7. Expedition Everest

Image: Disney

Location: Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Expedition Everest isn’t just one of the tallest, fastest, and wildest roller coasters in Disney’s typically-more-timid coaster portfolio… it’s also one of the most mysterious. If fear of the unknown is at the heart of so many of the attractions on this list, Everest would be a master class in the phobia. Looming over Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the amazing Himalayan mountain range is further underscored by distant chimes, the chilling sound of the winter wind, and occasional distant roars.

On board, guests are seated in trains once used to transport tea leaves down from the mountain and make way for base camp at Everest via a new shortcut through the Forbidden Mountain pass. Things... don't go as planned. What follows is intense – a forward/backward roller coaster through the pitch black innards of the peak, an 80-foot dive, and a face-to-paw encounter with the dreaded guardian Yeti. We dissected the truth behind this cryptid, the making of Everest, and the ride's problematic antagonist in its own in-depth feature, Modern Marvels: Expedition Everest. But just know that the impressively forboding ride ranks among the most harrowing, wild adventures in Disney's portfolio... A true masterpiece of fright.

6. Phantom Manor

Image: Disney

Location: Disneyland Paris

Even before a shovel of dirt had shifted on Disneyland Paris’ construction, the French had outright rebelled against the very idea of an idea as tied to American culture, commercialism, and consumerism moving into their back yard. So when designers set to work on developing Disneyland Paris, they knew that they’d need to throw out the rulebook and reinvent Disneyland’s rides – even classics – to suit a new, romantic, European story and setting.

Forget grim, grinning ghosts, silly spooks, or happy haunts.

Phantom Manor is a deeply operatic, dramatic, literary take on the Haunted Mansion. Brilliantly, it’s wrapped up into a larger continuity that covers the entirety of the park’s Frontierland (here, the village of Thunder Mesa), giving Phantom Manor an actual story that we see unfold.

Image: Disney

In this one-of-a-kind ride, we learn of the miserly Mr. Ravenswood – proprietor of the Big Thunder Mountain Mining Company – and his beautiful daughter, Melanie who lived in a grand chateau overlooking Thunder Mesa. But when Melanie fell for a lowly miner, Mr. Ravenswood vowed to stop their wedding if it was the last thing he ever did… and it was. Upon his death, a mysterious Phantom appeared, hanging Melanie’s fiancé from the rafters and fracturing the once grand home from the rest of Thunder Mesa, cursing Melanie’s spirit to forever wait for her lost love.

Phantom Manor isn’t just touching… it’s scary. Dilapidated halls lead past Melanie’s spirit as she gradually ages and decays; the disfigured, cackling Phantom follows throughout, even burying riders in a fresh grave to join rotting corpses and desperate skeletons… We descended into the unthinkable history of the Haunted Mansion and the experience of the standout French ride in its own dedicated feature, Modern Marvels: Phantom Manor – a must-read for Haunted Mansion fans… But be warned: it’s enough to keep you up at night.

5. Stitch’s Great Escape

Image: Disney

Location: Magic Kingdom

There’s plenty that scares Disney Parks fans about Stitch’s Great Escape.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention its predecessor, which just fifteen years would’ve topped this list easily. Strapped into seats encircling a massive glass tube, guests became spectators for the grand demonstration of Martian company X-S Tech’s new interstellar teleportation technology. There’s just one problem: when a bloodthirsty alien intercepted the signal and materializes in the tube instead, all hell broke loose. Smashing free and plunging the theater into darkness, 3D audio and sensory effects had guests drooled on, stalked, and even splattered with blood.

We chronicled the terrifying true story of Disney’s scariest attraction ever in its own must-read in-depth feature, Lost Legends: Alien Encounter, but you can guess the finale: parents were petrified that Disney had dropped such a grisly, genuinely horrific experience into the otherwise G-rated Magic Kingdom and practically lined the block around City Hall with complaints.

Image: Disney

Disney’s quick fix was to drop the furry, mischievous alien from Lilo and Stitch into the attraction right at the height of his popularity. Stitch terrorizes guests in the dark in a different way: bouncing painfully on their shoulders, spitting on them, and burping chili dog in their face. The problem is that Stitch’s Great Escape is still too intense for kids, while now being too juvenile for anyone else. It’s a wholly unpleasant, uncomfortable experience that earned its own in-depth feature in the much less celebratory series, Disaster Files: Stitch’s Great Escape.

Stitch’s Great Escape was switched to the ominous “seasonal” status in 2016, but is slated for permanent closure in January 2018… which means it will have lasted nearly twice as long as its revered predecessor.

4. “it’s tough to be a bug”

Location: Disney's Animal Kingdom and Disney California Adventure

From Epcot’s Spaceship Earth to Disney’s Hollywood Studios’ Lost Legend: The Great Movie Ride, attractions housed inside park icons are typically given a prominent position for a reason. More often than not, they’re considered “thesis” attractions, summarizing the mission of the park in one grand showcase. That’s probably why the Imagineers behind Disney’s Animal Kingdom allegedly intended for the Tree of Life to house a production based on The Lion King with its “Circle of Life” sentimentality. But the park’s opening just months before the debut of Pixar’s A Bug’s Life gave Michael Eisner pause, and he decided Animal Kingdom ought to cross-promote the new film.

It’s unlikely that designers intended “it’s tough to be a bug” – ostensibly, a prequel to the G-rated family film – to be (to our count) the fourth scariest attraction currently operating at a Disney park, yet here we are. Sure, 4-D films always inspire anxiety (when am I going to inevitably be sprayed? Blasted with air?) but “it’s tough to be a bug” takes it to the next level. Our hero Flik invites us to his showcase of insect adaptations, meant to give us some overdue appreciation for the creatures so many of us detest… Nevermind that that includes a termite spraying us with “acid,” a tarantula launching “poison quills” at us, and a stink bug stinking up the theater…

As if that’s not bad enough, soon the villainous Hopper arrives (in the form of a grotesque, larger-than-life animatronic). In an instant, he fills the massive auditorium with noxious “bug spray” (in one of the most impressive pressurized fog releases in the industry), directing wasps to sting us in the back and sending black widows rappelling from the ceiling to within inches of guests. In most every showing, families can be heard scrambling for the exits as chaos and cries overtake the entire theater.