Someone dies in pretty much every Disney cartoon, but they do a good job of keeping it clean and bloodless. Most of the time the camera cuts away before the villain hits the bottom of that pitch black crevasse, and we're left to merely imagine Gaston's lifeless body impaled on a rocky spike somewhere. But once in a while, a gruesome death slips through the screening process.
5. Beauty and the Beast's enchanted wardrobe crushes a man
Of all the sentient furniture in Beauty and the Beast, none is so sassy and irreverent as the wardrobe, aptly named Wardrobe. Though she's probably the most physically intimidating of the living furniture, Wardrobe never abuses her size to indimiate Belle into marrying Beast. She remains a model of transmogriphied human decency, until humans storm the castle.
That guy had no chance. All he could do was stare up at the mass of animated wood hurtling towards him. Wardrobe doesn't even get so much as a splinter off of one of her feet, but the tile floor is decimated. If solid stone can't hold up to a two-story drop from Wardrobe, farmer Jeb McHoe never had a prayer. His ribcage was crushed and his spine instantly snapped; it's a wonder we don't see any liquefied organs spewing out of his mouth.
4. Clayton is hanged in Tarzan
Say what you want about the Tarzan movie and/or Phil Collins, but the villain is a pretty great creep. The classic evil poacher archetype, Clayton chews scenery like Tim Curry in a bubble gum factory. His enthusiasm for slaughter carries throughout the movie to the climactic battle. Even when Tarzan wraps him in vines in order to slow him down, Clayton will do anything to set himself free, up to and including slicing the only thing keeping him alive.
Clayton goes out like so many Disney big-bads, hoisted on the petard of his own butt-chinned hubris. But rather than going to the same ambigious death as Gaston (and Frollo, and Ratigan, and the bad guy from Ninja Turtles III), the vines around Clayton's neck tighten as he drops. At first you think Disney is satisfied with showing us the tightened noose and leaving the particulars of the impromptu lynching to our nightmares, but the truth is illuminated by a lightning strike.
That's our Clayton, now a slack and motionless corpse. Judging from the shadow, the vines snapped Clayton's neck, killing him instantly. But hey, it's a cartoon, right? Maybe he's only paralyzed from the neck down, and he has to live out his final seconds in helpless agony as he struggles in vain for breath while his brain slowly dies. It's a pretty happy ending compared to the horrors of Toy Story..
3. Woody and Buzz witness the demise of Combat Carl
Everyone remembers Sid from Toy Story. The sadistic toy-torturing monster child made a swell villain for the original movie -- he's stuck with audiences to the point that crazed website writers are still fabricating backstories about the character. Sid's staying power is in part thanks to his memorable introduction. In order to properly convey the threat Sid poses to the toys, Pixar offered up a sacrifice.
Poor Combat Carl. He died so that we would feel slightly more concerned for the well-being of Woody and Buzz while they're in Sid's house. But hey, at least it was quick, right? An M-80 at that size has to mean instant death for a one-ounce plastic man.
2. The end of The Black Cauldron puts Indiana Jones to shame
Remember The Black Cauldron? It's okay, Disney doesn't either. It was this wild, dark, gory acid trip that got lost in Michael J. Fox's tyrannical reign, released between Back to the Future and Teen Wolf. Right before The Little Mermaid basically saved Disney, the overblown Black Cauldron almost destroyed it. The movie centers on some kids hunting after the titular recepticle, which is capable of creating an army of the undead. Though the skeleton soldiers are pretty gnarly, the worst part comes when the Cauldron's magic tears up the villain.
The flesh is being rended from this guy's body and then bursting into flames. He's becoming a skeleton before our eyes. In a Disney movie. And that's not even all of it.
Yeah, people melt and combust at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but you never see living bones rattling in anguish as their soul is ignited by hellfire. Disney cartoons usually end on a happy note, but it's hard to celebrate after someone was just turned inside out and immolated.
1. Mulan, the mass murderer
We know Mulan is a soldier. She's in the middle of a war, and people die in wars. That's just how it goes. When she blows up Shan Yu in a clear homage to True Lies, it's only the nature of the beast. The Hun knew to expect some casualties when they come charging towards Mulan and crew. But they weren't expecting Mulan to cause an avalanche on a mountainside that happens to include hundreds, maybe thousands of soldiers.
That right there is probably the biggest on-screen deathtoll of any Disney movie in history. And while all but like three Huns are convienently erased by the avalanche, those deaths aren't instantaneous. Sure, some of the enemy soldiers are probably killed right away when they meet the wall of snow rushing down the slope at breackneck speeds -- but the rest of them will be buried alive. With the snowpack preventing movement and blocking off the air supply, anyone still living under the snowdrift will be imprisoned in an icy hell for around 20 minutes before they suffocate. This isn't to mention all the horses the Hun were riding, innocent animals who will die alone, panicked and confused. There's no indication that the hero who just condemened hundreds to an awful fate has any remorse, or say, still hears their muffled moans beneath the snowdrift at night.
So yeah, Mulan's a soldier. But that doesn't mean she's not a mass murderer.
Source: Dorkly
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