Which is Scarier and More Violent: "Finding Nemo" v. "Sweeney Todd"

Warning: There might be some spoilers in here in case you haven't seen Finding Nemo or Sweeney Todd.

My daughter has joined an art club at her school and they each have chosen a character in Finding Nemo as their avatar. Claire Adele then wanted to re-watch the movie, a movie she loved when she was five and watched dozens of times. She now says that movie was the movie of her childhood. The Boy was two years old during her Nemo phase and he was terrified of it. He would stand outside of the living room, listening to the horror of Marlin being chased by a shark. He refused to watch. (He used to swap the syllables and call it "Mone." It was so cute.)

Last weekend, my daughter's high school performed Sweeney Todd, the musical by Stephen Sondheim. I asked the family via group text message if they wanted to go, and they all said yes. The Boy asked, What's it about? I had never seen the show before, but I had heard about it. I told him it was a horror story/musical about a barber who kills people and then turns them into meat pies. Last year, the high school drama department did The Little Mermaid and Mary Poppins, both of which are suitable for little kids. This one said ages 12 and up. He said okay, but I was worried. Would this be too much for him?

The night before Sweeney Todd, Claire Adele, the Boy and I watched Finding Nemo. None of us had seen it in ten years. I was thinking back to when the Boy was two or three and scared of the movie. I now know why. Like many Disney movies, it is bright and colorful but also would be rated R if it were live action with humans. I began to wonder: which was scarier Nemo or Todd?

About two hours before Sweeney Todd was to start, the boy was looking kind of pale. He decided he didn't want go. "It sounds kind of disturbing," he said. "I don't want to go." Rather than have the Boy have nightmares for two weeks, we let him hang out with a friend instead.

The production of Sweeney Todd was amazing. The young man who played Todd had a deep and wonderful baritone. It was hard to believe he was in high school. Mrs. Lovett was sufficiently deranged, which was a surprise considering the same actress played Mary Poppins last year. I cried at the end.

When I got back, we tallied up the Nemo scenes and compared it to Sweeney Todd. Which is more violent and scarier: a Disney movie or a horror musical?

Finding Nemo	Violent/Scary?
Mother gets eaten by a barracuda	Yes
Nemo gets kidnapped by a human	Yes
Marlin and Dory get chased by sharks	Yes
Undersea bombs get blown up	Yes
Marlin gets eaten and then regurgitated by an anglerfish	Yes
Nemo tried to escape the tank and nearly gets sucked into the spinning blades of the filter	Yes
Marlin and Dory meet a nice school of fish	No
Dory gets stung by a jellyfish and nearly dies	Yes
Dory and Marlin meet nice sea turtles	No
Marlin and Dory get eaten then regurgitated by a whale	Yes
Marlin and Dory get eaten then regurgitated by a pelican	Yes
Nemo tries to escape becoming Darla’s pet	Yes
Marlin and Dory get picked up and taken to the dentist by a pelican	Yes
Marlin sees Nemo and thinks Nemo is dead	Yes
Nemo goes down the drain	Yes
Nemo finds Dory	No
Nemo finds his dad	No
Dory gets caught in a fishing net and Nemo tries to save her	Yes
Total (crude estimate)	14

Sweeney Todd	Violent/Scary?
Benjamin Barker/Sweeney Todd gets off boat from Australia with Antony Hope	No
They sing about London	No
Todd meets Mrs. Lovett who tells him his wife drank poison	Half
Todd wants revenge on the judge who stole his wife and daughter and then sent him to prison for 15 years	Half
Anthony Hope finds Todd’s daughter Johanna	Half
Todd goes back to his old barbershop	No
Todd is on the streets London	No
Todd kills his first victims	Yes
Mrs. Lovett makes bad pies	No
Mrs. Lovett uses people in her pies	Yes
Todd murders loads of people	Yes
More singing and dancing with Anthony Hope	No
At Home with Todd and Lovett	No
Johanna gets sent to the lunatic asylum	No
Anthony rescues Johanna from the asylum	Yes
The Judge visits Todd	Yes
Tragic Ending	Yes
Total (crude estimate)	7.5

I find it deliciously ironic that for the total number of scary scenes in the movie, Nemo is almost twice as violent as Sweeney Todd. The protagonists in spooky and gaunt Todd is a mass murderer, but he really doesn't start acting up until the second act. As far as the characters go, Nemo wins for cheerfulness. The Todd characters are spooky and odd. Nemo has a happy ending while Todd is a tragedy. As my son said, Sweeney Todd was disturbing and I don't think I would show it to a six year old.

Nevertheless, seeing these two back-to-back made me think. No one really gets too badly hurt in Nemo, yet they are constantly in perilous situations. The heroes in Nemo are brave, while Todd is deformed with revenge. But still Nemo is kind of crazy. I've seen action movies with less action. It is surprising what kids will consume when it is presented as a colorful cartoon.