Artex dying in The Neverending Story.
Damn straight. That movie has haunted my dreams since I was a little girl. Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t have watched it every day.
My vote goes to the much creepier sequel to the Wizard of Oz. I mean, the queen who chooses her head, the WHEELERS… scared the bejesus out of me (I guess that explains the be-atheism).
Okay, I second Watership Down because I saw it when I was five, but I think it’s about as suitable for kids as Animal Farm. I also second the “Oo-ee-oo-ooooooo” army in The Wizard of Oz and I didn’t like the angry, talking trees that threw apples either! I thought he flying monkeys were kind of neat.
I LOVED the Abominable Snowman in Rudolf. Especially when he realized he had no teeth and was making those lip-smacking noises. He became a running joke between my parents and me.
As for disturbing:
I once saw cartoon version of The Happy Prince. I’m a little hazy on the details, but it seemed that the soul of a Prince inhabited a gold statue with diamond/rubies/saphires for eyes. The Prince became friends with a swallow who nested in his arms. The Prince’s subjects were dying of starvation and poverty, so the Prince asked the swallow to peal away his gold to give pieces to the poor.
I remember feeling so sad when there was no gold left and the Prince told the swallow to take the gemstones from his eyes. “I cannot! You will be blind!” IIRC the swallow died in the arms of the statue because he would not abandon the Prince for the winter. < sniff >Waaaaaah! < sniff >
Also, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe cartoon movie. I wasn’t expecting Aslan to get his mane shaved off wih those horrible beasts singing about how he was just a kitty and then… AACK!
Holy hell, you’re going to have to pay my therapist bills because I’ve spent about 20 years repressing that memory.
Oh, and I just remembered in Snow White I was so scared of the scene in which the evil queen turned herself into that spooky witch-woman, my mom had to take me out into the hall to calm down. I was barely able to go back into the dark theatre.
Little Nemo in…Slumberland? Yeah that was a bit odd, but I don’t think it was too scary for moi. 
Oh yeah, the evil queen in “Snow White” = evil. The entire movie (hell, and book) “The Witches” scared the piss out of me. I’ll get shudders if I think about it too long…Ugh. Yes, as a (near) adult, it scares me to this day. Kids movie my arse.
And white gross E.T. in the bathroom did disturb me.
But I did not cry when Mufasa died in the “Lion King.” Maybe I was a smidge stronger by then.
Ok, I thought I was the only one who remembered about that movie. It gave me nightmares when I first saw it. Oh, and the baby is her half-brother or step-brother, and she at first wishes for him to be gone, but then realizes that if the kid is gone she’s dead meat and has to look for it.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned Return to Oz. Jack Pumpkinhead and the horrible Clockwork Orange wheelie things were bad enough, but Princess Mombie, and her closet of talking detachable heads irrevocably scarred my 6 year old psyche.
Theory - either the makers of kids movies then had serious issues that the makers of kids movies now work out in therapy instead of on the screen or - we weren’t meant to see those over and over and over again.
I was very, very slightly pre-VCR (the very rich kids had them when I started growing out of the kid movie target demographic). So I would be taken to see a movie once, and that would be it. I might see the thing again on television down the road maybe or perhaps on a reel at school or at the library, but if they got me into the theater in the first place, they had made all the money they were going to make out of me and if they scared the crap out of me while I was watching so I’d never ever see that movie again, it didn’t really matter.
Now, they want to see the kids in the theater and then pestering mom & dad to buy the tape 6 months later to watch it over and over and over and over again (the same with the sequels to the tape). If the kid is too creeped out by the movie in the first place, they’ll lose revenue. However, if the kid is only mildly or disturbed the tape might still get rented or bought and watched and rewatched and rewatched. So, friendlier kids movies mean more money.
There’s also some whole long, complicated theory involving the Grimm fairytales about how children need to be shocked/scared while they’re young. formative years, mumble… If anyone’s taken child psych, feel free to cut in…
Add me to the list. I don’t know why my parents let me watch that, but the nightmares sure were interesting. Then again, these are the same people that thought Jaws was a good movie for me to see at seven years old so I guess it’s not suprising. It did cut down on trips to the beach, though, so maybe that was the plan.
I remember Darby O’Gill and the Little People scaring me when I was really young, but I can’t remember what exactly.
Probably because the coach that comes for Kitty when she is dying of (an illness?). As I recall, a skeleton was driving it and it came floating through the air towards them.
shudder!
Yeah, my mistake. For some reason I get their names mixed up.
Marc
The Banshee at the end scared me silly when I was a wee lad.
Marc
Dang! People have beaten me to “Return to Oz” AND “Darby O’Gill.”
Well, at least I can mention that Return to Oz had a charming Edwardian insane asylum…complete with wood-paneled electroshock machine, and the moans of lobotomzed patients coming from the basement.
With that and the Wheelers, NOTHING is scarier than L. Frank Baum.
Speaking of which, did anyone ever see the Rankin-Bass claymation film “The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus”? Or, as my Mom calls it, “Hobbit Claus”, owing to the…bizarre fantasy elements. The family channel airs it a lot around christmas. It’s the only Christmas movie I know of where the hero’s buddies gang up and KILL their enemies.
And it also has Samurai. By name. Kendo swords, Mt. Fuji in the background, everything. Find a Christmas movie with THOSE in it, I dare ya’.
Ranchoth
I hated it when Oliver almost drowns at the end of Oliver and Company. It’s the only movie I actually remember seeing as a kid, for that reason. That scene disturbed the hell out of me.
Not that this one was scary or disturbing, but anyone ever see Disney’s live action “Mr. Boogedy” and “Bride of Boogedy”?
The first had Kristy Swanson in it.
The lobotomized crew members in The Black Hole. When what’s-his-name pulled the mirror shield off the crewman’s face, I almost jumped out of my seat!
Also all the weird stuff at the end really creeped me out; I was 12 at the time.
ME I was a wuss as a Kid, any movie in the Planet of the Apes series scared me to death whenever it was on TV. Now before anyone says “Hey that’s not a Kids movie” You have to realize it was:
A) Rated G when released
B) Was generally the Movie for a Sunday Afternoon
Oh yeah Alfred E Numan scared me too.
And the Old hag from the Little Rascals Short “Mush and Milk” Scares my Son so I know wussiness is passed on through Genes.
Babe: Pig in the City was a great, but very disturbing movie. The drowning dog was bad, but the part that got me the most was when the little crippled dog has a near-death experience and imagines himself free of the little wheelie thing. <shudder>
Flying Monkeys… check.
Pants… check.
Oompa loompas… check.
Disney parents dying… check.
The count from sesame street scared the crap out of my small mind as a kid, but that’s not a movie.
I was terrified of the scene in Superman 3 where that woman gets borg-ified by the supercomputer.
Don’t mind the ewoks too much, but I still cheer when that one (ONE out of hundreds…) dies.