There
is a school of thought, concerning theme park attractions, that says:
Scarier = Better. (It often overlaps with the related Faster = Better
school.) Naturally, it comes to the fore during the fall season, when
temporary Halloween attractions pop up everywhere and try their best
to scare the pants off everyone who pays good money to experience
them, and occasionally succeed.
Disney
theme parks don't usually fare too well on the Scarier = Better
scale. WDI tends to take a middle-of-the-road approach with
attraction content, avoiding both the too-saccharine and the
too-horrific. Exceptions, especially on the too-horrific end of the
scale, come across as “not Disney enough” and may not last as
long as they probably would in someone else's park. It's something of
a pity—it would be nice if the world's finest attraction builders
got to stretch themselves a little more, instead of having to stick
within the bounds of a PG/soft PG-13 rating.
Regardless,
Disney rides are not scary. At least, they don't have a reputation
for being scary. Depending on the guest, they can be quite scary
indeed...not always on purpose! The Haunted Mansion is the obvious
example of a Disney attraction that is considered at least mildly
spooky—so obvious that for this post, I decided it would be more
fruitful to set it aside and talk about others instead.*
So here are—in my estimation—the five scariest non-Haunted
Mansion Disneyland Resort attractions!
(Disclaimer:
None of them actually scare me,
nor ever have. Even when I was little, I think I had too firm a grasp
of reality to be actually frightened by Disneyland. I knew it was all
pretend and couldn't really hurt me.)
