What are some frightening (either startling or disturbing) scenes that you can think of from a kids’ movie?
One that comes to mind for me is that scene in E.T. where the astronauts come into the house. Seeing guys in space suits inside a fucking house is a really surreal image, frankly it terrified me when I was a kid. Also, they’re lunging forward with their arms extended, like mummies!
Many scenes in the totally bizarre Don Bluth animated film All Dogs Go To Heaven were pretty frightening, too. The part where Charlie goes to hell, for one. The inside of Carface’s lair was atmospherically creepy and gave me the chills (a testament to that movie’s amazing hand-drawn backgrounds, really.) And the King Gator dressed up in womens’ clothing is kind of jarring to a 7 year old.
Ahhh!! Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the original one - when they’re in the boat on the chocolate river and go through the freakyass psychedelic tunnel. Freaked me out.
The Wizard Of Oz’s flying monkeys scared me as a little one, too.
Christ, I can’t believe I left that one out. Wow. I remember there was some random black and white video clips shown of stuff, including a chicken getting its head chopped off.
The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: that dude was stone evil. And the death coach from Darby O’Gill and the Little People was fucking terrifying.
When I was in nursery school, my grandma took me to see Disney’s Snow White. I was scared spitless during a scene in which Snow White runs through the woods in the dark and the trees seem to come to life and grab at her. For several years, I had nightmares of trees grabbing me. The apple-throwing trees from The Wizard of Oz worked their way into my dreams, too. I’m surprised that I don’t have a tree phobia as an adult.
There are many scenes in The Wizard of Oz that leave some kids traumatized for life. The aforementioned relief-pitcher trees, the flying monkeys, the Scarecrow on fire, the Wicked Witch on fire.
Yeah, I have to agree with you, that was really too much. According to IMDb the actor who played Sloth, John Matuszak, died of heart failure after heavily using steroids. More about him here.
If we are considering Fantasia a children’s movie, I vote for “Night on Bald Mountain”. I wasn’t a child when I saw it, (well, actually I was stoned and a little childlike) but when I saw that part it freaked me out.
My sister evidently freaked out at “Charlie And The Chocolate Factory” when Augustus Gloop went up the pipe. She was about 6 at the time, I think.
I don’t know if you’d consider Spiderman 2 a kids’ movie but the scene with Doctor Octopus in surgery was pretty intense. My sister had to take her 10-year old son out of the theatre.
I’m sure many kids were upset by the father dying in “The Lion King”.
I think that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is one - the old claymation type one - it scared the hell out of me as a kid, but now I have it on DVD and it’s a Christmas tradition…
ET terrified me as a child. The Secret of Nimh and The Dark Crystal were both pretty damn frightening. So was Watership Down. I don’t remember precise scenes though.
Growing up, I was allowed to watch horror movies, so it was rare indeed when a non horror/slasher flick would scare me. (I watched Nightmare on Elm Street 1 when I was 6.)
The only film I can remember scaring me is Large Marge on Peewee’s Big Adventure, like others have mentioned.
Same here. The Abominable Snowman scared the (fill in your favorite bodily substance) out of me when I was little.
I thought the Willy Wonka scene was cool, even as a young child when I first saw it in on the big screen. But then, weird things scared me (and sometimes scary things didn’t).