I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m an avid fan of Halloween. But I figured since we’re in the season, I might as well share this list. This is a list of less than pleasant dreams that have accrued in animated movies. This is judged by memorability and slightly by its significance to the film. If the dream is actually scary, then that does help its placement. Warning: some pictures featured aren’t the greatest.
#10: Moana's Nightmare- Moana
Sort of in the middle of “Moana”, our titular character has a dream that she returned home. It quickly turns into a nightmare when her island turns into dust as a result of Maui stealing the heart of Te Fiti, preventing her from bringing life to the ocean. To make matters even worse, Moana quickly spots her parents suffocating from the crossfire. This is a pretty obvious representation of Moana’s fear of not only letting her family down, but also the world down. It also doesn’t help that she’s unsure why she was picked to do this task in the first place. While this isn’t an amazing scene, it’s decent enough. It is however the least memorable scene on this list.
#9: Linguini's Nightmare- Ratatouille
Alfredo Linguini got himself in a pretty deep scandal when his pet rat Remy started controlling him like a puppet (literally) to make him cook. It gains huge attention when Linguini is revealed as the son of Gusteau. By the time the news reaches brutal food critic Anton Ego, Linguini and Remy have a fallout and Linguini is left alone. As a result of his stress, he has a nightmare of Ego literally ordering his heart “roasted on a spit”, which is gross on so many levels. But if I had that type of attention from a nasty food critic knowing I’m a fraud, I’d be terrified too. During the scene, you can hear Linguini’s heart beating uncontrollably, which is what makes it so eerie.
#8: Mei's Nightmare- Turning Red
After getting humiliated by her psychotic mother at a gas station, Meilin Lee has a nightmare involving red pandas. This was obviously a heads up for her transformation, but what really got this scene on the list was the surprisingly disturbing images involved in this scene. While it wasn’t overly brutal, It was definitely more mature for a kids movie. I think it represented a mix of embarrassment of her mother and anxiety over disappointing her. To me it was the darkest scene in the movie. This is also the most recent film on the list as it came out just last year. This isn’t one of Pixar’s best, but it is decent enough.
#7: Riley's Nightmare- Inside Out
In an attempt to wake Riley up, Joy and Sadness break into “Dream Productions” and take over a dream. Joy arrogantly tries to wake her up with exhilaration. But that fails, and they go with Sadness’ plan to scare her awake via summoning Jangles the clown. The funny thing about this scene is that this isn’t the main character’s (or supporting character's) time of distress. It’s a filler event thrown into the story for the main and supporting characters. “Inside Out” is either one of very few animated movies you can say that about, or the only one. I would also like to say that Riley’s dreams being formed like a movie is HILARIOUS.
#6: Anya's Nightmare- Anastasia
This one is somewhat of a similar situation to the last entry as it is also a filler event thrown into the story for the protagonist and supporting characters. In an attempt to kill Anya, Rasputin sends his minions into her dream. She’s in a spring setting with her family (which she is unaware of at the time) and they bring her to a pond. Unaware to her, she was sleepwalking to the edge of a boat and was on the verge of falling overboard. While it starts off peaceful at first, the dream’s true colors start to show when Anya resists it's urges to jump, and her family turns into demons (I think). Thankfully, this caught the attention of her dog and Dimitri, with the latter being able to save her from apparent death.
#5: Max's Nightmare- A Goofy Movie
Max Goof’s biggest fear is becoming his father (unaware that he is already like him in many ways). One way this was explored is in the form of a dream at the start of the movie. Again like most nightmare’s, it starts off peaceful as Max is having a tender moment with his crush Roxanne. This soon turns to Hell when Max goes through a typical monster-like transformation into his father, starting with giant buck teeth. The scene is somewhat scary to an extent, especially if you’re a child and you’re watching it for the first time. And it was a great way of starting off the movie as well as a good introduction to the dynamic between Max and Goofy.
#4: DJ's Nightmare- Monster House
DJ Walters has been watching his neighbor Horace Nebblecracker terrorize his neighborhood for awhile now. But when he’s involved in an incident that triggers a heart attack and gets Horace sent to the hospital, DJ is left shaken. As a result, he has a nightmare where a dark shadow of Horace’s house appears in his room. A shadow of a hand then emerges out of the house and grabs DJ, jolting him awake. Of all the dreams on this list, this one has the most hellish imagery, which is a lot for a kids movie. But it is also what obviously makes the scene so scary, and is one way of keeping adults glued to the movie as well.
#3: Woody's Nightmare- Toy Story 2
While Andy was playing with him, Woody’s arm gets ripped, resulting in Andy leaving him behind to go to camp. He has a dream of Andy returning from camp to play with him, only to remember that Woody is ripped and throws him away. A pile of broken toys grabs Woody and sinks him deeper into the trash can as Andy says goodbye and closes the trash. Woody immediately jolts awake. The “Toy Story” franchise made it pretty clear that being thrown away is pretty much every toy’s worst nightmare, and this nightmare was a fantastic representation of that. It also has a creepiness to it as a majority of the thrown away toys were body parts. That’s disturbing.
#2: James' Nightmare- James & The Giant Peach
A little over halfway into the movie, James dreams he is a caterpillar eating a peach. His peaceful meal is interrupted when his aunts, Sponge and Spiker, show up and send the rhino after him. This entry is one of the more uniquely animated scenes as it uses live action imagery for stop motion. I feel like that was what made the scene relatively creepy and adds to its weird charm. Stop motion (especially Claymation) is probably the hardest form of animation to perfect and the scene was done fantastically. To be honest, the only reason this is #2 is because I have a huge soft spot for the next movie (which I have spoken about before).
Before I reveal my top pick, here are some honorable mentions......................
-Alex wants to go home
-Po's having daddy issues
-Lightning being overdramatic
-Shrek's gonna be a daddy
#1: Moses' Nightmare- The Prince Of Egypt
Upon discovering that he’s an adopted son from the very people his legal family enslaves, Moses suffers a nightmare of the day his bio mother Yocheved gave him up. Upon waking up, and realizing she did it to save his life, Moses looks through his family history and confirms the horrible manor in which Hebrew baby boys like him were executed (via thrown in a river of alligators). This is another uniquely animated scene as the film used Egyptian imagery for this scene, and it works perfectly. And the conversation that happens after is probably one of the most chilling scenes I have ever witnessed. The line “They were only slaves” will stick with you forever.
Like always, the google slides link is down below. Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11VSU1Ps3iyhlxjiYf_2tjO80lbusi_8UzXcHyOlch7Q/edit?usp=sharing
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