From possessed houses to soul-stealing witches, some children's films contain truly frightening elements. Join us as we explore the most spine-chilling concepts that have appeared in family movies over the years. These seemingly innocent films may have left lasting impressions on young viewers!
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00:00Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for children's films that weren't exactly kid-friendly.
00:2120. Child Snatching Trolls
00:23Ernest Scared Stupid
00:25Focusing on the abduction of minors is maybe not the best strategy for a kid's movie.
00:31The central villain here is a devilish troll called Trantor, who steals children and turns them into wooden dolls.
00:37He grabs one while he's riding a skateboard, and another when he falls into a pit.
00:41I gotcha.
00:43Thanks, Ernest. You saved me. I thought I was a goner.
00:47Just when you think it's safer to be indoors, Trantor snatches young Elizabeth from her bed.
00:54There's even some voice fishing going on, as he pretends to be Elizabeth to trap another victim.
01:00Kenny?
01:02Did you hear that?
01:03Yeah, it sounded like Elizabeth.
01:05Over here, Kenny.
01:07Elizabeth?
01:09Elizabeth?
01:11Is that you?
01:11What's worse? The adults in this film seem to have no qualms about their kids disappearing one by one while they make Halloween plans.
01:19If all that wasn't traumatic enough, Trantor's face surely would have been.
01:2419. Soul Sucking Witches
01:27Hocus Pocus
01:27Despite its cult classic status among adults, this film may not be a fun watch for kids, unless they're horror aficionados already.
01:37We may look back on the Sanderson sisters as fab icons, but for their young audience, they're sinister beyond belief.
01:44After all, they drain children of their life force to look wrinkle-free when they could just get Botox.
01:50I am beautiful. Boys will love me.
01:56We're young.
02:00Well, younger.
02:02They've been burned once, but return again when our main character, Max, lights a black flame candle on the day before Halloween.
02:09Thus, the chase begins, putting Max and his sister, Dani, in the most precarious situations as the witches try to steal their souls.
02:17It's been great fun, but I guess I better be going.
02:21Oh, stay for supper.
02:24I'm, I'm, I'm not hungry.
02:27Oh, but we are.
02:29Winifred even creates a zombie out of an ex-boyfriend and sets him after them.
02:34Now that's a double whammy.
02:36Number 18. Extreme Punishment
02:38Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
02:41Let's be real.
02:42The kids in this film had their faults, but were they really that bad?
02:47Augustus Gloop being overindulgent about chocolate hardly warrants him being sucked into a pipe and thrown into a possibly fatal mixer.
02:55Farouk Assault being a spoiled brat had less to do with her and more to do with how her dad raised her.
03:01Yet she's labeled a bad egg and discarded with the trash.
03:04She was a bad egg.
03:06Oh, where's she gone?
03:09Where all the other bad eggs go?
03:10Down the garbage chute.
03:12Oh, the garbage chute.
03:15Where did it lead to?
03:16To the furnace.
03:17Violet Beauregard is just plain rude, but turning her into a blueberry is still over the top.
03:23Similarly, Mike TV is just a square-eyed kid who shrinks and has to be physically, painfully stretched back to normal.
03:32And let's not forget the tunnel of terror.
03:34The moral lessons are clear, but perhaps too much for kids.
03:38Mr. Wonka, what's going to happen to the other kids?
03:41Augustus, Faroukka.
03:42My dear boy, I promise you they'll be quite all right.
03:45When they leave here, they'll be completely restored to their normal, terrible old selves.
03:50But maybe they'll be a little bit wiser for the wear.
03:54Number 17.
03:55Your House is Possessed.
03:57Monster House.
03:58For a children's movie, this one sure got dark.
04:01The premise of a house possessed by a resentful spirit is not even the scariest part.
04:06It is when the spirit brings the house to life and it starts chasing and eating children that it gets frightening.
04:12Got you.
04:13No!
04:15No!
