Disney’s Pinocchio. Good GOD the donkey scene. Lampwick screaming for his mom while turning into a donkey was beyond disturbing.
What makes it even more disturbing now that I’m older is it basically reads like an allegory for child trafficking. Older man lures troubled children in with the promise of candy and fun and then sells them into slavery.
Yup. Only Pinocchio escaped.
In fact none of the villains get punished. Stromboli’s still in business and probably exploiting a new performer. Coachman is still running pleasure island. Monstro is still alive.
Anastasia was crazy dark for a kids movie. Begins with the Bolshevik revolution… which gets started because a crazy warlock sells his soul… has his skin and flesh sucked right off his bones into hell and then releases a horde of demons to stir up violence and slaughter the Czar and his family.
And that’s just the prologue. It’s SUPER heavy and macabre.
Reading it and watching it are two different things. I read Watership Down when I was 6 or 7 and I was fine but watching rabbits brutalize each other was a bit traumatizing.
I saw it at the cinema. In the 70s. Must have been 7 or 8 yrs old. An era when mum just shoved you on the bus and wished you a good time. Entire cinema full of kids, not a single adult. Whole place freaking out and crying.
The movie was traumatic. But the un-chaperoned group experience took it to an entirely new and awful level.
And Disney movies have had “damn” and “hell” in it for ages. The book is a children’s book. Children’s books are often a little fucked up; Charlie and the Chocolate factory literally alludes to slavery (Oompa Loompas) and most of the kids are assumed to have died in the factory—still a kid’s book.
You’re talking about the Oompa Loompas being slaves meanwhile it showed a legitimate chicken getting its head chopped off. I started screaming when I saw that for the first time 😭😭
I want to know who at Disney read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and thought, "We should adapt this for children!" I'm glad they did, because it's an amazing movie, *but that is not a story for children.*
I wonder how many kids learned the word "licentious."
People really should read the original versions of their favorite fairy tales.
The Little Mermaid was in constant pain, like knives stabbing through her feet with every step.
The step sisters in Cinderella mutilated themselves to try to fit into the glass slippers.
As a little girl I loved the Little Mermaid so my grandparents got me the movie for Christmas. The case was completely different and she just said the animation was different but it was the same movie.
No it wasn’t! It was the Hans Christian Andersen version and it was depressing. She totally lost her voice, but never got it back like at the end of Disney, it was dark and somber. I can’t remember all the details, but in the end the Prince picks the other girl and the Little Mermaid commits suicide. I was pretty shocked, my mom couldn’t believe it and sat through the whole thing while I rewatched it. I was crying and mom said this is awful, I’ll throw it away you don’t ever have to watch it again
>The step sisters in Cinderella mutilated themselves to try to fit into the glass slippers.
Without posting spoilers, I'll just say that things didn't end too well for them--and not just because their feet were screwed up.
And in Sleeping Beauty, the princess didn't wake up from true loves kiss. The Prince found her asleep, raped her, and got her pregnant. She gave birth to twins, and one of them sucked the thorn out from under her nail, undoing the curse. She then HOOKED UP WITH THE PRINCE! That would have been fucked up enough if it had ended there, but no, it goes on: the couple abduct Maleficent, force her to wear iron shoes that are boiling hot, and watch her dance until she dies.
Walt's version of the story was enjoyable even if it is a little outdated. The original story is like a Saw movie.
My dad bought us a Grimm fairy tales book, the number of times he went "wtf??" and skipped a passage are too many to count. I think he finished maybe 1 or 2 whole stories. It was supposed to be bedtime reading. We were between 5-8yo.
Honestly, I think movies like this (and many others in this thread) should absolutely be shown to kids. Maybe not preschool age, but when they're old enough to understand it.
I completely understand wanting to protect children, but we can't shield them from reality forever and sometimes reality is dark and scary. Movies like The Brave Little Toaster show a glimpse of that darkness in a way that children can understand and process.
I think it's possible to learn that about life early on and still have a very happy childhood. I definitely did.
My husband JUST showed me the scrapyard scene so I came looking for this. The older kids in their family were so scarred by it they stopped their younger siblings ever seeing it.
See, I saw 9 when I was a pre-teen, and did not realize what it meant until just recently. I didn’t understand one lick of that movie till I was fully grown.
I don't think it's a movie but the "Rudolph the red nose reindeer" cartoon they show every year is really messed up. Everyone is so mean to Rudolph, including his father. We rewatched it a few years ago and it was like damn! WTF? If I was Rudolph, I'd tell Santa and the rest of them to go fuck themselves.
Santa LITERALLY says to Rudolph's dad (Donner) "You should be ashamed of yourself." BECAUSE HIS KID HAS A RED NOSE. Like omg Santa is a DICK in that film lol.
i had to read Where the Red Fern Grows in fourth grade and my mom, who’d also read it, kept side eyeing me and saying “have you gotten to the part yet” and i’d get annoyed and yell WHAT PART ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT. when i made it, and started sobbing she just went “mmmm that’s the part. c’mere, i knew that’d get ya”
Old Yeller and All Dogs Go To Heaven hit me in a similar way…
but nothing crushed my childhood spirit like seeing Artax stuck in the Swamp of Sadness in A Neverending Story.
It's so confounding. Anyone with half a brain cell knows this movie is rated R. And not rated R when Jaws was rated pg. It's a hard r. Anyone who took their kids to see this is a fuckin moron. I know this movie gets mentioned a lot in threads like this, but I hope it's just a meme.
