Ten films to terrify your children

At this time of year you expect to see horror movies doing well at the box office, but this year is something special, because they're not all adults-only. Many parents will wonder how their children will respond to 9 and it's certainly not for younger or more sensitive ones, with its bleak setting and horrible hybrid monsters. Meanwhile, over in the US, Where The Wild Things Are is causing quite a stir. Spike Jonze was asked to reign back on the creepiness after the studio saw his early work on the film, but fans of the cult Maurice Sendak book about a little boy who becomes king on an island of monsters will be glad to hear that the story has survived relatively unscathed.

Is it good for children to be scared? Many child psychologists think so. After all, it's important for them to understand, sooner or later, that there are bad things in the world, and watching these things in a film helps them develop the confidence to deal with them. But some scary films - and some that were never intended that way - leave a lasting impression. If your kids want to be brave this Halloween, here are some films which have terrified many before them...

10. Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. It's meant to be about a boy's dream come true, but this 1971 Roald Dahl adaptation, much darker than Tim Burton's remake, was more of a nightmare for some young viewers. Gene Wilder's patently unhinged chocolate magnate was not an easy person for kids to feel safe with, especially when one could see so many of his young guests meeting sticky ends, and the psychedelic boat trip through the tunnel was just too much for some. Don't even get started on those creepy Oompa-Loompas...

9. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. The subject of controversy right from its release in 1937, this was one of the first children's film to be accused of being too scary, and it has gone on to terrify generations. Key scenes see our heroine being menaced by the knife-wielding huntsman who has been sent to kill her, then fleeing through a creepy forest whose trees reach out and try to grab her. Plus there's the rat-infested dungeon where the evil queen disguises herself and prepares her poison apple. Back then, Disney understood that fairy tales are not all about happy ever after.

The Witches

8. The Witches. Another Roald Dahl adaptation, this sees a young boy stumble upon a convention of witches who have terrifying plans. He has to stop them, even though they turn him into a mouse, filling the world with still more dangers. This film plays on children's feelings of smallness and vulnerability, exacerbated by the dismissive attitudes of adults. The scene where the witches remove their masks is generally reckoned to be the most frightening bit, but many children are just generally terrified of the formidable and haughtily evil head witch played by Anjelica Huston.

7. The Black Cauldron. Also from Disney, who have since intimated that they never meant it to turn out as scary as it did, this is the story of a boy called upon to find the legendary black cauldron and keep it out of the grip of the evil Horned King, who plans to use it to raise an undead army and destroy the world. Adults may think the villain looks like a reject from heavy metal Eurovision winners Lordi, but he's really out of place in Disney animation, and it's this sense of wrongness that helps to make him extra terrifying for young viewers.

The Spiderwick Chronicles

6. The Spiderwick Chronicles. With its background of financial struggle and family breakdown, this is a distinctly mature film for young audiences, and this helps to give a sense of depth and realness to its fantasy monsters. The build-up of tension as a family find themselves besieged in their home by ferocious goblins is scary itself, with nasty cuts and bruises visible on the kids who get caught up in skirmishes, but the final assault on the house, and the appearance of the demon behind it all, are straight out of horror movie territory. It's a good choice for older kids looking for something more challenging.

5. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. You may laugh, but this 1968 classic family musical is definitely not light-hearted fun for all children, and some adults still find it impossible to watch because of the impression it made in their youth. The reason for this is the character of the Child Catcher (played by Robert Helpmann). Creeping around, sniffing with his large nose to catch the scent of kids and then trying to tempt them closer with lollipops, he's a truly monstrous figure and the personification of a generation's fears about danger to their own little ones.

Return To Oz

4. Return To Oz. Never intended as a sequel in the same vein as The Wizard Of Oz, this much darker film took many viewers by surprise on its release in 1985. It contained several elements which parents might expect to frighten children - a ruined world, lunatic doctors and a head-hunting witch - yet it's the Wheelers who still haunt the dreams of those who saw it as kids. Bizarre human-machine hybrids with wheels instead of hands and feet, they had bizarre masks straight out of the Uncanny Valley and could elicit terror by doing nothing more than rolling along.

3. The Dark Crystal. Early viewers of this film must have thought they were in safe hands. Muppets aren't scary, are they? But there was always a dark side to The Muppet Show and it was given full reign in this Jim Henson production, where two innocent Gelflings are hunted by an evil army of ragged, vulture-like Skeksis and giant black beetles that make clicking sounds when they sense their prey. The vulnerability of our heroes and unrelenting viciousness of the monsters, who even tear pieces off each other, make this one fantasy story almost guaranteed to cause nightmares in little ones.

Coraline

2. Coraline. One of the scariest kids' films for years, this is the story of a lonely girl who finds herself in deep trouble after being seduced into an apparently perfect parallel world. Cleverly animated with lots of haunting imagery, it's essentially a dark fairy tale with some distinctly adult lessons to teach. Young viewers find it sinister partly because of way things which seem innocent turn out to be monstrous, and the final scene in which the fantasy world is gradually stripped away to reveal the horrors underneath will disturb the sleep of almost any viewer.

1. Watership Down. Though director Martin Rosen always said that he didn't intend it to be a children's film, Watership Down has nevertheless come to be thought of that way, and has consequently left a lot of children seriously traumatised. Perhaps adults think there can't possibly be anything scary about a cartoon focused on cute bunny rabbits, and they forget about all the bits with poisoning, beatings, kidnapping, war, and myxomatosis. Based on Richard Adams' award-winning novel, this was intended as an allegory about the human condition and it doesn't shirk from outright nastiness, though our heroes remain bold and true to the end. This film is Threads for children, and will scare them in ways other films don't come close to. It should probably be avoided if they have pet bunnies of their own.

Of course, there are also a number of films that celebrate the darker side of life and show children how they can find fun in creepy-looking things, so when you've scared your kids witless with some of the films above, why not give them a happy ending with a film like The Nightmare Before Christmas? Just watch out for Mr Oogie Boogie Man...