Scaring kids isn't exclusive to Disney! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most bone-chilling moments from kids' movies, excluding Disney. Warning: Some spoilers will not be for the faint of heart.
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00:00 "We will do better. We will do much better."
00:03 "Ha. Better is no good either."
00:06 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most bone-chilling moments from kids' movies, excluding Disney.
00:13 "And soon as you're through eating, I thought we'd play a game."
00:16 Warning, some spoilers will not be for the faint of heart.
00:21 Number 20, The Abandoned Toys, The Polar Express.
00:25 "You are just like me, my friend."
00:28 Aren't Christmas films supposed to be, well, Christmassy?
00:32 Sure enough, this animated film about a passenger train to the North Pole is not what you'd call terribly scary.
00:37 Except for that one scene where they arrive at a train car filled with abandoned toys.
00:41 "It's a new concept the boss came up with. Instead of being thrown away, they're collected, refurbished."
00:47 One of them, an Ebenezer Scrooge puppet, screams at the boy that he's a doubter.
00:52 "Ebenezer Scrooge, North Pole, Santa Claus, this train, it's all a bunch of humbuck!"
01:00 Our boy hero reacts understandably by fleeing the train car immediately.
01:03 Wouldn't it be great if we had that option when we saw this scene?
01:06 Why the filmmakers had to include this scene is up for interpretation, but giving us nightmare fuel is certainly the unintended consequence.
01:13 "You're a doubter! A doubter you don't believe! You're a doubter!"
01:19 Number 19, The House is Alive, Monster House.
01:23 This unappreciated horror comedy naturally has several nightmarishly horrific scenes.
01:28 In this mid-aughts film, a group of kids investigate the suspicious Horace Nebercracker,
01:32 only to find out that his house is sentient and devours everything that comes nearby.
01:37 "Judy!"
01:44 It turns out the house is possessed by the spirit of Horace's long departed wife, to whom he is still emotionally attached.
01:50 "But if I let her go, I'll have no one."
01:54 What follows is a monstrous scene in which the house literally starts to chase after Horace and the kids throughout the neighborhood,
02:00 trying to devour them with its wooden teeth.
02:02 Eaten alive by a house? It doesn't get much worse than this.
02:05 "Go on! I'll be alright!"
02:11 Number 18, Large Marge, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.
02:15 A movie as bizarre as Pee-Wee's Big Adventure wouldn't be complete without a totally random jump scare.
02:20 After hitching a ride from a truck driver, Pee-Wee quickly comes to realize that there's something off about the woman behind the wheel.
02:26 The suspense keeps building as Large Marge recounts the worst accident she ever saw.
02:31 It all culminates with her making a petrifying face, which is guaranteed to catch you off guard.
02:35 "It looked like this!"
02:39 To make matters even more disturbing, it's later revealed that Marge was a ghost the whole time.
02:44 "But that means the Large Marge I was riding with was..."
02:47 "Her ghost!"
02:49 This sequence is like something out of The Twilight Zone, but still maintains the wacky spirit of Pee-Wee Herman.
02:54 "Have a nice day! Be sure and tell 'em Large Marge sent ya!"
02:59 "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
03:01 Number 17, Unicron Eats a Planet, The Transformers The Movie.
03:05 "Marvelous! Look! It's Unicron!"
03:08 We're not exactly sure how this scene will sell a kid's toy, but then again, we're not marketers.
03:13 We get a glimpse at just how powerful and terrifying Unicron is early on in this movie,
03:18 when the sentient cyber-planet swoops in and literally consumes an entire planet, inhabitants and all.
03:23 What may be the most disturbing part is that we get to see all of these creatures going about their daily lives,
03:29 playing, walking, drinking, before disaster strikes and they must prepare for the inevitable.
03:34 "Ahhhh!"
03:36 "Ohhhh!"
03:38 The planet crumbles as it's sucked in, and ultimately chomped to smithereens by the giant being.
03:43 The lucky ones die along with their planet, because the survivors are... digested by Unicron.
03:49 "The sheep get to the sheep! It's our only chance!"
03:53 Number 16, The Blender's Demise, The Brave Little Toaster.
03:57 There's playful whimsy in the idea of inanimate objects having human-like personalities,
04:01 but The Brave Little Toaster imagines the dark side of that fantasy.
04:05 If appliances can live, they can also die, and boy do they die.
04:10 Cars, flowers, and one unfortunate air conditioner take this kid's adventure to grim places,
04:15 but nothing is as nightmarish as The Blender's fate.
04:18 "There you are!"
04:20 After ending up in a ghastly machine shop, our heroes watch in terror as the kitchen accessory has its motor removed.
04:26 Since the part functions like a vital organ, its extraction means curtains for the poor blender.
