Traditionally, children’s stories have used all kinds of horror elements to teach lessons and warn the children reading them against wrongdoing. Just look at the tales of the Brothers Grimm and other original fairytales where the stories end with the wolf eating Little Red Riding Hood or Cinderella’s stepsisters cutting off portions of their feet to fit the glass slipper.
Today, much of children’s entertainment relies on saccharine, presenting sanitized stories made to “protect” children from harsh realities and scares. However, films like Laika’s Coraline and ParaNorman occasionally bring horror elements back into family media. Some would even call them horror films.
While movies like The Nightmare Before Christmas use horror elements without trying to scare an audience, others like Poltergeist, Beetlejuice, and Ghostbusters tow that balance of scaring just enough to grip an audience. These films all get cited as gateways into fuller-fledged horror movies. And still, other movies may stick more to that saccharine style but still have an alarming moment or two, giving kids and adults alike an unexpected shiver.
Check out these scariest scenes in children's movies ranging from thrilling to getting downright under your skin.
Large Marge in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985)
Pee-wee, hitchhiking his way across the country to find his bike, guests picked up in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, by a ghastly truck driver named Large Marge. His childlike giddiness evaporates into naivete that gets the better of him as she relays a story about a horrible trucking accident ten years earlier. When she turns to him in the middle of this slow-paced and dreary story to show how mangled the body in the accident looked, it catches the audience off guard as much as Pee-wee!
Though the scene plays for laughs just like the rest of the movie, this brief moment of stop-motion animation transforms her face into something ghoulish, a genuine jump scare that remains one of the most memorable parts of a thoroughly great dark comedy.
The Painting in The Witches (1990)
The most memorable scene from The Witches occurs at the witches’ meeting in the ballroom, with a commanding performance by Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch. But the film’s opening story about young Erica and how witches hate children makes for a sincerely haunting sequence. As the story unfolds, a witch stalks and captures the little girl, locking her in a painting in her home. She watches her family from afar until she fades away; it becomes increasingly unsettling.
Warnings of witches, who appear as kind old ladies, and their various endeavors make the mundane frightening, as if this could happen in any neighborhood. While it might seem a touch dry compared to the witch’s meeting, all the imagined possibilities induce shudders, giving way to the same feelings of hearing ghost stories around a campfire that make kids worried about something coming to eat them up.
Sid’s Room in Toy Story (1995)
Buzz Lightyear and Woody lead a good life as the toys of their loving kid, Andy, but just outside the window, they witness the horrors endured by the toys of the destructive neighbor kid, Sid. When they end up in Sid’s room, they experience a villainous lair of black lights with dark corners, traps, and the things that go bump in the night: Sid’s mutant toys. These new hodgepodged creations resemble Frankenstein monsters, formed from various arms, legs, and other loose pieces left over after Sid has blown up or performed surgery on previous toys.
Of course, these disfigured toys aren’t nearly as scary as they first appear, but the reveal of characters like Babyface with his mechanical spider legs or the Hand-in-the-Box with a monster hand instead of a clown head intentionally sends a fright.
A Night on Bald Mountain in Fantasia (1940)
Disney has made only a few forays into outright horror, with Something Wicked This Way Comes arguably the most authentic as a whole. For a scene, though, the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence may come to mind first for most people. The winged and muscular Chernabog awakens at night, summoning dark creatures to perform for him in some of the best animation the company has released.
The sequence has an incredible atmosphere, with dark midnight blues and greens contrasting fiery yellows and hellish oranges as demons, succubi, skeletons, and more do Chernabog’s bidding. The scene makes such an impact that Disney follows it up by flowing directly into the next segment, sans narrator, for a quiet rendition of “Ave Maria” over animation of nuns blessing the area.
The Boat Ride in W-lly Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
The horrors of Chocolate Factory begin with its general premise. Children enter a sweets warehouse and get trapped, tortured, and disfigured at their slightest misbehaving as workers sing off-kilter tunes. The tune that most skulks to mind comes when Wonka shepherds his visitors away from the vibrant candy fields and onto a boat traveling into a cavernous, rather ravenous, tunnel.
A sensory overload ensues as bright, psychedelic colors and beastly images plaster the walls, highlighting Wonka’s hellish chant that describes the danger, destruction, and death around them. The trip befuddles and terrifies the guests.
