The 20 Creepiest Kids' Movies of All Time

I'd like to protest the egregious omission of the made-for-tv Alice in Wonderland. While Scott Baio isn't exactly creepy, that Jabberwocky was pretty terrifying when I was little.

Other than that, pretty spot on. I'm still afraid of both the Wheelers and Gremlins.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaah have to admit as well, Watership Down really was/is still horrific to me. I'll have the heebie jeebies all day now after watching that trailer and remembering the whole gruesome movie. Eeeeep!

good job on your #1
omissions:
Darby 'O Gill & The Little People
Blackbeard's Ghost

I agree 100% on All Dogs Go to Heaven (which I loved as a kid even though the hell scene terrified me), Willy Wonka, NIMH, and Brave Little Toaster.

The one movie I think should be listed here that isn't is Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. Hexxus has got to be one of the freakiest villains of all time.

And KBO: I'm with you on the TV version of Alice. SO creepy.

How can you have a creepy kids' movie countdown without the labrynth? i mean come on, this scene still creeps me out:

Oh my gosh, The Secret of N.I.M.H. was terrifying.

A few dark movies I'd like to add:

Fern Gully
Once Upon a Forest
We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story

Elizabeth, Labyrinth is #7.

I definitely think that there are some good ones on the list, but one werid kids movie that I watched recently that is totally wacked is Rockadoodle. Its loosely based on the decline of a rooster / elvis character thats lost his voice and is down in the dumps. The whole movie just feels seedy and has a dark undertone.

And they wonder why we have such a highley medicated Gen X and Gen Y...we all watched crazy ass kids movies!

the wheelers freaked me out a lot as a kid, i only saw the movie twice and it still haunts me. i have to say that i never found the gremlins creepy. i would add the watcher in the woods, something wicked this way comes and the witches.

What about Something Wicked This Way Comes? Haunted circus, freaky clown/midgets, the devil, blood and that disgusting carousel ride? Creeeeeeepy.

Why my parents thought these movies were a good idea is beyond me. Nightmares for years. I'm totally make my kids watch 'em.

By far the most terrifying movie I ever watched as a child was "Little Monsters". I had nightmares for years... Over 18 years later, I shudder just thinking about it!

Don't forget the Care Bears movies. Common themes of Demon possession, magic spells and evil spirits!

No mention of Annie? Kidnapping, creepy bald rich guy, scary butler, a redhead - all very scary things to me as a kid (and slightly so as an adult).

I would have to agree with the suggestion for The Witches, another Roald Dahl story made into a creepy kids movie. I always thought Angelica Huston was beautiful, but nothing terrified me more than watching her, as the Witch Queen, shrivel up in a screaming, writhing mass and turn into a super creepy mouse/rat thing.

I also have to suggest Willow. I don't know if that movie was actually aimed at being a kids movie or not, but I certainly remember watching it as a child and being freaked out by the evil witch and that two-headed dragon monster, not to mention the terrifying dog things that attack Willow's village in the beginning.

Woooow I totally glanced over that one. Thanks!

You have to be pretty ignorant to think that Where the Wild Things Are is a kids movie. It was blatantly made for people who read the book as a child.

Well, this list helps explain my dark humor. I think I have 90% of these on VHS...

However, this list should have included Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland. Nearly two decades later, my younger sister still will not watch it again.

At 26, The Dark Crystal still terrifies me. How about Willow...was that really a kids movie? I remember watching that a bunch of times.

Talk about reliving my childhood! I think that Paste is one of the few magazines that would even mention one of my favorites of all time: RETURN TO OZ!! If anyone hasn't seen this, do it now!

I agree the 1985 made for TV version of Alice should replace the Disney version. Even Alice herself freaked me out. The Witches should also be on there!

I know I'm forgetting a ton of creepy movies, since they are basically all I watched..the end of E.T. always scared me... and there was this wacky little alien movie called Mac & Me and the aliens were even friendly. I remember having my mom rent it for me so many times we could have owned 10 copies of this movie!