04:31 "Ha ha!"
04:34 We mostly see this anesthesia-free surgery in Silhouette, but that just makes it worse.
04:39 If you avoided growing up traumatized by this animated Lovecraftian horror, count yourself lucky.
04:44 "You see? You never quite know what he's going to do!"
04:47 Number 15, Edwina's Death, Chicken Run.
04:50 Forced labor, concentration camp life, autocratic rule, and the quest for freedom away from one's oppressors.
04:57 We are talking, of course, about a 2000's adventure comedy film for children.
05:01 As if Chicken Run's premise isn't disturbing enough, our kids' selves had to contend with even more explicit horror.
05:07 "Oh no!"
05:09 "Edwina!"
05:11 One scene in particular, Edwina's Death, stands out for its gruesomeness.
05:15 Doomed for the crime of not laying enough eggs, such are the cold, uncaring gears of the capitalist, uh, farm life.
05:22 Oh yeah, Babs, Edwina is going on a holiday, alright, and so are we.
05:26 On holiday to recover from the trauma.
05:28 "We've got to get out of here."
05:30 Number 14, The Giant Mouse of Minsk, An American Tale.
05:34 Sure, little Fievel and his Russian Mouse family's adventures in America may make for a kid-friendly film,
05:39 but like the real-life 19th century Jewish immigrant experience, fleeing from antisemitism, things get dark for Fievel pretty quickly.
05:46 "Everyone knows it! There are no cats!"
05:54 After a similarly fraught scene of Fievel going overboard and separating from his family, Fievel learns about the reality of cats in America.
06:01 He then helps the other mice implement their secret weapon, the Great Mouse of Minsk.
06:06 This mechanical contraption is so effectively terrifying that it chases the cats to the pier.
06:14 It's a great plan, too bad it makes for effective nightmare fuel for us.
06:21 Number 13, Spider Attack, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
06:25 No, really, why couldn't it have been Follow the Butterflies?
06:28 We agree with Ron that anything to do with spiders is a bad idea and a terrifying prospect,
06:33 but that is what he and Harry had to do to find out whether Hagrid really opened the Chamber of Secrets via his pet, the gigantic spider Aragog.
06:40 "You're Aragog, aren't you?"
06:42 "Yes. Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow before."
06:48 Aragog clarifies that not only were he and Hagrid perfectly innocent, but that the real monster was their ancient enemy, the Basilisk.
06:55 He then allows his spider family to eat Harry and Ron in an intense scene that has Ron in a hairy chokehold.
07:00 "Glad we're out of there."
07:02 As if that weren't enough, we also got the gruesome reveal of Voldemort on the back of Quirrell's head back in the first Potter outing.
07:13 Thanks, film. We hate it.
07:15 "Harry Potter, we meet again."
07:20 Number 12, Toxic Love, Ferngully, The Last Rainforest.
07:24 A positive environmental message, a baddy bad voiced by Robin Williams, pretty fairies?
07:29 Surely nothing about this film would be even remotely scary.
07:32 Never mind, there's the villain Hexus destroying the forest by poisoning the trees and rivers with his disgusting toxic sludge.
07:39 "That's rather nice."
07:43 While Tim Curry's sultry blues vocals may give a very different impression now,
07:47 the child in us definitely writhed in nothing less than discomfort at the lurid imagery involved.
07:51 "Ooooh, you love my... toxic love."
07:59 This toxic love arouses some healthy disgust, which is of course the point.
08:03 Good job, movie. Maybe a little too good. Tone it down next time.
08:07 "Ooooh, you love my... toxic love."
08:15 Number 11, The Skeksis Emperor's Death, The Dark Crystal.
08:19 The age of ugly, grungy effects was definitely the 80s,
08:22 and no kids' film is more emblematic of this than Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal.
08:26 This simple quest movie to overthrow the evil rulers of Thra, the Skeksis, naturally goes into some squeamish territory.
08:33 One scene in particular is The Skeksis Emperor's Death.
08:36 "He's not dead yet."
08:39 The Emperor is so old, he's barely a skeleton on his deathbed,
08:43 surrounded by his tar-feathered beaked race.
08:46 But then, he suddenly seizes his scepter,
08:48 and with a hoarse and high-pitched rattle and bug-eyed look, finally gives up the ghost.
08:53 [Ghostly moaning]
09:03 He then disintegrates into powdery dust, and that is the moment when our parents said, "That's enough now."
09:08 And... we didn't argue.
09:10 "Which one of us will be the new Emperor?"
09:13 Number 10, Swamp of Sadness, The Neverending Story.
09:17 Some scary scenes are not so much about monstrosities or villainy, but about a deeper, more primitive horror.
