1. Watership Down
You might mistake Watership Down for a childrens movie. After all, the main stars are adorable, talking bunnies, talking about bunny society. Such a thing sounds like the premise for a good Pixar movie, or a serviceable Dreamworks one. Yet Watership Down had a dark heart, filled with conflict, political intrigue and oddly for a film about rabbits religion and dystopias. Wrestling with such adult content made this a schizophrenic beast at times able to create great emotion and rated as one of the greatest tearjerkers in modern times, it was also punctuated with acts of horrific violence. Here, give it a watch. Who the hell decided that mixing rabbits with blood would be a good idea? More to the point, how is this a kids film? There is a lot of violence here, an awful lot of it, as the video suggests. Theres savaging, gouging, biting, dismemberment and a main character being suffocated in a snare trap. Watership Down is not really a childrens film its Tarantino with bunnies, plain and simple. Personally, Im glad I didnt grow up in the 70s, if this is what was classed as childrens entertainment. Im aware the 70s were a different time, with big hair, rampant drug use and Led Zeppelin, but I refuse to believe that the eras kids were able to just shrug off cartoon characters being turned into viscera. And the fact they managed the not inconsiderable feat of making bunnies terrifying really sets this one apart from your average disturbing kids film. Agree or disagree? Feel free to comment!