Remember back when Disney used to rerelease their library of classic animated films to the cinema every 5-10 years?
It meant that as a young child, I got to see many of the Disney films from the "Golden Age" of the studio on the big screen. Which was a very good thing.
Still, those old films had their share of moments right out of a horror movie.
The transformation of the Evil Queen into the old Crone in Snow White definitely wasn't a jolly popcorn moment when I was a tot.
Or the heart-breaking scene where Dumbo's Mother goes on a rampage to protect him...then ends up in chains? Brutal.
Or, perhaps the most nightmarish of all, the moment in Pinnochio when Lampwick is gradually transforming into a donkey. That terrifying moment when he realizes what's happening...tries to call out for his mother...and then can't. I remember bolting out of my seat.
Or am I alone in this, and those old films were just about cute skunks and singing dwarves? Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
You're not alone. My mom used to fast-forward through Dumbo's Mother scene because when she didn't I would burst into tears. Because of that, I wasn't even allowed to watch Bambi till I was a bit older.
When Beast of Beauty and the Beast dies, that was a pretty harsh moment as well.
If they were all cute skunks and singing dwarves, I don't think they'd be the wonderful classics that they are. Posted by Gwen (Member # 9551) on :
Bambi's mom got killed, didn't she?
And the Fox and the Hound isn't exactly a cute-skunk-singing-dwarf movie. I watched it about a month ago, while PMSing, and I cried the whole way through.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
The Fox and the Hound arguably holds the record for being the first Disney animated film without a happy ending. At best, it has a bittersweet one.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Don't forget the out-of-wedlock sex scene in Lady and the Tramp Posted by calaban (Member # 2516) on :
When I was a young child, Bambi's mom dying was the most frightening thing in the world.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Does it have to be a classic?
Simba's father dying is my cried-for-the-rest-of-the-film moment. I've never forgotten seeing that moment on a very large screen.
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
This thread is making me realize how few of these plots I can actually recall.
--j_k
Posted by dawnmaria (Member # 4142) on :
It might not be considered a classic yet, but in Finding Nemo, when Marlin finds his wife and all but one of his babies got eaten, I get all weepy.
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
Oh, what a sad, sad beginning of an otherwise really enjoyable film! It was very disturbing.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
quote:Originally posted by dawnmaria: It might not be considered a classic yet, but in Finding Nemo, when Marlin finds his wife and all but one of his babies got eaten, I get all weepy.
That was so sad. Especially when he held the little cracked egg and said he wouldn't let anything happen to it. Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
"I promised I wouldn't let anything happen to him!"
"Well, that's a dumb thing to promise."
"Why?"
"Well, because then nothing would ever happen to him!"
... or something along those lines. I loved that part.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
I cried the last time I saw the ending of Monsters Inc. It was a happy ending, but it was so beautifully understated, with Sulley putting the piece in the door, the light coming on, and just seeing his head coming through on the other side. So wonderful. Posted by Demonstrocity (Member # 9579) on :
I don't think there's a Disney animated movie I haven't cried in. :-(
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
In which attraction is that montage of Disney movies, where during the Bambi and Snow White scenes you can hear grown adults and children alike sobbing in the audience?
Well, hear them above your own sobbing, anyway...
As far as The Lion King, once you have a child and he insists on watching that same movie six time a day for an entire year, it doesn't affect you as much anymore.
Posted by Squish (Member # 9191) on :
I think I've cried in every Disney movie I've seen. Curse those cute animations.
Posted by Shanna (Member # 7900) on :
I'd completely blocked out memory of those particular scenes in Dumbo and Pinnochio.
When Ursula dies in The Little Mermaid...that scene has always scared the daylights of me. Even now I'm getting goosebumps thinking about her getting rammed with the ship and her eyes bulging out. She's my favorite villian and her end is fitting...just also very creepy.
Posted by katdog42 (Member # 4773) on :
The Rescuers has always made me cry. There's just so much sadness in that little girl's life.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
When I was a kid it was Bambi.
When I was a [United Way] Big Brother, I took my Little Brother to see Lion King, and thought "Disney scars another generation . . . "
I actually have not shown Lion King to my kids.
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
quote:I actually have not shown Lion King to my kids.
