Datasets:

RyokoExtra
/

TvTroper-Cleaned

Dataset card Viewer Files Files and versions Community

Split (1)

train · 540k rows

text stringlengths 28 457k	url stringlengths 44 118
A Canterlot Wedding: Aftermath / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The Nightmares. Every. Single. One of them.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ACanterlotWeddingAftermath
Abandoned by Disney / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Hey... wanna see my head come off? As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned. - In the first story a curious blogger sneaks into Mowgli's Palace, an Expy of the Discovery Island Disney resort, whose very existence Disney has attempted to censor after inexplicably abandoning it. At first it appears to be just an impressive case of urban decay but then the author started noticing things are "off", with meat hooks in the kitchen swinging for no reason, the water still running despite everything else crumbling, hearing whispers, and dangerous animals from the resort still living in the ruins. And after encountering some of the Resort's released wildlife he finds the Mascot Dressing Rooms... and discovers there was a very good reason why Disney pulled out and wants no-one getting into the resort... or anything getting out. - The same author later released a parody prequel of this story in the form of an employee suggestion box for the resort while it was still active. - And now there is a fully fledged sequel by the same author "Room Zero" in which the same blogger has to deal with being stalked by some unknown party which is extremely irritated at his publicizing the truth about Mowgli's Palace (and anyone else who reposts his story) all while he delves into a series of even more sinister events at Disney World as told by some anonymous employees, including the "Gascot" sightings of unknown people wearing disturbing Disney themed Gas Masks◊, the eldritch events at a waterslide, the sinister "corpse disposal" procedure for Mascots who suddenly die, and the seedy underbelly of Disney's exclusive clubs. All of which subtly or directly revolve around an unspeakably nightmarish incident in the 1970s which seems to be the cause of all the demonic events at the Disney resorts. - The final installment Corruptus explains pretty much everything. You see, Disney promotes "wishing upon a star" and believing in things in movies, right? Well, that's because if people believe hard enough, things will happen. Disney has been conditioning people to believe something they can exploit into existence. And it worked. But something went terribly wrong, these things weren't born out of 'wishing on a star', they were born out of hate and fear of Disney. The Gascots, the inverted Mickey, and the Room Zero incident were all caused by the people affected by Disney's actions; the potent fear of nuclear war as terrified patrons were rushed into Room Zero, the unanimous hatred of Disney wrought by the citizens as Disney was destroying their neighborhood to build Mowgli's Palace, was what brought the beings (the Corruptus) into existence. These things are the imperfect prototypes of monsters born out of raw, ultra-concentrated hatred and loathing. And every time we've read these stories, every time we've shared them with a friend, or watched a reading online, we've only been fueling these things. We're creating new ones. We're breaking reality as we know it. And we learn that there are more. And there's the implication they could be formed from sources other than the corporation that inadvertently made them... including YOU. - Despite the majority of the cases being unresolved, Disney at least managed to identify the culprit in most Corruptus incidents. The culprit for "Room Zero"? Unknown. - The sheer Paranoia Fuel the author is subjected to: his phone and internet services abruptly terminated; his library card revoked, due to late fees on fetish material, self-help books for various mental illnesses, and a detailed book on weapons of mass destruction (none of which were his); Mickey silhouettes appearing everywhere he goes, including inside his house; a crime scene outline in yellow paint, in his parking space, with the word RETRACT; and black suit-wearing people carrying clipboards and red pens follow him anywhere, everywhere he goes — and when he manages to subdue one of them, it turns out that the "notes" they've been taking are undecipherable random scribbles and Mickey silhouettes. And the author somehow knows that the worst is yet to come... - The worst part? It turns out Disney, as horrifying as their actions in the story are, might actually have a good reason for doing these things: as mentioned, the Corruptus are brought about by hatred and fear of Disney...and the Narrator, by publishing these reports about Disney's shady past, may actively be making the Corruptus situation worse, . and possibly even creating more	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AbandonedByDisney
Abbott and Costello / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer is full of this. In particular, the Peek-a-Boo Corpse scenes in Costello's room and several on-screen murder attempts. But the scariest part is the climax in the local caverns, where Costello is alone with the masked killer who is consistently one step ahead of him. - Another Peek-a-Boo Corpse scene in Hold That Ghost: While in a guest bedroom in a haunted tavern, Costello discovers a hidden door behind a curtain. He assumes there's a dead body behind the door, but the body is actually hidden in the curtains next to it. - Earlier, the above-mentioned murder victim is searching the basement when a pair of hands reach out of a secret door and strangle him to death. - In Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the boys chase Mr. Hyde backstage at a theater. Hyde hides from Costello, first in a dressing room, then later in a nearby wax museum, and ambushes him when no one else is around. - Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is often called the most legitimately frightening slapstick comedy ever made. From Costello finding himself alone in a morgue-like wax museum as the Monster and Dracula come to life, to his later being cornered in a stairwell by the Monster, to the final sequence on the pier, it's pure nightmare fuel. (To the extent where it's the only one of the A&C horror comedies to be officially considered part of the 1931-1948 Universal Monsters series.) - One scene has Lou innocently wandering around Larry Talbot's apartment. He goes around in his usual goofy, childlike manner, unaware that the Wolf Man is stalking him the whole time... - In Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, Costello stumbles into the mummy's burial chamber and is nearly strangled to death by it. When he returns with Abbott, they try to trick the mummy into attacking again so they can capture it, but it turns out that it's hiding behind a statue instead of laying in its sarcophagus. - Costello encounters plenty of scary stuff on the way to the mummy's tomb, including several hidden skeletons and a giant lizard. - The part in Abbott and Costello In The Foreign Legion where Costello is stalked by the dagger-wielding members of a hostile Arab tribe while Abbott is trying to check into a hotel room. This scene even uses the Scare Chords normally reserved for the horror-themed Abbott and Costello films. - In Go To Mars, the Venusian queen declares a curse that causes any woman who kisses a man to lose her youth. And since these women are all hundreds of years old, guess what happens when Costello kisses one of them?	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AbbottAndCostello
Accounting / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes For an obscure VR game about virtual realities within virtual realities, Accounting can become surprisingly horrific whenever it so pleases. - As a method to prove how bad you are to the gang in order to let you join, you have to pick up a brick and throw it at a nearby window. The gang's reaction to this is one of complete and utter terror, which ends up being somewhat justified as the police respond by summoning the entire police force to chase after them while opening fire. - Try holding the brick for a long while without throwing it or putting it down. The brick will start talking to you, trying to convince you to throw it... and he manages to sound genuinely threatening. - You are forced to kill the King of VR by rather gruesomely cutting his stomach open with a knife, and then rip out his heart (which is a literal VR headset) to enter the next level, which takes place inside his stomach. - Imagine you're the King in this scenario. You are quite possibly a very lonely person stuck in this dank dungeon, when suddenly someone who might be the first legitimate person who could help you out appears and proceeds to murder you so they can progress through the game. - In terms of advancing in the stomach level, you can pick your poison: either exit the current layer of VR by pouring stomach acid on yourself, or use a coin to enter a secret level where you assist two teenagers in summoning Satan. The latter then proceeds to kill all three of you without hesitation. - Even better, if in the latter you decide to bail and reset back to the main menu, you'll discover that Clovis' level loader is now bleeding, with the word HELP being printed out from the machine. Not even Clovis knows what the fuck is going on, either. - In the Car Chase scene you can watch your gang buddies get shot by cops and die right in front of your eyes (literally). - Taking the apple-headset in the "burning tree world"-level will take you to the room of the "biggest fan", which is scary experience for a variety of reasons. On one hand, the "fan" is a very tall, bald and skinny figure sitting in the dark and fixating you with lidless eyes. On the other hand, the room is completely out of proportion: The computer, the chair and the items laying on the ground are too small. However, the head of the "fan" almost touches the ceiling. Thus, this level is a claustrophobic nightmare. - Before an update, taking the Fan's VR goggles just led you back to the first level - except that instead of the normal phone calls, you received creepy calls from the Fan. After the update? You go through a creepy and dark version of the game: - The office seems glitched, with objects appearing much bigger or much smaller than normal. All the posters have been altered to display depressing or threatening messages. - The forest is littered with batteries and trash left by the Fan. The angry ghost that usually insults you? He's now the Fan's "roommate", and he's so scared of him that he can't say anything. - The dungeon is completely devoid of its regular occupants and paintings. In return, you can just look up to see a gigantic Fan staring at you from the darkness. Instead of proceeding to the "stomach" level, you exit the dungeon and go to... - ...A desert, where you can somehow hear the sound of water. The only things here besides you are a deformed, wheezing thing; and a baby carriage, where a baby is apparently crying. Looking into the carriage reveals... a battery. Except that now, the cry has been replaced by a heartbeat. Take out the battery, and you'll hear a soft ripping sound, the heartbeat will stop, and you'll discover that the bloated entity has disappeared while you weren't looking. Then the game resets. Nothing of this is explained.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Accounting