The Train Station in Mirai (2018)
Four-year-old Kun experiences a shift in the family dynamic when his parents bring home a little sister. When he feels like the family no longer wants to spoil him and show him attention, he runs away from home and ends up at a large train station, not understanding where to go or what to do.
Lost amongst a sea of people, Kun panics, realizing he doesn’t know enough about his family to ask for help. As if his confusion wasn’t enough, a bullet train to Lonely Land pulls up, ready to take him aboard. The train has such an imposing design that only the glowing bright red light from inside could woo a child into it, but this light seems to be calling from the underworld, a sight that worsens little Kun’s situation.
The Supercomputer in Superman 3 (1983)
The third film to star Christopher Reeve as Superman makes a lot of changes and, unfortunately, more than a few missteps. Setting aside the fun and flashy qualities of superhero movies brings out a quick, grisly moment leading into the film’s climax.
A computer becomes self-aware and takes control of one of the film’s villains, turning her into a cyborg. Within seconds, she gets pulled into the giant computer, yelling for help, and practically shrink-wrapped in pieces of metal and circuit boards with small explosions all around her. Shown primarily in closeups, the changeover into a walking computer has an unsettling quality. However, the fight against Superman immediately returns to bad camp, nestling neatly back in with the rest of the movie.
The Queen’s Transformation in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Historians cite Snow White’s scary adventure through the forest, where all eyes are on her, as a masterpiece of surreal animation. But when the huntsman fails to kill the princess, instead letting her escape, The Evil Queen must take matters into her own hands.
Conjuring with her spellbook, she concocts a potion to disguise herself as an old peddler woman, with each ingredient more foreboding than the last. When she finally consumes the drink, the room spins, and her outward beauty slowly deteriorates to reveal her new look, all even more meticulously animated than the forest scene. The dizzying transformation never lets viewers look away, showing the menacing lengths this villain will go to get Snow White.
The Donkey Transformation in Pinocchio (1940)
A wilder transformation takes place on Pinocchio’s daring journey, which takes him to many scary places, including being caged in Stromboli’s traveling show and getting trapped inside Monstro the Whale. While Pleasure Island sounds more like fun boyhood debauchery than either of those places, Pinocchio learns that every action has a consequence. He watches his newfound bad influence of a friend, Lampwick, go through quite a change.
As the boys share beers and cigars and play pool, Lampwick sprouts long ears and a tail. Before they know what is happening, blood-curdling screams engulf the place, and Lampwick’s convulsions drop him to all fours in the form of a donkey, making way for Pinnochio’s ears and tail to sprout as well. It’s arguably the most horrifying transformation scene in animation, thanks to how the artists capture the stark event.
Dorothy’s Imprisonment in The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Wizard of Oz is a quintessential family classic, and with a villain like The Wicked Witch of the West, it even has its scary moments. A twirling tornado, flying monkeys, and the witch’s entrance might rattle kids, but Dorothy, held captive, will unnerve them.
“I’m frightened,” she calls out for her Auntie Em, trapped inside the witch’s castle and all alone for the first time, without even Toto. Em’s picture appears in a large crystal ball, also calling out to Dorothy, but the fact that they can’t communicate wrenches the guts, and Garland excuses palpable panic. When the vision of Em suddenly transforms into The Wicked Witch, mocking Dorothy, an already anxiety-inducing moment caps off by taking viewers right into the witch’s howling cackle.
Dorothy’s real tears tell the audience that her plight has never felt more dire. The testifies to the talents of both Judy Garland and Margaret Hamilton.
The Subway Encounter in The Wiz (1978)
The capture of Dorothy and her friends in The Wizard of Oz’s haunted forest still scares an audience, but The Wiz’s remake of the scene goes a step beyond. Now set in a surreal urban subway system, Diana Ross’ Dorothy and her friends encounter a shady man accompanied by the eeriest flute sounds.
As he shows off his wares and trinkets, two of his tiny items begin to come to life and grow, eclipsing everyone in size and running the group deeper underground into the subway in fear. But with trashcans, electrical wires, and structural columns all coming to life, the subway becomes part of the nightmare.
Mombi’s Hall of Heads in Return to Oz (1985)
No one can discuss the horrors of Oz without mentioning the frightening moments in Return to Oz. The Wheelers have a bizarre, very 80s quality, and the Nome King protruding from a rock wall has freaked out many a kid. However, Princess Mombi sends this movie into disturbing territory, with her hall displaying beautiful women’s heads on either side.
Though a whole head makes for a gaudy fashion accessory, switching heads depending on the mood has a calm eeriness for Mombi. It only gives way when the heads shriek in the night to awaken their headless body, letting the film reach its height of horror.
Frollo’s Judgement in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
The creepiest villains often do their dark deeds without the help of magic, coming off as grounded in reality. Judge Claude Frollo’s conservatism makes him ruthless and ready to oppress and control everyone under his thumb in a unique way to Disney villains. But even his out-of-control desires get the better of him as he pines for the Romani woman Esmeralda.
Although used to being the judge, jury, and executioner, Frollo gets put on trial when his visions of Esmeralda dancing. His fireplace erupts into a court of red-hooded figures pointing the finger at him and calling out his evil deeds. Set during a song titled “Hellfire,” Frollo’s prayer acts as a way for him to blame everyone but himself for his sins, but his judgment is swift. Coming from a company that feels the need to lighten all productions with comedic sidekicks, this scene becomes surprisingly dark and uncomfortable, even for being based on a classic tale of horror.
Raising the Cauldron Born in The Black Cauldron (1985)
Disney’s stab at sword and sorcery didn’t quite pan out, but the Horned King stands out as one of the company’s most underrated villains, and the raising of his dead army terrifies. The Horned King is at odds with the world around him, with the more rambunctious silencing themselves and giving pause in his presence. He has a slow and methodical quality, played with a deliberate theatricality by John Hurt and surrounded by pillars of reddish brown smoke and fire that seem like they would smell of brimstone.
His design alone, encompassing beady red eyes set in a hooded skull and horns, seems like something out of a child's nightmare. When he brings forth melting skeletons and ghostly green mists from the titular cauldron that bring the dead back to life, no one should ask why this movie didn’t become a beloved classic amongst kids.
The Incinerator in Toy Story 3 (2010)
As the beloved Toy Story friends come to the close of their third movie, they find themselves tossed into a trash incinerator with no way to escape. The film series has already given glimpses of what the end could mean for a toy, but as the characters contemplate their situation, everything becomes real fast.
The moment holds just long enough for the audience to experience a full range of emotions, wondering if the movie will follow through with its intentions. And though the scene has deeper meanings than what is on the surface, the firey incinerator threatens to end the toys. The scene delivers goosebumps.
The Mysterious Stranger in The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985)
In a scene inspired by an unfinished writing by Mark Twain, three kids step into an odd island of a world to meet a stranger. He refers to himself as an angel named Satan, and appears in a suit of armor with a theatrical masquerade mask for a face but devoid of any actual head. He teaches the children about the wonders of creating and destroying life while looking down on humans as worthless, greedy, and annoying.
Besides his strong appetite for death and destruction, Will Vinton’s stop-motion claymation that populated the 80s and the subject matter make the scene unnerving. Satan’s constant shifting of his form and everything around him sets this one into the can-never-unsee territory.
Toon Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit’s zany world where humans and cartoon characters live amongst each other plays for mostly laughs and some adult innuendo but makes a shocking turn towards the end. As gruesome as it might seem, getting run over by a steamroller can't take down the villainous Judge Doom.
The character, played as a human up to this point in the film, pops right back up to show himself flatted and enters a hair-raising uncanny valley moment–a brilliantly executed twist. As he re-inflates himself with helium, his marbly eyes pop out of his head, clattering to the floor to reveal toon eyes behind a human mask. His patch of hair at the top of his head curls, his voice shrills as he announces himself, his eyes become animated daggers, and his feet sprout toon coils from which he bounces across the room.
Not only do toons and humans coexist, but one wears the other’s skin as a disguise, and he runs amuck in it!
The Kitchen Fight in Gremlins (1984)
With opening credits that feel like a happy Christmas movie, Gremlins’ darker tone surprised many upon its release. Though comedic, the film doesn’t shy away from pure horror, and Lynn Peltzer searching her home alone on Christmas Eve is one of its best moments. With Johnny Mathis’ Do You Hear What I Hear ironically building tension in the background, she soon discovers a kitchen crawling with the creatures.
That leads to a gruesome and often parodied microwave moment before a fight with the Christmas tree. Along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, released the same year and whose Kali Ma scene could easily be on this list, Gremlins’ frights ushered in the creation of the PG-13 rating to denote movies that might be too much for younger audiences.