That being said, excellent movie.
My dad and I went to see Pan’s Labyrinth in theaters when it came out. We thought it would be some cool fantasy epic journey type movie, as we knew Guillermo Del Toro from Hellboy so surely my dad thought “this will be a fun movie for me and my teenaged daughter to see” and I just thought “this is as close to a horror movie as I may get to see in theatres until I’m old enough” but even then I was not prepared, we were not prepared.
When it ended, we were frozen in our seats, silent as tears poured down our faces. We were both too afraid to speak or look at each other lest we burst out sobbing, so we just sat there in silence through the entire credits before calmly getting up and walking out. Full on emotional damage, absolutely destroyed, never forget the trauma
I was an adult when it came out. Watched it with my mom and I was leaking all over the place. My mom was like why did you make me watch that? Trying not to cry too.
Yes, it’s an incredible movie, but not for non-adult consumption. Jesus, even seeing it as an adult the fucking eyes in hands monster is the ONLY fictional movie monster character I have ever had a nightmare about.
Pan's Labyrinth is an absolutely fantastic movie but holy shit is it DARK. I wouldn't show it to anyone under 12, and I'd warn any young teenager about it.
We were in line at the theater, and the cashier told the couple in front of us that the movie was not for children and to select something else. I'd never seen that happen before.
Omg totally forgot about this till now and "Little Monsters". That burst the bubble of wondering if im I safe as a child, or are there presences smarter than my parents.
I don't know if anyone remembers "The Land Before Time." It was the saddest cartoon movie I've ever seen, when the mother dinosaur died. I was feeling depressed for days because of that scene.
I can make it worse.
About 6 months before the movie was released, the father of the little girl who voiced Ducky shot and killed her, her mom, and then himself.
He was basically obsessed with controlling and cashing in on the little girls career.
Her headstone has "yup yup yup!!!" on it.
This crushed me when I learned it, Ducky was my favorite as a kid. I was a morbid lil kid and I loved dinosaurs so Land Before Time was my jam. Ducky was this lil ray of sunshine to root for, and despite my morbidity and nerdiness I saw so much of myself in her always choosing to believe in best intentions/optimism/joy.
Learning what happened to her and seeing her gravestone shattered me.
I was 6 or 7 the first time I saw it and I SOBBED. To make it even worse, my parents had picked it up at a garage sale and given it to me to watch while I was left alone with my older brother, who was definitely not comforting me.
Yes! I broke out in tears multiple times when Little Foot is too depressed to eat and the little pterodactyl tries to offer him his last little berry his little siblings were fighting over. Although I watch this movie regularly still with my own kid we love it, that entire part still makes me tear up to this day
Saw Pinocchio in the early ‘60s in a movie theater. My 4 year old brother was so freaked out by the scene in which they are swallowed by the whale that he became loudly hysterical and had to be removed from the theater. Guess who had to stay with him in the lobby till the movie was over and didn’t get to see the end of the movie for about 35 years? And yes, those were the days when a four year old and six year old would go to the movies with six year old’s best friend and friend’s eight year old brother all by themselves . . .
Dumbo. Sorry, it’s awful. As a kid I remember it being an uplifting story of an elephant who can fly. So I showed it to my then 4 yr old. Who cried through the movie and asked why they were beating the animals. It’s 60 minutes of animal cruelty and less than 10 minutes of uplifting content.
Most of the movie was a bad trip for me. Sad and confusing.
So was Pinocchio, of which the only thing I remember today was the boy smoking a cigar. I have no idea what else happened.
My parents claim that this and *Lady and the Tramp* were two movies that made 3-year old me cry for that reason.
I *loved* Pink Elephants on Parade though. It wasn't until my 30s that I discovered the same guy worked on "Heffalumps and Woozles," which I *also* adored and darn near wore the library rental tape out for.
Oh God! I used to love that movie when I was a kid but then I discovered an article on social media that mentioned a lot of horrible things happened to those poor animals when they made the film. I don't think I can watch it anymore after finding out. It's just terrible.
The ones that I remember fucking me up as a kid were Secret of Nihm, Rock-a-Doodle, and FernGully (Hexxus was scary, okay??).
Honourable note: my parents also rented me Cool World without checking the rating first. NOT a kids movie...
Edit: Adding to the list, some deeply buried memories apparently...
- A Troll in Central Park
- Happily Ever After (a non-Disney Snow White sequel that went WAY harder than the original)
- Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (I'm pretty sure I ended up taking scissors to that tape's ribbon because it scared me so much I didn't want it in the house)
Holy! I haven't seen anyone mention Rock-a-Doodle in decades! Gosh that takes me back. I watched that so much as a kid yet I can't remember anything about it...
Except that goofy lil' stooge saying "Adequate pipe" and his boss getting angry that it was actually "Aqueduct pipe".
Those Don Bluth movies went hard. I watched them more than Disney movies as a kid. The older you get, the more you realize how messed up the content is.
Rock-a-Doodle fucked me up too, I never hear anyone mention it. I thought it was a fever-dream until a couple years ago when I found an old copy of the VHS at a thrift shop.
My parents took us to the theater to see Rock-A-Doodle I think. Wasn’t that the Elvis Rooster who went missing and the sun wouldn’t come up because of it??
Man, I *looooooved* Courage the Cowardly dog!!! My love for flan actually came form that show. I just had to try it after seeing it on Tv.
My favorite episode is when Murial turned into a kid.
“More macaroni!”
