25 of the creepiest Disney movies ever made

Fantasia (Image via Walt Disney Productions)

15. Fantasia

Some of the sequences in Fantasia are fine. There’s little to be scared of from hippos in tutus, for one. In fact, the 1940 movie and third animated Disney film, is generally innocuous. You see some abstract colors, some fairies, some dinosaurs, Zeus wrecking a party, and so on. I mean, maybe if you really looked for it, you could find some weird stuff in the openings sequences. But, it would be a real stretch. That is, until you get close to the end of the movie.

In the penultimate “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence, a demon arises from a mountain to literally wreak hell upon the world. Said demon is Chernabog, taken here to be, basically, the Devil (Chernabog is also a Slavic deity sometimes called the “black god”).

Fantasia’s Chernabog summons various demons and spirits from their resting places to Bald Mountain. These spirits are really unsettling, to say the least. Many of them are skeletal monsters, while others are misshapen demons lurking about the frame. Chernabog himself is massive, a hulking shadow with blazing eyes and a wicked set of horns. Don’t forget his gigantic bat wings, too, or his sharp-toothed scowl.

What ultimately defeats Chernabog and his devilish army? Dawn and, with it, the ringing of a church bell. The film ends with a rendition of Schubert’s Ave Maria, which helps to take the edge off. Still, it’s difficult to forget the preceding sequence.