23 Children’s Movies That Got Way Too Dark
The human experience is full of death and violence and various shades of darkness, but a kids’ movie is no place for all that. The pre-middle school set is barely aware that other people exist, let alone the misery those people are capable of inflicting on each other. That’s ostensibly why the MPAA exists, though we all know it’s just a bunch of repressed dorks who get off on counting the exact number of frames featuring a boob. But goddammit, sometimes, you have an artistic vision, and it involves both talking dogs and horrific murder.
For example, Redditor _JR28_ recently pointed out that ParaNorman is “about a witch from centuries ago reawakening and bringing back the dead in revenge for being executed, and Norman having to stop her destroying the town,” but “in the third act a massive twist is revealed about the witch: She’s just a child. In a flashback scene we find out she is just a child no older than Norman who was sentenced to hang by the town elders for witchcraft.”
Name any other modern media depicting children being hanged. There’s, like, one, and it’s Game of Thrones.
As such, _JR28_ asked r/Movies for the “darkest moment in a kids movie,” and because Reddit lived through the 1990s, they dug up a trove of trauma ranging from canine hell, to sentient appliance genocide, to plain old unfathomable grief.
Toy Story 3
The NeverEnding Story
Watership Down
The Brave Little Toaster
All Dogs Go to Heaven
Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey
Short Circuit 2
Pinocchio
Babe: Pig in the City
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Transformers: The Movie
The Last Unicorn
Tarzan
Return to Oz
Coraline
The Dark Crystal
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Beethoven
Anastasia
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Bridge to Terabithia
Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams
The Lion King