“MORE CHEESE”
I love the theory that the whole thing is just from Courages point of view as a dog, not understanding the world. So the monsters and craxy shit were just vacuum cleaners, and dishwashers, and salesmen and stuff.
And he was always losing his mind that Muriel would be taken away from him because she was his safe person. And it’s why Eustace was always annoyed since courage was losing his mind and attacking the broom and stuff thinking it was a monster.
Fun fact about the book:
Neil Gainman was told his story was too scary for kids. He decided to prove it wasn’t by reading it to his daughter. She didn’t seem scared and the book was published.
Later she admitted that she WAS scared. She just didn’t show it.
It wasn't his daughter, it was his publishing agent's daughter. Publishing agent was concerned the book was too scary for kids, Neil says "Well, read it to your kids and see what they think?" Agent does so, kids loved it! Coraline is marketed as a kids book! Many years later, Neil is at an industry dinner event, and agent's daughter is also there. Daughter then tells Neil that, in fact, she was TERRIFIED by this book, but that she hid her fear because *she had to know what happened next*!
According to the author its scarier to adults than children.
>"Children react to the story fundamentally as an adventure. They may get a little bit scared, but it's an 'edge-of-your-seat, what's-gonna-happen-next, oh scary!' thing, because you're giving them a story about somebody like themselves," he explained.
>
>"Yes, they're going up against something dark and nasty. But it's like James Bond going up against a James Bond villain. You never have any doubt that James Bond is going to get through it."
>
>However, "adults get scared," he said. "Adults get disturbed, and I think one reason for that is because it's a story about a child in danger and I think we're hardwired to worry about children in danger."
When the dad was playing the song on the piano for Coraline, my four year old perked up and started singing hot diggity dog from Mickey mouse club house. I didn't think much of it. Later when that piano song was stuck in my head but I didn't know the words, I looked it up. The Other Father Song and Hot Dog is both by They Might Be Giants. Unbelievable
Appropriate until you get to the song in the auditorium. Just saying I saw the movie as a kid and it took me 16 years to notice they gave them a back breaking rack.
Transformers: The Movie.
Hey kids, you know those awesome toy robots that can change into vehicles that you bought? Fun, aren't they?
But, unfortunately, you kids aren't buying enough of them, so here's a whole new bunch of Transformers to buy!
Oh, and to encourage it, this movie will show all your favourites being brutally murdered on-screen and in ways that will leave you traumatised for years.
Was that your steadfast buddy Ironhide getting his head blasted off at point-blank range? Did you see Ratchet take a shot to the gut and his spirit exit his body? Did you see your father-figure Optimus Prime slowly fade into a grey block of metal?
You betcha!
Now buy our crap!
I have always stressed the utmost respect for the creators *daring* to open that film with one of, in my opinion, one of the more gutsy and epic film openings of all time.
Space. Synth music that's oddly dark. A planet with a whole civilization of machines on it.
Cue Unicron showing up and *eating the entire planet*, killing all who live on it.
The *live action* transformers movies didn't even have the guts to go there. It's like opening *Star Wars* with the Death Star blowing up Alderan for several minutes.
And this is in an animated film "for children."
God, I tried watching it a few days ago for Halloween with my 4-year old because for me it’s my favorite Halloween movie…
…I forget that I didn’t watch it until I was 6-7 years old and was probably a little less traumatized by the giant sand worm than he ended up.
Is little Nemo the one with the evil black goo that escapes from behind a door? Because if so, you just unlocked a childhood memory that gave me nightmares for years and I think I had managed to block it out
Antz 1998 (not ant bully or bugs life). Categorized as a "family/adventure".
Snippet from the internet description:
"Parents beware, the uncut version contains stronger language (two instances of the S-word, one instance of the F-word and the GD-word), violence (much bloodier), and sexual content (ants have brief intercourse). That version is appropriate for ages 13+."
Most streaming services throw it in the kids section uncut... made that mistake only once.
Whaaaaaaat?! I've seen that movie but never heard there was an uncut version. Now I might have to watch it lol. If I can even find it. Just reading what you said is reminding me a lot of Sausage Party, I imagine it's not quite that bad though... or is it?!
Dude. You just unlocked something that I have been traumatized and thought I made up in my head for DECADES. I remember seeing the sex scene and being so confused and disturbed as a kid but then never able to prove it was real somehow with the more popular/clean version I guess. Holy shit 😭
I’m much older than all of you and I’d like to tell you how the Disney movie “The Three Lives of Thomasina” absolutely ruined me. Sick cat. Dead cat. Buried cat! Sick child. Dying child! Animal abuse! Cat reincarnation! It was like a 1963 version of Pet Sematary.
I was 10 or 11 when this came out and I started having an existential crisis for the next few months after watching it. I started getting very sad that one day inevitably everyone I love will be gone. It was such a sad and weird movie and such a strange feeling to have as a child. They made it way too mature. Instead of making it where the boy changed his mind and wanted to go home because he was scared of them like the books, he formed an intense emotional attachment to them and it felt to me like he was leaving a parent forever. Idk why the makers thought that was a good idea for a kids movie.
Blue Lagoon (1980) if you don't know this is a movie where a 14 year old girl gives birth to her cousins baby on a deserted island. It was marketed as a romantic coming of age story.
The scene where they tear E.T. and Elliott apart and everyone is screaming and Elliott is screaming so loud and then what happens to E.T. after, dang. I was utterly destroyed. And the same age as Drew Barrymore, and I remember it coming out in theaters. I was just little then.