04:16No!
04:16No!
04:16No!
04:17No!
04:17No!
04:18No!
04:22However, the most tragic part is the backstory of Constance, who haunts the house.
04:28She was made into a circus oddity and paraded around for being plus-sized.
04:32When she finally found love with Horace Nebercracker and started building a home with him, kids taunted her for her weight.
04:39No wonder she's mad.
04:41Yes!
04:41I've hacked!
04:42Those criminals are attacking our house!
04:44Drink our cheese!
04:45Now, now.
04:46They're just kids, dear.
04:48It's Halloween.
04:49No, no, no.
04:50It's my house and they're hurting me!
04:53Bottom line is, if you're trying to convince your kids not to go trick-or-treating at strangers' houses, this film will do the job for you.
05:01Number 16.
05:02Parents Turned Into Pigs.
05:04Spirited Away.
05:05Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning classic is timeless in the truest sense of the word.
05:11However, that doesn't change the fact that it is truly terrifying for kids who are around the age of the heroine Chihiro.
05:17They don't remember being human.
05:19So look hard.
05:20It's up to you to remember which ones they are.
05:22First, the little girl's parents are turned into pigs.
05:35Then she's sold to an evil witch and forced to do physical labor for the rest of her life.
05:40It is only thanks to Chihiro's grit and Haku's help that she makes it out.
05:44The concept of being trapped in a ghostly world with a slave contract and pigs for parents would send chills down any adult's spine.
05:52Imagine how it affected kiddos who just wanted a good time.
05:55What about you?
05:56What'll you do?
05:58Don't worry.
05:58I'll go back and have a talk with you, Baba.
06:01I'll tell her I'm going to quit being her apprentice.
06:04I'm fine.
06:04I got my name back.
06:06Will we meet again sometime?
06:07Sure we will.
06:08Promise?
06:09Promise.
06:10Now go and don't look back.
06:12Number 15, Animal Cruelty, Watership Down.
06:16Kids who watched this movie when it came out have trust issues now.
06:20We're obviously kidding, but it wouldn't be surprising.
06:24Watership Down, which is about a colony of rabbits trying to evade death, was initially given an all-ages rating in Britain, but years later was changed to PG.
06:34Unfortunately, the damage was done.
06:36I wondered for days.
06:40The Afrofans wouldn't let me go.
06:43They ripped my ear.
06:45Ripped it.
06:47I tried to find you.
06:49Don't let the cute rabbits, the emotional soundtrack, or even its OG creator Richard Adams fool you.
06:56He may tell you it's just a story about rabbits, but to children, they're witnessing these adorable bunnies being slaughtered mercilessly.
07:03Hardly will they understand the undertones of environmentalism and what grown-ups see as a metaphor for Christianity or a picture of communism.
07:11It'll just leave them howling in tears.
07:13Can you run?
07:17I think not.
07:21I think not.
07:24Number 14.
07:25Army of the Undead.
07:27The Black Cauldron.
07:28This was the first animated Disney film to receive a PG rating.
07:32Enough said.
07:33The eponymous Black Cauldron in this film has the power to raise the dead from their graves.
07:38The Horned King, obviously evil, intends to use the Cauldron Bourne to take over the world.
07:44Yes, my soldiers.
07:48Soon the Black Cauldron will be mine.
07:54Its evil power will course through my veins.
07:58The only way to stop that from happening is a self-harming mission, where our hero, Terran, must jump into the Cauldron and sacrifice himself.
08:07Thanks to the power of friendship, his pal Gergi, a forest creature, decides to take himself out instead.
08:13As wholesome as that's supposed to be, the imagery is chilling and provides major nightmare fuel.
08:19The lack of comic relief just makes it creepier.
08:22My beloved warriors have come to life.
08:28All the dead of centuries past.
08:31Never has anyone created an army like this.
08:36Number 13.
08:37Stolen Babies.
08:39Labyrinth.