09:23 "Everyone knew that whoever let the sadness overtake him would sink into the swamp."
09:29 Atreyu's journey through the land of Phantasia to save the world from the nothing.
09:33 There are many scary and creepy encounters and moments along the way,
09:37 including the yellow-eyed wolf creature, G'mork, sent to kill Atreyu.
09:40 But nothing is more horrific than Atreyu losing his beloved horse, Artax, in the Swamps of Sadness.
09:46 "Artax! You're sinking! Come on! Turn around!"
09:50 The slowness of the mud swallowing up the horse,
09:52 and Atreyu's increasingly desperate attempts to pull his horse out of the muck,
09:56 is an existential horror all of its own.
09:58 Thanks for the future therapy sessions, movie.
10:00 "I won't give up! Don't quit! Artax!"
10:04 Number 9, The Tunnel of Doom, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
10:08 This light-hearted classic suddenly throws a piece of dark chocolate into the mix,
10:12 as Willy Wonka's guests hop aboard his extravagant boat.
10:15 "Hang on, where are we going?"
10:17 "I don't know, but I don't like to watch that tunnel up there."
10:19 "Hey, Wonka, I want off!"
10:20 Although it appears to be smooth sailing at first,
10:22 the pleasure cruise becomes a descent into madness once the passengers enter a tunnel.
10:26 This scene not only throws every screwed-up image imaginable at us,
10:30 Wonka also recites completely nutty poetry.
10:33 "There's no earthly way of knowing..."
10:36 "He's singing."
10:37 "Which direction we are going..."
10:40 Once Wonka starts screaming at the top of his lungs,
10:42 we half expect him to murder everyone on board.
10:45 "And they're certainly not showing any signs that they are slowing!"
10:52 The trippy boat ride comes to an abrupt halt, though,
10:54 making the audience feel as if they've awoken from a nightmare.
10:57 "Stop the boat!"
10:59 "We're there."
11:01 Number 8. The Great Owl - The Secret of NIMH
11:04 "Come inside or go away."
11:07 Animator Dom Bluth's first feature-length directorial outing has no shortage of creepy moments.
11:12 Ironically, the scariest character in the film isn't one of the bad guys,
11:15 but a creature that actually aids our protagonist.
11:18 As Mrs. Brisbane enters a lair littered with bones and cobwebs,
11:21 she's practically devoured by a dastardly spider.
11:24 Although the Great Owl steps in and saves her, he's just as intimidating.
11:28 With a ghastly design and thunderous voice,
11:30 it's clear that this predator could crush Mrs. Brisbane like a bug.
11:33 "Why have you come?"
11:35 The courageous little mouse doesn't back down, however,
11:38 and the Great Owl sends her on the right path,
11:40 albeit a bit shaken up.
11:42 Just like the rest of us!
11:43 "There is a way."
11:46 "Go to the rats."
11:48 "But I don't know any rats."
11:50 Number 7. The Witch Conference. The Witches.
11:54 "You may remove your shoes!"
11:58 From Roald Dahl's imagination and the Jim Henson Company's technical wizardry,
12:02 The Witches pulls no punches when it comes to scaring the bejesus out of kitties.
12:06 While Angelica Houston's Grand High Witch is pretty threatening in her human disguise,
12:10 her true form is flat-out terrifying.
12:13 Along with her fellow witches,
12:15 Miss Ernst peels off her mask to expose a balding head,
12:18 bulging eyes, and a beak-like nose.
12:21 And this witch is as wicked as she looks,
12:23 disintegrating those who are insubordinate
12:25 and turning children into mice.
12:27 [children laughing]
12:30 After watching this scene,
12:32 you can bet every kid in the audience will be forever weary of witches and strangers.
12:36 "I demand maximum results!"
12:40 Number 6. The Child Catcher. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
12:43 "Here we are, children. Come and get your lollipops!"
12:48 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a magical car that brings happiness to the Potts family.
12:52 It also gets them into trouble when the tyrannical Baron Bomburst steals the impressive ride for himself.
12:57 The family travels to his home of Bulgaria in order to retrieve the car,
13:01 and finds that all of the children there have been imprisoned due to the Baroness' hatred for them.
13:05 "Mr. Baroness, she hates children!"
13:07 "Who can hate children?"
13:08 As you might expect,
13:09 Jeremy and Jemima Potts find themselves face-to-face with the Child Catcher before long,
13:13 and he's as creepy as his name suggests.
13:16 "Cherry pies, cream puffs, ice cream, treacle toffs."
13:23 He uses the classic child kidnapper line,
13:25 offering his prey something sweet if they come with him.
13:28 Of course, they do, and are trapped by the Child Catcher.
13:31 "Get inside my little ears!"
