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alt title(s): Nightmare Fuel Disney 
"And that's all there is to report from the happiest place on earth: evil family members, psychotic killers, and of course the prince of all darkness himself, Satan. I hope you enjoyed this list, and remember; when you wish upon a star, EVIL WILL FIND YOU." —>— The Nostalgia Critic, "The Top 11 Disney Animated Film Villains"
Most people think of Walt Disney Pictures as entertaining stories of heartwarming romance and good triumphing over evil. Oh, and there's the beautiful leading ladies in some of them. Some people also consider it the prime example of Animation Age Ghetto. These examples may prove both sides wrong. Remember, Uncle Walt started working in a time when cartoons were for all ages and a lot of the material put in with some adult appeal would end up being prime Nightmare Fuel material (also, not under the pervue of this page, is the fact that alot of the intentional horror for the kids, also had to be horror for the adults,especially the animators themselves). Ah, Walt Disney, bringing prime Nightmare Fuel into theaters since 1937.
See Nightmare Fuel Disney Theme Parks for Disney theme park examples, Kingdom Hearts for Kingdom Hearts examples and High Octane Nightmare Fuel Disney for intentional ones.
In conclusion: Disney may be the kings of the Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming, but they're also the Exxon-Mobil of Nightmare Fuel.
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Disney Animated Canon
- Some people had to be carried out of the theater during "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"
 after seeing shadows of Mickey taking an axe to an animated broom, or our hero nearly get drowned by an army of animated brooms relentlessly fetching water.
- And if they made it past "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", there was still "Rite of Spring", which featured an epic dinosaur battle where the viewers are treated to a sharklike mosasaur suddenly snatching a pteranodon out of the sky and the delightful spectacle of an allosaur (who is little more than a jaw full of knife-like teeth and a pair of mad red eyes) strangling the life out of a stegosaurus under a storm-filled sky.
- And then, you get to watch all the rest of the dinosaurs slowly starve to death as they march through an endless desert.
- The scene in "The Pastoral Symphony" with Zeus hurling down lightning bolts at the poor adorable mythical creatures just for kicks and frightening them scared this troper when she was a little girl.
- It can be creepier if you've seen Disney's Hercules first, in which Zeus is a much nicer guy.
- Heck, this troper found just the abstract sequence of ''Toccata and Fugue in D Minor'' hard to swallow. You know, the part where they ask you to "imagine what music looks like"? The bit that looks like a giant tooth marching down a gumline to clanging piano chords is just wrong, somehow.
- maybe because it's kind of shaped like a coffin.
- Oh my god I'm not alone! I was 12 when I first saw that movie. What made me horrified of the movie wasn't the devil, who I actually thought was COOL, but the giant tooth, who was JUMPING. The worst part? The Scare Chord. BUM BUM BUM BUUUM!
- The crocodiles in the "Dance of the Hours" sequence always scared this troper - mainly when they were sneaking up on the happily sleeping hippo, and when they were hiding their faces behind their cloaks.
- The "Lampwick painfully turning into a donkey while crying for his mama" scene from Pinocchio probably ranks as the scariest transformation sequence in all of film.
- The scene in Winnie The Pooh and the Honey Tree where Pooh gets stuck in the hole has inspired more than a bit of claustrophobia in young kids. Then there's the "Heffalumps and Woozles" nightmare scene from Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. "Beware, beware, beware!" indeed.
- The Heffalumps and Woozles creeped this troper out from day 1, even though she loved Winnie The Pooh.
- Similarly, the "Rock-a-Bye Pooh Bear" episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in which a tornado or hurricane or something strikes and carries everyone away in increasingly convoluted ways, leaving poor Piglet all alone when it passed. Scary as they were being carried away, and scary when it passed and everything was too calm. And of course, it was more or less focusing on Piglet because he's the one who'd be the most frightened in such a situation. The exact details of this have been lost to time (probably 14 or 15 years, now), but this troper remembers being quite frightened at the time.
- What about when Tigger was stuck in the carrot suit? That really freaked this troper out when he was really little.
- Not sure if this scared anyone else, but this Troper was absolutely HORRIFIED by the stop-motion ending to any of the original Winnie the Pooh shorts. You know, when the book closes, and the stuffed Pooh Bear is there and OH MY GOD WHY IS HE WINKING?!? Whenever it came on, she ran out of the room until she heard the cue "ding" that let her know when it was safe to go back into the room. For your viewing pleasure.
- The Blustery Day. Oh god, the blustery day. There's a Primal Fear of being blown away in a storm, and boy does this one instill that fear in kids early. There are adults who are still traumatized from this film.
