The Darkest Disney Attractions You Didn’t Realize Were So Sinister

While Walt Disney World may be the happiest place on earth (or is that Disneyland resort? Tokyo Disneyland? maybe just the Disney Parks in general? “The Most Magical Place on Earth” works, too), in several places, some of that happiness is tinged with quite a bit of sadness, the macabre, or even quite gruesome implications.

And, no, we’re not talking about every parent of a toddler at around 3 p.m. or the folks arguing over spots for the parades or fireworks show. We mean the darkest rides at Walt Disney World (several of which, ironically, are actual dark rides) in terms of their tone, storyline, and characters, not just the level of lighting (otherwise Space Mountain would rate pretty highly!). These are the attractions that may seem fun and harmless on the surface but that when you dig a little deeper turn out to be a bit on the disturbing side.

Which rides and attractions made the cut? Read on to find out as we explore the five darkest Walt Disney World rides!

1) The Haunted Mansion

Let’s start out with the most obvious dark ride for such a list, the Disney park‘s classic haunted house attraction. Except for a scared caretaker and his dog (and perhaps a few spiders and a raven?), every single animatronic figure on The Haunted Mansion at the Magic Kingdom is dead. Every single name we hear mentioned or we read about outside the Mansion? Also dead. The Cast Members forced to wear black and dark green in the Florida summer? Rapidly dying from heat exhaustion.

A haunted house is meant to be scary and ghostly, and even the gentle spooks of the family-friendly Haunted Mansion must bow to that genre convention a little. Of the 999 ghosts in the Mansion, many are there because of gruesome deaths, ranging from self-inflicted hanging to a pistol duel to axe murder. Sure, they may be “happy haunts” now, but odds are they didn’t enjoy their path to the Mansion’s gates.

Oh, and let’s not forget that part in the script where the Ghost Host flat-out threatens to murder you if you take too long getting onto your Doom Buggy.

RELATED: Spotlight On Walt Disney World‘s Haunted Mansion

2) The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

At Disney’s Hollywood Studio’s Tower of Terror thrill ride, you don’t need to worry about threats of murder; you get to live out the last moments on Earth of five (fictional) human beings, including a child.

Presumably, on that fateful “stormy night, long ago” when “five people stepped through the door of an elevator and into a nightmare,” they encountered a spooky, Twilight-Zone-like scenario which ended with them falling to their deaths. Or at least falling into another dimension, where it’s hard to imagine they discovered the lives they’d always secretly dreamed of living (that would be a Steven Spielberg attraction, not a Rod Serling one).

So, when the elevator/ride vehicle that Guests are sitting in drops, are we meant to think that we, too, have died?

Well, probably not. We’re given “A warm welcome back to those of you who made it,” implying that we’re fine, though perhaps some other Guests in our car didn’t make it. Hopefully, they were the ones who would have fought over parade seating later that night.

RELATED: OpEd: Tower of Terror Is Better Than Guardians of the Galaxy – Here’s Why

3) The Pirates of the Caribbean

Much like the ghosts of the Haunted Mansion, the eponymous pirates in the Magic Kingdom‘s Pirates of the Caribbean are deliberately cartoonish (in the style of wonderful artist and designer Marc Davis, who worked on both of these dark rides) in order to create a sense of whimsy and humor. They’re rascals and rapscallions looking to get drunk, sing a jaunty song, and hang out with some pigs in the mud.

But picture for a minute how you would feel if you were a citizen of the town that the pirates have invaded. These are violent men breaking into your homes and stores, torturing your neighbors in search of hidden treasure, and (in previous iterations of the ride) literally chasing after and enslaving women. Suddenly these boys are a bit less rascally and a lot more rapacious.

Perhaps the darkest aspect of this ride is that we’re meant to identify with the pirates. Even though we know that in the end they get earn comeuppance – they don’t get their hands on the treasure and, as we see in the first scene at the start of the ride, they’re all naught but skeletons today – we’re still supposed to laugh at their antics and ignore the darker implications thereof.

RELATED: Which of Disney’s 5 Pirates of the Caribbean Attractions Is Best?

4) DINOSAUR

Speaking of dark implications, Animal Kingdom‘s DINOSAUR shows us the end of the world.

Well, the end of a world at least. A Jurassic World, if you will (which you shouldn’t, because the attraction is set in the last few minutes of the Cretaceous period, not the Jurassic).

Guests on DINOSAUR – a ride system combining a dark ride and a thrill ride – go back in time on a rogue mission to rescue an Iguanodon from the extinction event that killed the dinosaurs. Along the way, we encounter a variety of scary dinos, including Velociraptors and a particularly nasty Carnotaurus, as we dodge meteor impacts and try to get back to our time before an asteroid strike that ends three-quarters of all life on Earth.

Though we narrowly escape the impact in the final scene, what Guests leave behind them is the single greatest moment of mass death and extinction in the entire history of the world. Sort of makes the Haunted Mansions 999 ghosts feel like small potatoes in comparison.

RELATED: 8 Totally Cool Things About Dinosaur At Walt Disney World

5) Kali River Rapids

You may have noticed that as this list goes on the “dark” aspects get a little more real for each ride. That’s why we have to end with maybe the “most realistic” and scariest ride at Walt Disney World, Animal Kingdom‘s Kali River Rapids.

At any other theme park, this would just be a run-of-the-mill river rapids ride system, simulating the experience of whitewater rafting with mild physical thrills and a whole lot of water drenching Guests. But at a Disney park, where story comes first, this type of attraction is turned into a warning about man’s impact on the environment.

What begins as a pleasurable, smooth ride through a beautiful tropical jungle turns much choppier and more violent when we encounter signs of humanity in the form of chainsaw sounds, smoke, charred tree stumps, and even a logging truck. We literally feel how this illegal logging and habitat destruction is changing the environment, turning a quiet river water ride into a bumpy, churning fight for our lives.

Ever since Kilimanjaro Safaris removed its poaching plotline, Kali River Rapids has stood as Animal Kingdom‘s strongest message about the dangers of what happens when mankind doesn’t live in harmony with our environment. DINOSAUR shows us how a previous extinction was caused by an asteroid; Kali River Rapids shows how, if we’re not careful, the next extinction will be caused by our own activities.

Now that’s dark.

RELATED: 8 Totally Cool Things About Kali River Rapids At Walt Disney World

Honorable Mention – Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

Though it doesn’t make the list because it’s no longer at WDW (though its Disneyland resort forebearer is still going strong), we couldn’t possibly make a list of the darkest Walt Disney World rides without mentioning the much-missed Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, the only Disney attraction that literally ends with you going to hell.

RELATED: How Disney World Could Bring Back Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in a Brand New Way

Looking for Mr. Toad at Walt Disney World today? Unless you are lucky enough to score the iconic character’s limited-edition popcorn bucket, your best bet ironically enough is to visit the pet cemetery by the exit of the Haunted Mansion!