Laura, my sister, gave me her copy and told me to keep it away from her kids because they were asking too many questions about death and she wasn't ready to answer them.
Posted by MyrddinFyre (Member # 2576) on :
Um, hello... Pink Elephants, anyone?
Posted by B34N (Member # 9597) on :
Haha, pink elephants. bambi dying was the worst. But I don't remember a lot of the stories cause I was young watching them.
Posted by Lalo (Member # 3772) on :
Does Old Yeller count as a Disney classic? I couldn't stop whimpering and clutching desperately to my dog for weeks...
Posted by Artemisia Tridentata (Member # 8746) on :
The first time we took our kids to Pinnochio, they were so frightned when Stromboli first appeared that we had to leave the theater and take them home. The girls were probably 4 and six.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Bambi's mom got killed, didn't she?
Come on, not all of us have seen that movie. Spoiler alerts, please!
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Laura, my sister, gave me her copy and told me to keep it away from her kids because they were asking too many questions about death and she wasn't ready to answer them.
quote:Laura, my sister, gave me her copy and told me to keep it away from her kids because they were asking too many questions about death and she wasn't ready to answer them.
You know, every time I've visited that domain it's involved someone screaming, loud music or colors worthy of an epileptic seizure. So... No.
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
Finding Nemo had me panicked for most of the movie. There's nothing more terrifying than losing a child, and that movie had my heart racing every few minutes (Something was ALWAYS going wrong)
Nobody's mentioned The Incredibles, either. When the mom is screaming at the daughter to put a force field around the plane, the fear in their voices was just so real. Very scary.
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
Don't worry, it's nothing like that.
--j_k
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I do not consider the Pixar movies do be Disney pictures.
Posted by MandyM (Member # 8375) on :
One of my mother's favorite stories about me is when she took me to see Bambi in the theater as a child. It was my first movie (which totally dates me, I know) and everyone was sitting there sniffling after Bambi's mom got shot. After a few seconds of hearing Bambi wail, "Mama! Mama!" I start wailing too, "Mama! Maaaaaaaama!" in the middle of the theater. Everyone cracked up evidently so I ruined the sad for all those poor folks.
My daughter (and my husband) adores The Lion King. For a while the soundtrack was the only thing she would let me listen to in the car. What disturbed me about the movie more than the death of Mufasa was the Nazi hyenas.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
There's a great clip they show at Disney MGM studios of the early animators discussing the emotional bits in Snow White. They were worried that audiences wouldn't react to drawings the same way they react to living actors. The emotion might just fall flat...
Now, it's like we take for granted that Disney cartoons (and others) can tug at our heart strings, but back in the early days, they were worried.
I wonder if that worry drove them to pack the scenes and situations with even more emotion than a normal movie might have. And it sort of set a successful pattern for them that they've stuck with ever since.
Posted by B34N (Member # 9597) on :
I would have to guess yes. Considering there were deeper emotional plots in some of the original classics.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
quote:Laura, my sister, gave me her copy [of the Lion King] and told me to keep it away from her kids because they were asking too many questions about death and she wasn't ready to answer them.
I was eight when the film came out. You'd think that was fairly old, but I've always been a very sensitive film-goer. I'm not joking when I say I cried for most of the rest of the movie.
I think that what's worst about that scene is there's no dealing with anything. The fact Simba has to run away from everything he knows, pursued by the belief that he killed his father is really very, very dark. As a well read eight-year-old I was well acquainted with fictionalized death in all forms, but never in such a bleak, thorn-ridden form.
quote:"Disney scars another generation . . . "
I actually do wonder if I was deeply affected somehow by that movie- for various reasons that I shan't go into now, mostly because it's purely introspective wondering.
However, I don't remember applying it to real life at all- the fact that his father died in a wilderbeast stampede took the real-life application away (there are no wilderbeast in Essex, heh). I was never worried about the same thing happening to my parents!
Posted by Evie3217 (Member # 5426) on :
No one has mentioned Fantasia. Although it didn't have a storyline that ran throughout the film, little pieces scared the crap out of me. In fact, I can't even recall what exact scenes they were. Still though, I refuse to see that movie again, along with Pinnochio, which I haven't seen since I was 4, and never plan to see again.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Fantasia the original: the dinosaurs. Watching them slowly die of thirst was always a little horrible.