- There was an odd one that had to do with not being superstitious. For some reason, Tigger figures it's a good idea to try and cure Piglet's supersitiousness (is that a word?) by causing him loads of bad luck. Eventually Piglet becomes so traumatized and paranoid by it all that he ends up sitting on a stool in a room, muttering to himself in Brain Lock.
- The "Pink Elephants On Parade" segment of Dumbo really is quite creepy. None of the elephants in that sequence have eyes; they walk through each other and snap! before they explode and swell and pull monstrous faces and then the elephants who they're being monstrous at have no eyes.
- To quote That Guy With The Glasses (or at least his idea of what goes through every little kid's head when they watch the scene): "I'm not pissing myself with fear... but why?"
- Two Words: Spinning needle.
- The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr Toad: There was an earlier scene where all the characters are singing a disconcertingly cheery song (led by Bing Crosby no less) about the Horseman at a Halloween party - which suddenly cuts to one really really withered old dude singing the line, "And some don't even wear their skin!!!" Man, never mind the Horseman, that guy was horrifying enough.
- The Rescuers. Madame Medusa-False Eyelashes. The scene where she was pulling them off while talking nonchalantly on the phone... Do Not Want.
- It has to be the scene in Rescuers Down Under where Wilbur (voiced by the late John Candy) is getting poked with needles by the Outback doctor and his staff.
- ...you mean the part where a horde of mice dressed up as nurses sedate Wilbur by cheerfully immobilizing him in a leather harness suspended from the ceiling, loading a syringe into a SHOTGUN and shooting him in the butt? And this is after we've gotten a look at the "epidermal tissue disruptor", which is a fancy way of saying "chainsaw".
- THE EPIDERMAL WHAT?!
- Your Mileage May Vary...
- How come no-one hasn't mentioned The Hunchback Of Notre Dame? The whole movie could be descibed as a split personality case what changes between normal, cheery and funny Disney material to Nightmare Fuel before you can even figure what the heck happened...constantly. The 'Feast Of Fools' sequence is probably the best example. But then again...that's why it's awesome!
- This troper was five at the time of the film (which she immediately adored), and still remembers her mother sort of shaking her head and saying how the film really should have been PG 13. I mean, yeesh. Also, many have cited the dark undertones of "Hellfire" as being not-so-kid-friendly ("You know, for kids!"). And maybe it wasn't. But to this troper, it was the coolest thing ever after Scar's "Be Prepared" from The Lion King.
- This troper doesn't remember exactly how old he was when he saw this movie, but it was definitely younger than 10. That scene with all the fire on top of the church scared the piss out of me. And it was in theaters. Y'know, where all the loud, scary music is louder. And all the aunt I was watching it with could tell me was to stop being such a baby. So yeah...
- Some of the wacky faces The Genie pulled during the "Friend Like Me" number. Too much. All the bright lights and colors, and wacky/crazy-fast stunts he pulled don't help.
- And let's not forget Genie's brief Peter Lorre imitation ("I can't bring peeeple back from the deaad. Eet's not a preety peecture. I don't like doing eet!!"). Any time anything relating to Peter Lorre shows up in a kids' film, it will probably make this list. Considering the man's most famous role was as a child killer...
- Don't forget Sa'luk's fate in Aladdin and the King of Thieves. I swear to God, there's a brief moment where you can still hear his (now muffled) screams after he's fully turned to gold.
- Walt Disney's Bambi (1942). Bambi's mother is shot dead by hunters when she and her son are looking for food in the winter snow. A whole generation of kids was traumatized. Now, movies for kids should not be all sanitized pink happy affairs. But the death of a parent is quite disturbing to any six-year old. This one is fairly famous for all the denial associated therewith.
- The forest fire scene is what scared me as a child. I remember being terrified of being caught in a fire after that.
- That one scared me so bad I only remembered it in nightmares. I thought for sure it was just a nightmare until I saw the movie again over a decade later.
- This editor recently re-watched The Great Mouse Detective. It's kinda funny how "happy" the title music is, as it immediately follows Olivia's father being brutally taken hostage right in front of her eyes.
- Not to mention Ratigan's "transformation" at the end into a snarling, psychotic rat with needle-sharp claws.
- The Jungle Book's scene where Kaa the snake is hypnotizing, and ready to devour, the boy.
- Your Mileage May Vary; This Troper (who admittedly has a kink for hypnotism) loved the scene even as a little kid...
- Others on the other hand find this scene to be Fetish Fuel.
- In Alice In Wonderland, this troper's roommate was traumatized as a child by the ''Walrus and the Carpenter'' sequence. The fact that the cute, sentient little baby oysters were devoured alive by the Walrus was not lost on her. She can't watch that scene even now.
- This troper found the "mad watch" scene entirely too intense, with all the screaming and half-crazed profile shots.
- As a kid, this troper had severe nightmares based on the Queen of Hearts, specifically the "Painting the Roses Red/Off with their heads!" scene.
- This troper saw Alice In Wonderland once, maybe twice, when she was about five, and the Cheshire Cat still creeps her out to this day (especially that smile—Good God!). She also saw the "Happy UnBirthday" sequence with her dad and younger sister recently on the Disney Channel, and they were all incredibly unnerved by it.
- The scene at the end where Alice is running up a staircase, and she grabs a doorknob, only to have the door come to life and complain about her grabbing it's nose. Mild and funny, right? HA. Try being six years old and having a crippling phobia of doors.
- No, seriously... a movie that features and innocent girl growing and shrinking at random, getting chased bya witch yelling "off with her head!" for no reason, and a cat with a creepy grin? Oh, yeah, that'll sing me right to sleep.
- At a first glance, the movie The Fox and the Hound seems like a cute little movie, until you see that Todd (the fox)'s mom is gunned down and killed right in the opening credits, and a trigger-happy hunter named Amos Slade is fixated on killing him for the most part of the movie (he even shows he's not fooling around by threatening Todd's owner with the line, "You can't keep him locked up forever!"); there's a sequence in which a talking owl named Big Momma shows Todd what his best friend Copper (the dog) is going to be doing on his "little trip" by showing him a shed full of the pelts of dead animals; another scene (that could possibly be the most traumatizing sequence in the movie due to the overtones of Parental Abandonment) in which Todd's owner abandons him in a game preserve; and finally the whole encounter with the Giant Monster of the movie, a giant grizzly bear who's a little more than a big black mountain with two beady little red eyes and a mouthful of kitchen knife-like teeth. Nice movie, huh?
- Atlantis: The Lost Empire has Rourke's transformation into a horrific, crystalline energy filled monster... and subsequent being sliced into pieces by propellers. *shudders*
- OH MY GOD I hated that part! I watched it once, I have never watched that movie since.
- The Three Caballeros scene with the SINGING DISEMBODIED MOUTHS always has made difficult to watch the film in its entirety.
- Why the "since 1937" notation at the top of this page? Well, their first animated canon film — Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs — was released that year, and it has such horrors as the Huntsman preparing to kill Snow White as she innocently aids a baby bird, only relenting at the last moment; Snow fleeing into the black depths of the forest (especially when, in addition to its real dangers, she starts imagining trees to be monsters); the Transformation Trauma of the Queen disguising herself as an old crone; and more. Your Mileage May Vary as to whether this all makes the jump to High Octane Nightmare Fuel.
- This troper's niece, who wasn't fazed in the slightest when Dr. Facilier gets dragged away by his "friends" at the end of The Princess And The Frog, clung to her arm throughout the earlier scene where Naveen and Tiana are menaced by hungry alligators. Go figure.
- Facilier's death made this troper a little freaked, but a toddler two rows down was giggling the whole time. Same toddler screamed in fright all during Ray's fight against the shadow monsters and Ray's funeral which annoyed this troper.
- This Troper, when she went to see the movie late on a weekday, didn't expect to see a kid in the theater. The kid was quiet up until Facilier stepped on Ray, where she screamed bloody murder and couldn't stop crying. Her father led her out of the theater soon after, and the poor kid never got to see the ending.
- In The Little Mermaid, when Ursula shows what happens to her clients who break their contracts - they get turned into these immobile, screaming, limbless worms stuck by the hundreds to the floor of her cave and then it happens to King Triton FFFFFFFFF
- This editor recalls a newspaper article about children who, after seeing Toy Story, became terrified by the thought that their toys were alive. The scene where Woody leads the toys to revolt against Sid probably didn't help.
Woody: We toys can see evvverythiiiing... so play nice!
- This troper recalls loving the movie to death as a toddler... until her dad brought home toy replicas of Woody and Buzz one day. She hid in the basement, thinking they'd come to life, until he put them in a closet or something.
- Not to mention his head spins while he does this. I swear to god, the only thing keeping this bit from being High Octane is the fact that it is Disney!
