"I've never seen so many toys... Behind any of which could lurk a bloodthirsty assassin!"
The Great Mouse Detective is surprisingly one of Disney's darker films despite starring a cast of mice. It is a slight step-up from its darker predecessors, The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron, but that's not saying much.- Felicia, whom Ratigan keeps tame by keeping her well fed using his loyal minions. One of the few examplesnote in a Disney movie where someone is eaten on screen and doesn't come back afterward.
- That Slasher Smile pasted across her muzzle as she comes out of the darkness and advances on her hapless (and completely oblivious) prey would be enough to give anyone nightmares. It wouldn't have been out of place on a man-eating ogre (which is pretty much what Felicia is in this universe). Cats Are Mean, indeed.
- Felicia is also extremely obese for a cat, implying Ratigan feeds her a lot of his henchmen—and that they recognize the bell and are instantly horrified without a doubt speaks to that too. Every time his henchmen see her, they know exactly why Felicia has gotten so fat. And then they get to watch Felicia happily lounge on a full stomach afterward when Ratigan pampers her.
- And then there's Felicia's untimely end. After getting chased away by Toby, she strolls off, flips her tail defiantly up... and jumps right into the yard where the Royal Palace Guard dogs reside. All we hear is angry barking and feline squalling, so we don't see them tear her to bits in a case of Karmic Death: Eaten Alive by things bigger and with more teeth than she had.
- Toby's face while he's chasing her towards the Royal Palace Guards also counts. Toby has been established as a lovable and sweet goofball who loves tummy rubs and cheese crumpets. The look of "I am going to tear you to shreds the moment I get my teeth on you" is pretty jarring and it's clear Felicia is aware of what Toby is going to do to her if her yowling and terrified reaction is any indication.
- And speaking of Felicia, there's poor Bartholemew's fate at the beginning. He's drunk out of his mind, accidentally insulted his boss while intoxicated, and is completely oblivious when Ratigan calls Felicia out to dispose of him, right in front of his terrified comrades. Worse still, he is completely conscious and swallowed whole, meaning he surely did not die a very quick death.Ratigan: (faux-apologetic tone) Oh, my dear Bartholomew. I'm afraid you've gone and upset me! (takes out his bell with a Slasher Smile) You know what happens when someone upsets me...!
- Bartholomew's accidental insult happens in the middle of a joyful song (which Vincent Price is hamming up to the Nth degree). The song stops dead and Ratigan shouts "What was THAT?! What did you CALL ME?!" His minions try to save Bartholomew's life and appease their boss's ego. They're unsuccessful and as Ratigan returns to his throne room after feeding Bartholomew to Felicia, he says "I trust there will be no further interruptions. And now...as you were singing...?" and holds up the bell that summons Felicia and starts the song again in classic Mood Whiplash fashion. Keep in mind, this isn't the first time we see Ratigan's dark side (we get a glimpse of it in his opening scene when he's threatening Flaversham) but we finally get that he's not somebody who plays aroud. The Napoleon of Crime indeed!
- When Ratigan learns Fidget not only lost the list but that Basil is on his tail, he gets so furious that Fidget cowers in fear and his face gets bright red. After a tense moment, his face resumes its normal shade, calms down and he playfully laughs and says "Oh my dear Fidget! You've been hanging upside down for too long!" reassuring Fidget. He even smiles and lets Fidget drape one wing around his shoulder in a bro hug as he carries Fidget behind a crate. You breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that Ratigan decided to spare Fidget...that's until you hear the bell and Fidget's terrified screams.
- Ratigan becoming more and more of what he truly is during the battle on Big Ben. His clothes are torn, he's given up all pretenses at civility, and at several moments is scurrying about like a real rat. And it is fucking terrifying.
- The exact moment when it happens. Basil has caught Ratigan in a Cape Snag with the Big Ben's gears and rushes to save Olivia just as she's about to be crushed by another set of gears. Ratigan is clearly still trying to remain dignified as he struggles to free himself, and then he sees Basil making his escape with Olivia in tow. After Ratigan's real temper has been teased earlier in the movie, where his face turns red and he just barely manages to calm himself down, it's finally too much for him to handle. Ratigan. Loses. His. SHIT. He basically goes feral and rips himself free from the gears, catching up to Basil and Olivia in seconds and delivering the next moment on this list of Nightmare Fuel.
- Ratigan's savage beating of Basil tops them. We see this previously friendly-acting crime boss tear his cape, run through a maze of gears to get to Basil, knock him from the roof of Big Ben onto the hands of the clock, leap down at him, tearing him with claws, throwing him around, etc... and then there are the sounds of pain Basil expresses. It's no surprise that an image of Ratigan beating the shit out of Basil was the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown trope image for a while.