Unico I think deserves a spot. It is a early 80 japan anime film (2 films) about a baby unicorn who bring joy to everyone he meets but the gods above want him banished and he is forever an outcast in the world. Every new place in his journey he is forced to leave behind (he has to escape the gods looking for him) but not before some kind beautiful unselfish deeds to those he meets. it is out of print but not impossible to find.
Has no relation to The Last Unicorn movie.

DUDE, Sarah and The Squirrel. Most terrifying movie of all time. It features Mia Farrow, and is completely inappropriate for children.

The Adventures of Mark Twain should have been on the list. I can't even watch that movie as an adult.

The Peanut Butter Caper (I think that was the title) from around '85. I still remember how creepy it was.

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland is without a doubt the creepiest movie that shaped my childhood. It's about a misunderstood kid who gets taken away at night by messenger in a “dirigible” claiming that he is to marry the king of Slumberland's daughter, the princess. Then comes the nightmare...

This list is missing Time Bandits!

JEEZUS, the scene in The Hobbit wth Gollum freaked the absolute HELL outta me forever! Thanks for bringing back those trrifying memories. Haha that movie was so freaking creepy

Yes but that made for TV Alice had a drunkenly befuddled Carol Channing which totally made up for everything

What about "Babe-Pig in the City" ?
The scariest, creepiest movie EVER!!!

Oh man, to this day I'm still freaked out by flamingos because of Alice in Wonderland. Absolutely terrifying.
Though, I suppose, as a child you fixate on weird things. I remember after seeing Disney's Hercules that I was convinced that Pain and Panic lived under my bed and that the floor of my bedroom was actually a pool of dead souls that would suck me in and drain my life force if I stepped on it.
Ah, the scarring effects of children's movies.

Disney's 1946 short cartoon "Peter and the wolf" - something about the way they used wind instruments like the flute and the oboe...still makes me shudder... and when Sasha(the duck) died - it haunted me for months afterward as a child. Anyone else remember it?

I guess you guys missed Raggedy Ann and Andy: a Musical Adventure. A trippy, nightmarish, and, appropriately, ragged creepfest to the end. The image of the hysterically laughing king blowing up to the size of a planet haunts me to this day.

I cannot even LOOK at that Skeksis photo, much less the trailer.

The only other movie that terrified me that's not on the list was Disney's Pinocchio. An island that turned little boys into donkeys? What were you thinking, Walt?

I am surprised "The Adventures of Mark Twain" did not make the list. In it boasts the infamous Satan scene in which the Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Becky Thatcher are introduced to the rebel angel himself. You can see the clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak3z2Pm7Iwg

I thought it was interesting that I have encountered 16 of the 20 listed movies at sometime in my childhood. I never have seen "Coraline" and I have not watched the adapted "Where the Wild Things Are", I have read the book though. I never watched Anastasia either. Looking through the list I find that the common thread is that what is scary is the realities that are presented as either manifestation or circumstance in the films. As an example, the manifestation change as seen in "Return to OZ." Change can be scary and in this case for Dorothy, the return to an OZ that is decaying and fraught with self centered beings is creepy, disturbing, and terrifying.
What I also find interesting is that many of people would automatically write these works off as just children's stories. While I am not interested in furthering any argument for censorship, I think its been said before that many of the works here have themes that may be misinterpreted by a child. Consider the Mark Twain clip. In it Satan tells the children people are not important, even the children become uneasy and frightened of him. Yet the message, misinterpreted, could do alot of damage. In reality the claim is one made in reference to metaphysics, a subject beyond even many adults.

In closing, yep, Heffalumps and Wuzzles. Enough said.

Riki Tiki Tavi- scarest ever!!

What about the Japanese Jack and the Beanstalk from 1974? They showed it on HBO when I was a kid, and it terrified me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j9EbXy1PeE

how about The Last Dragon??? doesn't tip the creepiness scale like labyrinth but still kinda creepy and just as obscure.

how come no one has mentioned An American Tail?! that movie was the freakiest movie ever with those cats, the waves, and that mouse cat fireworks thing at the end! And Ferngully and the 1985 Alice in Wonderland too.

