THE FEARFUL FIVE! #9

Continuing our monthlong celebration of Halloween with various scary movie and TV-related lists. Check out our online movie database at channelguidemag.com to see if any of these or other scary titles are on this month. (Note: Videos may contain graphic violence, disturbing images and language.)

DRAWING ON OUR FEARS:
TOP 5 MOST UNNERVING ANIMATED SEQUENCES

From their outset, cartoons haven’t always been for the kiddies. And even the ones that are often have their scary moments (see Bambi, Dumbo, Pinocchio, The Lion King, et al). We could fill up a page with such famous traumatic Disney moments alone, but believe it or not there are even more disturbing moments brought to life through ink and paint:

5. Swing You Sinners! (1930)

Cute animation seems at odds with the unease created by this very surrealistic and downright creepy ’toon from the Fleischer Brothers (more famous for Popeye and Betty Boop) about a cat who pays for his sinning ways by a band of ghosts and ghouls that want to take him to hell. But at least they do it via a catchy swing ditty. Another example that these early cartoons were not aimed at kids, though I saw this as a child on an afternoon kids’ show and was properly bothered:

4. The Tell-Tale Heart (1953)

Take an eerie classic by Edgar Allan Poe, adapt it with surrealistic and terrifying animation, and round it out with narration by James Mason, who would sound sinister ordering a pizza, and you have an Oscar-nominated creep-out:

3. Headless Horseman chase in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1958)

Washington Irving’s story gets the Disney treatment, and while the first part of this short film is what you would expect from 1950s-era Disney — some corny humor and singing — this final sequence demonstrates the type of nightmares that the studio was capable of inducing when it really tried.

2. Night on Bald Mountain sequence in Fantasia (1940)

More Disney terror, courtesy of this second-to-last segment in the movie that sets animated vignettes to classical music pieces. This one has Mussourgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” as the backdrop and introduces a Disney villain that puts all the Jafars and Cruella de Vils to shame — Chernobog, a massive demon who controls wretched souls. Those other guys and girls got down and dirty, but this fellow is a literal embodiment of evil. It’s not often you see Disney make a descent into hell.

1. B-17 sequence in Heavy Metal (1981)

Perhaps better known for its great soundtrack featuring a who’s-who of ’80s hard-rock artists than its hit-or-miss animation, the sci-fi/fantasy/horror collection Heavy Metal does fire on all terrifying cylinders with this tale of a World War II bomber crew over the Pacific who encounters a new enemy far nastier than their human foes.

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Heavy Metal photo courtesy of flixster.com

1 Comment

  1. Great. Now I’ve got the theme from Heavy Metal in my head. i need to find it on the web somewhere.

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