DVDizzy Forum

Which of these characters frightened you the most as a child and/or still frightens you today?

I put McLeach and Frollo. McLeach looks and sounds like an intimidating guy, for one, and the way he treats animals and children-- I was little when TRDU came out, and I used to watch it a lot, so he made a scary impact on little me! Frollo is another that mistreats people and made a strong impact on me, even though I was a bit older. The first time I saw THOND, I was shocked at the cruelty. I think both of these men are realistic, not stereotypes, but there are people in the world similar to them.

I was never scared of animated characters as a child. I remember being fascinated reading stories about children who had nightmares because of Ursula. I knew a poster on another forum who was one of those. They said they had to scroll past my posts all the time because I would often have a banner with Ursula in it and they didn't want to look at that.

I guess "Hellfire" sort of...disturbed me when I saw it in theaters a bit, just because I didn't understand it. It's funny that my family went to church when I was young and I even had a picture version of Bible stories, but I never fully grasped God, Jesus, Hell, etc. back then. And even then it wasn't really because of Frollo so much as the jury in the red coats that appear.

Aside from that, probably Shan-Yu. "*scratching chin* How many men does it take to deliver a message?" And then he talks about returning the little girl's doll. Creepy.

I voted for Scar and Shan Yu. Scar really terrified me as a kid. I thought of him as the personification of the Devil— the only scene that ever truly scared me in a Disney movie was the stampede scene in TLK. It’s funny to look at it now— the character is so gay coded, but damn is he terrifying. Still gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about him sometimes.

And Shan-Yu, I actually think I found him maybe even more chilling as an adult than I did as a kid. It’s mostly that climax... there’s something about the way he initially has the upper hand and all the heroes are so exposed, and he’s so intimidating. It’s a shame he has such an undignified undoing, I think it undercuts some of the character’s strengths.

If I had seen Hunchback as a tyke, Frollo probably would have scared me very much. But honestly— I’m not sure I saw it until I was a member of this forum, by which point I just thought “Hellfire” was the most badass thing I ever saw.

That's true about Shan-Yu's death, it's treated very comically.

I think the scariest thing about Scar is his death, actually, imagining him being torn apart alive is horrible. Aside from that, the part when he's speaking to Simba after he's killed Mufasa is so repulsive. He already planned to have him killed, why lie to him and make him feel responsible for everything beforehand?