- When Buzz and Woody first meet Sid's mutilated toys, this troper nearly lost it when she saw it the first in the theater with her mother. The second time, we were taking my dad and my little brother to see it, and since I anticipated it, I freaked out so badly that we had to leave the theater.
- While we're on Toy Story, the sequel had a dream sequence where Woody is thrown in a garbage can, and when he tries to crawl out he is pulled back by a mass of discarded toy parts working together to form a giant Akira-style tentacle.
- After seeing images of the baby/meccano-style spider hybrid toy in that film, this troper was too scared to see it at the cinema. (Her parents took her anyway, and once she'd seen the film, the baby-thing then became her favourite character, but it was still creepy at first!)
- You want to see creepy? "Sucking down Darjeeling with Marie Antoinette and her little sister!"
- Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, the daycare scenes from Toy Story 3. This troper already had a slight aversion to small children and the chaos of preschools, and this was only intensified by the nth degree after seeing it through a toy's lens.
- The barracuda in Finding Nemo just hanging there in the water silently waiting to strike was pretty terrifying too. If you know anything about them they're basically torpedos with razor-sharp teeth.
- WALL-E has the honor of having the villain being the embodiment of Nightmare Fuel, robotic pilot AUTO◊. To start with, he's a Cyber Cyclops with a Creepy Monotone. He has the survivors of humanity eating out of his non-existent palm. And he controls everything - everything - on board.
- Your Mileage May Vary, but this troper found the scene where WALL-E and EVE meet the Humongous Mecha WALL-A to be completely terrifying. They stand several hundred feet tall, have little to no expression, moved around like giant tanks and to top it off, there was nightmare inducing music when they started moving.
- A deleted scene makes them almost as adorable as WALL-E.
- Exactly! The way they close the airlock doors, watch what's happening with interest, and wave to them when they're leaving? They're like WALL-E's big brothers.
- That's why I said, Your Mileage May Vary. True, they are extremely friendly, but we only see this side until after they notice WALL-E, EVE, and M-O. Initially, their presence reminded this troper of the giant worm from Star Wars, where you know something down here is alive. Plus, even during the deleted scenes when they were patting WALL-E, you could tell he was being crushed by them.
- Up: This acrophobic troper can only speak for herself, but the entire airship fight is absolutely terrifying, considering it takes place at around 10,000 feet.
- How about Carl and Russel's flight through the storm cloud? And then there's the scene where they meet Carl's childhood hero, Charles Muntz, only to realize Muntz has gone all Captain Ahab in his quest to capture Kevin the bird.
- You know what scares me about Muntz? When he's knocking over the flightcaps of all the people he has ostensibly killed.
- "A cartographer, looking to make maps..." *WHACK* "A botanist looking for rare plants..." *WHACK* This troper doesn't even like that movie and still thinks that scene was damn effective.
- I think I can be certain that I wasn't the only one terrified when Muntz was breaking the door of the house down while Russel, Dug, and Kevin can be seen cowering in the window. I've been scared of my house getting burglarized, which may be why it scared me so much...
- What truly scares this troper is in the very beginning, when Ellie has a miscarriage. IN A FAMILY MOVIE. The fact that they never outright say it is what makes me curl up and cry myself to sleep at night.
- This troper and her mother thought that they could just adopt.
- Not sure if this counts, but this troper was severely creeped out by this parody video, which takes the Pixar intro a bit too seriously.
- The Cumulonimbus Storm scene, especially if you saw the film in 3-D.
- I can't believe no one's mentioned Randall yet. A creepy little lizard-type thing with a mouth full of crooked, pointy teeth? The worst part, though, is the fact that he can blend into any background. When he does, it's impossible to figure out where he is. He could be watching you. Right. Now.
Other Animated Films
- The Brave Little Toaster's B-Movie Show, it gets a bit more cool than scary as you get older.
- I know! When I was three I LOVED the song and actually thought it was cool. I used to dance around to it and watched it over and over, to my little sisters horror. I called it "Root ta Top". Hey, I was three.
- And then there's the part right at the beginning where the Jack Nicholson-esque (it was actually voiced by the late Phil Hartman) Air Conditioner works himself into such an angry frenzy he short-circuits and burns out, effectively dying. Later, Kirby the vacuum has a non-fatal but nonetheless disturbing freakout of his own, during which he sucks up his own cord and almost "chokes". Yeah, BLT was one creepy flick.
- Not to mention that one part where a flower falls in love with the Toaster, but he quickly rejects the flower, and then sees the flower wilt and die from his rejection. What. The. Hell.
- The Nightmare Before Christmas: The very idea of anything bad happening to Santa Claus. Some of the twisted toys count too. Like the vampire teddy bear, the vampric looking duck and the snake stockings.