A Bug's Life / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The entire sequence from Flik accidentally destroying the food offering to when the grasshoppers finally leave. Flik's whimpering "Oh, no" upon seeing the food destroyed, his desperate screaming for Atta, the constant, droning buzz of the grasshoppers approaching, and Atta's panicked repeating of the "They come. They eat. They leave," mantra all add up into a scarily good job at building tension regarding just how terrifying Hopper's gang is. This continues to them breaking their way into the anthill, threatening to feed Dot to Thumper, Hopper intimidating Flik into backing down when he tries to defend Dot, and finally Hopper's threat that they have until the end of summer to double the standard food offering or else. "They come. They eat. They leave", referring to the much larger and more threatening grasshoppers terrifying the ants into giving them a huge portion of their food. This line could literally be the tagline for a zombie movie. Ironically, it also accurately describes what ants - fire, army, and driver ants in particular - regularly do to grasshoppers and anything else that just happens to be in their way/tries to mess with them. Hopper menacingly approaching Flik, fire burning in the background, with the greatest murder-face on a family movie villain. In the scene after that Hopper uses Dim to launch himself out of the "cannon." The look on his face perfectly encapsulates a single phrase aimed right at Flik: "YOU'RE DEAD." During the entire chase scene Flik is terrified out of his mind, screaming desperately for his friends to help him. He knows exactly what will happen if Hopper gets away with him. Hopper when he lands right in front of Flik and slowly advances with the full intent of killing him. Flik begs for mercy, but Hopper grabs his throat and attempts to strangle him. Flik: Hopper! Hopper: You think it's over? Flik: No, no, no! I-I can explain! Hopper: All your little stunt did was buy them time! Flik: No, please! Please, Hopper! Hopper: (snatches Flik by the throat) I'll get more grasshoppers and be back next season, but YOU WON'T. The bar at the insect city has both human blood and Black Flag (an insecticide) on tap. Grasshoppers trudging out of the mist with no music, only the howling wind. This movie manages to make a rainstorm pretty terrifying. After all, normal raindrops hit the ground like a watery avalanche; the ants' only hope is simply for run for cover. The entire sequence at the end of the movie, beginning with the rain. What is a normal and perfectly harmless occurrence for us humans is amplified into a nightmarish and regular disaster for all bug kind. Amidst the chaos, Hopper still manages to spot Flik, and with a furious roar, lunges at him, and snatches him and flies off. Flik's friends from the circus try to come to the rescue, but their rescue attempts are all foiled. (Admittedly, the incident where Hopper lost one of his antennae is pretty funny.) Not even Princess Atta can keep Hopper away for too long, and his final death, albeit very karmic and well-deserved, in and of itself was very unsettling. On top of that, when Hopper loses one of his antennae to the Pill Bugs, he roars again before glaring at Flik dangling from his hand as if to say "I'll make sure you pay for this one too." The movie does a pretty good job of making an otherwise adorable little summer tanager and its chicks absolutely terrifying. While a bird feeding its young obviously isn't scary, quite the opposite in every other situation really, Hopper's Family-Unfriendly Death shows how horrifying it would be if you were a bug. Consider the sounds the bird makes; they did a convincing job of depicting what birdsong must sound like from a bug's perspective, because the deep and loud screeches it makes would be right at home in Jurassic Park. It's a harrowing reminder that despite the widespread belief (especially at the time of the movie's release) dinosaurs still walk strong among the living. Even more terrifying is the speed in which the bird jumps in front of Hopper, and then snaps him up to feed to the chicks. It's 100% clear that, from the moment that the bird saw him, there was no escape. Hopper was eatenaliveby the birds. When the camera cuts away from the scene, he's still in the adult bird's beak, and note that it is NOT doing any attempt to snap his neck or whatever to give him a quick and painless death; on the contrary, it looks to be about to just drop him into (one of) the chicks' mouths. He'd still be fully conscious when given to the chicks as food. Its so horrifying that even Flik and Atta, despite knowing how horrible Hopper has been to them, cant bear to look and shy away just as the bird lowers Hopper down. A minor one occurs with P. T. Flea during his song when he is leaving the anthill with the circus bugs and a banished Flik. He sings the morbid line of "The streets will be paved with golden retrievers". The Daddy Long Legs' you first encounter in "Riverbead Canyon" can be quite scary to little kid players, given their large sizes, ugly looks, and the Unintentional Uncanny Valley faces on their models. At the end of the game's credits, a rather frightening still of Hopper is used. It can serve as a Jump Scare to the uninitiated. The boss fight against Thumper can be a bit tense and scary for younger players the first time. It has very tense music, Thumper looks scary and moves fast while making animal noises, and he first appears in a Jump Scare, showing up out of nowhere and flying down at you at fast speed when you near the center of the room! The Game Over screen that plays when the player runs out of lives. Its the clip from the movie when Hopper lays into the colony for apparently slacking off, and even though it gets a little meta since we are actually in a game, its no less terrifying. Hopper: Have you been playing all summer? You think this is a game?!?	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ABugsLife
ABBA / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes "Waterloo" is about resigning oneself to a toxic relationship, indicating abuse with lines such as: Waterloo, I was defeated, you won the war Waterloo, promise to love you forever more Waterloo, couldn't escape if I wanted to Waterloo, knowing my fate is to be with you My my, I tried to hold you back, but you were stronger Oh yeah, now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ABBA
A3! / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned. - Itaru showing his rude persona for the first time in the anime can be pretty unnerving. When Izumi enters his room, it is all red as Itaru complains about losing his game. Then he rushes at her and pins her against the wall, all while being chillingly calm. - While hilarious, Homare's [A Heartfelt Resolution] and [Peerless LIVE] backstage stories can be Accidental Nightmare Fuel with the Bolivian Army Ending and Scream Discretion Shot. - In [A Heartfelt Resolution], Homare has so much fun writing calligraphy and accidentally spills some ink at Tasuku. Tasuku is very angry and approaches Homare, who pleads with him to resolve this peacefully. Tasuku agrees, but not before he gets his revenge on Homare. Cut to Homare screaming and Izumi saying that Homare is off to a rough start of the year. And the backstage ends there. We never get to see what Tasuku does as a revenge. - In [Peerless LIVE], Tasuku overhears Homare talking about muscle training to help with vocals. Tasuku immediately thinks of various exercises for Homare, such as putting weights on his abs and making him do three-hundred squats. Homare is horrified at the idea, but Tasuku reassures Homare that he knows what to do and proceeds to drag Homare off-screen. Cut to Homare screaming for help and Izumi wishing him luck. We never get to see the Training from Hell Tasuku is putting Homare through. - While lacking Bolivian Army Ending, his Glitter backstage still has Scream Discretion Shot. Homare's birthday wish is thrill, and the Celestial Sphere grants it. And next up, Homare dreams of waking up to Tsumugi wearing a Hannya mask and getting hit in the face by a konyaku and a soccer ball. Then cuts to real world, with Homare screaming and Hisoka noting it happening while he sleeps. We never actually see how terrifying Homare's nightmare ever gets. - In Guy's [Mankai Glitter] backstage, when Hisoka accused Homare of stealing marshmallows and got ticked off, he attacked Homare and there is the sound of something cracking. From what Homare said afterwards, it sounded like Hisoka tried to twist his arm. Thankfully it is All Just a Dream. - The play for The Liar Night is Forever is a psychological horror, and the setting is nothing short of eerie. Then there is Shisui, who works on dissecting corpses and later kills himself by slitting himself with a glass shard. - The blizzard scene in Snowfall Street can be one due to Realism-Induced Horror. A blizzard rages and the road is congested. Meanwhile, Homare and Muku are out there trying to reach the bus stop, and it is noted how hard it is to traverse across the snowy terrain. And then Muku trips and twists his ankle. Homare carrying Muku on his back to go on together is indescribably awesome and heartwarming, but let us not talk about the danger of doing this in a blizzard. Tsukumo even lampshades it. - In the etude segment of BRIGHT WINTER audio drama, you can hear the sound of waves and thunder. Made scarier by that all the staffers and passengers on the ship, performed by everyone except Homare, are audibly panicking. Some are also accepting their fates as the thunderstorm rages. Meanwhile, Homare is simply screaming in fury and trying to drown the ship. The etude ends with a particularly loud crash after Homare's bloodcurdling roar.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/A3
Abadox / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes MY EYES - Despite it being an NES game, the setting of Abadox is gruesome and horrifying, and the developers got away with the censors and pulled out all the stops to make the whole experience freaky. The main antagonist is a planet-eating Eldritch Abomination that you must go inside in order to rescue Nazar's lover. Along the way, you must fight a variety of creatures, presumably parasites that live inside the alien. The first stage alone pits you against a giant skinless hellhound and a face that stretches its eyeballs at you by its optic nerves. The worst of these is the Cilia Monster; not only is it a really big foe, when you first encounter it, the music is replaced by heartbeats and it pulsates as you descend towards its weakpoint. - The fact that in the Japanese manual, Parasitis is suspected to have once been a human infected with Parasite X. The thought of some luckless astronaut turning into... that...over a period of time is not a pleasant prospect. A possible other interpretation is even worse, however—Parasitis's host human was Nazar and Maria's unborn child. Imagine Maria finding her malign baby has decided to encase her in demonic tissue, then proceed to grow that into the Parasitis body...	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Abadox
Accel World / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Niko's speech to Haru in LN 13, about why she and Pard and all the girls in Nega Nebulus look out for him (he's so honest and forthright that they all feel safe and secure around him). "... us F-type Neurolinkers are always afraid when we're in the real world - just a little, but still." "A...fraid? Of what?" "...Other people. Or more specifically, real-world M-types, I guess. [...]When we're duel avatars in the Accelerated World, we're protected by hard armor. F-types and M-types all have enough power to fight as equals. But once the duel's over and we return to the real world, that power disappears. The more hours you spend as a Burst Linker, the more you end up feeling how weak and helpless your real body is. [..] I mean, at school, just ending up alone with a boy for some weird reason is enough to make me nervous. Even though I know in my head, he's not gonna do anything to me, it's still no good." "Even with the social cameras?" "Yeah. You can't not feel it. The fact that I'm not protected by armor, that I don't have special attack or Enhanced Armament or anything at all - that fear just gets bigger the more time you spend in the Accelerated World. At any rate, maybe you just always end up having fear wrapped around you when you're in the real world."	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AccelWorld
Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The third mission "Narrow Margin", features a good bit of it in its mid-mission cutscene, when a downed jet crashes into the sea among a load of sailors who've abandoned their sinking ships, spreading burning jetfuel over the area. It's presented simply as a black screen with the sounds of screaming behind it. Chopper: Please... somebody stop this... I can't take it any more... - There is a dialogue choice right after that if you let expire indicates Blaze himself is too stunned to speak	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceCombat5TheUnsungWar
Absentia / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Unmarked spoilers below! - Lots but especially any scene taking place in the abandoned tunnel. - What the Eldritch Abomination living in the tunnel does to its victims is pretty horrific. Imagine being held prisoner for seven years or longer, tortured and fed raw animal parts, bones and all. - Callie makes a desperate plea for the thing to trade back her sister for her. It brings back Trish's fetus instead.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Absentia