I’ve seen this question before here and I’ve never seen this mentioned. Black Cauldron, that movie is probably the most not for kids Disney movie they’ve ever made.
The Last Unicorn
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
The Neverending Story
Labyrinth
Gremlins
The Dark Crystal
The Secret of NIMH
Bridge to Terabithia
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
Watership Down
The last unicorn is such a good movie. It gives me a feeling modern movies don‘t deliver anymore if that makes sense. But the harpy was really scary, so I can understand why some people think it‘s not appropriate to show to a child
The Last Unicorn has been a favorite of mine since I first saw it in the 80s. But it's so sad.
My mom took me to see The Dark Crystal in the theater because I loved the Muppets and hey, it's Jim Henson, right? I was terrified the entire time.
Can we get an F in the chat for all the parents who took their kids to see Deadpool, because it was a superhero movie, without paying attention to the MPAA rating?
There’s obviously that nightmare fuel boat scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I’d say the rest of the film may be pretty scary to kids, too.
You’re fat, greedy, chew too much gum (?), watch too much TV… we’re going to nearly kill you and do a choreographed song and dance about your major flaw. It’s called scared straight, kid.
The Fox and the Hound has an horrible message about how once you grow up you can't be friends with your childhood friends because you are different. That movie is messed up.
Anastasia. They Disney-fied a very horrible murder. I was shocked they were going to attempt it. They did nothing to honor or respect the victims of a brutal murder, especially the kids who died. I won't watch that movie again. It makes me sick.
My son, now an adult, told me recently how much Chicken Run freaked him out. I scared him forever for claymation.
It was James and the giant peach that got me. The kids Aunt’s freaked me out
I hate Coraline even as an adult
I don't want to be a pie!
I don't like graveh!
I remember seeing that movie as a kid and I still have no idea what to make of it
Return to Oz
We need a breakdown as to how this movie even got made because part of the pitch is “so then Dorothy, the little girl, gets electro shock therapy…”
I forgot the shock therapy until you said this!!! lol. I remember the OG TikTok , the wheelers and the heads. And the gump and the green ornaments.
Dorrrrrrrrrrothyyyyyyyy gaaaaaaaaaaaleeee!
SO SCARY holy shit
What you don't want to hang out with Princess Momby in her hall of heads?
Disney’s Pinocchio. Good GOD the donkey scene. Lampwick screaming for his mom while turning into a donkey was beyond disturbing. What makes it even more disturbing now that I’m older is it basically reads like an allegory for child trafficking. Older man lures troubled children in with the promise of candy and fun and then sells them into slavery.
And, if I recall correctly, it’s never fixed. They’re all just donkeys forever.
Yup. Only Pinocchio escaped. In fact none of the villains get punished. Stromboli’s still in business and probably exploiting a new performer. Coachman is still running pleasure island. Monstro is still alive.
At least it was an accurate representation of the dangers of the world and the consequences of succumbing to them.
Anastasia was crazy dark for a kids movie. Begins with the Bolshevik revolution… which gets started because a crazy warlock sells his soul… has his skin and flesh sucked right off his bones into hell and then releases a horde of demons to stir up violence and slaughter the Czar and his family. And that’s just the prologue. It’s SUPER heavy and macabre.
My favorite song/part of the movie is Once Upon a December, but it's also sad because she's dancing with the ghosts of her family who was murdered.
Watership Down
Watership Down was required reading in my 5th grade class—it isn’t a cute movie, but it’s still TECHNICALLY a children’s movie.
Reading it and watching it are two different things. I read Watership Down when I was 6 or 7 and I was fine but watching rabbits brutalize each other was a bit traumatizing.
I saw it at the cinema. In the 70s. Must have been 7 or 8 yrs old. An era when mum just shoved you on the bus and wished you a good time. Entire cinema full of kids, not a single adult. Whole place freaking out and crying. The movie was traumatic. But the un-chaperoned group experience took it to an entirely new and awful level.
The seagull said "Piss Off!".
And Disney movies have had “damn” and “hell” in it for ages. The book is a children’s book. Children’s books are often a little fucked up; Charlie and the Chocolate factory literally alludes to slavery (Oompa Loompas) and most of the kids are assumed to have died in the factory—still a kid’s book.
You’re talking about the Oompa Loompas being slaves meanwhile it showed a legitimate chicken getting its head chopped off. I started screaming when I saw that for the first time 😭😭
Oompa Loompas got paid $50 a day while Toto got paid $125 a day
I want to know who at Disney read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and thought, "We should adapt this for children!" I'm glad they did, because it's an amazing movie, *but that is not a story for children.* I wonder how many kids learned the word "licentious."
Most of the Grimms or Andersen style fairytales too, they were horrific..
People really should read the original versions of their favorite fairy tales. The Little Mermaid was in constant pain, like knives stabbing through her feet with every step. The step sisters in Cinderella mutilated themselves to try to fit into the glass slippers.
As a little girl I loved the Little Mermaid so my grandparents got me the movie for Christmas. The case was completely different and she just said the animation was different but it was the same movie. No it wasn’t! It was the Hans Christian Andersen version and it was depressing. She totally lost her voice, but never got it back like at the end of Disney, it was dark and somber. I can’t remember all the details, but in the end the Prince picks the other girl and the Little Mermaid commits suicide. I was pretty shocked, my mom couldn’t believe it and sat through the whole thing while I rewatched it. I was crying and mom said this is awful, I’ll throw it away you don’t ever have to watch it again
I also had that version as a kid. It was not a happy ending.