The rest is harmless, although I do know a few people who found The Magicians Apprentice to be terrifying. However, I've now showed The Magicians Apprentice to a number of children ranging from 4 to 8 an none of them have particularly been any more than slightly worried and say things like "It's going to be okay, right?" to which I can say reassuring things. I think the brevity of the story helps- and Mickey Mouse.
I know it's not a Disney film, but allow me to expand this category to all animated film and include The Snowman as one of the few children's cartoons which still can invariably leave me weeping. If you haven't seen it, next Christmas you should track it down, if you can.
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
Okay, what's wrong with Pinocchio?
I'd have to agree about Snow White - I had forgotten how scary that movie was until I started showing it to my kids. They were all terrified of the witch ... but even before that, when Snow White gets lost in the forest and the trees all start looking like monsters ... that was really scary to them. My FIL couldn't understand why I considered Snow White to be a scary movie.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:You know, every time I've visited that domain it's involved someone screaming, loud music or colors worthy of an epileptic seizure. So... No.
I know that the internet can be a very, very scary place, but you may rest assured that, with that link, I have pledged allegiance only to the topic at hand, and not towards the hope of provoking a clonic twitch via sensory overload. For that, you have this. Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
quote:Originally posted by Teshi: Fantasia the original: the dinosaurs. Watching them slowly die of thirst was always a little horrible.
The rest is harmless, although I do know a few people who found The Magicians Apprentice to be terrifying. However, I've now showed The Magicians Apprentice to a number of children ranging from 4 to 8 an none of them have particularly been any more than slightly worried and say things like "It's going to be okay, right?" to which I can say reassuring things. I think the brevity of the story helps- and Mickey Mouse.
I know it's not a Disney film, but allow me to expand this category to all animated film and include The Snowman as one of the few children's cartoons which still can invariably leave me weeping. If you haven't seen it, next Christmas you should track it down, if you can.
Gah! It's The Sorcerer's Apprentice! Please don't confuse one of my favorite movies of all time!
Reminds me of the re-release, when half the theater empties as soon as that part of the movie was over.
Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
The end of the Original Fantasia with the great big gargoyle thing had me scared when I was little. I actually don't think I've watched it yet.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Could it have been different in England, like with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone? Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Or is that Hary Pouter and the Philousoupher's Stoune? I can't really tell with those crazy Brits . . .
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
quote:It's The Sorcerer's Apprentice! Please don't confuse one of my favorite movies of all time!
I know this. I know this. I know this.
quote:Could it have been different in England, like with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone?
Nope, I'm just dumb. Especially considering how many times I have watched that particular section (at Music Camp, you see. It's musical. Kids like it. We watch it a lot.) I think I'm confusing it with the Magician's Nephew. Heh.
quote:Or is that Hary Pouter and the Philousoupher's Stoune? I can't really tell with those crazy Brits . . .
Ha ha.
Posted by Gwen (Member # 9551) on :
My little sister got scared watching Alice in Wonderland, when Alice got lost in the forest and it was all dark and she kept getting scared by all the forest creatures. (She's three years old, which does tend to make things scarier. When she was younger--one or early two--she could watch Jurassic Park without more than an "uh-oh" when the man was being eaten, but needless to say we're screening more now that she understands enough to be scared.) She liked the movie, but I think that scene could have been de-scarified fairly easily. (What is it with Disney and sweet, pretty main characters getting lost in scary dark forests?) We watched Alice's Adventures in Wonderland yesterday (it's a live-action musical from...1972 if I read the Roman numerals right) and she wasn't frightened at all throughout the whole thing. Then again, in this version Alice never got lost in a dark scary forest either.
Posted by Kelly (Member # 9576) on :
I know it's not a Disney film, but I used to be very afraid of the goblins from The Labyrinth (at least at the beginning).
Anyone else?
Posted by Shanna (Member # 7900) on :
I was afraid of the flowers in Alice. That was yet another scene I had blocked out until my roommate at the time bought the new dvd.