Gremlins was one of the sickest and scariest movies ever made for a kids. The grandma flies off her chair on the stairs and is killed. The girl's father dies dressed as Santa stuck in a chimney. Ew.

Dark Crystal creeps out my kids. When I first saw it I thought it was a little gross but it didn't scare me.

I do have to say that most of these movies never bothered me in the least. Of course, I was a big reader of fantasy so I guess I was just used to weird stuff. As I said earlier, only Gremlins really made me queasy.

Can anybody remember the name of a Japanese animated film/show from the 80s that included the following: a freakyass druid/wizard, a unicorn, and ancient ruins? It scared me to death as a child and I wish I knew what it was.

Disney's The Watcher in the Woods (1980)
E.T.
Time Bandits

Watership Down was the first one that came to mind when I saw this list -- glad to see that it's #1.

Why no Something Wicked This Way Comes?

A few more points to consider re: All Dogs Go To Heaven. (sorry if these have been mentioned already.) First, the basic premise: which as I recall was based around a dog who was boozed up and murdered by hitmen on a pier. The dog then tricks an angel in order to escape heaven and return to earth as a ghost to befriend an orphan, in order to use her for her gambling skills and open a casino. Said orphan was voiced by a young girl (Judith Barsi, also the voice of land before time's Ducky) who was killed by her father in a murder/suicide a year and a half before the film was actually released. Oh and her grave says "yep yep yep", Ducky's catchphrase. Yeah.

Was Little Monsters the one with Fred Savage where he shot down some thing on a sleeping bag? I only vaguely remember that but it was hella scary.

I don't think I ever got all the way through The Dark Crystal as a child, because I could not handle it. And seeing it (possibly as the target audience?) in my twenties, I have to say that as I child I would have loved but later been freaked out by Where the Wild Things Are.

Plot Summary for The Peanut Butter Solution (1985)
Peanut butter is the secret ingredient for magic potions made by two friendly ghosts. Eleven-year-old Michael loses all of his hair when he gets a fright and uses the potion to get his hair back, but too much peanut butter causes things to get a bit hairy.

I also agree with The Watcher in the Woods, and The Witches.

This movie terrified me when i was younger -- Magic in the Mirror. There were duck people who BOILED humans for their tea!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwuNYQIdoB8&feature=related

I can't believe all the weenies commenting!! These movies are remotely scary unless you have been raised in an imagination deprived environment. I mean, Willow? C'mon. Corny, yes. Scary, no.

I think that this is missing at least two movies...
All dogs go to heaven 2 was far darker than the first one.
Song "it feels so good to be bad" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJwd86x81SI
and the scene where the villain gets Gabriels Horn and hell breaks loose - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEMbJDu5e7U&feature=related

and the movie that I (personally) think should get the first place, or at LEAST a place - Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland.
to any kid who's watched this movie, going to sleep wil never be the same!

and some movies that I would have put on my personal list too (and some people might agree with me) are A Troll in Central Park and Pinnochio (in my opinion the only Disney movie scarier is Alice in Wonderland)

I grew up on most on this list, especially Don Bluth.
The original Bluth's Land Before Time was hundreds of times darker than those unnecessary sequels. Watching the shadow of a dinosaur mother getting her spine ripped apart by a t-rex, followed shortly by on-screen deaths of other dinosaurs by earthquake always terrified me.

Plague Dogs is another I should mention: the scene where one of the dogs accidentally shoots a man in the face with a shotgun.

Loved half those movies on there, LTU being my favourite. Another movie at the same time and done by the same people is Flight of Dragons, although not scary, it is less then normal with James Earl Jones as the villan and John Ritter as the hero. I think one of the scariest movies though I saw as a kid had to be Disney's origional The Rescuers. That poor girl in that diamond mine gave me nightmares for years.

What about the movie "The Gate" released in 1987? If you don't know what I am talking about - look it up!

awesome list!