Editorials
Disney’s Terrifying Original Movie ‘Don’t Look Under the Bed’ Turns 20!
Twenty years ago, on October 9, 1999, a Disney Channel Original Movie premiered on television that instilled nightmares for a generation. If you were a kid growing up in the ‘90s, then there’s a high probability this movie and its nightmarish imagery embedded itself into your skull and never left. For many, Don’t Look Under the Bed is considered Disney’s most terrifying original movie. It was one of the rare titles to earn a PG-rating for its scary scenes. Perhaps too scary; the Disney Channel ultimately stopped airing the film at the request of unhappy parents that complained it was too much for their kids to handle. Two decades later, the film is still a standout for its bold take on the boogeyman and grown-up themes.
The movie is set in the small town of Middleberg, where a series of strange pranks is setting its residents on edge. Alarm clocks are going off hours too early, dogs wind up on the roofs of homes, and even the school’s pool is filled with gelatin. All signs seem to point toward teen Frances Bacon McCausland (Erin Chambers) as the prank mastermind. Frances suspects the culprit is new kid Larry Houdini (Ty Hodges), but it quickly becomes clear that only she can see him. It turns out that Larry is an imaginary friend, and Frances’ only ally in her fight against the true villain- a terrifying boogeyman that really has it out for her.
That plot set up doesn’t exactly scream “scary” does it? For a good chunk of the first act, Don’t Look Under the Bed feels like pretty standard Disney fare. Except for one tiny little motif that keeps recurring, indicating something very foreboding ahead; the freaking dolls. Frances is constantly in a state of defense and confusion as the scapegoat of the prankster, so only the audience is aware that something sinister has invaded her home. How? The porcelain dolls in Frances’ room move on their own accord when no one is looking. That’s nightmare fuel for a grown-up, let alone a kid.
As the narrative progresses, the more we get to know and like imaginary friend Larry Houdini. But Larry also starts to undergo bodily and personality changes. It’s not of the puberty variety, either. Poor Larry is slowly transforming into a boogeyman. Gnarly long fingernails. Glowing purple eyes. And the teeth. Sharp, pointy rows of teeth. It’s pretty creepy, actually. Especially when he crawls along the floor. Never mind that this is before Frances’ baby brother is dragged under the bed into a bizarre boogeyman world for an exhilarating third act showdown.
Between the haunting atmosphere, subtle touches, and full-on creepy boogeyman design, it’s not so surprising in hindsight that this movie would have put parents on edge. It is surprising, though, to realize just how mature and timeless the central themes are. Larry is turning into a boogeyman because the child he was attached to stopped believing in him far too soon, before the child was ready. Being forced to face adulthood doesn’t seem outside the norm for Disney, but the why of it is.
It turns out that Larry’s kid buddy was Darwin, Frances’ baby brother. Throughout the film, the McCausland family references Darwin’s former bout with illness. It turns out he’s in remission from Leukemia, and Frances pushed Darwin to shun his imaginary friend out of her own fears. It’s not just growing up too soon that permeates this film, it’s the tangible and adult fears of death. Of cancer or illness that threaten to claim your loved ones. When Darwin crawls into his sister’s bed and confesses that he’s afraid to get sick again, it’s heartbreakingly mature. Don’t Look Under the Bed offers up the one-two punch of both supernatural and real-world horrors.
Disney has been on a spree announcing exclusive titles for their upcoming streaming service, including tons of Disney Channel Originals. Luckily, they’ve announced this movie as part of its exclusive offerings. Don’t Look Under the Bed earned its PG rating and its reputation as “too scary for kids.” Even twenty years later, its unexpected depth and complex approach to the scares still holds up well. This one deserves to haunt a whole new generation.
Steven Spielberg has always been conversant in the cinematic language of the horror genre, despite relatively few credits in the genre. His contributions as a writer and producer on things like Poltergeist are legendary, and films like Duel and Jaws certainly wield the horror genre in remarkable, often chilling ways. He may not be a horror filmmaker, but he knows when he needs to scare us, and he has the tools to make that happen.
I didn’t go into Disclosure Day, Spielberg’s alien epic, expecting outright horror, and indeed the film leans much more into thrilling than frightening. This is not a horror film, but for a few minutes in the middle, much to my surprise, it became one.
Spielberg has filmed more than his fair share of scary scenes over the years, but with Disclosure Day, he directed a new contender for the scariest scene of his entire career.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Disclosure Day!
Josh O’Connor in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
Among the various alien secrets laced throughout Disclosure Day are a trio of palm-sized rods, the color of pencil graphite. These rods, originating from another planet, can be used for a number of things, but for the purposes of this scene, the most important is “diving,” gripping the rod in one bare hand and using its power to “dive” into the mind of another person.
