10 Deceptively Innocent Movies With Incredibly Dark Moments
2. Toy Story
The Toy Story franchise has been traumatising audiences for years - and not exclusively through the use of emotional damage associated with the series' meditative take on the nature of friendship, loss, and impermanence.
Take 1995's original as the prime example. The arrival of Erik Von Detten's Sid precipitates a terrifying slide into Jeffrey Dahmer-esque territory with the revelation of the perverse child's pastimes. Sid destroys toys for fun - a terrifying notion in the context of a film about sentient playthings - and the depraved adolescent's room is filled with deformed "mutant" beings that Sid has constructed from the dismembered remains of his original toy collection. Yikes!
Unsurprisingly, Woody and Buzz come face to face with this young psychopath's horrific inclinations in short order after being captured. Buzz is strapped to a firework to be blown into tiny plastic shreds - to infinity and beyond, if you will - while Sid sadistically burns Woody's face using a magnifying glass. It's legitimately shocking stuff, to the point that many parents likely wondered what on earth they were allowing their child to witness when the movie originally debuted.
Our heroes may have ultimately escaped Sid's clutches by the film's conclusion, but the memory of his nightmarish proclivities will live forever in viewers' minds.