Usually when someone comments on Disney movies it’s either “They’re wonderful” or “they’re awful”.

I can run with both. You can’t escape Disney now. It’s so huge and encompasses so many brands and types of media that half the time you don’t even know you have a Disney product in your hands. I think a lot of us feel nostalgia for the first time we saw a Disney movie (especially if you are old enough to remember the time before VCRs and DVDs, when you had to wait seven years for the movie to come back to the theater so you could see it again). Some of the messages Disney, through its many faces, aggressively promotes, are uncomfortable and even sources of outrage. But something you rarely hear about in the discussions of Disney movies is that they are really scary. As in, fear-inducing. You cannot take your kid to a Disney movie with the belief that it will be all sunshine and flowers. Unless some of the flowers are roses with really vicious thorns, or the garden is on fire. Someone over at FEARnet started a discussion on movies that scared the members as kids. The first one he recalled was Sleeping Beauty. It’s true, Maleficent is terrifying, and I’ve never forgotten her (on a side note, it’s amazing to me how many people said they had watched IT or The Exorcist between the ages of 5 and 10). The shadows from the Frog Princess gave my son nightmares. And Ursula from the Little Mermaid… yikes. And those are just the animated movies.

Anyway, the folks at FEARnet did a short interview with an archivist at the Disney Archives where she showed off some of the props from a few of the past Disney movies. It’s really interesting to watch, and it does make you think. Who decides a movie is a children’s movie, anyway? If you are planning to take your child to a Disney movie, you might want to check out a trailer first, and try to evaluate whether the fright factor is one your child can handle.  Even my monster-loving kid has been known to run from the room or hide under a pillow during Disney films. Just because it’s a “princess movie”, a “children’s movie”, or a “family film”, you can’t trust Disney to make the decision an easy one.