The person holding the rod in this scene is Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), head of shadowy cybersecurity firm Wordex, who is hellbent on keeping human knowledge of extraterrestrials secret from the general public. Scanlon’s trying to find whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), who’s got all of those alien secrets tucked in a backpack while he’s on the run, and while Daniel’s more experienced mind is protected from diving, his girlfriend Jane’s (Eve Hewson) is not. So, monitored by medical personnel at Wordex headquarters (diving is dangerous), Scanlon pushes his way into Jane’s mind to find the location of Daniel’s safe house.
A telepathic invasion is scary enough on its own, but Spielberg doesn’t stop there. When Scanlon dives into Eve’s mind, he appears to her to be sitting across the kitchen table, like he’s in the room. Her bright blue eyes turn Scanlon’s dark brown, and she loses much of her control over her own body, not to mention her mind. Moments before, Daniel finally shared with her the secrets in his backpack, so Jane is shocked, conflicted, deeply vulnerable when Scanlon slips inside her head. This is not just telepathy. This is possession.
Spielberg underscores this not just through the visual language of the scene, as Jane breaks out in a sweat and struggles to sit upright as Scanlon invades her mind, but through Jane’s background. As she revealed to Daniel earlier in the film, Jane is a former novitiate nun who left her convent when she began to question her calling. She still believes firmly in God and, more importantly, believes that perhaps proof of alien life should be kept secret from the public because, in her eyes, it would upset the entire balance of faith in the world. God is a defining factor for humankind, Jane argues, and showing humanity proof of creatures from the stars would undercut that in dangerous ways.
This context, combined with the crucifix necklace Jane’s holding in her hand at the time of the dive, makes this scene the closest thing Spielberg will ever shoot to something out of The Exorcist. It’s not just a battle of wills, but a battle of faith. As an amoral technocrat worms his way into her memories, her beliefs, her faith, Jane turns the crucifix into a weapon, squeezing it until her hand bleeds when she discovers that a pain response can momentarily push Scanlon out of her head.
Of course, when you put a crucifix and a bloody hand together, it conjures images of stigmata. Screenwriter David Koepp pushes the allusion further by having Scanlon quote Christ on the cross to Jane by way of convincing her that she must be the one to stop Daniel by any means necessary.
It’s easy to see why this is scary, right?
On a very basic level, you have a powerful, wealthy man subduing and assaulting an innocent young woman, which is frightening enough. Then, the layers of the scene kick in. Scanlon doesn’t just assault Jane, but possesses her, seizes her memories, her knowledge, and finally her own free will, all while Jane literally clings to her faith in an effort to fight back. Disclosure Day is, among other things, a story about who has a right to the truth, and Scanlon believes that he should be the arbiter of that truth. Not just the truth as he sees it, but the truth as Jane sees it as well. If they don’t see eye to eye, he’ll make her.
But the possession, as it turns out, cuts both ways. Using the rod to dive is, for a normal human being, an intensely strenuous process. Scanlon admits that previous attempts almost killed him, and for some members of his time, so much as touching the rod results in a near-death experience. Even accessing an unprepared mind like Jane’s takes a lot of Scanlon, and when she kicks him out by squeezing the crucifix – again, so much meaning embedded in the details here – his team holds him back and tries to offer medical intervention. But Scanlon persists, pushing them away, and keeps diving back in.
This means that Jane can’t escape him because he just won’t stop pushing back through her defenses, but it also means that each time Scanlon enters her mind, and thus the safe house, he looks more monstrous. By the end, through a combination of lighting and makeup, Firth barely looks human, conjuring up images of the possessed Father Karras at the end of The Exorcist.
Colin Firth (center, standing) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
On a pure, visceral craft level, all of this is quite frightening, but the real trick to making this scene into Spielberg’s most terrifying lies in the more existential horror surrounding all of this. Disclosure Day is a film about the battle for the truth over extraterrestrials, but it’s also about a fight against an impossibly powerful surveillance state, the devaluing of human and alien lives in favor of some nebulous collection of assets, and the value of the individual in a world that increasingly lumps people into demographic boxes and writes them off.
In this scene, the surveillance state becomes supernatural, a human life is worth less than a piece of information, and an extragovernmental technocrat would rather sacrifice his own humanity than see reason. In 2026, few things could be more terrifying than that. Spielberg knows this and wields it mightily, proving once again that, while he’s not a strictly horror filmmaker, he can direct horror with the best of them.
Disclosure Day is in theaters now.
Eve Hewson (second from left) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
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