10 Non-Disney Animated Movies That Are Way Too Scary For Kids
Disney may have traumatized generations of children with the death of Bambi's mother, but at least the little deer never had to worry about someone sewing buttons into his eyes. Other animation studios were considerably less restrained when it came to terrifying their youngest audiences, occasionally producing films that seemed designed to give children nightmares.
Long before Coraline introduced the horrifying Other Mother, Don Bluth was filling animated adventures with monstrous villains and some surprisingly disturbing depictions of death. Meanwhile, Watership Down convinced unsuspecting families that a cartoon about rabbits would make perfectly innocent afternoon entertainment. Anyone who watched it at an impressionable age knows how badly that assumption turned out.
The 1980s were particularly fertile territory for frightening animated movies, although the tradition continues today. Several of the 21st-century kids' movies that capture the spirit of the 1980s have retained that appetite for genuine danger, with filmmakers trusting younger viewers to handle considerably more than cheerful adventures.
Studios such as LAIKA have continued pushing the boundaries of family entertainment, creating some of the greatest non-Disney animated movies of recent years. With the studio's latest stop-motion adventure, Wildwood, arriving in theaters October 23, it's an appropriate time to revisit animation's darker side.
Of course, there's a reason these films remain so memorable. Their frightening imagery often accompanies genuinely moving stories, giving children an early introduction to complicated emotions and the consequences of real danger. Still, some of the scenes below probably deserved a warning before anyone pressed play.
Coraline
Henry Selick's Coraline might be the closest thing to a genuine horror movie that parents routinely recommend to children. Based on Neil Gaiman's novel, the 2009 stop-motion fantasy follows an adventurous young girl who discovers a secret passage into a seemingly perfect version of her life. Unfortunately, her affectionate new mother has buttons for eyes and some particularly unpleasant plans for her daughter's future.
The Other Mother's gradual transformation into a monstrous, spider-like creature remains one of animation's most disturbing sequences. LAIKA's extraordinary stop-motion artistry makes the alternate world feel wonderfully inviting before revealing its sinister foundations. As a retrospective review of Coraline demonstrates, the film has lost none of its unsettling power. Its greatest trick is making the apparent safety of home feel suddenly terrifying.
Monster House
Most children have encountered a creepy house somewhere in their neighborhood, but the youngsters in Gil Kenan's Monster House have considerably more reason to be afraid. Released in 2006, the computer-animated comedy-horror follows three friends who discover that the dilapidated house across the street is alive. Worse, it appears to have developed an appetite for anyone unfortunate enough to approach it.
The film's premise is wonderfully ridiculous until the house begins revealing its teeth, monstrous tongue, and ability to swallow unsuspecting victims. Its exaggerated animation adds to the nightmarish atmosphere, particularly when the children find themselves trapped inside. Among the greatest horror movies made for kids, Monster House stands out for treating its young protagonists as genuinely vulnerable. Even the eventual explanation for the haunting is unexpectedly disturbing.
ParaNorman
Being able to communicate with the dead sounds like an extraordinary supernatural gift, but Norman Babcock would probably disagree. In LAIKA's 2012 stop-motion adventure ParaNorman, the misunderstood young boy is routinely bullied because he can see ghosts. When an ancient curse threatens his hometown, Norman discovers that the dead are far from the only things he should fear.
The walking corpses are appropriately grotesque, although the movie's most disturbing revelation concerns the supposed witch responsible for the curse. The character's tragic history transforms the story from a playful zombie adventure into something considerably darker. Among the Halloween movies that work for children and adults, ParaNorman is particularly sophisticated, confronting prejudice and cruelty through imagery that can be genuinely frightening for younger viewers.
Kubo And The Two Strings
LAIKA returned to dark fantasy with 2016's Kubo and the Two Strings, a breathtaking stop-motion adventure inspired by Japanese folklore. The young protagonist possesses magical abilities that allow him to bring origami figures to life, but his seemingly enchanting world conceals a terrifying family history. His powerful grandfather, the Moon King, wants to claim Kubo's remaining eye, having already taken the other when he was an infant.
The film's most frightening creations are Kubo's masked aunts, whose eerie movements and seemingly emotionless faces make them far more intimidating than conventional animated villains. A gigantic skeleton also provides one of the movie's most spectacular sequences. While LAIKA's inventive stop-motion techniques produce extraordinary imagery, Kubo never allows audiences to forget the terrible consequences of its young hero's journey.