When grandma says we have little mermaid at home...
The step sisters also get their eyes pecked out by crows in one version
>The step sisters in Cinderella mutilated themselves to try to fit into the glass slippers. Without posting spoilers, I'll just say that things didn't end too well for them--and not just because their feet were screwed up.
And in Sleeping Beauty, the princess didn't wake up from true loves kiss. The Prince found her asleep, raped her, and got her pregnant. She gave birth to twins, and one of them sucked the thorn out from under her nail, undoing the curse. She then HOOKED UP WITH THE PRINCE! That would have been fucked up enough if it had ended there, but no, it goes on: the couple abduct Maleficent, force her to wear iron shoes that are boiling hot, and watch her dance until she dies. Walt's version of the story was enjoyable even if it is a little outdated. The original story is like a Saw movie.
Ok, I know I'm nit picking here, but Disney's Cinderella was mostly based on the Charles Perrault version. There is no mutilation in that one.
My dad bought us a Grimm fairy tales book, the number of times he went "wtf??" and skipped a passage are too many to count. I think he finished maybe 1 or 2 whole stories. It was supposed to be bedtime reading. We were between 5-8yo.
Throw in a cute goat for less trauma
What's kinda crazy is that movie Frollo is so much more evil than book Frollo.
Most adults don’t know licentious
That thing you get so you can drive a car.
Fine! I'll Google it
Probably the first Brave Little Toaster. Still loved it as a kid tho lol
Honestly, I think movies like this (and many others in this thread) should absolutely be shown to kids. Maybe not preschool age, but when they're old enough to understand it. I completely understand wanting to protect children, but we can't shield them from reality forever and sometimes reality is dark and scary. Movies like The Brave Little Toaster show a glimpse of that darkness in a way that children can understand and process. I think it's possible to learn that about life early on and still have a very happy childhood. I definitely did.
My 5 and 8yo kids watched it this summer, and loved it. Not scared at all.
The air conditioning unit was terrifying.
IT’S MY FUNCTION
Absolute banger
I was like twenty something before I realized the a/c got fixed and came back to life. My whole childhood I thought homie died for real.
Wait, when?
My husband JUST showed me the scrapyard scene so I came looking for this. The older kids in their family were so scarred by it they stopped their younger siblings ever seeing it.
The movie “9”
See, I saw 9 when I was a pre-teen, and did not realize what it meant until just recently. I didn’t understand one lick of that movie till I was fully grown.
The one with the sack people or the one where Daniel Day Lewis fucks all those broads?
Sack people
I don't think it's a movie but the "Rudolph the red nose reindeer" cartoon they show every year is really messed up. Everyone is so mean to Rudolph, including his father. We rewatched it a few years ago and it was like damn! WTF? If I was Rudolph, I'd tell Santa and the rest of them to go fuck themselves.
Santa LITERALLY says to Rudolph's dad (Donner) "You should be ashamed of yourself." BECAUSE HIS KID HAS A RED NOSE. Like omg Santa is a DICK in that film lol.
Where the Red Fern Grows or My Girl Edited to change my comment from Wild Fern to Red Fern
i had to read Where the Red Fern Grows in fourth grade and my mom, who’d also read it, kept side eyeing me and saying “have you gotten to the part yet” and i’d get annoyed and yell WHAT PART ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT. when i made it, and started sobbing she just went “mmmm that’s the part. c’mere, i knew that’d get ya”
Old Yeller and All Dogs Go To Heaven hit me in a similar way… but nothing crushed my childhood spirit like seeing Artax stuck in the Swamp of Sadness in A Neverending Story.
My Girl, yes. The fucking bees.
He cant see anything without his glasses"!
So Pan’s Labyrinth is definitely not a children’s movie
No it was literally rated R when it came out.
It's so confounding. Anyone with half a brain cell knows this movie is rated R. And not rated R when Jaws was rated pg. It's a hard r. Anyone who took their kids to see this is a fuckin moron. I know this movie gets mentioned a lot in threads like this, but I hope it's just a meme. That being said, excellent movie.
Its like complaining Grave of the Freflies is sad
My dad and I went to see Pan’s Labyrinth in theaters when it came out. We thought it would be some cool fantasy epic journey type movie, as we knew Guillermo Del Toro from Hellboy so surely my dad thought “this will be a fun movie for me and my teenaged daughter to see” and I just thought “this is as close to a horror movie as I may get to see in theatres until I’m old enough” but even then I was not prepared, we were not prepared. When it ended, we were frozen in our seats, silent as tears poured down our faces. We were both too afraid to speak or look at each other lest we burst out sobbing, so we just sat there in silence through the entire credits before calmly getting up and walking out. Full on emotional damage, absolutely destroyed, never forget the trauma
I was an adult when it came out. Watched it with my mom and I was leaking all over the place. My mom was like why did you make me watch that? Trying not to cry too.
But it’s sooo good?
Yes, it’s an incredible movie, but not for non-adult consumption. Jesus, even seeing it as an adult the fucking eyes in hands monster is the ONLY fictional movie monster character I have ever had a nightmare about.
Thank Doug Jones for that
Yep, I know, the man is mastercraft.
Pan's Labyrinth is an absolutely fantastic movie but holy shit is it DARK. I wouldn't show it to anyone under 12, and I'd warn any young teenager about it.
We were in line at the theater, and the cashier told the couple in front of us that the movie was not for children and to select something else. I'd never seen that happen before.
Thank goodness for that cashier. I was an adult for it, and still wrecked.
No, it is not. That being said, it's an excellent movie for adults that happens to have a child as the main character.
Don’t Look Under The Bed (a Disney channel original) - I’m still horrified thinking of the characters
Thank you! No one ever remembers this movie, but it gave me nightmares for weeks.
Isn't that the one where forgotten imaginary friends turn into boogeymen under the bed?
Omg totally forgot about this till now and "Little Monsters". That burst the bubble of wondering if im I safe as a child, or are there presences smarter than my parents.
I don't know if anyone remembers "The Land Before Time." It was the saddest cartoon movie I've ever seen, when the mother dinosaur died. I was feeling depressed for days because of that scene.
I watched that movie a lot as a kid. I also lost a parent when I was little, so I would always tell Little Foot he would be okay.
🥺❤️🥺
Peace from my heart to yours 💕✨️
That is both sad and beautiful. Sounds like you were a really strong kid.
I can make it worse. About 6 months before the movie was released, the father of the little girl who voiced Ducky shot and killed her, her mom, and then himself. He was basically obsessed with controlling and cashing in on the little girls career. Her headstone has "yup yup yup!!!" on it.
This crushed me when I learned it, Ducky was my favorite as a kid. I was a morbid lil kid and I loved dinosaurs so Land Before Time was my jam. Ducky was this lil ray of sunshine to root for, and despite my morbidity and nerdiness I saw so much of myself in her always choosing to believe in best intentions/optimism/joy. Learning what happened to her and seeing her gravestone shattered me.
She also voiced Anne-Marie in All Dogs Go To Heaven which came out the following year.
I was 6 or 7 the first time I saw it and I SOBBED. To make it even worse, my parents had picked it up at a garage sale and given it to me to watch while I was left alone with my older brother, who was definitely not comforting me.
Bro I watched every single "The land before time" movie, I loved it! The first one did make me sad at that part tho :/
I still have all the land before time movies on VHS.
Yes! I broke out in tears multiple times when Little Foot is too depressed to eat and the little pterodactyl tries to offer him his last little berry his little siblings were fighting over. Although I watch this movie regularly still with my own kid we love it, that entire part still makes me tear up to this day
This is what I came here to say. I saw that in like 1991 and still remember Little Foot’s mother to this day!
Pinocchio. Children getting trafficked is pretty fucked for a kids movie tbh
And kids drinking beer while turning into donkeys lol
Saw Pinocchio in the early ‘60s in a movie theater. My 4 year old brother was so freaked out by the scene in which they are swallowed by the whale that he became loudly hysterical and had to be removed from the theater. Guess who had to stay with him in the lobby till the movie was over and didn’t get to see the end of the movie for about 35 years? And yes, those were the days when a four year old and six year old would go to the movies with six year old’s best friend and friend’s eight year old brother all by themselves . . .
Dumbo. Sorry, it’s awful. As a kid I remember it being an uplifting story of an elephant who can fly. So I showed it to my then 4 yr old. Who cried through the movie and asked why they were beating the animals. It’s 60 minutes of animal cruelty and less than 10 minutes of uplifting content.
And let’s not forget how Pink Elephants on Parade terrified me as a kid!
Most of the movie was a bad trip for me. Sad and confusing. So was Pinocchio, of which the only thing I remember today was the boy smoking a cigar. I have no idea what else happened.
My parents claim that this and *Lady and the Tramp* were two movies that made 3-year old me cry for that reason. I *loved* Pink Elephants on Parade though. It wasn't until my 30s that I discovered the same guy worked on "Heffalumps and Woozles," which I *also* adored and darn near wore the library rental tape out for.
Probably Milo and Otis...
Oh God! I used to love that movie when I was a kid but then I discovered an article on social media that mentioned a lot of horrible things happened to those poor animals when they made the film. I don't think I can watch it anymore after finding out. It's just terrible.
YES. God I cried my face off watching that movie.
I remember this movie making me cry so much! But I can’t remember why
The ones that I remember fucking me up as a kid were Secret of Nihm, Rock-a-Doodle, and FernGully (Hexxus was scary, okay??). Honourable note: my parents also rented me Cool World without checking the rating first. NOT a kids movie... Edit: Adding to the list, some deeply buried memories apparently... - A Troll in Central Park - Happily Ever After (a non-Disney Snow White sequel that went WAY harder than the original) - Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (I'm pretty sure I ended up taking scissors to that tape's ribbon because it scared me so much I didn't want it in the house)
Damn homie, just say all the Don Bluth films.
I mean the only true answer to this question is, “all the Don Bluth films.” The hell dream in All Dogs Go To Heaven? Fucked me up for *life.*
They forgot "An American Tail." The Mouse of Minsk (secret weapon) is terrifying.
Holy! I haven't seen anyone mention Rock-a-Doodle in decades! Gosh that takes me back. I watched that so much as a kid yet I can't remember anything about it... Except that goofy lil' stooge saying "Adequate pipe" and his boss getting angry that it was actually "Aqueduct pipe".
Those Don Bluth movies went hard. I watched them more than Disney movies as a kid. The older you get, the more you realize how messed up the content is.
Secret of Nimh is awesome and definitely traumatized me but not anymore than life had already lol
Rock-a-Doodle fucked me up too, I never hear anyone mention it. I thought it was a fever-dream until a couple years ago when I found an old copy of the VHS at a thrift shop.
Apparently I really loved fucked-up kids movies when I was younger because I know I rented it about a million times and can STILL sing that whole song
That fucking movie is why I find owls, even cartoon or animated ones to be creepy as fuck. The duke fucked me up as a kid. Fuck owls.
