There are quite a few movies we watched as children, but were not written to be horror movies yet traumatized us nonetheless. One such film is The Secret of NIMH. The movie follows Mrs. Brisby, a sentient mouse trying to relocate her home to avoid the plow of the farmer whose yard she lives in. Her son, Timothy, is sick and cannot move, so Mrs. Brisby seeks help from the rats of NIMH. She soon finds out that the rats and her late husband were the victims of animal testing by NIMH (The National Institute of Mental Health) and have grown in intelligence and have unnaturally long life spans.
Why The Secret of NIMH Traumatized Kids
The combination of terrifying character design, mystical animation, and “cartoon peril” was enough to disturb me as a child. Even the film’s themes are disturbing – animal testing has changed the rats of NIMH so profoundly that they can’t relate to other members of their species. This was lost on me a bit as a child, but upon rewatching The Secret of NIMH as an adult, I realized how disturbing the subject matter was.
The Garage-Made Magic of The Secret of NIMH
The Secret of NIMH is Don Bluth’s first film after leaving Disney. He and a crew of other Disney deserters made the film in Bluth’s garage. The team didn’t cut corners to maximize profit, which contributed to the look of the film. The animators used cel animation, and every cel was handpainted. Another key technique that gives The Secret of NIMH its mystical look is the use of underlighting. Underlighting is an animated lighting process that cuts out parts of the scene to allow light to pass through. One of the ways the rats of NIMH have progressed past their animal counterparts is their use of electricity, so light in general is an important element of the film. Underlighting is used for the glowing eyes of Nicodemus and The Great Owl, two of the film’s powerful mystics.
Scary Character Designs Set This Film Apart
The character designs are very well thought out, but also unsettling. The one which left a lasting impression on me as a child was The Great Owl. Mrs. Brisby goes to the owl for his wisdom, and comes face to face with the bones of small creatures like her as she walks through his lair. The first thing we see of the owl are his gnarled claws escaping the clinging cobwebs to crush a spider underfoot. His aged appearance gives the impression of wisdom, but his looming presence shows he is as powerful as dangerous.
Nicodemus is another character whose design is unnerving. He is one of the rats of NIMH, shrouded in powerful mysticism, much like The Great Owl. However, Nicodemus’ design points more towards the experiments that happened to him at NIMH. Despite his power, he is old and frail – he sits in his room shrouded in shadows with an oversized tunic draped off his skeletal body. He has lived well beyond the lifespan of a normal rat, one of the traits that separates the rats of NIMH from their peers and a central crux of the narrative.
Animal Testing and Isolation
The themes of the movie hit me upon rewatching it as an adult. The rats of NIMH have been experimented on and are so changed that they can’t relate to other rats. They are more like humans (the book the movie is based on even says their intelligence may have surpassed that of humans), and can’t live like normal rats. Mrs. Brisby was completely unaware that her late husband had gone through the terrible trauma of NIMH because he didn’t know how to explain to her that she would grow old and die while he would stay young. The implications are unclear for their children as well, but they are already shown to be smarter than average mice. The gap between the animals affected by NIMH and normal animals is desolate and lonely.
Rewatching The Secret of NIMH as an Adult
The Secret of NIMH is thematically mature and, therefore, still enjoyable for adults to watch. Honestly, if your children want to watch this movie, you might want to watch it with them, not only because it’s a good film but also because it’s terrifying for children. However, the film is still mystical and cartoonish at times, and perhaps less bleak than reality. As my brother pointed out during my rewatch, “If this were real life, Mrs. Brisby would just eat Timothy and be done with it.”