Scariest Disney Animated Movies, Ranked

Summary

• Disney’s animated movies have terrifying moments often overlooked; they are not just bright and happy.
• Dark, scary themes in Disney movies date back to old classics like “Sleeping Beauty” and “Snow White.”
• Animated films like “The Black Cauldron” and “The Rescuers” touch upon real, grim subjects like human trafficking.

Disney+ isn’t exactly the first IP a person thinks of when it comes to horror, but the fact is that Disney broke a lot of new ground in their earlier work. Many of their older shorts and full-length movies are genuinely terrifying. Ghosts, evil witches, dragons, and even demons appear in these movies, which take place in graveyards, abandoned buildings, dungeons, and other dark and creepy venues.

Suspense, high stakes, and terror are often reserved for Disney’s live-action department, but animation can be for both children and adults. Despite its reputation for bright and happy moments, Disney has some truly terrifying animated movies.

6 The Black Cauldron

Disney’s Decade Of Darkness

• Directors: Ted Berman, Richard Rich
• Runtime: 80 minutes
• Starring: Grant Bardsley, Susan Sheridan, Freddie Jones, Nigel Hawthorne
• Release Date: July 24, 1985

In the dark days before the Renaissance, Disney adapted the first two books of Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain into one of their most notorious box office failures, The Black Cauldron. During this period, Disney was trying to follow the competition, which consisted of big names like Rankin-Bass and Studio Ghibli, whose cartoons often had a dark or scary side.

The general aesthetic and setting are already gloomy and dark, making the movie feel like a D&D module about the undead. The Horned King is truly terrifying, as are his skeletal minions. The result was an animated film that was too scary for the Rated G target demographic of the time, but it’s amassed a cult following since. The film also has has some of the earliest examples of CGI combined with traditional animation.

5 Sleeping Beauty

A Gothic Horror-Romance

• Director: Clyde Geronimi
• Runtime: 75 minutes
• Starring: Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy
• Release Date: January 29, 1959

The unique artwork that makes Sleeping Beauty so distinctive was a source of negative criticism in the early days, but modern audiences appreciate the aesthetic, citing the angular artwork as a strength as opposed to a weakness. It also gives the movie a more intimidating look, so even the happy scenes have a gloomy and scary undertone.

The main character is in constant danger, stalked by an evil sorceress who wants her dead. The scene in which our hero touches the deadly spindle is a breathless moment of psychological horror. It might be even more terrifying than the dungeon filled with skeletons, the dragon at the end, or the forest of living brambles.

4 Snow White And The Seven Dwarves

A Tale Of Jealousy And Murder

• Director: David Hand
• Runtime: 83 minutes
• Starring: Roy Atwell, Stuart Buchanan, Adriana Caselotti, Eddie Collins
• Release Date: February 4, 1938

Snow White was Disney’s first full-length animated movie, and despite how conventional it looks now, it was experimental and new for its audio and visual composition along with the animation. This was an adaptation of one of history’s most gruesome and terrifying fairy tales, and the writers and animators of the time didn’t shy away from making it as scary as the Brothers Grimm intended.

The magical world in which the story is based also takes its inspiration from the traditional story, using the dark castles and thick forests of northwestern Europe to set a dark and mysterious tone. The murder plot, complete with the shady Huntsman and the ornate “heart box” is adapted in chilling detail, and the scene in the secret laboratory is one of the most terrifying animated scenes ever made.

3 Night On Bald Mountain And Ave Maria

The Most Evil, Followed By The Most Holy

• Director: Wilfred Jackson
• Runtime: 11 minutes
• Artists: Vladimir Tytla, Kay Nielsen, Albert Hurter
• Release Date: November 13, 1940

The original Fantasia was one of the most ground-breaking pieces of animation ever produced. Plenty of critics, producers, and creators thought that a compilation of cartoons accompanied by orchestral music was a strange concept that nobody would like. Audiences saw it differently, however, and the movie has been revamped and rebooted in response to popular demand.

Some of the sequences that make up Fantasia are more popular than others, and among the most recognizable is the final entry, Night on Bald Mountain And Ave Maria. Mussorgsky, the composer who wrote the musical score, also wrote a poem to accompany the music, which inspired the frenzied dance of the demons and spirits. The short movie was made to be so deeply disturbing that the sequence featuring the holiest of holy songs, Ave Maria, was decided on to close out the sequence and give the viewers some much-needed repose.

2 The Rescuers

A Plot That’s Just Too Real

• Director: Wolfgang Reitherman, John Lounsbery, Art Stevens
• Runtime: 77 minutes
• Starring: Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor, Joe Flynn, Geraldine Page
• Release Date: June 22, 1977

Human trafficking is a tough subject to talk about in any venue, but it’s at the core of the plot in The Rescuers. The plight of the main character is terrifying partly due to its grim realism. There are no ghosts, spirits, or evil magic to deal with. Instead, the villain is a narcissistic kidnapper armed with a shotgun.

It sounds more like a movie like Taken, which has a similar plot, but this time it’s the clever local critters that have a particular set of skills. Little red-headed orphan Penny is being used by Madame Medusa for dangerous work looking for a lost treasure when The Rescue Aid Society gets her desperate message for help.

The torture that Penny endures at the hands of Medusa should be preceded by a trigger warning. The flooded caves where Penny is forced to search for “the big diamond” are also a living nightmare.

1 The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow

Terrifying Ghost Or Halloween Prank?

• Director: Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney
• Runtime: 33 minutes
• Starring: Bing Drosby, Billy Bletcher
• Release Date: October 5, 1949

The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow is actually the second part of a two-part compilation entitled The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. It also includes an adaptation of a story from The Wind In The Willows. The moral of this story is that not everything is what it seems, but that doesn’t make the visage of an angry ghost any less terrifying.

The story begins with ethereal scenes of the New England countryside and its dark, quiet hollows and covered bridges. Ichabod is an outsider at odds with a local over the affections of a pretty girl. Instead of a duel or some other violent confrontation, Brom Bones comes up with another plan to rid himself of a rival. The humble professor was so scared by the vision of the Headless Horseman that he left the region and never returned. This cartoon is so scary that anyone who sees it understands exactly how he felt.