9 Disney Movies With Upsetting And Dark Moments
5. The Horned King Animates His Undead Army - The Black Cauldron
The Black Cauldron's initial cut was so dark that then-Studio Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg is said to have made edits himself until he was stopped by his superiors, so it's safe to say that it deserves a place on the list. Cut scenes reveal a more graphically violent film once existed, but The Black Cauldron as it currently exists would still frighten many a viewer today.
The Black Cauldron succeeds precisely because its antagonist is so horrible. The Horned King is terrifyingly voiced throughout by the legendary John Hurt, and the movie's purple, brown and green colour palette creates a sickly feel throughout, so there could have been any number of scenes featuring this fantastically menacing villain featured on this list.
However, his standout scene has to be his summoning of the "Cauldron-born", the army of the dead The Horned King needs to conquer the mythical land of Prydain. It sees the skeletal villain sacrificing a corpse to the cauldron, and then the vapours from the cauldron give way to a collection of shambling horrors, punctuated by a sharp sting of brass. It may well be the very first animated jump scare, and cements the Horned King's armies as a Disney horror show.