Peter Pan Killed The Lost Boys In The Book, And 16 Other Movies Whose Sources Are Way Darker Than The Film

I'll never watch Tangled the same way again...

1. A 17th-century Italian story called Cenerentola, on which the European version of Cinderella is based, involves a forced marriage to a king and not one, but six, wicked stepsisters.

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Zezolla, the original Cinderella, escapes marriage from the king twice before the monarch eventually catches her. And in the later Brothers Grimm adaptation, the ugly sisters cut off their toes to fit the gold (rather than glass) slipper. Doves also peck their eyes out after Cinderella's eventual marriage to the Prince.

2. In the Grimm story of Rapunzel, on which Tangled is based, the prince and Rapunzel end up wandering blindly through the forest for years.

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After the witch learns Rapunzel's been speaking to the Prince, she banishes her from the tower and leaves her to wander the forest alone for years. When the Prince learns this, he flings himself from the tower, blinding himself.

"Blind, he wandered about in the forest, eating nothing but grass and roots, and doing nothing but weeping and wailing over the loss of his beloved wife. Thus he wandered about miserably for some years, finally happening into the wilderness where Rapunzel lived miserably with the twins that she had given birth to," the book reads. A bit less romantic than the lanterns scene, right?

3. Despite its reputation as a dark and violent movie, the book of American Psycho is even more grim.

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Not only does Patrick Bateman kill about twice as many people in the novel as in the film, but he's also much more homophobic, and murders a child in the book. The descriptions are also more graphic in the movies — including an instance where he bites his ex-girlfriend's fingers off after killing her.

4. Disney's The Little Mermaid is based on a very, very dark Hans Christian Anderson tale.

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In the original story, Ariel cuts out her tongue to meet her prince — who later does not marry her, wedding the princess he believed saved him instead. Walking on land is agonising to Ariel, like walking on knives, in the book. To go back to being a mermaid, Ariel must stab the prince. 

"She has given us a knife: here it is, see it is very sharp. Before the sun rises you must plunge it into the heart of the prince; when the warm blood falls upon your feet they will grow together again, and form into a fish’s tail, and you will be once more a mermaid," the story reads. Instead, Ariel sacrifices herself.

5. The book of Coraline is even darker than the movie.

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Though the film is pretty creepy, the book is even grimmer, with one scene showing tar oozing from The Other Mother's wound ("[the cat] hissed, and swiped its scalpel-sharp claws at the other mother’s face in one wild rake which left black ooze trickling from several gashes on the other mother’s nose”). In the novel, Coraline sees The Other Father brutally mutilated in the basement for giving away too much information, too.

6. The novel of Forrest Gump shows a gruffer, more cursing-friendly hero — and an even sadder ending.

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Though the fate of his relationship with the terminally ill Jenny in the film is tragic, in the book, she takes Forrest's son and runs off with another man. And in the novel, the classic box of chocolate line reads: “being an idiot is no box of chocolates."

7. Jurassic Park's novel had a much meaner John Hammond — and completely different deaths.

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In the novel, Hammond blames everyone else for the tragedies in his park, even trying to keep it open after multiple maulings. Ian Malcolm also dies in the novel (though he later gets resurrected), and John Hammond dies by being slowly eaten alive. Also, stowaway raptors are hiding on a supply ship in the novel — so there's extra time pressure to board the ship and turn it around.

8. Snow White is based on a Brothers Grimm story which saw a pretty, well, grim end for the witch.

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In the original story, the queen attends the wedding between Snow White and the Prince and is forced to literally dance until she dies in red-hot iron slippers. (Side note — between the Little Mermaid's walking agony, Cinderella's sisters chopping her toes off, and this, what was their fixation with women with sore feet??)

9. In Victor Hugo's book The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Esmeralda meets a tragic fate.

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Unlike in the Disney film, Hugo's Archdeacon Frollo hangs Esmerelda and Quasimodo kills him in revenge. Then, Quasimodo mourns over Esmerelda's grave until he literally starves to death. Their skeletons are later found intertwined in her grave.

10. The original Sleeping Beauty by Giambattista Basile is very, very dark.

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In the (horrific) original story, a king passes Talia (sleeping beauty)'s home when his falcon goes into her room. He follows the bird and finds the unconscious woman, leaving her pregnant with twins (while she is still asleep). His wife, the Queen, finds out, and attempts to feed her children to him in a pie before lighting a fire to burn Talia on; the King finds out and burns the Queen instead. 

11. Peter is a much, much worse person in the Divergent books than he is in the movies.

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In the novel, Peter is unafraid to use violence to rise the ranks in the Dauntless — this includes stabbing a fellow contestant in the eye. He also grabs Tris inappropriately during a kidnapping in the book.

12. As if The Shining wasn't scary enough, the book it's based on shows Jack Torrance taking a roque mallet to his own face.

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Danny's father is unrecognisable after the self-inflicted moment, which is graphically described in the book.

13. The Pursuit of Happyness shows an intense level of physical abuse between a young Chris Gardner and his stepfather which we never see in the film.

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The author describes horrific abuse in his biography which leads to "nightmares" and fears about being killed by his guardian.

14. The book of The Life Of Pi is much, much more graphic than the movie.

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In the novel, we don't know that Richard Parker is a tiger at first — and in the book, Pi uses his circus skills to train the tiger much more successfully and plots to kill him often. The tiger kills a man stranded at sea in the book, which is missing in the movie; the hyena also slowly and tortuously kills the zebra over the course of multiple days, then beheads the orangutan. This is far less graphic and lingering in the movie.

15. Alice has a much more ~intense~ backstory in the Twilight books than in the movies.

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The books go into way more detail about the Cullens' backstories than the movies, and Alice's is particularly tragic. In the novels, she was considered a witch by her townspeople in her youth and is subjected to torture (including electrotherapy) after being sent to an asylum by her dad. She becomes a vampire when a vampire in the hospital takes pity on her and converts her.

16. Though The Road is already an extremely dark film, the book by Cormac McCarthy is even more disturbing.

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The book contains a scene in which the father and son find a child cooking on a campfire, which (understandably) does not make it to the film. The marauders are also far, far worse in the books (if you can believe it).

17. And last but not least, yet another Disney shout-out — the J.M. Barrie book was way, way darker than the Peter Pan film.

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Peter slaughtered pirates willy-nilly in the book, and also murdered The Lost Boys; “The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out.”  He was also generally far more violent and cruel in the novels. 

Can you think of any other examples? Let us know in the comments below!