Darkest Disney Movie?

[Admiral Valdemar]

I recently re-watched Pinocchio for the first time since, probably, primary school given the VHS is in an attic at my parents' somewhere, ditto for The Lion King. What a few years growing up does to the perspective of a children's movie is quite intriguing. First of all, I probably never would have thought for a second about the profligate use of tobacco and alcohol by good and bad characters within the story. Likely because it didn't interest me back then (still doesn't), but today with our PC nature, that sort of thing immediately became apparent. Yes, it's 1940 and a different age, yet it still struck me as something not even Disney during the inter-war period should do.

The biggest thing I recalled and wanted to see again, was the Pleasure Island arc of the story. That whole piece always stuck in my mind as a kid; today it seems just as disturbing. For anyone who has still yet to see this movie, I suggest they do simply to see probably the single most disturbing scene in Disney history, that of Lampwick's demise, simply because of youthful rebelliousness. The Coachman seals the deal with his sinister, if brief, appearance, especially the introduction in the taverna.

What's more, none of the antagonists in this story ever get a comeuppance. In The Lion King, you get Scar being eaten alive by his hyena allies after he stabbed them in the back at least. I don't think this happens in any other Disney movie, and very rarely in any children's story on the big screen. The Coachman's scheme continues, likely making him a fortune. Stromboli isn't arrested for suffering a congenital defect of being a dickhead and that sly fox and his mute sidekick go off to con whoever else comes their way, even if The Coachman's personality freaked them out to an extent. Hell, I bet Monstro didn't suffer more than a bad migraine at the end of the film, though I had always assumed he splashed his brains all over the shore too.

Anyone else consider this movie to be one of the darker, if not, darkest of the traditionally light and fluffy corporation's productions?

[Bounty]

I do. I saw the movie maybe twice in my whole life, and I don't want to see it again. Disney usually has a knack for taking fucked up fairy tales and making them fun, but whatever their plan was for Pinocchio, it didn't work. All I remember from it are the Pleasure Island scenes, bits of the whale plot, and sheer terror.

When I saw the title of the thread I was going to post about The Great Mouse Detective, how it had a very dark climax, but that just pales next to kids turning into donkeys.

[tim31]

I'm pretty much in line with the opinions expressed in the OP, although the smoking-in-a-disney movie thing doesn't bother me as much. If Aladdin had rolled a big fattie, well.. That would be different.

The vignette of The Walrus and the Carpenter from Alice in Wonderland still has a shocking conclusion for me.

[Kodiak]

My money is on Something Wicked this way Comes. It was so dark that Disney has tried to forget they ever had anything to do with it, and it's scary as hell.

[tim31]

Had to look that up. Didn't even know it was a Bradbury novel. I liked this comment on the differences between the book and the film:

The two of Dark's more loyaller (the Skeleton and the Dwalf) are replaced by a migit with a brooklyn accent.

SOLD

[SylasGaunt]

The opening of Finding Nemo should definitely get a mention. Some friends and I were bored one afternoon and popped it in expecting some laughs and general Disney lightheartedness.

We certainly did not expect for the protagonist to have his wife and most of his children devoured in the first five minutes.

The rest of the movie was pretty much as expected but that opening was a shock.

[Kuja]

Man, what about The Black Hole? Giant empty ghost ship, creepy megalomaniacal scientist, giant killer robot o'doom, freaky malnourished crewmen/androids, a guy getting sawed through the torso, shuttle getting blasted out of the sky, ship falling apart in mid-maneuver, a Hell sequence...that movie pretty much took the cake for nightmare factor when I was a kid.

[Companion Cube]

I never saw The Hunchback of Notre Dame when I was little, but I kind of regret that.

[Isolder74]

What about the Black Cauldron? That one has the creepy bad guy, the skeleton army at the the end, the works.

[Fire Fly]

All Dogs Go to Heaven gave me quite the fright when I watched it as a kid, especially the hell scene. I remember having a nightmare with myself in Charlie's place, the protagonist. Here's the scene that I'm talking about, it starts at 2:30. I can only wonder what the kids who go to those Evangelical Bible camps dream about when they're berated about hell and eternal suffering if they slip up even once.

[Surlethe]

I don't know about dark, but the "pink elephants on parade" sequence from Dumbo sticks in my mind as the scariest thing I ever saw in a Disney movie as a child. Hallucinogens, weird creepy music, the whole nine yards.

On a completely unrelated note, I also never realized that the crows were a racist stereotype until this past summer. I always liked the song, too ... .

[CaptHawkeye]

I watched the Lion King again recently and was actually pretty surprised by the clarity of that whole Goose-stepping Hyena Nazi march referance. Moreso because I simply had no memory of it, and as a kid I probably didn't get it at the time.

And that last scene in All Dogs was pretty cool, I totally was NOT expecting that huge demon dog Balrog to appear over the whole the city. Of course, back in that age I was easily scared by Jurassic Park.