Abarat / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - From the first book, we have... - The John brothers. One man... and six tiny heads growing out of the horns on his head. The book is illustrated, so even if you don't want to picture it, you see it. Hello, Body Horror! Though the horror does decrease quite a bit when you discover they are both pretty goofy and sincerely good guys. - On that note, Shape — The Dragon. A one-legged man who walks just fine on the stump of his missing foot... and has swords embedded in the flesh of his back, which he can pull out and put back in as well! And unlike the John brothers who are nice and helpful, Shape is a sadistic murderer who will sing an Ironic Nursery Rhyme just to terrify those he is chasing. - The Stitchlings, zombie-like minions filled with mud, and occasionally random internal organs, stitched together from random bits of old rotting flesh, by an insane old woman who never sleeps, and who once sewed her grandson's lips together for daring to say the word "love". - One Stitchling is described as having a fully functionig colon, but no anus. Poor thing's been stuck with a permanent case of constipation. - The brothers on the Time Out of Time, who have no faces; just random facial features on crablike legs, that crawl around their otherwise blank faces. - And of course, there's the Big Bad himself, whose face is surrounded by a vat of liquid in which electrical, pulsing nightmares swim. They come from tubes embedded in his skull. - Then you get to the second book, and you add to this... - Leeman Vol, one of the Big Bad's henchmen that lost his nose to a spider and wears a crude leather nose in place, and is able to speak to insects because of his three pointy-teethed mouths. Not helping is that Vol has an insect-infected head. He has so many lice and ants and things living on him that when Shape hits him, some bugs actually fall off. - The Sacbrood, a voracious, highly adaptable and eternally reproducing kind of insect that inhabits the pyramids of Xuxux. The picture may not be very definite, but then again, depending on the strenght your imagination, the scene where they kill Mendelson Shape may be scarier. Carrion and Motley are cultivating them specifically so that their numbers will grow great enough to literally blot out the Abarat's sky end to end. - Carrion's nightmares are pictured even more terrifying, including a scene right in the first chapter when they suck the fear out of a rather innocent man. - Then there's the picture of Christopher \|\|right before he dies.\|\| A freakin' skull, screaming out of a dark abyss! - And then the third book intentionally tones the danger down on average so it can ramp the horror. - Mater Motley fully displays just how psychopathic she actually is, from intentionally making a friend for the explicit purpose of betraying and murdering said friend for ritual components, to bragging about how she orchestrated the deaths of her entire family, with a literal special place for her grandchildren as she harvested her souls to enchant her flesh, and outright allying with eldritch abominations to cause terror and destruction across her home planet. - The Nephauree, Those Who Walk Behind The Stars, are Mater Motley's benefactors and the series' greatest apparent evil. They are an entire alien race with magic and technology like nothing seen on the Abarat. They are essentially amorphous blots of smoky darkness concealing a true form so evil and grotesque that those few who can see it and survive remember nothing about it, and they are so terribly powerful that Mater Motley trusted just one to personally kill every one of the thousands of people present at the third book's final battle. Yet even Mater Motley, the most maniacal and shamelessly wicked character we have seen thus far, is absolutely terrified of the Nephauree and just glancing at one was enough to unnerve her greatly. Their true motives are as yet unknown, but they are apparently looking forward to a "harvest" of the Abarat that will bring all life there to an end.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Abarat
Aaahh!!! Real Monsters / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Considering it's a show about all sorts of Eldritch Abomination creatures existing to scare the crap out of people and an actual inspiration for many nightmares in future shows and films, Nightmare Fuel is to be expected. Especially the more you know about the world of monsters. - The anatomy of many of these monsters in this cartoon can frighten young viewers. - Some of the monsters' scare tactics can be really creepy to younger viewers, such as Ickis transforming his body to giant size with blood-red eyes (pictured above) or most infamously, Oblina pulling out her internal organs. - Throughout the series, there are a few references to the "Era of Disbelief", a period sometime in the forties when humans stopped believing in monsters. If one tracks all the hints, one can work out that this period lasted from 1943-1945 — the period of World War II where the Allies managed to turn back the Axis Powers. Since the show later establishes that bad times for humans are good times for monsters, the implication is that the monsters gorged themselves on humanity's fear and horror during the Great Depression and the Holocaust, nearly disappeared as the world economy recovered and the Axis fell, and then recovered thanks to the Red Scare and the Cold War. - This is shown literally in the episode "Where Have All the Monsters Gone?". It features monsters disappearing due to their failure to scare people. That's right, failing to scare people pretty much erases them from existence one body part at a time. And it nearly happens to Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm, who respectively lose their body, arms, and eyes. Also a Tear Jerker. - The episode also confirms monsters exist because Your Mind Makes It Real. The Pool of Elders, the collective source and wellspring of all monsters explains to Ickis that monsters were born out of the fears of the human mind. It is that very fear that fuels the pool and continues to give existence to monsterkind. If the pool ever dries up, then monsters will begin to vanish from existence altogether. Monsters are literally forced to scare people just to survive. - When the gang meets Krumm's uncle Grungy in "Monsters, Get Real", he's introduced stalking along behind them like a predator until he and Krumm recognize each other. Thing is, as the previous episode established and other episodes will hint at, Monstrous Cannibalism is perfectly alright in this world. Oblina herself even threatened to eat Ickis once. When you put the two together, you realize Grungy might have been stalking Ickis and Oblina in hopes of eating them! - In "Smile and Say Oblina", Oblina gets hooked up with a metal device wired to her jaws with corkscrews and a timer on it. Fast forward to 2004, and we have a movie featuring a torture device that looks similar to that. - In the case of Krumm's father Horvath, the method in which he lost his right eye as the infamous bullet in "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" is extremely terrifying. Imagine having one of your eyeballs loaded into a gun, this being the last thing it sees before the barrel clicks...	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AaahhRealMonsters
A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - The "Auto Swag" scene, due to Sparky's screams. - If the accidental innuendos didn't convince you that this isn't the type of feature you show to a Nick Jr. audience, the Igor scene will. Basically, Sparky and Speedy are stuck via shoes, and Diesel's minion is about to chop them up. So, they can't move, and somebody is about to murder them on the spot. Jesus, that is pure Paranoia Fuel! And Speedy is seemingly killed. Sure, Sparky is saved (by a rocket launcher, no less) and Speedy somehow survives, but it's still pretty chilling.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ACarsLifeSparkysBigAdventure
A Brother's Price / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - The characters' fear of venereal diseases is entirely justified. Eldest Whistler talks at length about how one woman's ill-fated visit to a crib before getting married resulted in her passing syphilis to her entire family, causing all their children to be stillborn and cursing her sisters and new husband to die a slow, agonizing death over many months. - The cribs themselves. The buildings are essentially prisons, brothels and breeding pens rolled into one, where men are force-fed drugs which keep them in a constant state of arousal and studded out for ten crowns a night. The conditions in many are implied to be filthy and the chances of catching one of the aforementioned diseases are not inconsiderable. Worse still is that the vast majority of their occupants are rape victims or men sold to them in order to cover family debts. Many characters talk about how horrible it is that they exist, but men are so rare and breeding is so important that they simply can't be abolished without destabilizing society at large. - What's more, the cribs are explicitly stated to be extremely unpleasant for the women who make use of them as well, and not just because of the conditions described above. Those same drugs that keep men forcibly aroused also apparently send them into a state bestial lustfulness; One character describes a typical crib visit as going into an unlit room where "a man half-incoherent with drugs ruts on top of you," hopefully impregnating the visitor before it's time to leave, and the whole experience is dark, painful and (sometimes) bloody. Most crib visitors are women from families too poor to afford a husband and have no brothers to trade for one, and so their only option is to pay to have a man violently rape them in the hopes of getting pregnant to continue the family line note : Or pressure their younger sisters into it; at one point the protagonists cross paths with a poor family on their way to a supposedly clean-run crib so that one of their number can try for a baby ten nights in a row, and their most likely candidate is the youngest sister who is outright stated to still be a teenager, and gods help them if they catch one of those infamous diseases...Rather than going out of their way to make the cribs a safe and enjoyable experience for paying customers like one would ideally expect from a brothel, all evidence points to the women running them being greedy, cost-cutting business owners trying to squeeze as much money as possible from desperate, unmarried, and often lower class women. - Keifer Porter. All he did, and what he could have done to the youngest sisters. And once you think about how many men like him there are in the whole country, and that most families won't be willing to throw their valuable husband out of the house for any reason ... pure nightmare fuel. - Consider how furious the princesses were over Jerin's abduction, even knowing who the guilty parties were and knowing that those parties' plans required Jerin to remain unharmed. Also, consider that when they did get him back uninjured and unraped, they still found it totally reasonable to wipe out the entire family involved. Now, try to imagine, if you can, the royal wrath had they not gotten him back safe. - The setting as whole qualifies, particularly when you consider that a significant part of society involves chattel slavery and commodification of an entire gender, far beyond anything in Real Life.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ABrothersPrice
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned. - If you listen to the "Grandma" cube, the title character's secret ingredient in her cookies is the ashes of her own son who died while skydiving. She also counts as a Nightmare Fetishist since, while everyone else says her cookies taste like roaches, she actually likes those cookies. - Another example being the piglet cube, wherein the person who teaches you how to "clean and de-bristle" a pig instead teaches you how to brutally mutilate the pig, then reassemble it Frankenstein-style, ending the video by saying that said pig was your only friend in the world. - Nevin's news reports, though funny, seem to paint the entire game as a Crapsack World. Base jumping appears to be illegal, for good reason, one would assume. But the authority of the city is blind and/or indifferent to them repeatedly mutilating themselves on their jumps. Nevin: [...] Police say one of [The Midnight Jumpers] even left an arm behind. From what I hear, it was a really nice one, too. Nevin: The city has begun removing shrines erected to dead jumpers. Police say that they were causing traffic accidents, and also, they were ugly. - The "Anti-Relaxation" video, a would-be relaxation video which is basically a creepypasta-esque Tone Shift of the Relaxation video. An eerie tune plays, the image from the Relaxation video is shown redder and darker, and a warped voice tells you, in a creepy way, to do things like touching your earlobes, while constantly repeating the Suspiciously Specific Denial that there are no insects crawling on your body or into your nose. You can also occasionally hear a baby crying in the background, and at one point there is a Repetitive Audio Glitch. - In For the Awesome, the image shown may remind you of Anothink's games. The horror ones. Especially FUN.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaARecklessDisregardForGravity
A Beautiful Mind / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - The baby that almost drowns in a bathtub. Alone. And crying for mommy as the water pours into its mouth. Though the baby was rescued, it's still extremely haunting, especially to a parent. - Basically, the whole concept of the movie is chilling: a genius who is also a paranoid schizophrenic but almost never realizes it until somebody points it out to him. Imagine suddenly learning that someone like a good friend of yours is nothing but a figment of your imagination, all while interacting with them up to that point as if they were as real as everyone else. (Granted, this is technically artistic license since Nash only heard his hallucinations, but the movie's portrayal of this idea is still nightmarish.)	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ABeautifulMind
Ace Attorney / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Watch out, Edgeworth! Ace Attorney may be an over-the-top series about lawyers, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its share of creepy and nightmare-inducing moments... ## Specific works <!—index—><!—/index—> ## Other examples Special Mentions: - Because the series is entirely driven by Always Murder cases, it's almost inevitable that the cause of death of certain victims may make players uncomfortable, especially if the victim in question was said to be nice and likable when alive. The fact that photos of their corpses are present in almost every case as evidence doesn't help. - Depending on how sensitive you are to scary stuff, many witnesses can start to become this as they get more and more upset. - It's especially jarring when the last witness' freak-out was actually pretty funny, and then the next witness goes absolutely insane. It just goes to show that it's not just the perpetrators who can fall victim to a breakdown. - A special mention must go to the film, where you're treated to the scene of Yanni Yogi burning off his fingerprints in acid. - Think about the many corrupt and amoral prosecutors you've seen in the game and to what lengths they'll go to secure their victories, even if it means innocent lives being sent to death row. This makes these prosecutors indirect murderers. Then comes the "Dark Age of the Law" brought up in Dual Destinies, where "win at all costs" becomes not only a tactic, but an entire philosophy (more exactly, "the end justifies the means"), advocated by Themis Legal Academy instructor Aristotle Means...who is a defense attorney, showing that both sides are willing to go to extremes. - The police system isn't trustworthy either. For at least two years, the corrupt Chief of Police kept the Chief Prosecutor under his thumb via blackmail and (it's strongly implied) used her to fire or depose anyone he disliked, even if it meant forging evidence. (Edgeworth in particular nearly goes into a Heroic BSoD when he realizes that he scored at least one conviction on false evidence.) Before them, we had Blaise Debeste, an Amoral Attorney as bad as they come, as the Chief Prosecutor. Then in Dual Destinies, the Big Bad kills and replaces a detective, with no one the wiser; Phoenix and Edgeworth only discover him because Edgeworth was running a long game to expose the spy. - Even before the Dark Age of the Law, the entire justice system is in dire need of help. The crime rate is so high, trials can only afford to run for three days. The concept of perjury is a myth, and oftentimes members of the court will encourage people to patch up their testimonies. The police, while well-intentioned, are full of hotheaded fools at best, and corrupt murderers at worst. Prosecutioners are more than willing to send innocents to the gallows for their success rate, and many defense attornies can only hope to minimize the damage. Honest men and women can help to change the above, but their careers and personal lives are typically marred by tragedy and loss to the point where even mentioning it can send them into a Heroic BSoD. That anyone is even close to a sane and moral person in this world is a damn miracle. - The worst thing? Prosecutors obsessively caring for their perfect win streak, defendants already having confessed to the crime before trial starts, defense attorneys having the odds so stacked against them, and the negative view on the police are all more or less Truth in Television when it comes to the legal system of Japan. It has a scary reputation of having one of the highest conviction rates of all legal systems, regardless if the one who is convicted was actually guilty of the crime or not. A story in the link tells about a innocent man who was basically forced into confessing he murdered children, and spent years in prison as a result until a DNA test way later would fully prove his innocence. While this is eerily reminiscent of the in-universe case of Simon Blackquill, it is all the more creepy that this is real and it is something still happening in our world. Forum 90, a Japanese anti-death penalty group, conducted a survey of 900 ex-judges. Over 80 percent believed, that under the current system, miscarriages of justice were inevitable. Take the case of Toshikazu Sugaya. He matched the profile and blood type of a child murderer, but the police lacked any evidence. "They barged in and told me to sit down," recalls Sugaya. "Then they kept saying, 'You killed that kid, didn't you?' I said 'No, no,' but they didn't believe me." After a 13 hour interrogation without food, water, or a lawyer, Sugaya confessed . - While some defendants end up having more ties to the murder than they originally admitted (though still innocent of the act of killing), plenty of them are simply people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and/or were blissfully unaware of the fact that someone else wanted to frame them for a crime. Consider Will Powers, who was sleeping the whole time and woke up to find himself accused of murdering his costar. The idea of being sent to death row despite having no connection to the real crime is chilling. - From Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Proto Badger (pictured). Whether he's ever-so-slowly sneaking up behind you, a sword in hand or popping out of the ground staring directly at the player, this azure abomination will frighten the pants off of you, more than any murder in this game. Pleasant dreams indeed... - Case 4: Calisto pointing a gun at Edgeworth. In a series where the player character is rarely put under threat of death by another character, this can make the player's heart jump. To make things worse, Calisto shoots, and Edgeworth barely dodges it. - It's painful for him to reminisce about because he had to deal with that all the way back in the fourth case of the first game. - Case 5: That Shih-na is a psychopath. note : Okay, yeah, it reminds us of them.. In addition, the psychotic laughter and Slasher Smile involved in that Villainous Breakdown, and the lopsided Psychotic Smirk that increasingly replaces her normal expression as time goes on just gets more and more unsettling. - Quercus Alba gets his own Objection! clip, despite not being an attorney. It is fairly harsh on the ears, and the fact that it's an audible Objection shows you just how powerful he is within the context of the law. - Alba is a corrupt diplomat who is also the head of a major smuggling ring and uses his power to keep his name clear, whose dealings resulted in the death of an innocent witness and the catastrophic damage of the economy of an entire country with counterfeit bills. Scandalous ambassadors and other people in positions of political power who use their power to subvert justice unfortunately exist in real life. And worse still, many of them, like Alba, will stop at nothing to escape responsibility for what they've done. - There's also Quercus Alba's breakdown, where his skin begins to chip away and is blown off, leaving only his mummified-looking husk. - In Case 1, Edgeworth, Kay, and Gumshoe are inside an enclosed space with Shelly de Killer and a hostage. Then the lights go out... He doesn't kill anyone, but it's abundantly clear that he could. Easily. - Investigations 2 has the second case's introduction, which features Knightley lying dead in a dank, eerily-lit prison, bleeding heavily from a neck wound inflicted by a hound with a bloodied snout... - When you question Sahwit about Knightley's death, he'll provide a graphic description of how he was supposedly killed by the dog in question, which freaks Kay and Ray out. - Case 2's Villainous Breakdown. The killer yells that they didn't do anything wrong, and the real bad guy is Sirhan Dogen the assassin, as images of him appear on a black background and his bell rings. The rings get more and more frequent, as she starts covering her ears (implying she's hearing the sound in her head, as we are) until they blur and turn into an emergency siren as she screams. In short, you're basically watching her Sanity Slippage, caused by the imprisoned assassin repeatedly reminding her he has agents who can go after her family at any time. Probably one of the most disturbing breakdowns in the series on a psychological level. You later find out Dogen had a good reason for going after her, but at the time you're led to believe he was doing it all For the Evulz, which makes you wish he was guilty. - How about the first time you encounter Dogen in person? Between the creepy music and the fact that he looks like he's looking at you despite being blind, some players find him to be something of a Jump Scare. - In the very least it's Paranoia Fuel but the description of Dogen's method can leave you unnerved. The charming sound of a little bell could mean you've actually been marked for death. And he doesn't do it with a rifle or anything uncivil like that, oh no, he will come right up and do the job hands-on with a knife. - In the 5th case, 14-year-old Simon Keyes's drawing of what he witnessed happened in SS-5. Especially at how he draws Sirhan Dogen the assassin. - In general the setting of the SS-5 Incident is unsettling. Using an orphanage as the site of a presidential assassination (followed by murdering a witness at the scene) is pretty dark (not to mention Huang's pleading just to see his son before he's killed, making it all the more depressing). The fact the orphanage director was in on it and they buried his body on the grounds where children play is even worse. Furthermore, the fact the murder of the president was covered up so thoroughly in the aftermath gives you a chilling look at how influential and vile Blaise Debeste is. - Blaise Debeste is practically Nightmare Fuel personified. The very idea of a 68-year-old Psychopathic Manchild is incredibly disturbing in itself, and almost from his first appearance he's horribly verbally abusing his own son. And it only gets worse as you learn more of what he did... holding a foreign president for ransom and having him assassinated anyway, auctioning off evidence from past cases, brutally murdering another person who found out, forging evidence in the past and using that fact to blackmail the coroner who helped him, and her family, later on, kidnapping the judge's son to manipulate his own trial... and then you remember that this guy was Chief Prosecutor for who knows how long, and that he's had a lot of people "disappeared" during that time (implied to be getting them sentenced to life in prison on false charges). Including his own wife. And to make matters worse, he has a voiced Objection, and it somehow manages to be worse than von Karma's and Alba's combined. If von Karma was a demon, Blaise is the Devil himself. He also gave von Karma the only penalty during his entire career which set the DL-6 incident in motion, making him the Greater-Scope Villain in the entire series. - His determination to get Kay falsely convicted for Jill Crane's murder is extremely disturbing, especially when he shows up to an at-the-time self-resigned and imprisoned Edgeworth during his Darkest Hour and makes a mockery of his logic and search for the truth right to his face, claiming that because Blaise is the one on top, he can do as he pleases and have his actions remain just and absolute. He even enunciates Kay's "guilt" so strongly later on in the case that it is emphasized the same way as the series' dreaded guilty verdicts. - How about the Big Bad of all of AAI2? Simon Keyes is one of the most fiendish final bosses in the franchise. Why? Because he was responsible for a majority of the murders in the game...and didn't lift a finger for any but the last. He was able to easily manipulate everyone, even getting Edgeworth into bailing him out of suspicion in Case 2. He had nearly everything under control, the only slip-up until Case 5 was his aforementioned issues in Case 2. The only reason he was even caught was due to an utter Spanner in the Works in Justine Courtney who brought the fake Huang to the roof on April 4th. Had she not done so, everyone would be none the wiser, AND even if they had, he would have had no direct hands in any