9 Children's Movies That Are Way Creepier Than You Remember

2. The Neverending Story

Hey, now just so we're clear, no one is here to argue that The Neverending Story isn't one of the greatest movies of all time. That would be a foolish waste of words and an outright lie. But that doesn't mean it's not amply terrifying. The movie's central premise - a young boy must help a "fictional" book character named Atreyu save the land of Fantasia from a horrible entity which seeks to erase all of existence - is both mesmerizingly poetic and also super heavy for a children's movie. It's basically like Inception, but instead of falling deeper into dreams, you start to question everything you've ever known about life...at 10-years-old.

The real trauma, however, doesn't come from an existential meltdown, it comes from the numerous scenes designed to punch little children viewers in the heart. First, there's that whole horse drowning thing. (Nothing says "fun fantasy epic" like a little boy pleading with his horse (and only true friend) not to drown.) And then the Rock Biter has a crisis of faith from not being able to save his friends from getting dragged into a lifeless void. But holy hell does all of that pale in comparison to the devil-eyed wolf creature G'mork, who spends one key scene growling about the emptiness of existence with a Gary Busey-like intensity before leaping out from the darkness and into our nightmares forever.