08:40This Alice in Wonderland-esque film stars the legendary David Bowie as a child-stealing Goblin King.
08:46He's extraordinary, but his character Jareth is not someone any child would want to encounter.
08:52After our protagonist, Sarah, hopes for her more favored younger half-brother to be taken by the Goblins, Jareth makes her wish come true.
09:00I want my brother back, please, if it's all the same.
09:03What's said is said.
09:05But I didn't mean it.
09:07Oh, you didn't.
09:09Please, where is he?
09:11As a consequence of her thoughtless action, she must find her way out of an endless maze to save him.
09:17So now, she's lost among surreal, eerie creatures feeling guilty and in danger with a weird man creepily obsessed with her.
09:25Just fear me.
09:27Love me.
09:28Do as I say, and I will be your slave.
09:31This marks the second time director Jim Henson collaborated with illustrator Brian Froud, first giving kids the heebie-jeebies with 1982's The Dark Crystal.
09:41Clearly, they have a pattern.
09:43Number 12.
09:45Oz Turned Ugly.
09:46Return to Oz.
09:48What was once a beautiful fantasy is transformed into a fever dream in this unofficial follow-up to The Wizard of Oz.
09:55From Dorothy being forced to undergo life-threatening treatments at an asylum to the macabre version of Oz, this film was far from ideal for kids.
10:04When you're ready, we'll just put them over your ears and pretty soon they'll draw all those unpleasant dreams out of your head.
10:12Then when you wake up, you'll never be bothered by them again.
10:16The dreadful wheelers bizarrely having wheels for limbs and the Wicked Witch of the West's got nothing on the Gnome King.
10:23Add to that Princess Mambi being a literal headhunter sporting customizable heads and Princess Ozma being stuck in a mirror, and you have the recipe for a fear fest.
10:33It's a shocker how kids were even allowed to watch this.
10:36Not to talk about Oz.
10:39Why?
10:42Because it's just my imagination.
10:45Number 11.
10:46Evil Toys Coming to Life.
10:48Small Soldiers.
10:50This definitely isn't Toy Story.
10:52After an advanced military microchip brings the vicious commando elite action figures and peace-loving educational toys called the Gorgonites to life,
11:00a teenager named Alan must protect the Gorgonites from being destroyed by the army men hell-bent on destruction.
11:07Only regret that you have but one life to live.
11:11The war against the Gorgonites will be won.
11:15Uh-oh.
11:16Commando elite, let the first shock be fired.
11:19Search out the Gorgonites and frag them all.
11:22Kids may initially like the idea of their toys coming to life, but will think twice when they see the action figures attacking people with sharp tools and trying to murder the other toys.
11:32We don't blame kids for being scared by this concept, since we'd lock our toys away forever if we saw a horde of knock-off Barbie dolls coming our way with improvised weapons.
11:41Number 10.
12:00Children are illegal.
12:02Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
12:03The film lures its young viewers in with the delightful promise of a magical car.
12:08Halfway in, a serial kidnapper in the strange land of Bulgaria is working with the government to get rid of all children.
12:16The jarring tonal shift will leave anyone wondering, how did we get here?
12:21The child catcher taps into a very primal fear of being separated from loved ones, and also of grimy old guys.
12:28Children, your highness.
12:31Foreign children.
12:33Unique specimens.
12:35You're sure they can't get off?
12:37Do, your highness.
12:40With his pointy nose and crazed eyes, it was guaranteed kids would see him twice, once on screen and again in their nightmares.
12:48If the goal was to teach children about Stranger Danger, this movie definitely succeeded.
12:53For five years we have hidden them here.
12:56Look at them, eh?
12:58They don't know what a tree looks like or what it is to run or to laugh in the sunshine.
13:02Do you, eh?
13:03Number 9.
13:04Helplessly Lost in the Woods.
13:06The Rugrats Movie.