- Not to mention that, unlike their battle of wits where they're more or less on equal footing, Basil is completely outmatched against Ratigan in a physical confrontation, since Ratigan is a sewer rat and Basil is just a mouse. If Ratigan hadn't been taken down by the bells ringing, he would have killed Basil possibly even tearing him to shreds...or eating him.note
- Also it didn't seem like Ratigan was too worried about an escape route or falling and dying himself. It seems that his only goal was to kill Basil and he didn't care what happened to himself in the process.
- The late Vincent Price delivers Ratigan's Pre-Mortem One-Liner "There's no escape this time, Basil!" in a snarl with barely contained rage and obsession. Keep in mind that during the majority of the movie, Price has been playing Ratigan as a campy but classy ham with a side of cheese. Even in his threatening moments before this, Ratigan has retained the NarmCharm that has been Price's trademark. This time? He's playing it completely straight. That is how much Ratigan HATES Basil.
- Basil's facial expressions during Ratigan's Curbstomp Battle are also of note. Throughout the movie, Basil has shown various emotions such as arrogance, excitement, despair, surprise and even mania. But very rarely has he shown fear. Not even when he and Dawson were caught in Ratigan's deathtrap from Hell did he show that he was afraid. The reason for this is simple; Basil is confident enough in his intelligence and cunning to get himself (and by extension others) out of any tight conundrum by using whatever tools he has on hand or even outright MacGyvering his way out of the situation (such as him building the balloon ship to chase Ratigan's dirigible). Not this time. He's got no tools, is isolated from his allies and his enemy is not only stronger and faster than he is but is also going to kill him...and he knows it.
- The beginning where Olivia and her father are having a nice moment, when someone tries to break down the door to get inside the store. The father hides Olivia in a cupboard just before the intruder breaks in, and when Olivia opens the door a crack to see what on Earth is going on, she sees the intruder viciously attacking her father. And that's more than the viewer gets to see.
- It's worse than that: on Olivia's birthday, a criminal has broken into her home, attacked and abducted her father, and left her all alone in her father's trashed toy store.
- We're then treated to a dose of Tear Jerker when Dawson finds her in the next scene. A tiny little girl, sobbing her guts out by the side of the street, alone, in the rain, at night. Why? Because her father's been taken from her and she got lost looking for the one person she thinks can help her. Thank goodness Dawson found her before someone less benevolent did...
- Not long after this scene...we learn that Ratigan is sending Fidget to capture Olivia so he could keep Flaversham under his thumb. Thank God Dawson found her first and got her to safety with Basil and Mrs. Judson.
- All three of Fidget's jump scares, (at the beginning, when he appears in Basil's window and when he pops out of the baby carriage). He may be a bumbling minion to the true threat of the film, but Fidget proves himself to be a credible threat many times.
- As terrifying as the jump scares at both the Flaversham home and toy shop are...the second time he does a Jump Scare deserves special mention. It's been a few minutes between Ratigan sending Fidget on his quest to capture Olivia and his appearance in Basil's window (which, if you know anything about animation, is a very long time), enough for the audience to relax and let down their guard. You can even be forgiven for forgetting about him. That's until you see his outline appear in the window, the lighting and thunder roll and Olivia screams in terror as Fidget smiles menacingly at her.
- The Toy shop scene as a whole. First off Dawson bumps into a doll (Giant of course) which looks like it's going to reach down to grab him. Then there are the clowns, tons of clowns with terrifying evil leering faces. And to top it all off, Fidget returns to the toy shop to capture Olivia.
- The buildup to Olivia's capture is just full of these. When Fidget turns on the toys, none of the heroes even have a clue as to what's going on until it's too late. All the while, Olivia is lured to the baby carriage where the bat is hiding by a Dumbo bubble blower, away from Basil and Dawson. And once the deed is done, he actively attempts to kill the two with the rest of the toys.
- The Chinese mouse carrying a gun near the beginning. Fortunately, it calms down after you find out that it's just Basil.
- One of Ratigan's previous crimes as mentioned in his song was the "Tower Bridge Job" which according to the song involved the drowning of widows and orphans. Additional material reveals that the job was basically Ratigan lining up a bunch of widows and orphans on the bridge and tossing them into the river to drown, seemingly just for the sake of it.
- Olivia has a very close brush with death inside Big Ben. Ratigan throws her in between two of the clock's giant gears, and Basil manages to pull her out about a millisecond before she would have been crushed.