What about the Black Cauldron? That one has the creepy bad guy, the skeleton army at the the end, the works.

You mean, "Disney's Lord of the Rings"? Or in this case, cauldron?

[Guardsman Bass]

And that last scene in All Dogs was pretty cool, I totally was NOT expecting that huge demon dog Balrog to appear over the whole the city. Of course, back in that age I was easily scared by Jurassic Park.

I thought it was pretty cool, too - and certainly much cooler than the Devil in the sequel movie.

There were a couple scenes in Disney movies that struck me as dark. I thought Gestan and the Beast's confrontation on the top of the castle in "Beauty and the Beast" was intense, particularly when you see Gestan's expression go from smirk and arrogance to terror when the Beast suddenly turns on him and actually starts fighting back. Hunchback had a number of dark references (including the aforementioned scene where the antagonist is singing about his lust and hellfire).

[tim31]

Donald Duck gets Crazy Eyes

[TithonusSyndrome]

When I saw the title of the thread I was going to post about The Great Mouse Detective, how it had a very dark climax, but that just pales next to kids turning into donkeys.

Ironically, Disney did their utmost to market that film as a cheery, family-friendly film after the dismal return on The Black Cauldron.

Churnabog's appearance in Fantasia merits some mention, because while it probably can be edged out by another film for creepiest scene, it was definitely a gutsy move on Disney's part to include a character that would have obviously been taken for nothing less than Satan by the moviegoing public.

[DPDarkPrimus]

All Dogs was a Bluth film, though, not a Disney film, and Bluth has always made films with darker undertones than Disney.

Personally I found the demon puppy litter be the most disturbing part of that film.

[Plekhanov]

Wasn't Return to Oz a Disney film? That's got to be one of the creepiest films ever. Or at least one of the creepiest films aimed at kids ever.

[Tsyroc]

I'll second The Black Hole it was dark and creepy.

The comedic aspects of some of the robots is what's out of place in that film. It's like they took a perfectly reasonable Non-Disney sci-fi movie and quickly tried to Disney it up with a couple of cute and funny robots. Except, one of those robots gets killed.

[Rogue 9]

What about the Black Cauldron? That one has the creepy bad guy, the skeleton army at the the end, the works.

You mean, "Disney's Lord of the Rings"? Or in this case, cauldron?

Disney hardly made it up. The movie's an adaptation of the Chronicles of Prydain, which I haven't read in about twelve years, but my twelve year old self thought they were pretty good. Keep in mind I read the Lord of the Rings for the first time at ten, and had it read to me at four.

[Guardsman Bass]

All Dogs was a Bluth film, though, not a Disney film, and Bluth has always made films with darker undertones than Disney.

Personally I found the demon puppy litter be the most disturbing part of that film.

For that matter, "An American Tale" (another Bluth film) had its moments. It came up on one of the HBO channels I get in my dorm, and I watched it again. I didn't notice as much when I was younger, but he really makes the setting of the movie a kind of "shadow" of the human world, so you have cat cossacks raiding jewish mice in Russia in 19th century pogroms, a song sung by a mouse on the ship singing about how his mother went to beg the mafia cats in his home to spare his brother and was eaten alive, and even voter fraud by the mouse equivalent of "Boss" Tweed.

I'm going to re-watch Pinocchio, if I can find it.

[The Romulan Republic]

If we include non-animated Disney films, Pirates of the Caribbean has some slightly adult humor, and some pretty nasty/emotional deaths in the third installment.

There's also the way the "heros" unrepentantly backstab each other throughout the film, without consequences. Not scary, but not exactly cliche Disney children's fair.

Though in truth, I think Disney's movies have always kind of had a dark edge to them.

[ray245]

Mulan is rather 'dark' In the sense that we get to see plenty of death in an animated film.

[Guardsman Bass]

Okay, first off, are we spoilerizing any of this? It's not in the thread title, so I'm going to shrink the following.

Mulan is rather 'dark' In the sense that we get to see plenty of death in an animated film.

Mulan definitely had its moments, like when the army o' misfits that Mulan is with comes across the burned village and the scattered remains of the regular Imperial Army. It was a fairly sad, moving scene, seeing the son and male protagonist driving the sword into the ground and placing his father's helmet on it, with Mulan laying the child's doll at its feet.

Or when Mulan gets injured, and you see the male protagonist storm out of the medical tent in shock and anger while she follows trying to explain out on to the snow on her hands and knees, before he draws his sword - and throws it at her feet, disgusted.

[Vehrec]

Mulan has its moments, certainly. We shall not speak of the sequel that cannot be named.

Sleeping Beauty definitely had one of the most mature plots of the ones that was ripped off from the brothers Grimm and Mother Goose. Maleficent alone is probably one of the best villains.

Let's not forget that Dumbo gave us a parent separated from her child and locked up.

Who Framed Rodger Rabbit? gave us 'The Dip' and I dare you to say that watching a toon get dipped isn't a horrible thing.

[tim31]

Poor little cartoon shoe.