Kids just want to grow up, but they’re not always ready for grown up movies. So it’s important to put some serious thought into how you introduce kids to the horror genre. There are lots of horror classics out there that are perfectly appropriate for children and have been acting as a gateway between kids flicks and horror for many years, but you can’t just keep showing Coraline and Gremlins all the time.
So with that in mind we present Five Underrated Horror Movies for the Whole Family, full of less popular but nevertheless entertaining and, at times, kinda scary movies for young folks to enjoy along with their parents, who will also shriek with delight. Some of these films are scarier than others, and all of them should be researched before you show them to the whole family just in case you think they’ll be too intense or mature, but they each come with a great big recommendation.
Invaders from Mars (1953)
Being a kid is scary enough, but when aliens invade in William Cameron Menzies’ incredibly stylish and entertaining Invaders from Mars, it becomes dang near impossible. The film kicks off when a U.F.O. awakens young David MacLean in the middle of the night and lands in his backyard. But when his parents go to investigate they tell him there’s nothing there. Stranger still, they seem… different, somehow.
Invaders from Mars plays like a child’s nightmare, exploiting the universal anxiety of powerlessness that we all experience when we’re young, and warping the world around David MacLean to express his increasing paranoia. When the police throw our hero in jail for lying about an alien invasion his cell literally gets smaller in the back, like he’s trapped in a creepy funhouse.
William Cameron Menzies was one of the great stylists of cinema and he pulled out all the stops for Invaders from Mars, a film that still plays great today, with bizarre imagery and colorful creatures amplifying a story so elemental that anyone can appreciate it. And the film’s unforgettable ending might just blow a few minds.
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)
The powerlessness of childhood is a recurring theme in a lot of horror movies geared towards children and families, and it’s all over Roy Rowland’s astounding The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. It’s extremely weird and creepy but it plays great to kids because it looks and plays out like a Dr. Seuss book. And that’s because Dr. Seuss actually co-wrote it, and also concocted the film’s unbelievable sets and costumes.
Bartholomew Collins hates his piano teacher, a dictatorial snob named Dr. Terwilliker, played by the iconic Hans Conried. So it’s not surprising, but it sure is disturbing, when Bartholomew falls into a nightmare realm where Dr. Terwilliker schemes to force 500 children to play a giant, torturous piano simultaneously. What’s worse, Dr. Terwilliker seems to have hypnotized Bartholomew’s mother, who can’t be convinced that her son’s mortal enemy is anything more than a wonderful gentleman.
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T was the only movie that Dr. Seuss worked on, and it’s a wholly original and utter freak out of a film. Bright and fanciful enough to feel like a kids film, but suspenseful and threatening enough to qualify as all-ages horror, it’s ripe for re-discovery.
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)
It may be hard to believe now, but there was a pretty long time in the 1980s when Disney was barely holding it together as a movie studio. They started taking big swings at genres they previously ignored, and produced several darker, scarier motion pictures which failed to become major hits. The Watcher in the Woods and The Black Cauldron have their fans, but Jack Clayton’s Something Wicked This Way Comes has probably held up the best over the years.
Based on a supernatural story by Ray Bradbury, who also wrote the screenplay, Something Wicked This Way Comes tells the story of a malevolent, demonic carnival that travels from small town to small town, turning their customers’ fantasies into realities in exchange for their souls. Jonathan Pryce plays the ringleader, Mr. Dark, and he’s a sleek and insidious Disney monster, and one of the most threatening antagonists in the history of the studio.
Something Wicked This Way Comes – like The Watcher in the Woods and The Black Cauldron – suffered from many production woes, and the version we ended up with is a little muddled and, sometimes, hard to follow. But it’s a phantasmagorical horror fantasy so those kinds of flaws could be forgiven, especially since this is probably the only Disney movie with a bloody severed head in it. It’s not quite gruesome as that makes it sound, but it’s definitely the kind of kids movie that pushes family-friendly boundaries, inviting young audiences into the realm of more mature horror cinema.
The Hole (2012)
Joe Dante has directed a lot of classic movies, including Gremlins, Piranha, The Howling and The ‘Burbs, but one of the best movies of his later career went almost completely unnoticed.
The Hole is a kid-friendly horror film about a pair of bickering brothers who discover the gateway to Hell in their basement, and accidentally pull out the living personification of their greatest fears. One of those fears is, naturally, a freaky clown doll, and as you can probably imagine, Dante makes the most out of that imagery.
The basic premise of The Hole seems familiar, which is probably why it got overlooked, but it’s entertaining as heck and smartly crafted. The characters are sharply drawn, courtesy of The Revenant and Overlord screenwriter Mark L. Smith, and the scares are imaginative and weird, particularly in the film’s wild climax. It’s time The Hole took its proper place in Joe Dante’s cinematic canon as an oddball horror film that everyone can enjoy.
Dark Shadows (2012)
The daytime soap opera was already practically dead when Tim Burton skewered the genre in the underrated Dark Shadows, a comedic adaptation of the popular, long-running supernatural daily drama. Sadly, the film’s broad characterizations, melodramatic plot points and kooky sense of kitsch were treated like flaws when the movie came out, even though they were some of the film’s finest and funnest features.
Johnny Depp stars as the vampire Barnabas Collins, who awakens from his grave in the present day to find his descendants in complete disarray, victims of infidelities, industrial sabotage and overwhelming, probably supernatural teen angst. The stellar ensemble cast includes Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bella Heathcote, Helena Bonham Carter, Jackie Earle Haley, Johnny Lee Miller, Chloe Grace Moretz and Christopher Lee. Heck, Alice Cooper even shows up at the end to rock out at a party, because at that point the whole danged movie feels like a party.
Fans of daytime soaps will probably appreciate Dark Shadows more than others (and admittedly, the film’s emphasis on love affairs may not be appealing for all families), but the broad storytelling and larger than life characters are bound to appeal to young audiences and to adults who love camp. It’s a whimsical and wildly underappreciated entry in Tim Burton’s resumé.