We all may disagree on which adult animated show is truly the best,
but say what you want about The Simpsons… The Treehouse of Horror
Halloween Specials are some of the best holiday cartoon specials of all time.
Now, we’ve recently covered Treehouse of Horror in our Good-to-Evil series,
but there’s still one question to answer: After all these years,
what stories from the treehouse topped the list as the most horrible, bloody and traumatic?
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge and these are The Top 5 Most Gruesome Treehouse of Horror Stories.
To clarify, there’s been a lot of creative and not so creative deaths during the Halloween specials.
For this list we’re going to place moments that hit a little close to home.
Things that involve very realistic reactions
rather than puns and jokes... And stories that made us rethink how we feel about our favorite
characters. We’ll be including the moments that stuck with us long after the episode was over.
#5 Eating Children
Springfield Elementary is not known for being the best school in the district.
It’s a running gag that they are one of the worst,
with low test scores, poor attendance, poor equipment and a bunch of other issues.
One Halloween story in particular had a fun way to demonstrate how sometimes the staff had to be
creative with budget cuts. It was Skinner that wound up having the idea to cook the children
in order to not only cover costs but have a way to permanently deal with the trouble
making students. This is a story that sticks with audiences young
and old since cannibalism is a very dark concept to contemplate... There have been
instances of cannibalism where survival was slim in harsh environments... But
also instances of people who simply want to indulge in human flesh for pleasure.
This is made even more frightening when we see that this act was carried out by
people the children should have been able to trust. The act of eating kids turned the staff
into hungry and remorseless monsters that did little else except plan their next kill.
And even worse? The parents and other residents of the town didn’t even seem to notice! It was the
kids that figured out what was happening. Watching this episode as a kid was pretty unsettling…
Like other Treehouse of Horror plots, this was noncanon and was even written off as
being a dream in the short, but waking up to be turned inside out due to a dangerous fog
wasn’t the best situation to be in either. We can wager that no one misses seeing the
Simpsons family screaming in agony as their insides become their outsides.
And the cherry on top? Seeing Bart scream out as the dog tried feasting on him.
There’s no doubt that this whole special created a morbid standard to how future specials would go,
with the gore factor being turned up in following specials.
#4 Willie Krueger
Willie is normally a hero-or at least attempted hero-in many of the Treehouse of Horror stories
he’s shown in. He tried saving kids from cannibalistic teachers, tried helping Homer
get back to his timeline and even helped Bart with his ‘shinning’ as Willie called it. But in
this short story, he was driven by revenge against the parents he thought were responsible for his
demise. And all because Homer couldn't understand the note the groundskeeper left in the hall.
It isn’t that Willie is a villain that has this spot on the list, but more what he causes. Seeing
Martin scream in terror, unable to ask for help as he dies was a mortifying moment.
Freddy Krueger movies always had a good bit of comedy to them,
but the actual idea of someone killing you as you sleep is still a very scary thought
to have. It’s an incredibly vulnerable moment and one you can’t escape... And seeing these beloved
characters that are normally indestructible actually be defeated like this is unsettling.
After all, even in the Halloween shorts, a death is normally accompanied by a joke or
something else to lighten the mood. But in this story, like many others on the list,
we’re just left with feeling the same suspense and fear that the characters on screen do,
being faced with the fact that any of them could die once faced with the angry groundskeeper.
Plus, we also want to mention that Willie can be a force of nature even in the canon episodes. The
guy wrestles with wolves and is known for having a bad temper, so pair that with having supernatural
abilities and the determination to take out a class of children and you have one scary guy.
#3 Organ Collecting Frinkenstein
Professor Frink is one of those characters we don’t get to see much development on.
The Treehouse of Horror series seems to be where he shows up the most,
giving input on fearful and mass panic producing situations.
But one story in particular revealed not only more of his own backstory but his fathers.
We learn that Frink kept his father frozen,
hoping to be able to help the man he idolized after he was attacked by a shark.
This would backfire, with his father not liking having a large part of his body replaced with
machinery. While Frink’s ability to bring back his father was admired by the scientific community,
John Frink Sr went on to replace his missing organs by literally
ripping them out of the residents of Springfield.
In his pursuit to be more human, he wound up turning himself into a monster.
When Frink was being given the Nobel Prize, his father went on a crazed rampage,
ripping the brains out of every scientist in attendance. We have to place this on the list
since it was not only horrible seeing the victims suffer as John ripped out their spines and hearts,
but seeing Frink having to take out the man he once idolized. And seeing a bunch
of scientists’ skulls being twisted open for their brains was a disturbing image.
#2 Long Neck Bart
When Homer is stuck with a curse from a gypsy,
the members of the Simpsons family are cursed with various inconveniences.
Marge gets a full body of thick hair, Lisa slowly becomes more of a horse,
and Maggie becomes a bug. The one that stood out during this tale was how Bart
suffered with a horribly stretched out neck. This by itself may not sound scary,
but we placed this moment on our list since this did wind up leading to Bart’s death, even after
Homer went through all the trouble of trying to right everything by catching a Leprechaun.
Bart is known as a very resilient character. Even in the Treehouse of Horror episodes, he’s
always bouncing back and rolling with the punches of whatever is happening, even becoming a hero in
many cases. He’s saved his sister more than a few times in these features and has gone through being
part fly, being a vampire and gaining stretching powers. But this death stands out because 1- We
don’t often see Bart die in these specials since he’s one of the main cast. Times where
he’s almost passed and come back and times where he’s technically undead, but rarely do we ever see
him simply die. And 2- Because his last words were ‘can’t live this way anymore’ before he collapses
and drowns in a bowl of cereal. We’re then left with the disturbing scene of seeing the Leprechaun
make light of the boy’s death by dancing on his head as he suffocated and Bart doesn’t even try
to fight him off because he’s just given up on living, his father Homer just being unhappy his
son doesn’t have the fight in him to help lift the curse. There’s little that’s scarier than that and
it gave the Simpsons family a level of realism we don’t see a lot in the Treehouse of Horror series.
#1 Goldilocks
This will likely surprise some people, but we’re going to place the death of Goldilocks first.
In the special where Bart and Lisa take the roles of Hansel and Gretel,
they encounter a few other stories before coming across the witch. One of these was the well known
tale of Goldilock and the three bears. Only in this version, not only were the bears closer to
being wild animals than in most adaptations, but Goldilocks never made it out of the home.
When Bart and Lisa are fleeing, they keep the door leading out secure with a chair in place
under the knob. They unknowingly sealed the poor girl inside to face the bears and their wrath
and we the audience are left with the image of a terror induced young girl and hearing her final
cries for help as she’s ripped to shreds. The fact that we’re left to imagine how she was torn apart
coupled with hearing her death rattles made the scene all the more horrific.
But what do you think? What were the most gruesome Treehouse of Horror
moments? Let us know in the comment section. Don't forget to hit that notification bell
and binge our Good-to-Evil playlist. Where we break down the morality of
the characters in your favorite cartoons, shows and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked!