The 10 creepiest children’s movies of all time
When it comes to keeping the kids occupied with a film, bright colours, lovable characters, and happy plots with important messages are the standard recipes. Whether it is the family animations we enjoyed as children or the newer creations we show to the younger ones, movies for kids make for a warm, lighthearted and hilarious watch — or they should do, at least.
There are some exceptions to this rule of thumb, as some movies are marketed towards children yet offer something opposite to childlike. Animations tend to fall into this category because parents see a DVD with cartoons and assume their kids will enjoy it. However, these animations can have the weirdest, most uncanny and most unnerving styles and sequences that fuel children’s nightmares.
Some children’s films have individual creepy scenes or characters, whereas others are just terrifying as a whole. Filmmakers will slip more adult themes into the plot, such as the cruelty of life and even death, eliminating the innocence and childlike wonder we expect to overwhelm children’s films.
Including obscure and oddly animated movies that fell off the radar or Halloween classics that went too far, here are ten of the creepiest films for children.
The 10 creepiest children’s movies:
10. The Adventures of Mark Twain (Will Vinton, 1985)
An unsatisfied and disappointed fictional version of Mark Twain takes to the skies to find his destiny. Accompanying him are some of his characters who try to persuade the writer that there is goodness in humanity.
Most introductions to Will Vinton’s films come through a YouTube video titled ‘creepiest scene from any kids movie’, showing a dreamlike sequence of clay figures lacking distinct human features, a void-like setting and a large creepy uncanny face that towers over the children as it floats over them. The Adventures of Mark Twain slips out of the binary of children’s entertainment and immerses itself in abstract and existential art, a bizarre concept considering this latter factor is exhibited in its animation style. However, animation is the very thing that leads it to be shown to children.
9. The Witches (Nicolas Roeg, 1990)
Based on Roald Dahl’s 1983 novel of the same name, this dark fantasy children’s film follows a little boy called Luke who travels with his beloved grandma to a hotel. Unbeknownst to Luke, this hotel is being used to host a meeting of child-hating spiteful witches on a mission to turn every child on Earth into rodents.
The concept of witches kidnapping innocent children to turn them into the lowest-ranked vermin and killing them is unsettling enough. However, The Witches utilises its subject matter to the fullest extent, with disturbing sequences showing children trapped in paintings forever and horrific transformation scenes that show the witches’ disgusting true forms. The final straw is the last image of The Grand High Witch’s rat-like form.
8. Coraline (Henry Selick, 2009)
An adventurous yet bored girl moves into a new home with her unattentive parents. At the advice of her stressed father, the girl crawls through a secret door and into an idealised and dream-come-true version of her dull life. However, this dream soon turns into a sinister nightmare.
Coraline breaches childlike innocence to nightmarish terror through its stop-motion animation and sinister plot. The idea of a young girl being lured and tricked by an immortal demonic creature posing as her mother is terrifying for younger audiences. Images of ghostly children with no eyes and distraught faces that don’t move and monsters that are a twisted mess of half spider and half monster are not exactly something to stick your children in front of.
It is no surprise to learn that the original book, written by Neil Gaiman, scared the daughter of the publisher who was the first to read it. Gaiman once shared: “I told her, ‘You know, we kind of have you to thank for all this, because you weren’t scared by it. And she said, ‘Actually, I was terrified. But I wanted to know what happened next. I knew if I let anybody know I was scared, I wouldn’t find out.’”
7. The Dark Crystal (Jim Henson & Frank Oz, 1986)
A sacred Dark Crystal has been damaged, which means the age of chaos is on the horizon. Two gelflings must fix the crystal before the great conjunction of the three suns, or else the evil Skekses will rule forever.
Jim Henson’s film is beautiful, magical and sublime…in the most terrifying way. The Skekses look like they have walked right out of a nightmare, with a vicious manner that’s almost too cruel for children. The torture they exert over the innocent creatures is also terrifying, as the sight of life drained from bright eyes terrorises viewers of any age.
6. Watership Downs (Martin Rosen & John Hubley, 1978)
After Fiver the rabbit has a prophetic vision that the end of his warren is near, he persuades seven other rabbits to join him in search of a new home where they can be safe. Several challenges swipe at their chances, including predators, a rat-filled cemetery and a speeding river.
Watership Down is synonymous with terror and tragedy throughout every generation. The film refuses to hold back on teaching children just how cruel life can be, as their favourite characters are suddenly snatched away by spiteful predators or cruel traps.
5. Monster House (Gil Kenan, 2006)
Three teenagers discover that their neighbour’s house is a monster that hates and eats children and spend their Halloween plotting how to take it down. Once they infiltrate the house to take it down, they discover a tragic secret to its origin.
Gil Kenan’s film is a Halloween classic, overflowing with all the right images and colours. It is also downright creepy, showing a woman being buried alive under cement, only for the rage she died in festering into possessing the house that was built over her, a house that eats children alive. There is also the scene where an old man has a heart attack and collapses onto a child.
4. The Secret of NIMH (Don Bluth, 1982)
When a widowed mouse’s son falls ill, she seeks the help of a colony of intelligent superior rats with whom she has a more profound link.
The Secret of NIMH may be rich and glorious in animation, but the unfolding events are nightmare fuel. Haunting images of experiment survivors, a rat-eating dragon, and a creepy Great Owl surrounded by bones plague the charming visuals and traumatise young eyes.
3. Return to Oz (Walter Murch, 1985)
After sharing her adventures in Oz with all of Kansas, Dorothy is sent to a psychiatric ward. After she is rescued from a psychiatric experiment by a mysterious girl, she finds herself back in Oz to fight a vain witch and save her old friends and an evil king intent on destroying the land.
Return to Oz came out 46 years after its predecessor, The Wizard of Oz, one of the longest periods between a first film and its sequels in history. It outdoes the original film’s creep factor, replacing a wicked witch and flying monkeys with a witch who can replace her head with any of her victims and a hellish landscape. Sinister and uncanny-looking fiends with wheels for feet also hunt our heroes down.
2. The Last Unicorn (Arthur Rankin Jnr. & Julie Bass, 1982)
A unicorn finds out that she may be the last surviving species of her kind. She sets out to find the rest of her type, with a magician and a woman to join her in her mission.
This ‘80s animation is an underrated cult classic with charming animation and creepy visuals. With sophisticated themes of redemption, identity and loss of innocence contrasting the whimsical visuals, children who watch this film will experience unsettling images of talking trees that no nothing of boundaries and intense skeleton figures.
1. 9 (Shane Acker, 2009)
After an apocalyptic war between humans and machines destroys the world, making it void of human life, a ragdoll awakens to find others just like him. He soon learns he has been burned with the key to humanity’s salvation and is, therefore, the target of some monstrous creations.
9 is relentless in its commentary on war, destruction and humanity. It takes place in a hellish wasteland covered in corpses and ruins, where terrifying creatures built from humans’ scraps drain the life of our heroes of rag dolls. It is an intense and emotionally challenging film, blending eerie and disturbing with harrowing concepts.