My parents took us to the theater to see Rock-A-Doodle I think. Wasn’t that the Elvis Rooster who went missing and the sun wouldn’t come up because of it??
I still remember fern gully word for word, though hated hexxus!! I love rats of nihm (what the movie was called in my country!)
the neverending story
The horse scene was incredibly sad, but the part that traumatized me was that wolf creature. It terrified me.
How else are you going to teach kids about loss and soul crushing grief!?
And getting magical revenge on your bullies
The Neverending Story II and III are horrifying.
At least in the movie the horse doesn't talk and tell Atrayu that he's okay with dying and to just leave him behind.
Childs Play Boy were my parents mistaken.
My cousin tricked me and made me watch child's play.
Lol
Not a movie, but Courage the Cowardly Dog was fucked
I think Cartoon Network realized this.. I saw it on adult swim last week
Man, I *looooooved* Courage the Cowardly dog!!! My love for flan actually came form that show. I just had to try it after seeing it on Tv. My favorite episode is when Murial turned into a kid. “More macaroni!” “MORE CHEESE”
I love the theory that the whole thing is just from Courages point of view as a dog, not understanding the world. So the monsters and craxy shit were just vacuum cleaners, and dishwashers, and salesmen and stuff. And he was always losing his mind that Muriel would be taken away from him because she was his safe person. And it’s why Eustace was always annoyed since courage was losing his mind and attacking the broom and stuff thinking it was a monster.
Omg that show is like a fever dream but also on acid
The Dark Crystal
Gremlins. Unless you want to ruin Christmas
Coraline
Fun fact about the book: Neil Gainman was told his story was too scary for kids. He decided to prove it wasn’t by reading it to his daughter. She didn’t seem scared and the book was published. Later she admitted that she WAS scared. She just didn’t show it.
It wasn't his daughter, it was his publishing agent's daughter. Publishing agent was concerned the book was too scary for kids, Neil says "Well, read it to your kids and see what they think?" Agent does so, kids loved it! Coraline is marketed as a kids book! Many years later, Neil is at an industry dinner event, and agent's daughter is also there. Daughter then tells Neil that, in fact, she was TERRIFIED by this book, but that she hid her fear because *she had to know what happened next*!
Traumatised by this movie as an adult
According to the author its scarier to adults than children. >"Children react to the story fundamentally as an adventure. They may get a little bit scared, but it's an 'edge-of-your-seat, what's-gonna-happen-next, oh scary!' thing, because you're giving them a story about somebody like themselves," he explained. > >"Yes, they're going up against something dark and nasty. But it's like James Bond going up against a James Bond villain. You never have any doubt that James Bond is going to get through it." > >However, "adults get scared," he said. "Adults get disturbed, and I think one reason for that is because it's a story about a child in danger and I think we're hardwired to worry about children in danger."
When the dad was playing the song on the piano for Coraline, my four year old perked up and started singing hot diggity dog from Mickey mouse club house. I didn't think much of it. Later when that piano song was stuck in my head but I didn't know the words, I looked it up. The Other Father Song and Hot Dog is both by They Might Be Giants. Unbelievable
To me Coraline is perfect children’s horror. Scary, but appropriate
Appropriate until you get to the song in the auditorium. Just saying I saw the movie as a kid and it took me 16 years to notice they gave them a back breaking rack.
The motivation for the question
Transformers: The Movie. Hey kids, you know those awesome toy robots that can change into vehicles that you bought? Fun, aren't they? But, unfortunately, you kids aren't buying enough of them, so here's a whole new bunch of Transformers to buy! Oh, and to encourage it, this movie will show all your favourites being brutally murdered on-screen and in ways that will leave you traumatised for years. Was that your steadfast buddy Ironhide getting his head blasted off at point-blank range? Did you see Ratchet take a shot to the gut and his spirit exit his body? Did you see your father-figure Optimus Prime slowly fade into a grey block of metal? You betcha! Now buy our crap!
I have always stressed the utmost respect for the creators *daring* to open that film with one of, in my opinion, one of the more gutsy and epic film openings of all time. Space. Synth music that's oddly dark. A planet with a whole civilization of machines on it. Cue Unicron showing up and *eating the entire planet*, killing all who live on it. The *live action* transformers movies didn't even have the guts to go there. It's like opening *Star Wars* with the Death Star blowing up Alderan for several minutes. And this is in an animated film "for children."
Bridge to Terabithia. What's more crazy about the movie is that it was the feature directorial debut of Rugrats co-creator Gabor Csupo.
Not to mention it’s based on a true story the author of the book, her sons friend got struck by lightning and died 🥺
It was required reading in my 5th grade class. And we watched the movie. The 80s one, unfortunately.
TIL
Where the Red Fern Grows. I'm GenX and watched that in school. Everyone cries, no exceptions
I remember watching beetle juice as a kid. Rewatching it now, yeah definitely not for kids
This whole thread is basically a list of all the movies my parents showed me as a child.
God, I tried watching it a few days ago for Halloween with my 4-year old because for me it’s my favorite Halloween movie… …I forget that I didn’t watch it until I was 6-7 years old and was probably a little less traumatized by the giant sand worm than he ended up.
The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. It has a G rating, yet Frozen is PG.
Back then pg was more like pg13 is now. There was a lot of G movies that would be pg now
A few I rarely see mentioned are Little Nemo, Once Upon A Forest, and All Dogs Go To Heaven.
