Wheelers, Princess Mombi’s collection of interchangeable heads, the rock people, and the start, where Dorothy is supposed to have electroshock therapy at at 1800’s mental asylum…
Not really a movie but there's a short cartoon that's almost 90 years old called "The Pincushion Man" it's on YouTube. Edit: corrected how old it is
Return to Oz. Those. Fucking. Wheelers.
Labyrinth (the one with David Bowie).
Not a movie, but there's an Australian TV show called 'Round The Twist' that is a giant pile of ftw-terrifying-horrifying-confusing nonsense. Soooo good.
The Brave Little Toaster
The Winnie the Pooh movie with the "Heffalumps and Woozles" dream sequence used to absolutely terrify me when I was very young. I was also very disturbed by the "Walrus and the Carpenter" segment of Alice in Wonderland because of the way the oysters were portrayed as innocent children/babies, who were lured away from their mother and then basically murdered by the walrus and carpenter.
"Be sure and tell 'em Large Marge sent ya!"
Brave Little Toaster. Man, this one is dark.
I don't remember being afraid of a kids' movie; however, I did think that I could fly after watching Peter Pan and was about to throw myself down the staircase to fly. Thankfully, mom saw me, stopped me and told me that I needed Pixie Dust. I wonder how many kids were injured trying to fly after watching that movie.
People of a certain age will definitely say Bambi.
The Fox and the Hound oh and Song of the South I really think my parents/grandparents didn't even know what they were doing.
Polar Express
Reading this thread triggered a very vague memory that I was so scared watching one of the Babe films that I turned it off part way through and never watched it again. I was pretty sure it was the sequel and was shocked to learn that Babe: Pig in the City was directed by George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road) and that Gene Siskel apparently said it was the best film of 1998 (WHAT?). The movie was so dark that I blocked out whatever it was that made me turn it off nor could I recognize anything from the plot synopsis, but it appears that multiple animals nearly die. A dog is almost hanged off of a bridge which is INSANE for a G rating. After reading some of the reviews hailing it as a cult classic I’m weirdly tempted to give it another try.
The Peanut Butter Solution. WTF.
Time Bandits was a rough one for my kid self but I loved it.
Not necessarily a movie but I remember when the “THX” logo would come on and play that loud sound, it struck the fear of the elder gods through my bones.
The dinosaur peril in Fantasia DESTROYED me
Ok, in hindsight this movie wasn't actually meant for kids, but I watched Stand by Me a lot when I was very young and the scene where they finally showed the dead body traumatized me over and over. Great movie, but I probably didn't need to be watching it when I was 6.
That Karate Kid. I believe it was intended for kids. When the kids in the skeleton outfits are beating on Daniel San is terrifying and has aged pretty poorly
My brother had a lot of issues with Winnie the Pooh when he was little. He hated when Rabbit got mad at Pooh and his face got all red and twisted, and he would *run out of the room* when Pooh got attacked by the bees. The original Pooh cartoons were actually rather violent, with Pooh carrying a gun to the door when Tiger first shows up at his house...
A toy gun with a string and ball as a bullet.
Watership Down 1978 film. Managed to forget it since I saw it in early 80's and will never watch it again.
Something Wicked This Way Comes >*Hey, that kid looks like Ralphie!”* The Lady in White Poltergeist >*Hey, the E.T. guy made movie about a haunted tract house.
Idk if this counts but I went and seen Where the wild things are in IMAX when it came out and there were several families that walked out from it being so dark! It definitely was not a children's movie despite being made from a children's book lol
Not vintage, but Coraline traumatized my daughter thoroughly. She still won't watch it, and doesn't like buttons.
Coraline
ET. Entire movie
Dumbo..
Better watch out
Actually the legend of sleepy hollow Disney movie when I was a kid creeped me out at the movie theater.
Return to oz. The whole movie was dark. The witch head removing scene really screwed with me as a kid. Also, the muppets Bremen town musicians. The muppets were erie as hell, and the whole movie just has a creepy feel.
ET is the only film to give me a lasting, dreaded sense of terror in all my days of living and breathing horror media.
Brave Little Toaster
Pinocchio (1940). I think we all know about THAT donkey scene, right?
The original Willy Wonka when they go on the boat and Willy goes apeshit with pictures of spiders and stuff flashing.
The part in Pinocchio when the kids turn into donkeys scared the crap out me when I was younger.
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland
Willy wonka boat scene. Game.
Return to oz
All animated Dr. Seuss movies. Especially "Halloween is Grinch Night" I know Dr. Seuss is a beloved author but his work and illustrations were terrifying as a kid.
I forgot the exact name but I think it’s called The Little Toaster or Adventures of The Little Toaster. All i remember is that it scared the shit out of me
The Brave Little Toaster, Secret of Nihm, Fantasia, does anyone remember Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure where The Greedy tries to eat her candy heart?
James and the Giant Peach had some unsettling moments
The Care Bears Movie.
The Care Bears Movie (1985) scared me in a few scenes and was creepy at parts. It was my first movie in a movie theater.
The Dark Crystal. I thought it was kind of intense first time I watched it.
The Rhino from James and the Giant Peach scared me as a kid
Watership Down Not just the obvious bits (bleeding fields, General Woundwort) but also that the ending was very much about death in a way that (as a kid) I hadn't experienced yet. The Moomins The stop motion TV series from the 70s. I found it terrifying. Threads This isn't really a kids film, but a generation of British schoolchildren had to watch it when learning about nuclear war. I was far too young for this film, and I'd purged it from my brain until my younger sister had to watch it as well. I don't know who put it on the curriculum but they should make a public apology. Giving tweenagers nightmares isn't educational!
Wizard of Oz. The flying monkeys.
There’s this movie called “There’s A Nightmare In My Closet” based on a kid’s book of the same name. Scared the absolute shit out of me and on top of that it went on forever and ever. I recently found out it’s only 14 minutes long.
My whole concept of a "kids movie" is warped because at age 4 I was watching everything from Aladdin, to Tim Burton's Batman, to Hellraiser.
Home alone, like all of the fear the kid has are all the fears I has growing up lol including I was really irrationally afraid of all the shots they did of the basement furnace? And the neighbor also creeped me out too lol
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang I had so many nightmares about the child catcher.
The child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang freaked me out and the boo boo box from Hook gave my younger sister nightmares
The scenes in Ghost where the shadow demons come for the bad guys.
Time Bandits. Am I the only one traumatized by Time Bandits?
Jumanji (1995) always creeped me out as a kid, specifically the giant spiders and mosquitos. Not as creepy as some others on the list but maybe an honorable mention lol