murder, and gotten away with EVERYTHING! The only bright spot is that all his targets were true Asshole Victims. - And, unlike every other villain, he actually accomplished everything he intended to do. He took down all his enemies. He will be able to plea justified self-defense and beat his murder charge, as the body double was trying to kill him in earnest with a gun, and he had no way to flee, as he would have been shot out of the sky if he tried. And while he will do some time, he'll be with his assassin father figure, and likely be an amazing assassin himself once he gets out of prison, and no one will be able to do a thing to him. If you anger him, he will destroy you, either by getting someone else to murder you, getting you to willingly murder someone else and then leaving you at the mercy of Miles Edgeworth, or, if you're the fake Huang, stepping in and doing the job personally. And yet he's sympathetic... - Despite being an overall sympathetic figure, Simon's misanthropy can be downright chilling at times, especially one of his dialogues for presenting wrong evidence, which has him asking Justine to prove Edgeworth wrong in his stead just so he can laugh at Edgeworth being betrayed by his friends. The fact that he's dressed as a clown at the time doesn't help. He could very well be a sympathetic version of The Joker or Kefka. - Something about amnesiac Kay◊ clutching her head and screaming without any sound to go with it (other than the usual 'beep-de-beep' effects) is unnerving (since the visualization is less like memories returning and more like being haunted by demonic voices that won't leave her head). Even the idle version◊ with her grit teeth and erratic, eye-twitching stare is unusually deranged for this series. - In the flashback of Case 3, Jeff Master was subjected to an all-night questioning session that caused his hair to turn white, during which time he was not allowed to see his defense attorney. Apparently, this went on for months until Master falsely confessed. The entire episode leaves hardened detective Badd disturbed, and gives a chilling indication of how awful it is to be wrongfully accused in the Ace Attorney universe. - The Masked Man's true Leitmotif is a downright disturbing Dark Reprise of Kazuma Asogi's theme. Listen here. (Beware of major spoilers) - In the second case, after you reveal that William Shamspeare is an escaped convict desperately trying to get into a death-row inmate's old apartment to find a treasure he was promised, the normally comical character suddenly becomes a deranged lunatic (spoilers in the link, obviously). Made worse by his being in some of his normal poses, but now sporting a really disturbing Un-Smile and accompanied by slightly off-key sound effects. The unsettling music doesn't help either. Even the jurors are horrified in-universe! - Shamspeare's method of trying to move into his cell mate's apartment: by creating a gas leak that kills the other tenant. Soseki Natsume describes waking up to the sensation of being suffocated for multiple nights in a row, with no explanation as to why it keeps happening. It's even horrifyingly depicted in the intro where a monster made of black smog is outright strangling the Japanese student (the stand-in for Natsume). - Genshin Asogi's death, at first glance. Imagine being sentenced to death by hanging, said execution getting botched, having a metal mask placed over your head, being placed in a sealed coffin, and after how many hours pass by, when you come to and try to come out of your coffin, you get shot out of nowhere. As it turns out, the seemingly-botched execution was planned, but it's still a terrifying thought. - Related, Madame Tusspells, the wax sculptor's testimony in Case 3's trial, which involves her describing how hard it is to make a mold out of a dead body's face before rigor mortis sets in, in vivid detail. And she talks about it in a way that implies "The Professor" isn't the first dead body she's done this to. Not helped by her theme playing through this sequence. - Daley Vigil remembering his past. The flashback shows him in Barry's office, thinking about how badly he screwed up by allowing the Professor to escape, and deciding to kill himself by jumping out of the window. Then the screen shatters back to the present as Daley screams for several text boxes, his eyes turn white, and he passes out. - The entire premise of the game's backstory. Someone relatively high-up in the British judicial system caught a Serial Killer in the act and blackmailed him into becoming his personal hitman, using him to kill his way to the top. Then, he coerces several key figures in both Britain and Japan into a massive conspiracy cleaning up every loose end. Part of this involved setting up Van Zieks' "Reaper" reputation by killing everyone he prosecuted, another part involved taking advantage of international extradition treaties to assassinate key targets without fear of retribution. At least part of both countries' governments were in on this. Paranoia Fuel sets in when you find out the Japanese judge, someone you probably never suspected for a moment, is a killer working for the Big Bad. Imagine being caught in the middle of all this. - What makes it even scarier is the crowd's reaction to The Reveal: they start cheering for Stronghart, agreeing that he did what he had to do to reduce crime in Britain. This despite the fact that he's just confessed to being the mastermind behind most of the Professor killings that terrorized London. - And as if that wasnt enough, during the moment you have to choose between raising an objection, presenting evidence, or waiting to see what happens, one wouldnt be blamed for saving before making a choice. BUT!!! While saving, you can still hear the court chanting Strongharts name. The pressure is that high. - After Enoch Drebber has been captured and his time bomb set to destroy his workshop was disarmed, he cackles at this, with an ominous zoom onto Gina holding said bomb, at first implying that Sholmes actually failed to disarm it and everyone here will die, only then stating that the heroes only managed to disarm "that" one. It's then revealed that Harebrayne's machine has one as well, which blows up with at least two police officers nearby. - In the anime adaptation, we get to see animated interpretations of the crimes as they happened. This also applies to the false testimonies of what say, the real suspect, claims to have seen. For example, the First Turnabout shows Frank Sahwit actively seeing Larry exit Cindy's room after the murder and deciding to call the police, when we already know that's not how it happened. That's all fine and dandy, but then we get to the cases where one of the heroes is the defendant; in other words, we get to see the lovely image of Maya, and later Phoenix himself, murdering Mia. - The portrayal of the "murder" of Robert Hammond at the beginning of the first Turnabout Goodbyes gives a very eerie atmosphere to it. The dark night and leafless trees make the murder lifted straight out of a horror movie. - Redd White's Nightmare Face when he kills Mia is quite unsettling and doubles as a Jump Scare. - Manfred von Karma's depiction in the Turnabout Goodbyes episodes is far more chilling than the game counterpart. Here, he shows a great level of intelligence and fear towards anyone who stands in his way. This is shown in greater detail with episode 10, in which instead of meeting Phoenix and Maya in the files room regarding the DL-6 incident and tasing them to get the evidence, he gets it right when Phoenix and Maya arrive, showing how well he knows about the clues that might lead to the murder of Robert Hammond. Lastly, when Karma taunts Phoenix about the usage of evidence of court at the moment where the guilty verdict is given, he ends his taunt by calling him an amateur and, unlike the other episodes, where a dramatic pointing results in someone being blown away, Manfred does it by SLAMMING his fist on the table. The episodes make von Karma truly live up to his reputation as a "demon" prosecutor. - He certainly sounds like a demon too, especially in the English dub. You thought he was terrifying already? Try listening to his dub VA channeling his inner Tony Jay every time he speaks! - During the arc, we also get to see Phoenix's flashback of the class trial as a child. On top of the children accusing him of stealing the money, we're also treated to seeing the teacher trying to goad him to confess to an incident he wasn't responsible for with a twisted take of a smile. Even if you assume that the teacher is probably just trying to get through the day without a hitch, the studio put the effort into making sure you're seeing it through the eyes of a child being scapegoated understandably feeling that everyone is against him. - The moment Maya reveals that she found the bullet that killed Gregory Edgeworth hidden in Manfred von Karma's office gives a close-up on von Karma's face: his irises have shrunken and his gums start showing as he clutches his shoulder, where the second DL-6 bullet is located. His eyes keep bugging out all the time, and then he lets out the scream that haunted Edgeworth for 15 years. The moment in his testimony when he describes picking up Yanni Yogi's pistol is just as unsettling. His voice gets all raspy and he mimics holding a pistol with both hands as he says that he "knew it was destiny". As he gets off the witness stand he looks frail, barely kept standing by his walking cane that is shattered by Phoenix's outburst. - Morgan Fey's sprite where her pupils seem to be missing are adapted in this version into Glowing Eyes of Doom. There's also a more sinister air surrounding her this time around, and the calm demeanor as she talks to Ini (Mimi) about getting her off the hook is enough to send shivers down your spine. let alone when she chillingly talks to a portrait of Misty Fey. - We all know how scary Ini (actually Mimi) is when she starts to show her true colors, but in the Anime version, we can get to hear her nasty demeanor towards the defense and it's quite unnerving to listen to her threatening voice in the latter half. - Unlike in the games, Franziska getting shot is actually shown, and it seems to be worse than the injury she sustained in the games since she actually seems to have fainted. Further, while in the original games, her shooting might have been a Kick the Dog, or a Take That, Scrappy! (depending on your opinion of her), but since the anime toned down her bad demeanor, it also gives her a more sympathetic P.O.V.. - Matt Engarde's reveal of his true self is even creepier in the anime. Why? Because he does it while giving out a burst of very disturbing laughter that can be unnerving for many people, especially that the original material wasn't voiced. It also shows that this is pretty much a nightmare in-life to Phoenix, because at this point, he was begging that Engarde being the culprit was a lie, he wanted to believe in the goodness of his client... until that reveal slams him down that he's working for an evil bastard this time. - Then comes his breakdown, where he scratches bleeding lines into his face with his nails. Think the anime wouldn't show something like that? It does. Twice. - Dahlia's demon face is shown in full, and it will send shivers down your spine.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceAttorney
Aboriginal Australian Myths / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes 40,000 years of everything from megafaunal encounters to still living animals to flash floods to pure imagination have left the many indigenous cultures of Australia with a remarkable and heightened sense of a Death World. ## Creatures - The Yara-ma-yha-who is easily one of the most infamous "vampires" the world has to offer. A grotesque fleshy frog thingie, it stalks during the day and targets children with a vengeance. It swallows its victim whole then regurgitates it multiple times, each time the flesh discolored and the blood sipped, until the victim becomes another Yara-ma-yha-who. - The Yowie. Despite its frankly silly name this creature silently stalked the shores of the Milewa river, devouring whole families while they slept. - The Dulagal is a creepy Humanoid Abomination with bright red eyes that stalks Mount Gulaga, walking sideways for maximum unnerval level. - The Nadubi is a grotesque echidna dog man thing covered in spikes (some in its vagina) that stalks and kills people at night. - The Malingee similarly hunts at night stabbing people with a knife. You can only hear its rattling knees until it is too late. - The Bunyip. A vicious and demonic Swamp Monster universally feared amongst the Aboriginal tribes that can appear as a beautiful woman or turn invisible according to some legends. But what makes the Bunyip really stand out from other monsters? No one can agree on what the creature actually looks like. - Burrunjor. Descriptions of it say it is a large scaly predator that stands on two legs with two tiny arms. It is 25 feet in length, and eats large animals, like cattle. Casts of its footprints show it has three toes. Does that sound familiar? - The Quinkins are spirit-folk from the mythologies of the Yalanji people of Cape York. There are two major tribes; the Imjin and the Timara. Whilst the Timara are largely inoffensive, being more playful mischief-makers than anything, they're still eerie-looking, being impossibly slender figures, tall as trees yet so skinny they can hide in the cracks of rocks or bark, depicted as featureless save for two great staring eyes. The Imjin, in contrast, are fat-bellied, big-eared goblin-like creatures with knobby tails and vicious fangs and claws, capable of leaping a mile In a Single Bound — worse, they hate humans, and like to steal children by luring them away from the safety of the camp and into their own, where they eat them. Fortunately, the Timara hate the Imjin, being very fond of human children, and strive to thwart them. A story of two children who are nearly eaten by the Imjin, only to be saved by the Timara, was adapted into a beautifully illustrated children's book in 1982, and can be seen online. ## Gods - Pretty much all cultures have a God of Evil that sends plagues and nasty insects with the explicit intent of killing all life. Special mention goes to the Gamilaraay Marmoo, who can corrupt people into their worst impulses, and the Tasmanian Rageowrapper just for being associated with Tasmanian devils. - Bila the sun goddess from Adnyamathanha and Ngadjuri traditions. She's a cannibal that drags her victims with black and red dogs that apparently look like people, burning the poor bastards in her fireplace, the origin of sunlight.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AboriginalAustralianMyths
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes ## Examples from the book include: - The introduction to the book details the author's friendship with Henry Sturges. Henry was a frequent customer of his general store, and eventually the two bonded over the author's failed writing career. Then Henry left him a series of books and addresses before leaving. The author later reads the books, believing them to be a hoax... until Henry reveals his vampiric form, as well as something even worse that was sworn to secrecy. - Henry recounting his transformation into a vampire. It turns out he was one of numerous victims of a vampire massacre on the infamous Roanoke Island. The doctor, whom everyone had taken as kind and charming, eventually killed and fed off of everyone on the island before turning Henry out of fear of a lack of companionship. The last we see of Dr. Crowley, he is feeding from a baby. He is not killed for his transgressions, either. At least not in that book. When Henry narrates the Roanoke slaughter in The Last American Vampire, he mentions eventually killing Crowley. - The incidents of Lincoln's life are literal nightmare fuel for him. Two of the four dreams accounted for in the book are not introduced as such, so it seems that Lincoln is truly being suddenly and viciously betrayed by Henry before he wakes up. However, his last dream - detailing a visit to his own funeral in the White House just days before his assassination - is terrifyingly truth in literature. - Jack and Speed are sent to dispatch a vampiric surgeon/professor, Joseph McDowell ([who really existed, by the way). They track him down to a room of glass tubing connected to various living victims, feeding blood constantly to a single source. During the battle, they accidentally destroy the fragile tubing, which shatters all at once sending a rain of blood down upon them. ## Examples from the film include: - The scene where Union troops are massacred by the vampire soldiers during the battle of Gettysburg is rather chilling. The vampires are dressed like normal Confederate troops, but as they rush towards the Union lines they begin dropping their rifles, to the bafflement of the Union soldiers, who proceed to fire at the vampires anyway, to no effect. Suddenly the vampires go invisible en masse, and all of the cannons and gunfire go silent; the Union officer is left speechless, and he slowly turns around to see his men already lying dead and the vampire horde charging onward, leaving him as the lone survivor. - This scene also qualifies as a Tear Jerker, with one of the soldiers (a young fellow who is clearly quite green and has no clue what he's doing) kissing a photo of what is presumably his wife... and the next time we see him he's got a hole through his stomach, at which he gasps disbelievingly before keeling over, while the photo falls to the ground, covered in blood. - The first time we see a vampire with their Game Face on. Edward Cullen they ain't! Especially when they lunge at the camera. - During Abe's fight with the pharmacist, he falls through a trap door and ends up suspended upside down. He can't reach his axe, and then hears a strange dripping sound. He looks around, quickly realizing he's surrounded by the vampire's previous victims, all of them dangling upside, sliced open, and dripping blood for the kindly seeming old man to harvest. - The flashback to when Adam kills Henry's wife. Henry is in the middle of undergoing a very painful transformation into a vampire as it happens, and is completely helpless to protect her. Not only that, but when Adam bites her throat, he starts spinning her around almost like a dance partner. As they spin, we slowly see the poor woman go from kicking, screaming, and fighting for her life to just hanging limply in Adam's arms.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AbrahamLincolnVampireHunter
Absurd (1981) / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The murders, which are not only quite visceral and explicit, but are prone to lingering. It's no surprise therefore that this film had such a hard time with the BBFC. In more detail: Nurse Thelma is skewered through the temple with a massive drill (pictured). Emily is shoved into an oven, where her face is burned off in graphic detail before Mikos finally finishes her off by stabbing her in the neck with a pair of scissors. Peggy is stabbed to death with a pickaxe a la My Bloody Valentine. An unnamed machine shop owner takes a circular saw to the forehead courtesy of Mikos. Reportedly, Joe D'Amato used an actual cadaver for the close-up shots in that scene. Mikos in general. A Nigh-Invulnerable Ax-Crazy psychopath built like a professional athlete with accelerated healing and an immunity of bullets who will stop at nothing to kill you, often while pulling off◊ one hell of a Nightmare Face.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Absurd1981
A Certain Dark Railgun and Imagine Breaker / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The whole idea of comatose people suddenly decomposing like in a time lapse. Any of the numerous, absolutely brutal executions Mikoto performs after the first arc. Everything about Sashura V. Makarova.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ACertainDarkRailgunAndImagineBreaker
Ace Ventura / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Yes. Even Jim Carrey movies can have creepy moments. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective "It's not Snowflake! IT'S NOT SNOWFLAKE!" Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls - In the second film, a human antagonist is literally raped by a gorilla. - For animal lovers like Ace, Cadby's Trophy Room. - While the scene with the crocodile isn't too scary with how Ace isn't phased by it, what is scary is how beforehand there is wide shot where you see just how wide the river is and that there's something motionless behind him. While its thankfully just a log, your mind can easily assume its a croc itself stalking Ace. Then comes the part where it emerges in a split second out of nowhere.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceVentura
A Certain Magical Index / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Shizuri Mugino after she \|\|Came Back Wrong.\|\| She gains \|\|Glowing Eyes of Doom\|\| and her already freakishly crazy personality makes matters even worse. She even threatens to \|\|burn off Rikou's virginity\|\|! "Gya ha ha!! Oh, now where to start burning her? Maybe I should roast that little face of hers? \|\|Or maybe I should press against her pink * and burn it pitch black!!\|\| Hey, what do you think, [Shiage]? You'd better come out, cause I'm gonna burn her into a black mummy! \|\|Or can you still get off to fucking a hole like that?\|\| I'll count to three. If you don't come out, \|\|I'll burn [Rikou's] * as punishment.\|\| Of course, if you'd rather just abandon her, \|\|the you can just sit there masturbating to the stench of her virginity being burned away.\|\|"	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ACertainMagicalIndex
Ace Attorney / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Watch out, Edgeworth! Ace Attorney may be an over-the-top series about lawyers, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its share of creepy and nightmare-inducing moments... ## Specific works <!—index—><!—/index—> ## Other examples Special Mentions: - Because the series is entirely driven by Always Murder cases, it's almost inevitable that the cause of death of certain victims may make players uncomfortable, especially if the victim in question was said to be nice and likable when alive. The fact that photos of their corpses are present in almost every case as evidence doesn't help. - Depending on how sensitive you are to scary stuff, many witnesses can start to become this as they get more and more upset. - It's especially jarring when the last witness' freak-out was actually pretty funny, and then the next witness goes absolutely insane. It just goes to show that it's not just the perpetrators who can fall victim to a breakdown. - A special mention must go to the film, where you're treated to the scene of Yanni Yogi burning off his fingerprints in acid. - Think about the many corrupt and amoral prosecutors you've seen in the game and to what lengths they'll go to secure their victories, even if it means innocent lives being sent to death row. This makes these prosecutors indirect murderers. Then comes the "Dark Age of the Law" brought up in Dual Destinies, where "win at all costs" becomes not only a tactic, but an entire philosophy (more exactly, "the end justifies the means"), advocated by Themis Legal Academy instructor Aristotle Means...who is a defense attorney, showing that both sides are willing to go to extremes. - The police system isn't trustworthy either. For at least two years, the corrupt Chief of Police kept the Chief Prosecutor under his thumb via blackmail and (it's strongly implied) used her to fire or depose anyone he disliked, even if it meant forging evidence. (Edgeworth in particular nearly goes into a Heroic BSoD when he realizes that he scored at least one conviction on false evidence.) Before them, we had Blaise Debeste, an Amoral Attorney as bad as they come, as the Chief Prosecutor. Then in Dual Destinies, the Big Bad kills and replaces a detective, with no one the wiser; Phoenix and Edgeworth only discover him because Edgeworth was running a long game to expose the spy. - Even before the Dark Age of the Law, the entire justice system is in dire need of help. The crime rate is so high, trials can only afford to run for three days. The concept of perjury is a myth, and oftentimes members of the court will encourage people to patch up their testimonies. The police, while well-intentioned, are full of hotheaded fools at best, and corrupt murderers at worst. Prosecutioners are more than willing to send innocents to the gallows for their success rate, and many defense attornies can only hope to minimize the damage. Honest men and women can help to change the above, but their careers and personal lives are typically marred by tragedy and loss to the point where even mentioning it can send them into a Heroic BSoD. That anyone is even close to a sane and moral person in this world is a damn miracle. - The worst thing? Prosecutors obsessively caring for their perfect win streak, defendants already having confessed to the crime before trial starts, defense attorneys having the odds so stacked against them, and the negative view on the police are all more or less Truth in Television when it comes to the legal system of Japan. It has a scary reputation of having one of the highest conviction rates of all legal systems, regardless if the one who is convicted was actually guilty of the crime or not. A story in the link tells about a innocent man who was basically forced into confessing he murdered children, and spent years in prison as a result until a DNA test way later would fully prove his innocence. While this is eerily reminiscent of the in-universe case of Simon Blackquill, it is all the more creepy that this is real and it is