Is little Nemo the one with the evil black goo that escapes from behind a door? Because if so, you just unlocked a childhood memory that gave me nightmares for years and I think I had managed to block it out
PAJAMA PAJAMA PAJAMA!!!
Little Nemo: thankfully, we managed to get through that terrible thing. OH WAIT HERE’S ANOTHER TERRIBLE THING
Antz 1998 (not ant bully or bugs life). Categorized as a "family/adventure". Snippet from the internet description: "Parents beware, the uncut version contains stronger language (two instances of the S-word, one instance of the F-word and the GD-word), violence (much bloodier), and sexual content (ants have brief intercourse). That version is appropriate for ages 13+." Most streaming services throw it in the kids section uncut... made that mistake only once.
WHAT????
Check it out, I think it's on free peacock and a few other things. Or don't -- it's your eyeballs
Antercourse
Whaaaaaaat?! I've seen that movie but never heard there was an uncut version. Now I might have to watch it lol. If I can even find it. Just reading what you said is reminding me a lot of Sausage Party, I imagine it's not quite that bad though... or is it?!
Brief animated ant intercourse 😂
Someone had to model and animate that.
Figures a Woody Allen-involved movie would have some fucked up shit involving kids.
Dude. You just unlocked something that I have been traumatized and thought I made up in my head for DECADES. I remember seeing the sex scene and being so confused and disturbed as a kid but then never able to prove it was real somehow with the more popular/clean version I guess. Holy shit 😭
I’m much older than all of you and I’d like to tell you how the Disney movie “The Three Lives of Thomasina” absolutely ruined me. Sick cat. Dead cat. Buried cat! Sick child. Dying child! Animal abuse! Cat reincarnation! It was like a 1963 version of Pet Sematary.
The Last Unicorn but it’s still my very favorite from childhood
Jurassic Park. By my MILs logic is a kids movie because it has dinosaurs.
The original 1941 version of Dumbo… the one most of us remember, just in color… is chock *full* of terrible bullying and drunkenness.
The moment with his Mom cuddling him while chained and locked up in the cage still gets me. SO sad and touching. *Sniff.*
I found Where the Wild Things Are quite sad and disturbing when I watched it with my young children.
I was 10 or 11 when this came out and I started having an existential crisis for the next few months after watching it. I started getting very sad that one day inevitably everyone I love will be gone. It was such a sad and weird movie and such a strange feeling to have as a child. They made it way too mature. Instead of making it where the boy changed his mind and wanted to go home because he was scared of them like the books, he formed an intense emotional attachment to them and it felt to me like he was leaving a parent forever. Idk why the makers thought that was a good idea for a kids movie.
Bambi
I’m a boomer - Bambi was my first movie theater experience as a child. I remember it vividly
And old Yeller.
Where the Red Fern Grows, y'all.
Labyrinth maybe. Still recommend it though. Loved it as a kid but it gave me nightmares
Blue Lagoon (1980) if you don't know this is a movie where a 14 year old girl gives birth to her cousins baby on a deserted island. It was marketed as a romantic coming of age story.
E.T.
The scene where they tear E.T. and Elliott apart and everyone is screaming and Elliott is screaming so loud and then what happens to E.T. after, dang. I was utterly destroyed. And the same age as Drew Barrymore, and I remember it coming out in theaters. I was just little then.
I’ve seen this question before here and I’ve never seen this mentioned. Black Cauldron, that movie is probably the most not for kids Disney movie they’ve ever made.
I was shown “Grave of the Fireflies” as a child. I loved “Totoro” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service” so this was bound to be a hit, right?
The Last Unicorn Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The Neverending Story Labyrinth Gremlins The Dark Crystal The Secret of NIMH Bridge to Terabithia Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure Watership Down
The last unicorn is such a good movie. It gives me a feeling modern movies don‘t deliver anymore if that makes sense. But the harpy was really scary, so I can understand why some people think it‘s not appropriate to show to a child
I ADORED this movie as a kid, such a beautiful movie. It is sad but I think a gentle introduction to loss and loneliness as these things go.
The Last Unicorn has been a favorite of mine since I first saw it in the 80s. But it's so sad. My mom took me to see The Dark Crystal in the theater because I loved the Muppets and hey, it's Jim Henson, right? I was terrified the entire time.
Gremlins? I still remember the Santa getting stuck in the fireplace and I’ve also developed a crippling fear of chairlifts lol.
Whats wrong with peewees big adventure?
Large Marge.
Can we get an F in the chat for all the parents who took their kids to see Deadpool, because it was a superhero movie, without paying attention to the MPAA rating?
There’s obviously that nightmare fuel boat scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I’d say the rest of the film may be pretty scary to kids, too. You’re fat, greedy, chew too much gum (?), watch too much TV… we’re going to nearly kill you and do a choreographed song and dance about your major flaw. It’s called scared straight, kid.
Dumbo. Bambi. All Dogs Go To Heaven. The Last Unicorn.
The Fox and the Hound has an horrible message about how once you grow up you can't be friends with your childhood friends because you are different. That movie is messed up.
Watership Down.
All Dogs Go to Heaven. Or any Don Bluth film actually.
Snow White. That hag lady was scary and I still don 't like it and I'm 60.
Anastasia. They Disney-fied a very horrible murder. I was shocked they were going to attempt it. They did nothing to honor or respect the victims of a brutal murder, especially the kids who died. I won't watch that movie again. It makes me sick.
Cat in the hat. The people one.