Frances (Erin Chambers) is a slightly awkward teen growing up in a shockingly average American town \u2013 at least, until strange things start happening. First, everyone\u2019s alarm clocks jump forward by three hours. Then the town\u2019s entire population of dogs end up on the roofs of their homes. The high school swimming pool is filled with gelatin. Lockers are spray-painted with a mysterious B. Chaos reigns. And although the quiet, geeky Frances seems like the last person to be at the heart of the town\u2019s problems, she quickly falls under suspicion. And it certainly doesn\u2019t help matters that she can see a young man who calls himself Larry Houdini (Ty Hodges), claims to be an imaginary friend, and is invisible to everyone else. Larry believes that a malevolent Boogeyman is responsible for all of this trouble \u2013 a Boogeyman, it seems, who has chosen to target Frances in particular. What\u2019s a Disney girl to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t Look Under the Bed<\/em> is basically kids\u2019 horror in sicko mode. It feels like a throwback to the so-called family-friendly horror movies that traumatized and delighted a generation of kids a decade earlier. The creature design for the Boogeyman is top notch, all long, spindly fingernails and menacing teeth. The surreal quality of not just the horror elements, but the seemingly everyday life of Frances\u2019 family, make Don\u2019t Look Under the Bed<\/em> feel off-kilter from the very beginning. And it functions as a primer for budding body horror fans, as Larry slowly and agonizingly begins to transform into a Boogeyman, a process experienced by imaginary friends whose children stop believing in them prematurely. In addition to all the horror elements, it also packs a heavy emotional wallop. Frances\u2019 efforts to grow up too quickly are in response to her younger brother\u2019s cancer diagnosis, and her guilt over not being a match to donate bone marrow to him. The idea of trauma and repressed anxiety curdling into a physical manifestation of a monster might not be fully registered by a child, but its emotional implications certainly are. This movie \u2013 it\u2019s a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the fear factor of Don\u2019t Look Under the Bed<\/em> came at a cost to the Disney Channel. When it first premiered on October 9, 1999, there were some clear indications that there might be trouble. First of all, it was only the second DCOM to earn a TV-PG rating (following Can of Worms<\/em>, a science fiction TV movie that came out earlier the same year). Director Kenneth Johnson knew that they were treading a very fine line \u2013 he spoke to Entertainment Weekly<\/em><\/a> in 2017 about decisions they had made to tone down the Boogeyman and make him a little less frightening. But their efforts to make the film kid-friendly didn\u2019t fully appease Disney executives \u2013 or concerned parents. \u201cThere were a number of meetings where we’d talked about the tone and what [Disney] wanted it to be \u2014 scary but not too scary,\u201d he explained. \u201cThat’s the bar we kept trying to find. Everybody thought we had hit it until they started getting derogatory mail after it aired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Almost immediately, complaints from parents began pouring in, and Disney brought the hammer down on Don\u2019t Look Under the Bed<\/em>. They limited how often it was aired on the network \u2013 unlike its more sedate counterpart, Halloweentown<\/em>, which is shown on a loop during the fall season every year, Don\u2019t Look Under the Bed<\/em> stopped being aired around Halloween back in 2006, and it has only recently been added to Disney+. They also adjusted their production strategy to minimize risk, making sure that all future Halloween releases would meet the standards of even the strictest mom. (Is this early evidence of Disney\u2019s pattern of kowtowing to the demands of audiences, embracing unimaginative but safe ideas at the expense of more interesting projects? Well \u2026 yes.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n So now one of the Disney Channel\u2019s most unique, emotionally intelligent original movies is also one of its least seen. Don\u2019t Look Under the Bed<\/em> may be well-remembered by former Disney kids who were a very specific age when it first came out, but it\u2019s been largely buried in the network\u2019s larger canon. Shunned by reactionary parents for the very qualities that make it so much fun, Don\u2019t Look Under the Bed<\/em> represents one of Disney Channel\u2019s most imaginative outings, as well as a reminder of how ruthlessly fickle the network can be in disavowing one of its creations at the first sign of parental discontent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Don’t Look Under the Bed” is streaming on Disney+<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dont-look2-1024x576.jpeg\")
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