Childhood Movies Which Turned Out To Be DARK

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Pahn

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We all have favourite childhood movies, whether they be animated films, TV movies, or live action movies - that we loved as kids because of the catchy music or pretty flashy colours, of the first degree jokes.

Now that we're older, we rewatch those movies and realize how DARK they actually are.

Which childhood movie(s) had a totally different tone / mood once you watched it as an adult (or older teenager)?


Personally, I grew up in a very religious Roman Catholic household (Irish heritage) and it wasn't until I moved out to college that I began to question my faith (or lack thereof). Meaning - we have the movie The Prince of Egypt on cassette and my brothers and I watched it repeatedly. I've rewatched it a few years ago and holy crap this movie has dark tones.

Just as an example, The Plague song which is pretty much actually exactly as described in the Exodus:

 
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Darog said:
The Black Cauldron for me. was possibly the darkest movie without going into horror movie territory I saw at the ripe age of 9.

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WOW I definitely need to re-watch this!
 
It's not exactly a childhood movie of mine, but a movie I watched with my kids. Into the Woods.....holy shit that movie was freaking dark! I was not expecting so much death and violence! I felt bad for suggesting it after we watched it.

Old Yellar. A sweet movie about a dog....who ends up getting his brains blown out at the end. Holy shit! I can' believe that was a damn kid movie. "Oh, you'll like it. Watch it!" I was about six years old and ended up in hysterics afterwards. Those old timers were a heartless bunch.
 
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Nothing more need be said.
 
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Brovo said:

Nothing more need be said.
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omg I .. I think I remember that movie. I'll try to find the title in French to spike more memories
 
 
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Well this isn't exactly a movie... but... anytime I think of something from my childhood that makes me think "this was for kids?!", the Digimon Tamers TV show is typically the first thing that comes to mind -- or at least, the episodes that were more towards the end of the series, anyway. Like, Digimon Tamers was always a bit darker than the other Digimon series, but, for most of it, that dark tone seemed to mostly come from darker moments that were sort of scattered throughout the series -- but the final arc of it, though? It had gone full nightmare fuel by that point. o_o

I mean, look at this face:

latest


That is a face that still haunts me.

I just wish I could find some actual video clips of this character... which, unfortunately, I could not. >_> But I did find some audio:


The only good clip I could find of the scarier parts of Digimon Tamers is this one:


And this clip is apparently taken from the Japanese version, but this scene was mostly the same in the English dub that I grew up with. They certainly didn't try to censor or heavily alter this scene. o_o

I MEAN, THEY CONTINUOUSLY CENSORED ANY REFERENCES TO ALCOHOL OR TOBACCO (rather poorly, I might add) THROUGHOUT THE SERIES, BUT NIGHTMARE FUEL LIKE THIS?? NAAAH... THAT'S PERFECTLY KID-FRIENDLY! :)

And it's a shame that this clip is all I could find, because this shit here was only the tip of the iceberg...

And, hell, that's just me rambling strictly about the scary parts of this. You see how all these clips and images I keep pulling seem to revolve around this one girl and some demonic version of her? Well here's the context of it (spoiler alert, though I'm not sure anyone cares) : the girl, Jeri, hit a really low point emotionally after watching her Digimon partner be killed (and, yeah, he was killed, and it was also a fairly dark moment that the show didn't shy away from), and she kept beating herself up about it and insisting that it was all her fault that he died. Then she was replaced by the creepy demonic version of herself for a while (with the other characters not knowing that it wasn't really her), and then it was eventually revealed that this creepy thing was part of D-Reaper, a nightmare fuel thing that was trying to "erase" all Digimon and humans, and that the real Jeri was hidden away in another part of D-Reaper's physical form, and the D-Reaper was essentially feeding on her misery and basically kept feeding her thoughts about how everything bad that happened to her was her fault, and that she was destined to be alone, and that she deserved to be locked away and essentially tortured. It's just... brutal to watch. o_o
 
Hunchback of Notre Dame. That movie is just flat-out dark as all hell and I'm surprised that it was even rated G! This song alone is just filled with darkness!

 
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Darog said:
The Black Cauldron for me. was possibly the darkest movie without going into horror movie territory I saw at the ripe age of 9.

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That ^

And also:

And I don't know if you'd call this a kids movie, but I watched it a lot as a kid so I guess it counts?

 
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I was going to mention The Secret of NIMH.

I'm going to throw Who Framed Roger Rabbit in the hat. The shoe getting murdered was fucking intense.
 
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Dervish said:
I was going to mention The Secret of NIMH.
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Same ^_^' I was just about to post that. I really loved it, but there were some parts that kinda scared chibi Greenie.
 
Dervish said:
I don't remember a darn thing about the movie.

Movie night at your place? :D
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Haha sure but you'll have to get a passport and a ticket :P It's morning here!
 
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Tickets are a pain x.x lol. Still trying to find one to come back to Canada for the summer.


But Back to movies, the Last Unicorn was somewhat dark I felt. Or maybe that was just me.
 
Cosmic Leviathan said:
And I don't know if you'd call this a kids movie, but I watched it a lot as a kid so I guess it counts?

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I came here just to mention the Dark Crystal. I watched it for the first time when I was probably about 4 years old, and for years I had nightmares about the scene where the Skexsis start ripping the clothes off of the Chamberlain.

Relevant video, should start right at the part I'm referencing.

 
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