Released worldwide this week, a Dumbo reimagined by Mr Tim Burton brings to mind that dark canon-within-a-canon of scary children’s films. Like the best fairy tales, these tap into deep-seated childhood fears, such as separation from parents (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s incomparable Child Catcher), punishments for misbehaviour (Matilda’s The Chokey) and permanent transformations (the boys turned into donkeys in Pinocchio). Patterns emerge in the nightmarish imagery: witches (Snow White, The Wizard Of Oz), otherworldly child-creatures (ET, Mr Burton’s own Edward Scissorhands), unnaturally big or small things (Ghostbusters’ Stay Puft Marshmallow Man), all doused in a Freudian wash of teeth, masks, skulls, ghosts, fingers and pointy noses. When the character’s POV is impaired in some way (because it’s dark or they’re spying from a hiding place), our imaginations fill the gaps with something even worse. If you’re feeling brave, revisit five of the most traumatic moments from films (supposedly) for kids.

Though the original Dumbo (only 64 minutes long) ultimately celebrates and rewards the titular elephant’s big ears, most of it focuses on bullying, loneliness and confusion. In the strangest sequence, Dumbo and his mentor Timothy Q Mouse get drunk on champagne and start to hallucinate, a four-and-a-half-minute sensory overload of black-eyed elephants, shifting proportions and trippy multiplications. Elephants stretch, split and metamorphose into camels and snakes. In a particularly spooky passage, 12 elephant heads of different colours form a body and leeringly walk as one. As the visions close in on him, Dumbo looks dazed (as if in a dream), covers his eyes with his ears and hides in his bed. Even Mr Burton may struggle to trump that.

Watch it here

Mr Roald Dahl was a macabre soul as adept at twist-in-the-tail short stories for adults as beloved children’s books (he was also, in the words of The Guardian, an “absolute sod”). The sinister peak of Willy Wonka, one of his most popular adaptations, is the boat ride under a tunnel, a watery ghost train bombarded with images of decay and death. One passenger feels so sick she can’t even bring herself to throw up. Willy’s song heightens the nausea: there’s “no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going… Is the grisly reaper mowing?” A Bunuelian flurry of eyes, insects and laughter in the dark. Not for children.

Watch it here

Mr Dahl again, and the scariest film moment on this list by a country mile. Directed by Mr Nicolas Roeg (best-known for horror masterpiece Don’t Look Now), The Witches is a perfect storm of childhood fears: witches in droves, good people turn out to be bad and (like the Child Catcher) a villain with a specific vendetta against children. Addressing a roomful of witches at a hotel conference, Ms Anjelica Huston (disguised as head of Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) peels off her mask. What lies beneath is monstrous: knife-like nose, testicular chin, wisps of hair in the wrong places, spindly fingers, skeletal body and an explicit desire to kill all the children in England. Eight-year-old Luke’s restricted view of all this through a cleft in the door only compounds the dread. Surely The Exorcist of children’s cinema.

Watch it here

Buried in the toybox of Pixar’s delightful first feature is the whiff of high horror. When Woody and Buzz find themselves in the room of a boy called Sid, Woody’s torch roams the room and finds a one-eyed baby doll with spidery Meccano legs and bristles for hair (a possible influence on the puppet in Mr Matthew Holness’ 2018 indie-horror Possum). One by one, like the performers in Freaks, the tortured toys emerge – a fishing hook with legs, a jack in a box with a hand. Paralytic with fear, Woody turns off the torch and retreats to his bag.

Watch it here

Like Mr Roeg, Mr Peter Jackson expertly transposed the ominous hues of his previous work (splatter horror Bad Taste; psychological drama Heavenly Creatures) into mainstream family fantasy. The orcs’ faces alone are repellent, but the biggest jump comes in a misleadingly tender scene where Bilbo gives nephew Frodo a sword and armour for his journey. Spotting his old ring around Frodo’s neck, Bilbo asks to hold it again one last time. When Frodo refuses, he lunges for it, mad-eyed and teeth like nails, then apologises. Sir Ian Holm, so good as the villain-in-disguise in Alien, enriches the shock of a goodie-turned-bad with the pathos of Bilbo’s shame: “I’m sorry I’ve brought this upon you, my boy. I’m sorry you must carry this burden. I’m sorry for everything.”

Watch it here