Long before Disney was dishing out comic-book films and Star Wars spin-offs, the company was best known for its stellar 2D-animated classics. All you 90s and 2000s kids will surely remember such hits as “The Lion King”, “Mulan”, “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast”. Even though they were marketed towards kids, we always knew there was a special charm and magic to them. Something that adults could look back to one day and remember fondly. Well, there were also some really disturbing and strange moments in Disney’s classic animated films. The scenes that made you rewind the tape or disc just to make sure what you heard and saw was right.
With Disney going strong with their live-action adaptions and “The Little Mermaid” making big waves in theatres, we figured now might be a fun time to remind us all of some of Disney’s darker times. Here are some of the most disturbing moments in Disney’s animated films that you will never see adapted for live-action!
1. Clayton’s Death
We’re kicking off this list with one of the most underrated animated films in Disney’s catalogue, “Tarzan”. Before we had Tony Stark blasting his way through tanks or the Mandalorian going on adventures, Disney was trying to capture the young male demographics with adventure films like “Hercules” and “Treasure Planet”. For the most part, they were great stuff and were given the same level of detail and care as the princess films. That being said, they were allowed to get away with doing some really, really dark things.
As kids growing up, we remember watching some really intense scenes in the film. Especially the ones involving Sabor, that demonic-ass leopard, leaving a trail of blood in her path. The one that takes the cake for us though was the way Clayton met his demise at the end. In a crazed frenzy to free himself from the vines around him to kill Tarzan, Clayton begins slicing them like a man possessed. Tarzan tries to warn him as a vine wrapped around his neck tightens but it’s too late. He plummets down with the vine around him as he lets out a blood-curdling scream. The audience sees only the silhouette of his hung corpse. Yeah…that death’s a little too hardcore for today’s kids.
2. Quasimodo’s Humiliation
Man, oh man, how did they ever get this film out? Don’t get us wrong, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” is a wonderful, animated epic with memorable characters and amazing songs. It’s just the whole premise and context surrounding the film are so insanely adult and disturbing. There is no shortage of creepy scenes in the film. From the scary statues in the film’s prologue to the insanely skeevy Claude Frollo perving on Esmeralda in this weird sexually-repressed way (this totally went over our heads when we were kids). Oh, and the whole systemic persecution of a racial minority angle was almost pretty heavy for a children’s animated film.
The one that forever scarred us was the very cruel and frankly graphic humiliation of Quasimodo at the hands of the townspeople and guards. Just as he’s celebrated as the King of Fools for a day and he’s on top of the world, the whole crowd turns on him. They strap him down like some animal and begin pelting him with rotten fruit as they jeer and mock him. All because he was born disabled. Given today’s more politically aware audience, a lot of people might be triggered by the whole scene in live-action. Even now, we still find it very disturbing.
3. Rourke’s Transformation
All you 2000s kids out there will no doubt remember Disney’s epic “Atlantis: The Lost Empire”. An animated film that was surprisingly adult-orientated. The protagonist Milo is an adult researcher who joins a crack team of misfits and mercenaries to uncover the secret kingdom of Atlantis. Upon his discovery, he immediately forms a bond with the princess of the kingdom, Kida. The mercenaries led by Commander Rourke betray Milo and seek to turn Kida who wields the powers of a god through Atlantean crystals into an energy source. Look, it’s all really awesome and you should check it out for yourself!
So, it’s clear that “Atlantis” is a lot more mature than the average Disney film. That being said, there’s one scene that still catches us off-guard and shocks us to this day: Rourke’s horrible transformation into a crystal monster. At some point, Rourke tries to murder Milo with an axe on top of a metal container carrying Kida. Milo manages to stab Rourke with a piece of glass imbued with Kida’s crystal powers, infecting him and turning him into this horrid crystal statue. Milo and us breathe a sigh of relief, only to be jump-scared by Rourke springing to life as the creature. Seriously, that was some horror movie stuff right there and if Disney ever adapts the film for live-action, we’re fairly certain they’ll skip the body horror part of this.
4. The Queen becomes the Evil Witch
1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was a landmark film for Disney that would forever mark the company as a juggernaut within the animation industry. Even now, its immaculate hand-drawn 2D animated sequences still dazzle us and it has stood the test of time. It also sticks out to us for other reasons as well, it was scary as all hell! Imagine you’re an 8-year-old kid and the first fully animated film you saw was the story of an evil stepmother trying to kill her kid which forces her to run through a haunted forest. That whole sequence through the woods was masterfully done by the way!
The film does take a lighter tone when she finds refuge and safety with the kindly seven dwarfs. She becomes a sort of mother to them and they value her friendship. Then, it all goes south when the Evil Queen disguises herself as a hideous, cackling crone. Those eyes are honestly what did it for us. The way they swell to size with ghastly glee every time she encounters Snow White. Disney will probably tone down her horrific transformation to not come off as ageist or insensitive to the elderly. However, we’ll always remember that the Evil Witch from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” as the original Disney nightmare fuel.
5. Night on Bald Mountain
In 1940, Disney created an animated musical anthology film called “Fantasia”. The purpose of it was to pair classical musical themes like “The Nutcracker Suite” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” with animated scenes in an effort to bring these classics to life. Most of the segments in the film were mostly light-hearted, silly and fun…but then went into a very, very dark place. We’re talking about the infamous “Night on Bald Mountain” scene.
It opens with the demon Chernabog rising out of Bald Mountain to summon up the demons and ghosts of a sleepy town to participate in what can only be described as a nightmarish ceremony of dance and death. The sequence includes disturbingly vivid scenes of demons dancing before a fire and unclothed bare-breasted harpies flying in the wind. All while the dark lord of ceremonies presides over it. Like honestly, what the hell was the animation team smoking when they made this? There have been attempts to adapt “Night on Bald Mountain” for the big screen but none came to pass. Once was enough apparently.