something still happening in our world. Forum 90, a Japanese anti-death penalty group, conducted a survey of 900 ex-judges. Over 80 percent believed, that under the current system, miscarriages of justice were inevitable. Take the case of Toshikazu Sugaya. He matched the profile and blood type of a child murderer, but the police lacked any evidence. "They barged in and told me to sit down," recalls Sugaya. "Then they kept saying, 'You killed that kid, didn't you?' I said 'No, no,' but they didn't believe me." After a 13 hour interrogation without food, water, or a lawyer, Sugaya confessed . - While some defendants end up having more ties to the murder than they originally admitted (though still innocent of the act of killing), plenty of them are simply people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and/or were blissfully unaware of the fact that someone else wanted to frame them for a crime. Consider Will Powers, who was sleeping the whole time and woke up to find himself accused of murdering his costar. The idea of being sent to death row despite having no connection to the real crime is chilling. - From Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Proto Badger (pictured). Whether he's ever-so-slowly sneaking up behind you, a sword in hand or popping out of the ground staring directly at the player, this azure abomination will frighten the pants off of you, more than any murder in this game. Pleasant dreams indeed... - Case 4: Calisto pointing a gun at Edgeworth. In a series where the player character is rarely put under threat of death by another character, this can make the player's heart jump. To make things worse, Calisto shoots, and Edgeworth barely dodges it. - It's painful for him to reminisce about because he had to deal with that all the way back in the fourth case of the first game. - Case 5: That Shih-na is a psychopath. note : Okay, yeah, it reminds us of them.. In addition, the psychotic laughter and Slasher Smile involved in that Villainous Breakdown, and the lopsided Psychotic Smirk that increasingly replaces her normal expression as time goes on just gets more and more unsettling. - Quercus Alba gets his own Objection! clip, despite not being an attorney. It is fairly harsh on the ears, and the fact that it's an audible Objection shows you just how powerful he is within the context of the law. - Alba is a corrupt diplomat who is also the head of a major smuggling ring and uses his power to keep his name clear, whose dealings resulted in the death of an innocent witness and the catastrophic damage of the economy of an entire country with counterfeit bills. Scandalous ambassadors and other people in positions of political power who use their power to subvert justice unfortunately exist in real life. And worse still, many of them, like Alba, will stop at nothing to escape responsibility for what they've done. - There's also Quercus Alba's breakdown, where his skin begins to chip away and is blown off, leaving only his mummified-looking husk. - In Case 1, Edgeworth, Kay, and Gumshoe are inside an enclosed space with Shelly de Killer and a hostage. Then the lights go out... He doesn't kill anyone, but it's abundantly clear that he could. Easily. - Investigations 2 has the second case's introduction, which features Knightley lying dead in a dank, eerily-lit prison, bleeding heavily from a neck wound inflicted by a hound with a bloodied snout... - When you question Sahwit about Knightley's death, he'll provide a graphic description of how he was supposedly killed by the dog in question, which freaks Kay and Ray out. - Case 2's Villainous Breakdown. The killer yells that they didn't do anything wrong, and the real bad guy is Sirhan Dogen the assassin, as images of him appear on a black background and his bell rings. The rings get more and more frequent, as she starts covering her ears (implying she's hearing the sound in her head, as we are) until they blur and turn into an emergency siren as she screams. In short, you're basically watching her Sanity Slippage, caused by the imprisoned assassin repeatedly reminding her he has agents who can go after her family at any time. Probably one of the most disturbing breakdowns in the series on a psychological level. You later find out Dogen had a good reason for going after her, but at the time you're led to believe he was doing it all For the Evulz, which makes you wish he was guilty. - How about the first time you encounter Dogen in person? Between the creepy music and the fact that he looks like he's looking at you despite being blind, some players find him to be something of a Jump Scare. - In the very least it's Paranoia Fuel but the description of Dogen's method can leave you unnerved. The charming sound of a little bell could mean you've actually been marked for death. And he doesn't do it with a rifle or anything uncivil like that, oh no, he will come right up and do the job hands-on with a knife. - In the 5th case, 14-year-old Simon Keyes's drawing of what he witnessed happened in SS-5. Especially at how he draws Sirhan Dogen the assassin. - In general the setting of the SS-5 Incident is unsettling. Using an orphanage as the site of a presidential assassination (followed by murdering a witness at the scene) is pretty dark (not to mention Huang's pleading just to see his son before he's killed, making it all the more depressing). The fact the orphanage director was in on it and they buried his body on the grounds where children play is even worse. Furthermore, the fact the murder of the president was covered up so thoroughly in the aftermath gives you a chilling look at how influential and vile Blaise Debeste is. - Blaise Debeste is practically Nightmare Fuel personified. The very idea of a 68-year-old Psychopathic Manchild is incredibly disturbing in itself, and almost from his first appearance he's horribly verbally abusing his own son. And it only gets worse as you learn more of what he did... holding a foreign president for ransom and having him assassinated anyway, auctioning off evidence from past cases, brutally murdering another person who found out, forging evidence in the past and using that fact to blackmail the coroner who helped him, and her family, later on, kidnapping the judge's son to manipulate his own trial... and then you remember that this guy was Chief Prosecutor for who knows how long, and that he's had a lot of people "disappeared" during that time (implied to be getting them sentenced to life in prison on false charges). Including his own wife. And to make matters worse, he has a voiced Objection, and it somehow manages to be worse than von Karma's and Alba's combined. If von Karma was a demon, Blaise is the Devil himself. He also gave von Karma the only penalty during his entire career which set the DL-6 incident in motion, making him the Greater-Scope Villain in the entire series. - His determination to get Kay falsely convicted for Jill Crane's murder is extremely disturbing, especially when he shows up to an at-the-time self-resigned and imprisoned Edgeworth during his Darkest Hour and makes a mockery of his logic and search for the truth right to his face, claiming that because Blaise is the one on top, he can do as he pleases and have his actions remain just and absolute. He even enunciates Kay's "guilt" so strongly later on in the case that it is emphasized the same way as the series' dreaded guilty verdicts. - How about the Big Bad of all of AAI2? Simon Keyes is one of the most fiendish final bosses in the franchise. Why? Because he was responsible for a majority of the murders in the game...and didn't lift a finger for any but the last. He was able to easily manipulate everyone, even getting Edgeworth into bailing him out of suspicion in Case 2. He had nearly everything under control, the only slip-up until Case 5 was his aforementioned issues in Case 2. The only reason he was even caught was due to an utter Spanner in the Works in Justine Courtney who brought the fake Huang to the roof on April 4th. Had she not done so, everyone would be none the wiser, AND even if they had, he would have had no direct hands in any murder, and gotten away with EVERYTHING! The only bright spot is that all his targets were true Asshole Victims. - And, unlike every other villain, he actually accomplished everything he intended to do. He took down all his enemies. He will be able to plea justified self-defense and beat his murder charge, as the body double was trying to kill him in earnest with a gun, and he had no way to flee, as he would have been shot out of the sky if he tried. And while he will do some time, he'll be with his assassin father figure, and likely be an amazing assassin himself once he gets out of prison, and no one will be able to do a thing to him. If you anger him, he will destroy you, either by getting someone else to murder you, getting you to willingly murder someone else and then leaving you at the mercy of Miles Edgeworth, or, if you're the fake Huang, stepping in and doing the job personally. And yet he's sympathetic... - Despite being an overall sympathetic figure, Simon's misanthropy can be downright chilling at times, especially one of his dialogues for presenting wrong evidence, which has him asking Justine to prove Edgeworth wrong in his stead just so he can laugh at Edgeworth being betrayed by his friends. The fact that he's dressed as a clown at the time doesn't help. He could very well be a sympathetic version of The Joker or Kefka. - Something about amnesiac Kay◊ clutching her head and screaming without any sound to go with it (other than the usual 'beep-de-beep' effects) is unnerving (since the visualization is less like memories returning and more like being haunted by demonic voices that won't leave her head). Even the idle version◊ with her grit teeth and erratic, eye-twitching stare is unusually deranged for this series. - In the flashback of Case 3, Jeff Master was subjected to an all-night questioning session that caused his hair to turn white, during which time he was not allowed to see his defense attorney. Apparently, this went on for months until Master falsely confessed. The entire episode leaves hardened detective Badd disturbed, and gives a chilling indication of how awful it is to be wrongfully accused in the Ace Attorney universe. - The Masked Man's true Leitmotif is a downright disturbing Dark Reprise of Kazuma Asogi's theme. Listen here. (Beware of major spoilers) - In the second case, after you reveal that William Shamspeare is an escaped convict desperately trying to get into a death-row inmate's old apartment to find a treasure he was promised, the normally comical character suddenly becomes a deranged lunatic (spoilers in the link, obviously). Made worse by his being in some of his normal poses, but now sporting a really disturbing Un-Smile and accompanied by slightly off-key sound effects. The unsettling music doesn't help either. Even the jurors are horrified in-universe! - Shamspeare's method of trying to move into his cell mate's apartment: by creating a gas leak that kills the other tenant. Soseki Natsume describes waking up to the sensation of being suffocated for multiple nights in a row, with no explanation as to why it keeps happening. It's even horrifyingly depicted in the intro where a monster made of black smog is outright strangling the Japanese student (the stand-in for Natsume). - Genshin Asogi's death, at first glance. Imagine being sentenced to death by hanging, said execution getting botched, having a metal mask placed over your head, being placed in a sealed coffin, and after how many hours pass by, when you come to and try to come out of your coffin, you get shot out of nowhere. As it turns out, the seemingly-botched execution was planned, but it's still a terrifying thought. - Related, Madame Tusspells, the wax sculptor's testimony in Case 3's trial, which involves her describing how hard it is to make a mold out of a dead body's face before rigor mortis sets in, in vivid detail. And she talks about it in a way that implies "The Professor" isn't the first dead body she's done this to. Not helped by her theme playing through this sequence. - Daley Vigil remembering his past. The flashback shows him in Barry's office, thinking about how badly he screwed up by allowing the Professor to escape, and deciding to kill himself by jumping out of the window. Then the screen shatters back to the present as Daley screams for several text boxes, his eyes turn white, and he passes out. - The entire premise of the game's backstory. Someone relatively high-up in the British judicial system caught a Serial Killer in the act and blackmailed him into becoming his personal hitman, using him to kill his way to the top. Then, he coerces several key figures in both Britain and Japan into a massive conspiracy cleaning up every loose end. Part of this involved setting up Van Zieks' "Reaper" reputation by killing everyone he prosecuted, another part involved taking