What about the demon up on the mountain in Fantasia? And the skeletal riders? I used to watch that bit every year around Halloween to get in the mood.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I can't believe I missed this thread, and I can't believe nobody mentions Sleeping Beauty. Pretty much any scene with Malefacent was scary. When she actually does horrible things like hypnotize Arora and lead her to her death/eternal sleep at the spinning wheel it was just so hard for me to watch.
The scariest part for me in Pinnochio is either the Lampwick turning into a donkey scene or when Pinnochio is in the cage and Stromboli explains what his job is and what will happen if people stop paying to see him, "You will become......FIREWOOD!" Strombolli hurls an axe into a stack of chopped up wodden puppets and then laughs hysterically, I just do not think Disney remembers how to make villains anymore.
My dad's favorite scene from Snow White is RIGHT after the queen turns into the witch, and she is walking down the stairs and see's a skeleton reaching between the bars of the cage for a vessel of water and the witch says, "Thirsty? hee hee HAVE A DRINK! HAHAHA!" As she kicks the pitcher into the skeleton and breaks it apart.
You are not alone Puffy Treat BELIEVE ME.
I think the movies that made me the most tense and yet felt the most rewarding though were The Land Before Time (only the first one for me) and An American Tale. I wanted to scream when Fifel literally walks on a wodden plank just above where his lost father and sister walked under moments earlier. I was SO mad at the movie makers for making me go through that. Little Foot, Cera, Ducky, and Spike finally getting to the Great Valley and the music that plays as the fog lifts was possibly the happiest moment in movie history for me as a kid.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
The moment where Maleficent transforms into a dragon and fights Prince Phillip remains one of the most intense fantasy battle scenes on film.
Makes me wish the rest of the film had the invention and edge that the Maleficent stuff does.
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
Again, not Disney, but I found The Wizard of Oz terrifying as a child. I still remember a night visiting relatives in Wisconsin when I was about 5 or 6 and freaking out when there was a tornado warning during a storm. I remember the others asking my parents something to the effect of "What's her problem?" and my mother saying, "Wizard of Oz."
I still don't like it, beloved children's classic though it may be. Or anything Alice in Wonderland related (book, films whatever). Bad drug trips, if you ask me.
As for Disney, I, too, remember crying in the theater as a little girl when Bambi's mom died. And the scary Sleeping Beauty stuff. But none of that freaked me out enough that I didn't still love Disney!
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
My mother still gets weepy-eyed during the scene in Dumbo, where the caged mother elephant uses her trunk to cradle the poor scared Dumbo child, and rocks him to sleep, through the bars of her prison.
Brother Bear had a lot of difficult scenes. I mean the whole story--I killed your mother, and befriended you little boy. I mean, that like the oppisitte of Oedipus Complex. What would you call that?
Add chaninging your appearance from one heavilly ethnic, to one more generic, and it would have to be...
A Micheal Jackson Complex.
Posted by MyrddinFyre (Member # 2576) on :
quote: We watched Alice's Adventures in Wonderland yesterday (it's a live-action musical from...1972 if I read the Roman numerals right) and she wasn't frightened at all throughout the whole thing.
THAT one traumatized me, and not as a child, I'm talking this year. *shudder* Same with Return to Oz. Scaaaary.
Also, I LOVED Maleficent as a kid, I wanted to BE her Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: The moment where Maleficent transforms into a dragon and fights Prince Phillip remains one of the most intense fantasy battle scenes on film.
Makes me wish the rest of the film had the invention and edge that the Maleficent stuff does.
I don't know, I really thought the art style, especially in the backgrounds, was incredibly edgy. I think that's what they were going for.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Har-dee-har-har. Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Wow, scary thought, I've seen all of the movies mentioned on this thread except Fantasia.
I think he most traumatic moment is... well, the moment they first started making direct-to-video sequels to beloved classics...
Posted by Shanna (Member # 7900) on :
Aww, but I love the Aladdin sequels..
No really, I do. I own both of them.
*hides*
Posted by Eduardo St. Elmo (Member # 9566) on :
It's hard for me to recall specific scenes from Disney movies that moved me to tears, but I'll just list some of my favourites in stead.
I really love the scene in Dumbo with the crows, when he blows their minds by showing them an elephant that can fly.
