Animation Source Forums

Ok folk, I think we all know what's up here. Go ahead and list all the disturbing/frightening moments from cartoon movie and show history. Everyone has at least one; that moment on a movie or show that scared you when you were little (or does to this day). I'll list mine first, to get you started.


Bambi- the sequence when Bambi’s mother is shot and killed by hunters. This has to be one of the most traumatic sequences you could put a kid through. Whoever decided they’d kill a character’s mother and then leave the character to wander around calling for her must truly be a sadist. This scene has been traumatizing children for generations, including my grandfather when he was young.

The Land Before Time- again, a sadistic parent killing before the movie is even a half-hour old. This time, we get to see the parent actually die. Actually, I find this difficult to watch even to this day. It just seems…wrong, somehow. I mean, dang, that shouldn’t be in a children’s movie at all.

All Dogs Go To Heaven- there are many, many here. Don Bluthe was never a man to pull punches with his movies, and this one was surely no different. This movie contains elements of kidnapping, child exploitation, gambling, drinking, smoking, contract killing, and murder, and the implication that Charlie had been on death row before his escape. Kind of heavy wouldn’t you say? Man, they sure don’t make ‘em like they used to. The worst part in my opinion, and the part that creeped me out a child was the part where Charlie dreams that he’s gone to hell. All sorts of tiny imps attack him, while the ship made of bones in which he is floating begins to sink into lava. As if this weren’t enough, a Satan-esque, dragon-like dog appears. Apparently, there was to be some dialogue between Charlie and this monstrous satanic figure, but it was cut when the ratings people refused to give the movie a G rating if the dialogue remained in. Wow.

Ren and Stimpy- gee, which one to choose. I’d have to go with the horrendous faces that Ren make while “happy” in the Happy Helmet episode. Truly disturbing for me a child.

Peter Pan- the part where the Indian chief threatens to “burn’em at stake” (referring to the lost boys and Wendy) if Tiger Lilly isn’t returned by sundown. I hated this line for whatever reason. I would actually get up and leave the room until that part was over when I was very young.

Oliver and Co.- the deaths of the two ‘bad-guy’ Dobermans (were there names Roscoe and DeSoto??). Nothing quite like a fall onto electrified train tracks. One of the most gruesome death scenes in children’s movie history, in my book.

The Simpsons- the death of Frank Grimes. This just about as dark as The Simpsons gets. A man who works hard for everything snaps and electrocutes himself and nobody cares. Homer disrespects the man at his funeral and everyone laughs. I don’t know, this is honestly more disturbing to me now than when I saw it as a kid.

I’m sure there are more, and I’ll post ‘em if I come up with any. In the meanwhile, what do you all think?

Well..........Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo is disturbing but in a completely different fashion than the above mentioned. It's actually about the only anime I watch and I laughed till I cried the first time I watched it. It's more humorously disturbing than macabre disturbing.

Watership Down, The Plague Dogs and Felidae for the win here. I've disregarded anime seeming as a lot of it is not meant for children.

Although, neither are the 3 movies I listed above, but they are not anime. They're just animated films that break the sterotype that "all animation is made for children".

_____the following contains mass spoilers______

Watership Down
Fiver invisons a field of blood. Tonne of spoky imagery here too.
Violet is killed by a hawk
Bigwig is caught in a snare (lots of blood and a little vomit)
Re-telling of the Destruction of Sandlefoot Warren (lots of disturbing imagery, lots of rabbits dying)
Shot of Blackavar being viciously attacked
Blackavar getting his throat ripped out
Bigwig and Woundwort's bloody fight
Dog comes and rips open a bounch of unfortunate rabbits. Lots of blood.

The Plague Dogs
This one is mostly just dark. Most of the violence is 'natural' (dogs killing sheep) so I don't really think that's anything 'nasty'.

Man shot in the face (lots of blood)
Shot of man's corpse eaten by Rowf and Snitter
Todd's death
Rowf and Snitters aparent "suicide" (depends if you read the book or not)

Felidae
I'm not a fan of Felidae, I think the violence was so overdone it was comedy but...

Blind cat's head found ripped off
Francis's vision of falling apart cat corpses strung up like puppets
Cat porn scene XD
The bad-guy getting sliced open and his intestines fall out


Now for a tv series that was made for children (non-anime) but still has some distrubing scenes. One of my favourites too ^^

The Animals of Farthing Wood
The pheasants are shot and cooked!
The baby mice are skewed on thorns (with blood too)
The hedgehogs are run over by a truck (very sad scene)
Baby rabbit is shot by hunters
One of the mouse characters gets mistakedly killed and eaten by it's Kestral friend
Dreamer (a fox cub) is found dead
Lots of deer get shot (with blood)
Bold (another fox cub) gets shot in the back leg and left a cripple
Bold gets his eye cut
Scarface kills a hare, a vole and a rabbit (all of which were characters)
A scene where several bloody fox bodies are shown lined up on a fence
A blue fox cub is shot
Bounder (another fox) is bitten by Adder and dies
Scarface and Fox have a rather graphic fight
Scarface is bitten by Adder and dies
Bold dies
A stag drinks from a poisin stream a dies
Sinious (a snake character) is choked to death by a large rat

that'll do o.o there is alot of death in that series. I missed lots too. Some of it is rated PG but it is still regarded as a Children's show.

Hmmmm....

Balto

When Steele threw Balto at a rock, and droplets of blood were visible

The Lion King

When Simba's fathere died...that was soooo sad...

The Land Before Time

Now that was depressing!!! The whole movie is stupid and dum. In my opinion. I hate it

No TV show or movie scares me, thats my job to scare me, because they can't^^

lol nice way tp put it Ecliptica

If you ask me, the most disturbing ones are the japanese anime or films such as the Studio Ghibli ones...
I haven't seen anything really disturbing in any Disney-like animated film. Even as a child.

I agree with Steet. Even though I hardly find Studio Ghibli films 'disturing' I find them beautiful and amazing. Especially the almost-perfect animation

But Animes like 'Ginga Densetsu Weed' and 'Wolf's Rain' - they're pretty dark. Especially Wolf's Rain, where the wolves look and act savage, always trying to tear eachother apart

Only one thing really. About half a year ago I watched Fullmetal Alchemist for the first time, which is now one of my favorite shows, and unfortunately, it was episode 7, Night of the Chimera's Cry. It was the scene with the little kid in the alley and the serial killer victim. By the time I realized what was under that sheet, it was too late. Horrible mental scarring...

Hmmm....scene in GDW where Kibustue (sp?) was impaled on a tree spike. Bah...that was a bit to graphic for me, yet...I still like it but youtube won't load any videos for me, so go figure.
Let me think of some more, well there was probably some other scenes in GDW where dogs die, that were kind of dark. Of course the scene where Weed's mother dies. No blood but really sad for me.

I can honestly say that the only anime I've been exposed to was the pornographic violent type shown on the screen at the back of the stage during Rob Zombie's concerts. That's not for kids, but then, most heavy metal shows aren't. So I have almost no idea what you all are talking about. But hey, that's not a problem. If it's as good as you all say, I'll have to watch some sometime.

Agreed. I recently bought some Ginga Densetsu Weed manga and the amount of blood and violence in them makes the anime look pretty tame.