25 of the creepiest Disney movies ever made

Dragonslayer (Image via Paramount Pictures/Walt Disney Productions)

19. Dragonslayer

Dragonslayer, made in 1981, was actually a co-production between Walt Disney Productions and Paramount Pictures. It was likely something of a hedge on Disney’s part. You see, Dragonslayer was quite a bit darker than previously Disney movies. Not only was it scary and violent, but it even had brief nudity, engendering controversy amongst audience members who expected family-friendly fare.

The plot of the film is more or less standard fare. You’ve got a medieval kind of sorts that is being tormented by a ruthless dragon. That dragon, by the way, is 400 years old and is named Vermithrax Pejorative. Incidentally, I now know what I will name my first-born son.

The kingdom sacrifices its young woman via lottery, which takes place twice a year. Things get so bad that some girls, including a protagonist named Valerian, disguise themselves as boys in order to escape looming death. Galen, an apparently cisgender boy, gets involved and also seeks to kill the dragon. Vermithrax Pejorative is ultimately killed via, no kidding, an exploding wizard. Also, a princess gets kind of graphically eaten by baby dragons.

The dragon itself is pretty impressive, even without the name. It is well and truly scary, thanks in large part to effects work managed by Industrial Light and Magic. Indeed, twenty-five percent of Dragonslayer’s budget went to the dragon effects, and it shows. Phil Tippett, who finalized the design, also created a process known as “go motion”. In standard stop-motion animated, the animated figure’s movements are often jerky and unnatural. With “go motion”, the dragon figure actually moved during film exposure (instead of in between exposures), adding motion and removing the jerkiness that plagued earlier stop motion animation.