13:08Although a movie about babies going on an adventure might not sound like it's terrifying,
13:13The Rugrats Movie is surprisingly scary.
13:16The film allows Tommy, who wants to take his new and disagreeable baby brother back to the hospital,
13:22only for them to get lost in the woods with the rest of their friends.
13:25The kids have to fend off attacks from a group of circus monkeys and a hungry wolf,
13:37while dealing with losing their pet dog and figuring out how to get back home.
13:41By the time the babies are finally reunited with their parents, we, I mean, kids everywhere breathe a sigh of relief that they're safe at last.
13:50Oh, Sue, you did it!
13:52You found our boys!
14:00Yeah, I guess I did.
14:03Number 8.
14:04Your Parent in Constant Danger.
14:06The Secret of Nim.
14:07Try not to get sick or your mom will have to face unimaginable dangers.
14:12That's one of the possible ideas kids may take home from watching The Secret of Nim.
14:16The brave mouse Mrs. Brisby tries to get her sick son to safety while navigating a world where even the most ordinary things,
14:24like cats and farm equipment, are terrifying and potentially deadly.
14:28See, I'm alright.
14:30That's not the reason I'm crying.
14:32I lost Timmy's medicine.
14:34There's also a brutal animal testing scene that will have kids wary about ever going to the doctors again,
14:41especially if they're anxious about needles.
14:43The movie is a great tale about a parent's courage, but it may leave young minds fearing for their own guardians' safety.
14:59Number 7.
15:01Pets Can Be Killed.
15:03All Dogs Go to Heaven.
15:05The central concept for this movie is simple but horrifying for kids.
15:09Your pets will die.
15:11Welcome.
15:11Welcome to being dead.
15:15What?
15:16You mean I'm, I'm...
15:17Stone cold, I'm afraid.
15:19After the main character, a dog named Charlie, cons his way out of heaven,
15:23he returns to Earth only to encounter even more horrifying ideas that would be terrifying for kids,
15:29like being kidnapped by evil dogs.
15:31If that doesn't scare kids, then Charlie's vision of hell is sure to make them scared of all the bad things they've done
15:37while instilling in them the idea that their pets can go to hell, too.
15:41Are we sure this one's a kids' movie?
15:43Did you have a bad dream?
15:45Yeah.
15:46What's it, a monster?
15:47Did it bite?
15:48Oh, boy.
15:49It was...
15:50It was only a dream.
15:52Number 6.
15:53Saving a Dying World.
15:55The NeverEnding Story.
15:56Being tormented by others is scary.
15:59But having to save the world is even scarier.
16:02In the NeverEnding Story, a boy named Bastion is hiding from his tormentors when he finds a magical storybook.
16:08He alone has a chance to fight the nothing and save us.
16:14He is our only hope.
16:18His name is Atreyu.
16:22As the story goes on, Bastion realizes he has to help a young warrior named Atreyu complete his quest to save the real world of Fantasia.
16:30At first, kids may think it sounds like a fun quest.
16:34Until they realize it means being hunted by dark forces, leaving a friend to drown in their own sadness,
16:40and watching a world crumble before their eyes as they struggle to save it.
16:44Maybe children should just read some Dr. Seuss instead.
16:47Can you see anything?
16:50Anything at all?
16:51No.
16:53All the land is gone.
16:56I know.
16:58And all because I fail.
17:00Number 5.
17:01Being haunted or possessed.
17:03The Watcher in the Woods.
17:05The Watcher in the Woods introduces kids to the idea of being possessed by something otherworldly.
17:11Two sisters, along with their parents, move into a new house near a forest with a supernatural presence that affects the girls in different ways.
17:19Mike, I saw her again.
17:21What are you talking about?
17:22In the mirrors.
17:24She was reaching out.
17:26Begging me.
17:27Pleading with me to help her.
17:29She's trapped somewhere.
17:30Mike needs my help.
17:31The older sister, Jan, is haunted by visions of a girl in a blindfold.
