21 Childhood Tales that can Cause Real Scares?

Someone at PopCrunch has created a list of what might be considered terrifying and traumatic scenes from a variety of children’s movies and books. Maybe I’m a little jaded since Stephen King was the writer of my bedtime stories so I have to wonder how many others feel the same way about this list.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets claims number 20, and I can see why this one made the list. I’m actually surprised it didn’t rank higher. There’s a little bit of darkness and danger in all of Harry’s adventures, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows being the darkest (check out the review), but Chamber of Secrets makes the list because of two ordinary creatures being given a very un-ordinary size. Aragog the spider and the giant Basilisk could probably deliver their fair share of nightmares when viewed by some younger fans.

The 18th position goes to the ‘Boo Box’ in Hook, the Robin Williams adventure about a grown-up Peter Pan. The concept of the ‘Boo Box’ is simple. Take a box that looks a lot like a coffin and drill a hole in the lid. Now put someone in the box and drop scorpions through the hole one at a time. I can definitely see this scene replaying over and over again in young minds.

The full list can be found below and you can visit PopCrunch to find out why each one is considered scary… and please let me know if I’m not alone in considering some of these as being sort of lame.

21. Heffalumps and Woozles
20. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
19. The Evil Grimace
18. Hook Boo Box
17. Superman III Cyborg Transformation
16. Droid torture from Return of the Jedi
15. Helping hands in Labyrinth
14. Garthim from Dark Crystal
13. Mirrormask version of Close To You
12. The Hallucinations in Young Sherlock Holmes
11. Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Judge Doom
10. ROUSs from Princess Bride
9. The Mysterious Stranger for Adventures of Mark Twain
8. Willy Wonka Boat Scene
7. LoTR Bakshi edition
6. Watership Down
5. Plague Dogs
4. Return to Oz
3. Are You Afraid of the Dark?
2. Gmork from The Neverending Story — and much, much more.
1. Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark