ParaNorman, the animated tale of a boy who saunters around town with a secret ability to see and speak to ghosts, was awarded a comfy PG rating by the MPAA and will probably draw in this weekend's under-13 crowd with no trouble. However, is it just us or is the concept of a kid who sees ghouls and comes to blows with zombies in order to save his town a tad spooky for the kiddies?

Chances are it's good clean fun, but given writer-director Chris Butler's experience with movies which tow the line between having a few frights and scarring a kid for life (he was a storyboard artist on Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, after all), we got to thinking about some other children's movies that were perhaps a little too troubling for the little ones.

With honorable mentions to the formidably traumatizing Little Monsters, Beetlejuice and Jumanji, here are our top nine picks for movies most likely to inspire hiding under the covers. 

9. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Sure, the scare factor is announced right there in the title, but Tim Burton's creeptastic holiday vs. holiday war film "The Nightmare Before Christmas" earned a few unexpected spine shivers. How this animated flick got away with shoving poor Santa Clause into the sinister games at Halloweentown is beyond us. The movie's enough to make a kid glad to discover Father Christmas — er, spoiler alert? — is a figment of fantasy.

Even the "good guys" of this movie are undeniably unsettling.