- The scene where Sally throws herself out of the window to escape Dr. Finklestein and hits the ground, the camera cutting to a shot of her disassembled body on the ground with a smile on her face. The leaves she's stuffed with are even spilled all over. Sure, it doesn't really hurt her, but that doesn't shake the creepiness.
- Not to mention that she is completely still for the first moment after impact, then opens her eyes and sows her body back together. AAAH.
- Oh GOD, this movie! The freaky visuals, the voices, and the premise alone probably contributed to keeping this troper from enjoying Halloween as a child. Strangely, it was cured by Romero.
- A straight-to-video Winnie The Pooh movie called The Search for Christopher Robin inflicted the Disney Acid Sequence "Adventure is a Wonderful Thing" on us. Nearly all of it is terrifying, but honorable mention goes to the part where Pooh falls through a pit of quicksand and lands on a High Octane Nightmare Fuel giant pyramidal rock with Glowing Eyes Of Doom and nasty-looking claws, situated in what looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
- Holy shit, that's only the beginning of it. Remember that scary shadow towards the end? The one that looked like a freaking monster? Yes, now imagine seeing that at the age of two. Now you will know why this troper is terrified of this movie.
- 1983's Mickey's Christmas Carol brings us the visit from the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, who, despite quite obviously being Black Pete, manages to make this troper's blood run cold when he utters his only line:
Pete: Why, yours, Ebenezer— the richest man in the cemetery!
- which is, of course, followed by that shot of Scrooge hanging from a root over his burning coffin.
- Mickey Donald Goofy The Three Musketeers is a cute little movie, where Mickey and Co. have a cute little adventure. However, this troper is certain that the scene where Mickey nearly drowns might have been too much for little ones. Especially since Mickey loses consciousness a good minute before Donald and Goofy even show up to save him.
- At the beginning of A Goofy Movie, Max has a nightmare where he's in an idyllic meadow scene with the girl of his dreams, and suddenly turns into a giant, lumbering copy of his dad. Thankfully it was just a dream (and a pretty cool parody of famous Werewolf movie transformation scenes).
- To this troper as a kid, Beauty And The Beast had rather dark tones to it- Belle's poor father attacked, the Jerk Jock boyfriend who eventually goes ona sort of killing rampage, the wolf attack... you get the idea. But none of the bad guys in the original film compare to the villian in Beauty And The Beast Enchanted Christmas, a made-for-TV type spinoff. The movie seems like your average mediocre kid flick, right? So you're pretty much unprepared for Forte... This troper never saw this when she was a kid. But that cheap-ass animated pipe organ is truly one of the freakiest things she's seen in quite a while. It just comes from out of nowhere.
Television Series
- The Aladdin animated series had the episode where Jasmine turned into a snake? In this troper's opinion, that was one of the best episodes of the series, but it's been suffering some negative criticism from soccer moms because of its inclusion on one of the Disney Princess DVDs, which as you know are targeted to little girls, a.k.a. the kind of people who are most likely to be scared by something like Jasmine turning into a snake.
- How about when Aladdin's Head and Body separated? Played for laughs, but honestly creeps people out.
- And of course, there was the episode with the black sand.
- Believe it or not, one of the episodes of the Winnie The Pooh Animated Series gave this troper nightmares for weeks when he was 6. The episode in question had the group going under Christopher Robin's bed, only to find out that it was (somehow) a portal to Another Dimension where all the "lost" stuff (like that one one sock) went. Oh yeah, and it was all monstrously huge, too.
- Another episode had Piglet experience an awful nightmare where he is chased down a dark terrain by a gang of Heffalumps and Woozles (for no reason) while they chant "Beware! BEWARE!" (basically a scarier version of Pooh's nightmare in The Blustery Day). Piglet ends up locked inside a police Heffalump's body. That's just twisted.
- This troper would like to mention the episode where Pooh and friends think they've popped Christopher Robin's balloon. Pooh has a nightmare in which he's brought to court, where the judge and jury are all balloons who immediately declare him guilty of the crime. Christopher Robin testifies against him while crying about his balloon being broken, and Pooh ends up in a cage falling into an abyss of the balloons shouting "Guilty!!" To add insult to injury, this scene was bookended by particularly funny scenes, and it also came on in the same half-hour show as Piglet's nightmare in the above example. Two nightmare sequences in one full episode - that's pretty dark for a Disney show meant for little ones!
- From Ducktales: I am Armstrong. I. AM. YOUR. FRIEND.