17:35Meanwhile, the younger sister, Ellie, gets possessed, causing her to do and say things she can't remember.
17:41The hauntings also come equipped with a cast of creepy adults and several life-or-death situations.
17:48If kids weren't worried about being haunted before this film began, they definitely will be by the time it ends.
17:54No! Not Karen! But need help!
17:58If you're not Karen, who are you?
18:01Tell me what to do, Karen, please.
18:04No! Not Karen! Stupid, stupid, stupid!
18:08Who are you?
18:10Number 4. Board games can be deadly. Jumanji.
18:13A young Alan Parrish is sucked into a board game, only to be freed as an adult 20 years later by two kids continuing his game of Jumanji.
18:35In order to return life back to normal, he needs to try and finish the game he started as a child.
18:41There's no denying that the idea of the game is scary, since each role promises terrors like lions, plant monsters that won't hesitate to swallow you whole, or giant spiders.
18:53Or the game could suck you into it for decades, or until someone rolls a 5 or 8, while everyone you love disappears or dies.
19:00Our dad wasn't advertising.
19:04Bet you miss him, huh?
19:07Me too.
19:08Either way, the thought of a game like this existing is frightening.
19:12Or maybe we're still hung up on those giant spiders.
19:15Number 3. Being hunted by witches.
19:18The witches.
19:19Witches are real.
19:20They hate the smell of children, and they want to get rid of kids by turning them into mice.
19:25This is the world of the witches, and its concept holds many nightmarish ideas for kids.
19:30First, there's the idea that your parents can die and leave you vulnerable.
19:42Then there's the concept that evil witches can literally hide behind pleasant faces.
19:47It also shows kids being punished in painful and humiliating ways just for being young.
19:52Whether it's the terrifying witches, or the film's apt metaphors for hatred and oppression,
19:57this movie is full of horrifying concepts to keep kids up at night.
20:01Before the banquet tonight, you will come to my room in groups of 10.
20:05Room number 208.
20:07I will give you each a bottle containing 500 doses.
20:10Also plenty of money.
20:12Do not forget your nose plugs for the dinner.
20:15The dining room will be full of filthy children, and without your nose plugs, the stick will be unbearable.
20:202. Body Horror
20:22Pinocchio
20:23In what world is disfigurement an appropriate punishment for lying?
20:28Apparently in Walt Disney's.
20:30Little Pinocchio, who goes from toy to boy, is set up time and time again for failure.
20:35He is conned by Honest John, trapped by Stromboli, and sent to the exceedingly sketchy Pleasure Island,
20:42where he's almost turned into a donkey after indulging in straight-up hedonism.
20:47You gotta help me!
20:48Be a pal!
20:49Call that beetle!
20:50Call anybody!
20:55Mama!
20:59Then his father Geppetto is eaten by a whale, and Pinocchio himself is killed while trying to save him.
21:06Mind you, this is a tiny little boy who's going through these harrowing situations.
21:11My boy, my brave little boy.
21:19Sure, he's brought back to life, but at what cost?
21:23This movie is enough to make any child distrustful of the world.
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21:43Number 1.
21:44Kidnapped in your own house.
21:46Coraline
21:47In this movie, Coraline moves with her parents to an apartment complex where three children have gone missing without a trace.
21:54She soon discovers a door to another world and doppelgangers who look like her parents, only they have buttons for eyes.
22:02But the fun is over quickly, as she discovers her other parents want to replace her eyes with buttons too,
22:08and keep her trapped in this parallel dimension forever.
22:11If kids aren't creeped out at the idea of being kidnapped by someone who looks like their mom,
22:25or being trapped for eternity,
22:27and the fact that their kidnapper can turn into a giant spider should do the trick.
22:34Do any of these children's movies haunt you to this day?
22:39Let us know in the comments!
22:41Now it's our turn to play with you!
22:44Do you agree with our picks?
22:46Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo,
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