I cannot claim to have seen all the Disney animated movies. I do remember that my parents took me to see several of them in the theatre. I must have been about 5 or 6 years then. Not surprisingly, these are the movies that now stick out in my mind. Most especially 'The Black Cauldron' (which is a pretty dark and scary movie all round) and 'The Great Mouse Detective'. (my first encounter with Holmes and I was sold for life). I also remember watching the second Rescuers movie on the big screen and liking it a lot.
The movies do not seem to lose any of their power to impress as I grow up.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
My parents took my older sister to see Lady and the Tramp in the theater for its 1980 rerelease, shortly after I was born. She was eight.
During the siamese cats sequence, when the two cats are harassing Lady, my sister stood up in the theater, raised her fist in the air and yelled "Damn you cats!"
I wish I could have seen the look on my mother's face.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:"Disney scars another generation . . . "
Regardless whether it's Disney movies, Brothers Grimm stories told at bedtime, or whatever, children's stories have been scary, fascinating, or terrifying to children for generations.
There is a school of thought that says that children need to experience fear vicariously in order to process the emotions associated with traumatic experiences. That may explain why adults seem to delight in telling their childen scary stories (in any format), because it prepares the kids to deal with the eventual loss of Grandma. I'm pretty sure that Disney cartoons are better at doing this than to let your kid watch "BraveHeart."
Posted by MyrddinFyre (Member # 2576) on :
Hehe. Makes a lot of sense, though there's always loads of literature where people say that the princess stories mess up little girls' ideas of love and dating. I wish I remembered where I had read it initially, it was an interesting essay. Though... I think Shrek 2 covers the subject quite nicely.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
I love it when anime fans rip on Disney for its commercialization. It's so deliciously hypocritical.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:Makes a lot of sense, though there's always loads of literature where people say that the princess stories mess up little girls' ideas of love and dating.
Yeah, "happily ever after" stories seem to be part of a Bowdler effect. Even with all the scary parts in Disney movies, almost all of them are modified from the original story to provide a happy ending that wasn't in the original.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Bambi's mom didn't bother so much as that bird in the field that was warned by all its friends to stay low when hunter came, and it didn't.
Posted by MyrddinFyre (Member # 2576) on :
Ditto. Traumatizingly sad!
Posted by the_Somalian (Member # 6688) on :
quote:Originally posted by kojabu: The end of the Original Fantasia with the great big gargoyle thing had me scared when I was little. I actually don't think I've watched it yet.
Speaking of a gargoyle...
The slaughter of dozens of innocent gargoyles in the first episode of "Gargoyles" is pretty damn traumatic. Not a film--but surely a Disney classic. Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
The Gargoyle at the end of Fantasia is actually a demon based on Chernabog. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernabog)
I remember not being TOO afraid of him as a child, I was in fact more..amazed (I guess is the word) that Chernabog had so much power and had so little regard for the well being of his minions. Not to mention the brief full frontal nudity of the harpies. I was suprised to see THAT in a Disney production. I liked that the rising sun drove him away. Incidentally one of my best friends parents literally live on a street on the mountain side called "Bald Mountain."
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
You were surprised to see full frontal nudity in a Disney production?
Have you not noticed that Donald Duck has never worn pants? Posted by JLM (Member # 7800) on :
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: During the siamese cats sequence, when the two cats are harassing Lady, my sister stood up in the theater, raised her fist in the air and yelled "Damn you cats!"
I recall seeing Pinocchio as a child and my 3 year old brother at the time trying to hide underneeth the theatre seats when Lampwick turned into a donkey. We teased him for days after that.
As a kid I thought Brutus from Secret of Nyhm was scary. Today, the Queen of Hearts from Alice terrifies me because she reminds me of my mother-in-law.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
That scene in Hunchback of Norte Dame when that priest goes on about his burning desire for Esmeralda is not tramatic, it's rather cool, but not appropiate for small children.
Posted by MyrddinFyre (Member # 2576) on :
That reminds me of the fourth Harry Potter movie... the bathroom scene traumatized me.
Posted by the_Somalian (Member # 6688) on :
quote:Originally posted by the_Somalian: The slaughter of dozens of innocent gargoyles in the first episode of "Gargoyles" is pretty damn traumatic. Not a film--but surely a Disney classic.
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