15 Obscure Childhood Movies I Genuinely Thought I Hallucinated

01
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (2000)

via Mike Young Productions | Universal Studios Home Video
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This is probably the weirdest Christmas movie ever – yes, even weirder than the stop motion Rudolph movies. This film was apparently a straight-to-video adaptation of a fantasy book by Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz. It is a strangely, and perhaps rightfully, pagan telling of the life of Santa Claus. Despite literally being called Saint Nick, there isn't much mention of the bible. Instead there are fairies, nymphs, and shapeshifting pixies. There is actually a stop-motion adaptation of this same story from 1985, but I have yet to see it, and I hope to keep it that way.
02
The Black Cauldron (1985)

via Walt Disney Productions
I had this movie dubbed on a VHS tape. Actually, as soon as the credits started rolling, the tape would immediately cut to a recording of the 1954 Peter Pan musical, but I digress. This movie was really unpopular largely because it's pretty horrifying despite being marketed for children. My 4-year-old brain didn't find it too spooky. In fact, all I really remember about it was thinking that hairy little monster was painfully aggravating.
03
The Pagemaster (1994)

via Colbath | Hanna-Barbera
I used to rent this movie from Blockbuster and watch it on long car rides with my portable DVD player. I loved it so much that I made my parents buy all of the classic novels featured in the movie, and then I never read any of them because I thought they were old and boring. I recently tried to rewatch it and was surprised that I never realized that not only does this movie star a real-life Macaulay Culkin, but the animated boy that he voices is drawn to look like him on purpose. I wasn't a very bright child.
04
MirrorMask (2005)

via The Jim Henson Company
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This is a classic weird girl movie. In high school, I was having my first obsession with a specific director/producer: Jim Henson, especially his weirder stuff. I loved The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. At the time, I didn't realize that Jim Henson did not touch this movie at all because he had passed more than a decade prior to its creation, but it was listed on his website, so I ordered it from Netflix. This movie is literally Shark Boy and Lava Girl for art students. It's an amazing, 3D-generated nightmare that will hit hard if you have a strained relationship with your mother.
05
The Luck of the Irish (2001)

via Just Singer Entertainment | Disney Channel
I confidently explained the plot of this Disney Channel original movie to someone who had never seen it before, and they gaslit me into believing that I made the whole thing up because it is just way too ridiculous.
06
Now You See It... (2005)

via Disney Channel
This isn't the weirdest Disney Channel Original movie to air, but the thing that I recall the most was just how serious and emo it was. It was about a kid magician who enters a competition for young illusionists, and it turns out that he can actually do real magic. By all accounts, it should've been something like a Harry Potter knock-off, but the protagonist was seriously disturbed by his own mediocre magic and constantly throwing angsty little fits. I haven't seen this movie in years, but I can clearly picture his pouting expression in every scene.
07
The Thief Lord (2006)

via Warner Bros. Pictures
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Because of this movie, I desperately dreamed of being an orphan in venice living in a cool abandoned theatre. I ended up loving the book by Cornelia Funke, which eventually led me to being an Inkheart stan.
08
The Little Humpbacked Horse (1947 film)

via Soyuzmultfilm
This is the movie that kickstarted me delving into my past in search of strange movie memories. I searched the internet for hours and hours looking for this movie based off of just a handful of vague memories: a small horse with long ears and two bigger horses with fire for hair racing over hills. I have no idea how I ended up watching this film. I am not Russian, nor do I speak the language. I must have watched a dub, but I have no idea how or why my parents would pick this film out for me.
09
Ferngully (1992)

via 20th Century Fox
This movie is probably not obscure at all if you grew up in the 90s. However, I'm 00s kid, and I only saw this film once in the first grade, and I recall kids needing to leave the room during a scene with skeletons in it.
10
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)

via DreamWorks
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Until I rewatched this movie a couple of years back, my only memories of it were of Eris the Goddess of Chaos. She might have been my first girl crush. Like many Dreamworks movies, this one was really fun to revisit as an adult.
11
The Brave Little Toaster (1987)

via Hyperion Pictures
I don't remember too much about this movie in terms of visuals or plot, but I do remember the feeling of horror and dread that it sparked in me. A quick look at its Wikipedia page tells me all I need to know.
12
The Secret Garden (1993)

via American Zoetrope | Warner Bros.
I started rewatching The Secret Garden every year just after college; it's something of a comfort movie for me now. But before that point, I had only seen it once, and because I seem to have watched it around the same time as The Little Princess (1995), I got a lot of things very, very confused. I distinctly remember being a bit disappointed as a child that there was no overt magic, but I've come to really appreciate the story.
13
The Little Vampire (2000)

via Cometstone Pictures
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The Little Vampire probably kickstarted my interest in anemic goth boys. Furthermore, I saw this film way before I had any grasp on geography, and the protagonist's reaction to moving to Cleveland convinced me that it was a completely different country across the world.
14
Inspector Gadget (1999)

via Walt Disney Pictures
While I remembered the animated Inspector Gadget show, I thought that I had made up memories of the live action movie.
15
Arashi no Yoru ni (One Stormy Night) (2005)

via Sparky Animation
Pretty sure I watched this one on YouTube in parts. I probably ended up there from watching Warrior Cats AMVs and badly-dubbed anime. It's a really sweet movie about an unlikely friendship between a wolf and a goat – not to be confused with another popular, Japanese animated movie, Ringing Bell, about a sheep and a wolf that turns into a pretty dark tale of revenge.