The Last Unicorn
At first glance, a fantasy featuring a beautiful unicorn searching for others of her kind seems like ideal family entertainment. Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass had considerably darker ambitions with 1982's The Last Unicorn, however. Adapted from Peter S. Beagle's novel, the film follows the last surviving unicorn as she encounters an increasingly frightening collection of creatures while investigating her species' disappearance.
The enormous Red Bull is a particularly haunting creation, relentlessly pursuing unicorns toward the sea, while the monstrous harpy Celaeno looks as though she escaped from a considerably more adult fantasy. The film's melancholy atmosphere makes its terrifying imagery even more effective. Among the scariest animated movies ever made, The Last Unicorn is a reminder that even the most beautiful fantasy worlds can conceal genuinely nightmarish horrors.
The Secret Of NIMH
Don Bluth's feature directorial debut, The Secret of NIMH, arrived in 1982 and immediately demonstrated how far the former Disney animator was prepared to depart from familiar family entertainment. The story follows Mrs. Brisby, a widowed field mouse desperately attempting to save her sick son before a farmer's plow destroys their home. Her search for help leads her into a mysterious society of highly intelligent rats.
The movie's extraordinary animation creates a world filled with danger, from the Great Owl's terrifying appearance to the unsettling laboratory experiments that gave the rats their intelligence. Even the kindly Nicodemus looks like a creature from a gothic nightmare. What makes The Secret of NIMH especially effective is the constant threat hanging over its vulnerable heroine. Every character appears capable of causing serious harm, and the movie treats that danger with remarkable intensity.
The Land Before Time
Steven Spielberg helped bring Don Bluth's The Land Before Time to theaters in 1988, introducing audiences to Littlefoot, an orphaned dinosaur searching for the Great Valley. The adventure features plenty of adorable prehistoric creatures, although its emotional foundation is considerably darker than the cheerful character designs might suggest. Littlefoot's mother dies defending him from a vicious Tyrannosaurus rex known as Sharptooth.
That heartbreaking scene remains among the most devastating moments in 1980s children's movies, but the terror hardly ends there. Sharptooth repeatedly pursues the young dinosaurs, turning their journey into a desperate fight for survival. Bluth's decision to confront death so directly gives the film remarkable emotional depth, although generations of children probably wished Littlefoot's adventure had been a little less realistic.
All Dogs Go To Heaven
With a title like All Dogs Go to Heaven, parents could reasonably expect a comforting animated adventure about lovable pets. Don Bluth's 1989 film takes a considerably stranger approach, opening with the murder of a German Shepherd named Charlie B. Barkin. After escaping the afterlife, Charlie returns to Earth seeking revenge against the canine gangster responsible for his death.
The movie's depiction of the afterlife becomes especially disturbing when Charlie experiences a nightmare about being dragged into hell. Demonic creatures, raging flames, and an enormous monstrous figure make the sequence feel wildly inappropriate for the film's youngest viewers. Even the movie's famously emotional ending is made more affecting by its darker themes. Bluth understood that children's stories could confront mortality, although his vision of canine damnation was perhaps a little too convincing.
An American Tail
Another Don Bluth production, An American Tail, follows Fievel Mousekewitz, a young Russian Jewish mouse who immigrates to America with his family in 1885. Released in 1986, the film initially appears to be a charming adventure about a mouse seeking a better life. Unfortunately, Fievel becomes separated from his parents during the journey and discovers that his new home presents frightening dangers of its own.
Cats become enormous, predatory monsters from a mouse's perspective, while the film's depiction of exploitation and family separation creates a persistent atmosphere of anxiety. Fievel's desperate loneliness adds another layer of emotional distress. Many of the animated movies that traumatized millennial audiences relied on frightening imagery, but An American Tail proves that a young protagonist's vulnerability can be equally disturbing. Its eventual emotional payoff hardly erases the terrifying journey required to reach it.
Watership Down
Perhaps no animated film has done more to convince children that rabbits can be terrifying than Martin Rosen's Watership Down. Released in 1978, the British adaptation of Richard Adams' novel follows a group of rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home in search of somewhere safe to live. Unfortunately, their journey involves brutal violence, bloody confrontations, and some profoundly disturbing visions of death.
The film's naturalistic animation makes its violence particularly shocking, especially during confrontations with the tyrannical General Woundwort. Its notorious reputation is well deserved: originally classified as suitable for all audiences in Britain, Watership Down was eventually reclassified PG decades later. As one of the animated movies that pushed the limits of family-friendly ratings, it remains astonishingly intense. Anyone who encountered these apparently innocent rabbits during childhood probably learned an important lesson: never judge an animated movie by its adorable animals.
- Release Date
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November 1, 1978
- Runtime
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91 Minutes
- Director
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Martin Rosen, John Hubley