- And then again just moments later when Ratigan pursues her and Basil to the top of the clock tower. With Ratigan hot on their tails, Basil hurries to hand off Olivia to Flaversham who reaches desperately for his daughter from their makeshift blimp, leaning as far over as he can while Dawson holds his tail. Ratigan tackles the two and if not for Flaversham's split second catch, Olivia would've surely tumbled down with Basil and Ratigan to the clock below, or worse.
- The entire bar scene can be rather offputting, where you have all manner of criminals and lowlifes all gathered in one place indulging in all of their vices.....Before it explodes into a full blown bar fight where every thug in the room is whipping out their clubs, guns, and fisticuffs as they proceed to absolutely trash the saloon.
- Not helping are some of the more intimidating thugs found among the mix, like that big dude who tries to punch out the terrified piano player after striking him with a club meant for the drunken Dawson. Within two seconds, the bar is an all-out warzone.
- To make it all the more disturbing it is Dawson who causes the entire thing after climbing up upon the stage drunk out of his mind! One must hope Basil didn't repeat this story to him after he sobered up.
- Fidget happens to be at the bar spying on Basil when the fighting starts. What does he do? He ''ignores'' the carnage behind him and carries on with his drink.
- We never do find out the outcome of the brawl, who was arrested and Lord knows how many thugs ended up getting themselves killed in the chaos.
- One relatively subtle but creepy moment is when Ratigan is intimidating Flaversham into working for him by threatening Olivia's life. To emphasize his point, he plucks up the little transforming dancing doll that Flaversham made for his daughter and crushes it, his face contorting in rage till it breaks in his hand. For a moment he relaxes with sad face in mock sympathy, and then snaps at Flaversham, eyes wide and teeth bared in a feral expression - our first glimpse of the savage that lurks under the civilized exterior he tries to present.
- Also a bit for Mr. Flaversham. He's initially defiant towards Ratigan, not caring about his own life, but the mere thought of Olivia being harmed cows the toymaker into cooperation.
- Combined with the aforementioned scenes with Felicia, when Ratigan threatens Flaversham with death, he doesn't explicitly say what will happen; he just says "You know what will happen if you... fail", while brandishing the bell used to summon Felicia. How does Flaversham know? What did Ratigan do to inform him?
- Unless you consider his survival canon—and even then it's still a dubious scene, Fidget's death at Ratigan's hands. While it's a Karmic Death since he was suggesting throwing Olivia off the dirigible, he's thrown into the open air where he's forced to flail futilely and helplessly with his broken wing before then plummeting into the Thames River below. Adds an extra layer of suffering that it's hard not to cringe at certainly.
- Just how calmly Ratigan is when he chucks Fidget overboard is the cherry on top of the Nightmare Sundae. Fidget had made a serious mistake in dropping the note that led Basil to him, sure, but he had been nothing but a loyal henchman to the point that Ratigan praised him. Even when things were at their worst and Basil is closing in, Fidget is always thinking about their survival. Which then begs the question...when did he stop seeing Fidget as useful to him?Ratigan: (in a Faux Affably Evil tone) Oh! You want to lighten the load? (grabs Fidget by the ears as Fidget laughs menacingly at Olivia) Excellent idea! (throws Fidget off the dirigible as Fidget screams that he can't fly)
- Just how calmly Ratigan is when he chucks Fidget overboard is the cherry on top of the Nightmare Sundae. Fidget had made a serious mistake in dropping the note that led Basil to him, sure, but he had been nothing but a loyal henchman to the point that Ratigan praised him. Even when things were at their worst and Basil is closing in, Fidget is always thinking about their survival. Which then begs the question...when did he stop seeing Fidget as useful to him?
- Ratigan's manner of killing Basil and Dawson. He has them tied to a mousetrap while they listen to a song he recorded, at the end of the song the trap would unleash, followed by a gunshot (a cannon to the mice!), a bow and arrow, an axe chopping them in half, finally ending with a giant anvil falling on them and crushing them. There Is No Kill Like Overkill indeed!
- Through brilliant means of exposition, we are first introduced to Ratigan when Basil realizes that Ratigan's flunky, Fidget, is the one who kidnapped Olivia's father. During this scene, there's a portrait of Ratigan sitting on the fireplace mantle but we don't get a good look at it until Basil points at it with the bow of his violin. As the lightning flashes and thunder rolls, we get a close up at Ratigan's portrait. He has a smug grin eerily reminiscent of a Slasher Smile.