Animated Shorts
- The Mickey Mouse short "Runaway Brain", in which a mad scientist swaps Mickey's brain with that of his Frankenstein's Monster-like creation. Yes, it's the source of the page image. I could say a lot of Nightmare Fuel examples, but click the link and watch it yourself and note that Disney's response has just been to pretend that this doesn't exist.
- Also from Runaway Brain, the part where Mickey (now in the monster body) runs up to the doctor in charge and shakes him, begging to be changed back...and the doctor's skin disintegrates in front of him, revealing a skeleton which stands on its own for a few seconds before flopping to the floor. Yeeaaah...
- Oh, come on, what about what possibly inspired this short? The Mad Doctor was an old Disney short based off an old Mickey Mouse comic, where Pluto is captured by the titular Mad Doctor, who's somewhat over the top, but is regardless scary, planning several
torture research devices for his experiments, he was going to cut of Pluto's head so he could see whether the Dogchicken (Chickendog?), would bark, cluck, or cackle, the castle itself is also kind of scary, this short can be hard to find, because, like Runaway Brain, they're trying to pretend it doesn't exist.
- This troper is now freaked out. Is that the one where at the end, Mickey Mouse is strapped to a table about to be cut in half, and shouting for Pluto, but then it turns out that it's all just a dream? That haunted me to no end as a child. Thanks for reminding me.
- The titular ape from the short "Donald Duck and the Gorilla", which at one point nearly crushes Donald to death using an adjustable table.
- Similarly, "Donald's Ostrich". Specifically the radio screaming as it got devoured.
- The Toy Story Shorts that aired on ABC had one episode where Woody has a nightmare in which and Buzz swap heads (both of them saying "Howdy!" in unison), then Woody has another one where Buzz is some sort of fly, at the end he wakes up from it all and Buzz is behind him.
- There was a series of Donald Duck shorts made during the tail end of World War II where Donald joins the Army. Most of these are fun, classic Disney stuff, but there are a couple episodes...
- "The Old Army Game": Donald falls over a barbed wire fence into a hole, and looking down and seeing no lower half to himself, believes himself to have been cut in half. What follows is the most intense two minutes of Donald's career as he sobs and attempts to commit suicide, oscillating between abject "no, no!" misery and perverse "yes, yes!" mania. The scene ends far too late as commanding officer Big Bad Pete, reduced to tears himself, begs Donald to do the deed behind some bushes so he doesn't have to watch. As Donald crawls away, he pulls out of the foxhole, revealing his unharmed fanny. Pete, pissed off at the drama, ends the cartoon by chasing Donald over the horizon with a bayonet. The most nightmarish part is around the five minute mark with Donald holding a pistol to his temple, pulling anxious faces that really don't make him look like Donald Duck anymore.
- "Home Defense": Donald's nephews stage a fake air raid to keep lazy Donald on his toes. The genuine display of war-terror, complete with the hapless duck begging for mercy, ends when a "paratrooper" lands on his nose, revealing itself to be made of plastic and about three inches tall. Forced perspective's a bitch, huh Donald?
- Donald Duck's shorts always have a little darker humor than his Disney troupemates. One short featured Donald going hunting, where the hunting was vividly portrayed as being exactly like going into combat. Another one featured him at a museum getting mangled by machines in a variety of borderline Fetish Fuel ways. And then there were the shorts where he was in the military, which had gags like Pete running around throwing grenades at Donald..
- For instance, Donald's Gold Mine has him falling into a rock crusher. The thing is, it's not just some Rube Goldberg Machine with cartoonish gears that ignore all physics and spin for no reason but a very realisticly designed crusher with creepily realistic sound effects.
- You forgot "Der Fuhrer's Face", the one where he has a nightmare that he's a factory worker in Nazi Germany. It's all well and funny in a dark way until he goes to work at the factory, where the combination of making bombs and saluting Hitler on an ever-faster conveyor belt starts Donald going into insane hallucinations, with some of the most terrifying tortured expressions EVER. Dammit, Disney! Stop doing weird things with Donald Duck's faces!
- "Mickey's Garden" is downright disturbing. Mickey and Pluto are exterminating bugs from their garden and Mickey ends up getting knocked out and experiencing a nightmare in which he and Pluto are shrunken down and menaced by insects. At more than one point does Mickey nearly get eaten. This troper is still uncomfortable watching it.
- The scene in which the bugs devour the potato with eyeballs in it, leaving only the eyes, is nightmare fuel like little else.
- The 1937 Disney short "The Old Mill" was still being shown regularly in the 80's when this troper was young, and it inspired a host of nightmares - but it also helped to kick off a love of storms at the same time.
- This troper thinks "The Old Mill" is a work of genius — and will never watch it again because it is heartbreaking. Man's creations falling into ruin, the indifference of nature, the huge influence of chance (like the birds that were spared only because one gear tooth was missing) . . . these are not the sort of things a five-year-old should be thinking about.
- One particular bit in the Silly Symphony "Little Toot." The eponymous tugboat has been exiled to the open sea for accidentally causing a boat crash, and as he tries to find his way back, a lighthouse beam bends over him in order to enforce the exile. Even light was shunning him for his mistake, and for a seven year old it just seems so disproportionate and horrifying.
- Then there's the Pixar short "Tin Toy," which features the titular character being chased around by a (to him) gigantic and extremely hideous infant.
- Ugh, I was watching that Pixar Short Film Festival, an 2 hour long pixar short collection on ABC, and saw it. It fricken' scared the crap out of me. Every single one of its movements were just...Non-human. No wonder all of the toys were scared...
- I do not know the title or year of this short, but I think it's something among the line of Pluto's Judgement Day. The short essentially has Pluto fighting Figaro only for Mickey to scold him and tell him that he will have to account for it on his judgement day. Cue the rest of the episode being Pluto chained by (by LIVING chains no less) in a court of cats listing his crimes in song... which features three cute little kittens singing about how he killed their uncle (and all nine of his angels showing up) and a flattened cat chronicling how Pluto chased him under a steamroller. Not to mention that he literally GOES TO HELL FOR IT. Sure, it's all a dream but... holy crap.
- Did you notice the trees shaped like menacing cats in the background at the beginning of his dream when the cat leads him to hell? And one can't help but wonder if that cat-shaped cavern at the entrance to hell was the original inspiration for the terrifying Cave of Wonders' entrance in Aladdin.
- Goofy and Wilbur isn't entirely as disturbing, but it features one of the creepiest Mindscrews in Disney shorts. Goofy is on a fishing trip, using the titual grasshopper who's also his friend to attract the fish to the surface (which is pretty wrong itself). On one occasion Wilbur the grasshopper nearly drowns. But then at the end Wilbur actually gets eaten by a frog. Then Goofy chases after the frog, who in turn is eaten by a stork. He chases the stork up to its nest in a tree to try to get it to regurgitate the frog and Wilbur, but the stork flies off. Cue a Tear Jerker scene of Goofy crying over his friend and imagining him as an angel in heaven. Then all of a sudden an egg in the stork's nest starts hatching...and Wilbur emerges! The hell?
- Donald's Dilemma (which would more properly be called "Daisy's Dilemma") features Donald getting hit on the head by a flowerpot, causing him to develop an excellent singing voice but lose his memory of Daisy. The girl soon degenerates into a suicidal(literally!) Yandere and acting like a mental patient. She goes to a psychologist for advice who asks her whether she wants Donald to share his voice with the world, or just herself. Her reply: "Me! Me!" (smashes a glass table) "MEEEE!!!" Wow, don't you think you can do a bit better, Donald?
- And I mean literally suicidal. One scene showed her sitting down to dinner with the voiceover, "I didn't want to live anymore!" Her food then transformed into poison, her fork into a gun (which she pointed at her head), and a hanging lamp into a noose. This scene was cut from most American versions. In short, a good subtitle for this episode would be Yandere!Daisy.
- Minnie's Yoo Hoo, a short apparently developed for a 30's version of the Mickey Mouse club. Mickey's old man voice, the over-exaggerated animation, the creepiness of the song itself...
Live Action Disney
- Even Disney's live-action films weren't exempt from this, like the sequence from Herbie Rides Again where Corrupt Corporate Executive Alonzo Hawk is tormented in his dreams by evil Volkswagen Beetles.
- In the 70's or so, there was a live-action Halloween movie called Child of Glass. The plot isn't too scary—the boy has to find the adorable ghost girl's doll before Halloween, or "I will have no choice but to haunt you for the rest of your life." Unfortunately, as Robert Ballard once pointed out, an old porcelain doll with the paint worn off looks just like a human skull. Brrrr.
- You read "Exploring the Titanic", too?
- Then there's Honey I Shrunk The Kids. The scene where Wayne Szalinski is just about to unwittingly eat his own son alive with his cereal! It's like something right out of a Goya painting but Y'Know, For Kids !
- well you know your mileage may vary
- As a child, this troper saw the movie in a theater, and the scene with the honeybee terrified her to the point of hiding under the seats.
- Anyone see the The Santa Clause movies? The character of Jack Frost in the third film, who kind of resembles Hades from Hercules in both personality and appearance.
- There's a fireplace in the third film shaped like a face. The fire goes in the gaping mouth. Eerie and a little creepy. The scene goes on and all of a sudden HOLY SHIT IT'S TALKING AND MOVING AND OH GOD WHAT THE LOVING KANEKALON IS GOING ON HERE.
- There's also a scene later on in which Jack Frost sings. It's basically like Narm only instead of "dramatic" it was intended to be funny and instead of "funny" it was deeply disturbing.
- Hocus Pocus. Hanging scenes. Nuff said.
- You're worried about the hanging scene? What about when the witches curse Binx turning him into a cat? You don't actually see it, but the sounds of shifting bones and muscles is... *shudder*
- H20: Just Add Water. Especially seeing as the three girls who are mermaids completely lose control of their powers each time it's a full moon. Talk about a Super Power Meltdown.
Live Action/Animation hybrid
- Surely this troper wasn't the only one a little creeped out by the "down the well" scene in Enchanted, with Giselle falling through space screaming (while blue glittering holes start to appear all over her body as she appears to disintegrate)? I know at least one child in the theater was crying after that.
- Mary Poppins. There's just something not right about that woman.
- P.L. Travers' original vision seems to have been of an almost godlike elemental magic force who happens to take the shape of a prim English nanny for her own inscrutable reasons. The film keeps some of the edge but loses all the context, making for an uneasy compromise in tone at times.
- The Scary Mary fake trailer. Sleep tight!
- The climax of Bedknobs And Broomsticks: on the one hand a Crowning Moment Of Awesome with Crowning Music Of Awesome with which features an army of animated suits of armor marching into battle against a Nazi invasion of Britain, ominously chanting the incantation that brought them to life. On the other hand... seriously, ominous chanting, guys? If it's going to be scary enough to drive off Nazis, some of the much younger audience aren't going to take it so well.
Other Comics
- Three words: Bombie the Zombie. Don Rosa's version in particular.
- One word: Omnisolve, the titular "Universal Solvent from the Don Rosa story of the same name. This stuff dissolves anything it comes into contact with, except diamonds. And we do mean anything. A spillage in the story that introduces it results in a hole to the center of the Earth, and nearly leads to the destruction of the Earth's core and The End Of The World As We Know It.
- Then there's Carl Barks' The Many Faces of Magica DeSpell, in which the titular witch wreaks havoc with a potion that will change someone's face to that of the person they're looking at. This would lead to enough creepy images as-is, but to escape her schemes, Uncle Scrooge flees to an "unknown valley" that turns out to be an uncanny valley, inhabited by utterly faceless people. In theory, it's whimsical, but in execution, it comes across as distinctly unsettling.
Misc
- Parents in the New York City area, do not, without due consideration, take your very young children to see the new musical adaptation of Mary Poppins. Yes, Mary Poppins. Although the rest is a swell musical that pleasantly differs enough from the film to be enjoyable for parents and kids, Act One ends with a new number called ''Temper Temper,'' in which Jane and Michael's toys come to life, grow to be bigger than the children, and promptly hold the children trial for having lost their tempers and broken the toys — singing all the time. This troper saw the production with a group of mature, sensible high-school aged females, and all were terrified. The scary lighting, shrilly pitch, and demented costumes are a frightening combination.
- And at the beginning of Act II, things get no better when a new nanny is introduced, Miss Andrew, who insists on force-feeding the children "Brimstone and Treacle," from a smoking bottle. Does Mary Poppins just dole Miss Andrew a spoonful of sugar? Rather, Mary forces Miss Andrew to feed herself her medicine before [[forcing her into a birdcage and sending her to Hell. Well, to someplace which sits below the house and is colored red with smoke! Granted, this does not match the terror of Temper Temper. Be sure to catch the U.S. tour!
- An old Disney Sing-Along tape featured a very spooky "Grim Grinning Ghosts" number featuring scary costumed characters such as Captain Hook, the Snow White Witch, and worst of all, Maleficent in all her green-faced glory! This troper had to run out of the room most of the time, though now it's his favorite part. The ugly appearance of the Country Bears was also unsettling when he was younger.
- This troper remembers that one. He was always scared by the Big Bad Wolf, a character that this troper didn't know existed at the time he saw the costume and therefor thought the character was Evil!Goofy, the logical extension of having Ghost!Donald.
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