13:33 [children screaming]
13:36 Number 5. E.T. Dying. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.
13:40 Perhaps Steven Spielberg's most poignant film,
13:43 and definitely one of the greatest science fiction films of all time,
13:45 E.T. gave us both thrills and chills.
13:48 [children screaming]
13:55 The beautiful bond that forms between Elliot and his alien friend
13:58 may be the special magic of friendship,
14:00 but it also generates some high drama,
14:02 and yes, horror.
14:04 We don't mean to be rude or anything, but let's be honest,
14:06 E.T. is an ugly and frightening alien as it is.
14:10 [child screaming]
14:19 Seeing him pale and skeletal, found in a river,
14:22 and treated by humans for shock compressions,
14:24 is another horror entirely.
14:26 Gertie's face while the doctor's shock E.T. says it all.
14:29 Why Spielberg?
14:31 [children screaming]
14:38 Number 4. The Other Mother. Coraline.
14:41 Mom? What are you doing here in the middle of the night?
14:44 You're just in time for supper, dear.
14:47 In an age where most family films play it safe,
14:49 with bright images and cute characters,
14:51 Coraline is never afraid to embrace everything gothic and weird.
14:54 I'm your other mother, silly.
14:56 Now go tell your other father that supper's ready.
14:59 While Coraline's other parents seem loving and nurturing at first glance,
15:02 something foreboding awaits behind their button eyes.
15:05 Once the Other Mother reveals her true colors,
15:07 Coraline must fight to save her real parents.
15:10 Now, you're going to stay here forever.
15:15 Mommy Dearest only becomes more sinister as the plot progresses,
15:18 leading to a heart-pounding climax in which Coraline gets caught in her web.
15:22 You will never look at needles in the same way again.
15:25 Where are you? You selfish rat!
15:29 Number 3. The Flying Monkeys. The Wizard of Oz.
15:32 There are few films that evoke such visceral feelings as The Wizard of Oz.
15:36 Even adults have to stifle the chills and sense of horror the film conveys so well.
15:41 And few things are as vividly and ironically scary
15:44 as the Wicked Witch of the West and her Flying Monkeys.
15:46 I want those most of all. Now fly! Fly!
15:50 [witches screaming]
15:52 The witches' obsession with the ruby slippers
15:54 and the iconic flight of the monkey army out to capture Dorothy is simply unforgettable.
15:58 [monkeys screaming]
16:02 The Fly My Pretties alone has been referenced and parodied in many different media
16:06 and is instantly recognizable.
16:08 And all this in a kid's fantasy film.
16:10 Then they took my chest out and they threw it over there.
16:12 Well, that's you all over.
16:14 Number 2. All Dogs Go to Hell. All Dogs Go to Heaven.
16:18 Charlie, you can never come back.
16:23 Making yet another appearance on this list,
16:25 Don Bluth literally drags us to hell in this devilish sequence.
16:29 After Charlie the German Shepherd rejects heaven and returns to earth,
16:32 he begins to fear where his soul will end up.
16:34 During a nightmare, Charlie spirals down into an underworld
16:37 complete with fire, demons, and an actual hellhound.
16:40 [roaring]
16:42 You wouldn't think an animated G-rated film would get too graphic
16:45 with its depiction of the inferno.
16:47 Yet, this scene's horrific imagery truly makes the audience feel like
16:51 they've been sentenced to eternal damnation.
16:53 Let's just hope that all dogs really do go to heaven.
16:56 Charlie, wake up.
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17:15 Number 1. Buried Underground, Watership Down.
17:18 Charlie, it's me, Bigwig.
17:20 Any scene from this animated adaptation of Richard Adams' novel
17:23 could have taken our number one spot.
17:25 With adorable bunnies suffering gritty, bloody deaths left and right,
17:29 it's actually incredible that Watership Down was rated PG.
17:32 Of course, the rating system was very different back in 1978.
17:35 Perhaps the most shocking moment in the film
17:37 is when the wounded Holly recounts being buried alive with his herd.
17:40 The heir to the bad runs blocked with dead bodies.
17:46 She couldn't get out.
17:48 The masterful animation captures all the desperation, claustrophobia,
17:52 and sheer horror of being confined to a small area.
17:55 It feels more like something out of a war picture than a family film,
17:58 scarring everybody in the theater for life.
18:00 We thought cartoons were supposed to be fun.
18:03 Men have always hated us.
18:05 No.
18:07 They just destroyed the Warren because we were in their way.
18:10 Which other kids' movie moments do you feel should be responsible
18:12 for your therapy bills?
18:14 Let us know in the comments down below.
18:16 Follow the spiders.
18:18 If Hagrid ever gets out of Azkaban, I'll kill him.
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18:29 [music]