7 Children Films That Are Really Disturbing
The best children's films have a good balance of absurd, childish fantasy and adultish innuendo to keep an entire family entertained. Others distort this balance, making you question how you were ever allowed to see such a film as a child. Here are seven, decievingly labelled childrens films that were either nightmare fuel for our innocent minds or that we only realised were disturbing as adults.
Coraline (2009)
What makes Coraline so terrifying is the implication of horror rather than flat out gore. The very idea of a monster tailoring a fantasy world to lure in children is enough to make one's skin crawl. The creators did a great job at terrifying their target audience of children. An uncanny valley clone of a mother wanting to sew buttons into childrens’ eyes to survive on them sounds like a kid's worst nightmare, especially when Other Mother shows her true skeletal, spider-like form.
👉 Watch Coraline on Amazon Prime
👉 Buy Coraline as DVD on Amazon
Pinocchio (1940)
It’s expected that an eighty-year-old film would be shocking to us now, but it’s hard to imagine that even a child from the 40s could contently watch Pinocchio. After Pinocchio is kidnapped by a fox and a cat, he is sold to a sadistic puppet master who keeps him in a tiny cage and forces him into labour. If Pinocchio doesn’t work he will get his limbs chopped up for firewood. It’s already gotten pretty dark, with Pinocchio condemned to slavery under threat of dismemberment. It doesn’t end there: the creators of the film made sure to teach all the young children watching a lesson about hedonism by featuring a horrifying anthromorphic, donkey transformation. Pinocchio escapes to pleasure island, which is filled with other young boys getting drunk, smoking cigars, and gambling. One of the boys starts morphing into a donkey, screaming “Please!...No!...Mama!”. Looming, dark shadows show him convulsing and screaming, until his screams turn into donkey brays. At least Disney tweaked the story a bit so it wouldn’t be as dark as the book, in which Pinocchio gets hanged for all his sins.
👉 Watch Pinocchio on Amazon Prime
👉 Buy Pinocchio as DVD on Amazon
Matilda (1996)
Matilda is a fun, family film where we get to watch a young girl get back at all the people who’ve been mean to her. Looking back on it, the film seems kind of twisted. She’s basically stuck in a household with her abusive, neglectful family, and the only time she gets away from them is when she’s at school with her abusive principal. I remeber getting claustrophobic just watching the scene where Miss Trunchbull locks her into the chokey: a tiny chamber covered with spikes. Matilda feels a bit like a dark comedy - it's a film about a girl who suddenly gains powers and uses them to make the lives of those that abuse her miserable in hilarious ways. It is a Roald Dahl story, after all, so this comes as no surprise as his other works have similar darkly comedic undertones. Like in his retelling of The Little Red Riding Hood, where instead of a wood chopper it's Little Red Riding Hood who kills the fox; and walks away with a brand new fur coat.
👉 Watch Matilda on Amazon Prime
👉 Buy Matilda as DVD on Amazon
Chicken Run (2000)
One of the delights of children’s films is that they give cute animals a human-like life, but when they’re in a situation where they’re all about be murdered and eaten, it seems less cute and a little more messed up. This is the situation the hens of Tweedy’s farm find themselves in. The scene where one of the hens gets her head axed off because she isn’t laying enough eggs is extremely depressing. I can still hear the thud of the pick-axe right as the film cuts to a shot of the rainy farm. Just as they’re getting closer to escaping, the chickens discover that the owners of the farm have decided to turn them all into chicken pies.
👉 Watch Chicken Run on Amazon Prime
👉 Buy Chicken Run as DVD on Amazon
James and The Giant Peach (1996)
The film starts off with James on the beach with his parents celebrating his birthday, which seems innocent enough. That is, until his parents get eaten by a giant rhinoceros. Things don’t get much better for James, as he is forced to live with his cruel aunts. They constantly mock him for being an orphan, and warn him that unless he does his chores properly, the rhinoceros that gobbled up his parents will come for him next. He seems to be so terrified of his aunts that he even has a nightmare in which he is a caterpillar eating at the peach, and his aunts attempt to kill him with pesticide. His nightmare becomes a reality when his aunts try killing him with axes.
👉 Watch James and The Giant Peach on Amazon Prime
👉 Buy James and The Giant Peach as DVD on Amazon
The Neverending Story (1984)
The Neverending Story doesn’t fall short in its creepy set design and creatures like the Gmork or the Lucky Dragon. However, the most disturbing thing about the film is its bleak storyline. A boy tries desperately to stop a fantasy world from falling into nothingness. Throughout, there’s a lingering sense of existential dread - literally, there is black storm called The Nothing. Possibly the most traumatic part of the film for any child that watched The Neverending Story is when Artax, the horse, dies in The Swamp of Sadness. It’s a heart-wrenching scene, but it becomes all the more horrific when you realise Artax committed suicide. The Swamp of Sadness does what it sounds like - it fills people with despair and hopelessness. Unfortunately, this is what happened to Artax, causing him to give up and let himself drown as Atreyu pleads, “don’t let the sadness get to you”.
👉 Watch The Neverending Story on Amazon Prime
👉 Buy The Neverending Story as DVD on Amazon
The Witches (1990)
Yet another Roald Dahl story, this time about a group of witches who want to turn the world’s children into mice. The scene where they have a conference and show their true form - bald heads, long noses, no toes, purple eyes - was horror film material. There’s something extremely creepy about them quickly putting their costumes back on as Bruno enters the room. This results in another terrifying transformation as they posion him and turn him into a mouse. Also, the image of the Grand High Witch shooting lasers out of her eyes and frying a witch into ash is still burned into my corneas.
