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With the world premiere of Guillermo Del Toro and Mark Gustafson’s Pinocchio this month, people are once again reminded of how creepy stop-motion animation is. Despite how truly beautiful the medium can be, as all of Studio Laika’s movies can attest to, stop-motion will always have a place in the horror genre, even when the movies don’t mean to.
Some stop-motion films, both feature-length and short, traumatized kids with their seemingly innocent facades. These bits of media are a wonderful way to get kids into the horror genre. At worst, it gives them a few nightmares along the way.
Mouse Soup (1993)
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Redditor PurpleSaurusRex655 had haunting memories about trying to recall a creepy short he had watched as a child. To paraphrase, “I remember seeing a very creepy cartoon when I was little, or at least part of it before I turned it off. The cartoon contained unattached body parts with no blood and creepy lighting as well as stop motion animation, and it was on a weird VHS.”
This Candle Cove-Esque backstory was thankfully not a collective delusion, but a very real short by the name of Mouse Soup: Long Ago And Far Away. The premise alone is horrifying, as a weasel desperately tries to save itself from being boiled in a pot by telling various stories. The stop-motion visuals only added to the creep factor.
Mad Monster Party? (1967)
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Usually, Rankin/Bass is known for their quirky, family-friendly Christmas movies. The Rudolphs and Jack Frosts of the world owe much of their childhood nostalgia to this production company. Still, they got to flex their creative muscles outside the Hallmark postcard genre by creating a Halloween-themed movie called “Mad Monster Party?”
LaLunacy has nothing but nostalgic love for it, saying, “Yaaaas! One of my fav movies. Phyllis Diller, Boris Karloff...classic. I downloaded it a while back and try to watch it every Halloween.” Rankin/Bass making creepy stuff was clearly a fun experience for the usually safe company, though it’s likely some kids had nightmares because of it.
Paranorman (2012)
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Redditor snootyvillager has nothing but good things to say about ParaNorman, stating, “This movie and Monster House are usually my picks for our social circle Halloween movie-a-thon during October. They are both perfectly crafted, spooky, fun Halloween movies.” Paranorman is up there with the likes of Halloween and Trick R Treat as traditional Halloween horror movies.
Paranorman follows Norman, a boy with the ability to see ghosts, though obviously, nobody believes him. This causes him to be ostracized, and most of his friends are either outcasts like him or dead. Much of the spooks in the movie come from the unsettling designs of the ghosts, who are a snapshot of how they looked at the moment of their deaths.
The Cat With Hands (2001)
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The internet in the early 2000s was the Wild West, and quite often, Millennial kids got up to watching things that seemed innocent but were anything but. This is what DiOmbra found, stating, “This short film has always left me with chills.” upon posting it in r/creepy.
The Cat With Hands was created by Robert Morgan, who has always been well-known for his deranged animation. This film is his most notorious, focusing on the titular cat with human hands. It’s as disturbing as it sounds, and the unnerving taxidermy quality of the cat itself latched onto the nightmares of many children at the time of its release.
The Sandman (1990)
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Before The Sandman introduced mainstream audiences to a significantly more charismatic version of the eponymous folklore character, Paul Berry’s The Sandman gave people a nightmarish version. LynchianNightmare calls it “one of the creepiest claymation animations I've ever seen. The atmosphere perfectly captures the feel (and dread) of a child's nightmare.”
Stop-motion animation in the '90s was always unnerving, with the grainy filter giving everything a “forbidden media” vibe in hindsight. The Sandman is a bizarre and surrealist nightmare, as a child wanders around an impossibly inconsistent world. It’s the sort of short film that perfectly evokes that old fear of things that go bump in the night.
The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985)
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The Adventures of Mark Twain was bizarre enough on its own, as it’s a surreal adaptation of Mark Twain’s entire body of work. Here, all of the tales exist together in a single universe, along with “Mark Twain” himself, a meta-movie during a time when that wasn’t common. They go around on a steampunk spaceship across space chasing a meteor, and it goes off the rails from there -- so off the rails that they end up meeting the devil, or as he’s called here, “The Mysterious Stranger.”
Redditor sifsand even goes on to claim, “The Adventures of Mark Twain has probably the single creepiest depiction of Satan ever.” Isolated on a desolate rock, a clear disdain for humanity, but one so detached that it’s almost insulting, they are no red devil either, but instead a headless “tumor” who holds a theater mask as their “face,” an instantly memorable sight.
Return To Oz (1985)
Return To Oz is the decades-later sequel to the iconic The Wizard of Oz movie, but most people remember it more as a waking nightmare. Gone is the whimsy of the first movie, and the sequel is a more cynical and, at times, deconstructive take on the story of Oz. Of course, that’s exactly what the original books were like: dark side and all.
Redditor trivial772 shares this sentiment, saying “Return to Oz was far more faithful to the source material than the original The Wizard of Oz movie. I found it scary as hell when I was a kid but I also watched it a lot. Honestly still do a couple of times a year.”
Corpse Bride (2005)
Corpse Bride was the spiritual successor to The Nightmare Before Christmas, and is far darker in its content too. While the denizens of Halloween Town were more quirky than scary, Corpse Bride leans far more into the macabre territory. There’s also far more death here than is usually present in supposed kids’ movies.
An anonymous Redditor lovingly praises the movie, stating, “God I loved this movie growing up. Fun, well-animated, has some great musical numbers, and has an intriguing plotline. I’d already been into horror for a while before seeing it, but I feel it’s perfect for young children who want to break into the genre.”
Alice (1988)
Alice in Wonderland has had plenty of adaptations throughout the years, be it in movies, video games, or comic books. Heck, Disney even gave it a go twice across decades, with varying levels of success. Still, none of them are quite as ambitious (and terrifying) as Jan Svankmajer’s Alice, a surrealist nightmare that delves into the psychological horror aspects of the original tale.
Redditor Rileyxboo recalls their memories of the obscure adaptation, saying, “That movie terrified me. The white rabbit puppet still gives me nightmares. Never did finish the movie because I was traumatized." This sentiment is common throughout the post, which should be a testament to how truly terrifying the movie can be for children.
Coraline (2009)
Coraline defined modern stop-motion horror in its heyday. The bizarre contrast between the mundane real world and the fantastical “Other World” is whimsical, at first, but the movie brilliantly starts to peel away the facade. Underneath is one of the creepiest and most deranged children’s movie villains in recent memory, one that won’t be leaving people’s minds soon.
It’s so good that the original creator of the story, Neil Gaiman, has continuously praised the final product, completely in love with how his story was interpreted by a talented team. This anonymous Redditor sums it up best by simply saying, “It's an amazing film with amazing animation. Definitely would give kids nightmares.”