advantage of international extradition treaties to assassinate key targets without fear of retribution. At least part of both countries' governments were in on this. Paranoia Fuel sets in when you find out the Japanese judge, someone you probably never suspected for a moment, is a killer working for the Big Bad. Imagine being caught in the middle of all this. - What makes it even scarier is the crowd's reaction to The Reveal: they start cheering for Stronghart, agreeing that he did what he had to do to reduce crime in Britain. This despite the fact that he's just confessed to being the mastermind behind most of the Professor killings that terrorized London. - And as if that wasnt enough, during the moment you have to choose between raising an objection, presenting evidence, or waiting to see what happens, one wouldnt be blamed for saving before making a choice. BUT!!! While saving, you can still hear the court chanting Strongharts name. The pressure is that high. - After Enoch Drebber has been captured and his time bomb set to destroy his workshop was disarmed, he cackles at this, with an ominous zoom onto Gina holding said bomb, at first implying that Sholmes actually failed to disarm it and everyone here will die, only then stating that the heroes only managed to disarm "that" one. It's then revealed that Harebrayne's machine has one as well, which blows up with at least two police officers nearby. - In the anime adaptation, we get to see animated interpretations of the crimes as they happened. This also applies to the false testimonies of what say, the real suspect, claims to have seen. For example, the First Turnabout shows Frank Sahwit actively seeing Larry exit Cindy's room after the murder and deciding to call the police, when we already know that's not how it happened. That's all fine and dandy, but then we get to the cases where one of the heroes is the defendant; in other words, we get to see the lovely image of Maya, and later Phoenix himself, murdering Mia. - The portrayal of the "murder" of Robert Hammond at the beginning of the first Turnabout Goodbyes gives a very eerie atmosphere to it. The dark night and leafless trees make the murder lifted straight out of a horror movie. - Redd White's Nightmare Face when he kills Mia is quite unsettling and doubles as a Jump Scare. - Manfred von Karma's depiction in the Turnabout Goodbyes episodes is far more chilling than the game counterpart. Here, he shows a great level of intelligence and fear towards anyone who stands in his way. This is shown in greater detail with episode 10, in which instead of meeting Phoenix and Maya in the files room regarding the DL-6 incident and tasing them to get the evidence, he gets it right when Phoenix and Maya arrive, showing how well he knows about the clues that might lead to the murder of Robert Hammond. Lastly, when Karma taunts Phoenix about the usage of evidence of court at the moment where the guilty verdict is given, he ends his taunt by calling him an amateur and, unlike the other episodes, where a dramatic pointing results in someone being blown away, Manfred does it by SLAMMING his fist on the table. The episodes make von Karma truly live up to his reputation as a "demon" prosecutor. - He certainly sounds like a demon too, especially in the English dub. You thought he was terrifying already? Try listening to his dub VA channeling his inner Tony Jay every time he speaks! - During the arc, we also get to see Phoenix's flashback of the class trial as a child. On top of the children accusing him of stealing the money, we're also treated to seeing the teacher trying to goad him to confess to an incident he wasn't responsible for with a twisted take of a smile. Even if you assume that the teacher is probably just trying to get through the day without a hitch, the studio put the effort into making sure you're seeing it through the eyes of a child being scapegoated understandably feeling that everyone is against him. - The moment Maya reveals that she found the bullet that killed Gregory Edgeworth hidden in Manfred von Karma's office gives a close-up on von Karma's face: his irises have shrunken and his gums start showing as he clutches his shoulder, where the second DL-6 bullet is located. His eyes keep bugging out all the time, and then he lets out the scream that haunted Edgeworth for 15 years. The moment in his testimony when he describes picking up Yanni Yogi's pistol is just as unsettling. His voice gets all raspy and he mimics holding a pistol with both hands as he says that he "knew it was destiny". As he gets off the witness stand he looks frail, barely kept standing by his walking cane that is shattered by Phoenix's outburst. - Morgan Fey's sprite where her pupils seem to be missing are adapted in this version into Glowing Eyes of Doom. There's also a more sinister air surrounding her this time around, and the calm demeanor as she talks to Ini (Mimi) about getting her off the hook is enough to send shivers down your spine. let alone when she chillingly talks to a portrait of Misty Fey. - We all know how scary Ini (actually Mimi) is when she starts to show her true colors, but in the Anime version, we can get to hear her nasty demeanor towards the defense and it's quite unnerving to listen to her threatening voice in the latter half. - Unlike in the games, Franziska getting shot is actually shown, and it seems to be worse than the injury she sustained in the games since she actually seems to have fainted. Further, while in the original games, her shooting might have been a Kick the Dog, or a Take That, Scrappy! (depending on your opinion of her), but since the anime toned down her bad demeanor, it also gives her a more sympathetic P.O.V.. - Matt Engarde's reveal of his true self is even creepier in the anime. Why? Because he does it while giving out a burst of very disturbing laughter that can be unnerving for many people, especially that the original material wasn't voiced. It also shows that this is pretty much a nightmare in-life to Phoenix, because at this point, he was begging that Engarde being the culprit was a lie, he wanted to believe in the goodness of his client... until that reveal slams him down that he's working for an evil bastard this time. - Then comes his breakdown, where he scratches bleeding lines into his face with his nails. Think the anime wouldn't show something like that? It does. Twice. - Dahlia's demon face is shown in full, and it will send shivers down your spine.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceAttorneyInvestigationsMilesEdgeworth
Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - In the mission Bug Hunt, Nemo, Rena, and Erich are tasked with destroying nanobytes that have grown out of control. At one point however, Rena flies too close to one of the hives of nanobytes, and she gets infected with them, and they proceed to Mind Rape her, which messes up her memories, making her unsure of whats her real past, and whats not her past.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceCombat3Electrosphere
Ace Combat / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Despite your being the badass pilot of various, often advanced, jet fighters through the game, the game at times still depicts war as it is with the only way to sugarcoat them being making a lot of things implied, War Is Hell... How the entire series (with the exception of Assault Horizon due to obvious presence of blood and human combatants in action and Infinity due to being an online game) got away with an equivalent of Everyone rating in Japan is everyone's guess...	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceCombat
A Clash of Kings / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The demonic shadow creatures used by Stannis to assassinate people. Even more disturbing is the revelation of Melisandre's rather unconventional method of transporting them: they are Stannis's children, birthed by Melisandre. With Renly, his shadow appeared to be moving on its own then it stabbed him in the chest. The Mountain's March and subsequent use of Harrenhal as a prison camp may be some of the most brutally realistic depictions of war crimes in the entire series. Arya is forced to watch as multiple men, women and children get tortured to death on the way to Harrenhal, a toddler is bludgeoned with a mace for crying for his father, and Gregor Clegane in general shows absolutely no mercy. The old man-at-arms, Chiswyck, recounting how Ser Gregor led his men on a gang-rape of a thirteen year old innkeeper's daughter and killed her younger brother for walking in on it. Even worse is that Gregor only did this because he was in a bad mood after losing the Hand's Tourney, and the innkeeper was annoying him unintentionally. And Chiswyck thinks this story is absolutely hilarious because after Gregor and his men were done raping the girl, he made her father give back some of the money he "spent" on her because he wasn't satisfied with her "service". A young mother volunteers herself to be tortured and interrogated if they'll spare her daughter. Then the next day, Gregor has the daughter tortured too, just to make sure her mother didn't leave anything out. After the Boltons and the Brave Companions retake Harrenhal, the women who slept with Lannister soldiers are stripped naked and put in stocks to be raped by the Bolton soldiers. Goodwife Amabel tells Arya the same will happen to her when the Lannisters retake the castle, and threatens to sodomize her with a broom handle. She's only stopped when the girl throws the bucket of water she's carrying at her face. He will fall too, Harrenhal pulls them all down in the end. Lord Tywin's won now, he'll be marching back with all his power, and then it will be his turn to punish the disloyal. And don't think he won't know what you did! I may have a turn at you myself. Harra had an old broom, I'll save it for you. The handles cracked and splintery Dany's trip into the House of the Undying in Qarth, where she encounters visions such as rat men raping a beautiful woman (a metaphor for the War of the Five Kings' devastation of Westeros), dead men feasting with severed hands (metaphor for The Red Wedding), a man with a wolf head sitting on the Iron Throne foreshadowing Robb Stark's fate; (whose eyes follow her with "mute appeal") and a dragon bursting from Mirri Maz Duur's head (metaphor for Dany's hatching of her dragons), and which ends with the Undying whispering and screaming in her skull while sitting under a great, blue, rotting heart; they then try to sap Dany of her life-force and eat her alive. Just read this extract from the same scene and try not to quail. It seemed as though she had walked for another hour before the long hall finally ended in a steep stone stair, descending into darkness. Every door, opened or closed, had been to her left. Dany looked back behind her. The torches were going out, she realised with a start of fear. Perhaps twenty still burned. Thirty at most. One more guttered out even as she watched, and the darkness came a little further down the hall, creeping toward her. And as she listened it seemed as if she heard something else coming, shuffling and dragging itself slowly along the faded carpet. Drogon hears it too! Ramsay Snow's treatment of Lady Hornwood, an elderly woman who he forces to marry him to acquire her lands, then rapes and locks her in a tower without food. She starves to death, but not before eating some of her own fingers. Jojen's green-dreams, such as the one about "Reek" skinning Bran and Rickon's faces. Then the one about the sea coming to Winterfell and the drowned bodies, foreshadowing the Ironborn attack. During the war-induced food shortages in King's Landing, widespread hunger starts to drive the people mad. A baker is roasted alive in his own oven by a mob that claimed he charged too much for bread. Tyrion's narration: Prices had risen sickeningly high on greens, roots, flour, and fruit, and Tyrion did not want to think about what sorts of flesh might be going into the kettles of the pot-shops down in Flea Bottom. Fish, he hoped. Combined with the peasants' growing hatred of the Lannisters for their cruelty and the nobility for eating well while the poor starve, tensions finally explode on the day Myrcella sails for Dorne, when someone throws a handful of dung at Joffrey as the royal procession rides by, triggering a riot. The mob screams insults at the nobles, shouts for bread, and pelts them with stones, shit, and rotten vegetables as they flee back to the castle. Lollys Stokeworth (a mentally handicapped woman) is pulled from her horse and gang-raped behind a tanner's shop, Aron Santagar gets held down by four men and has his head bashed in with a cobblestone, the fat High Septon is torn to pieces by the mob, Tyrek Lannister disappears without a trace, and Preston Greenfield is found dead, stabbed and hacked so brutally that his corpse is "red-brown from head to heel". And, of course, it's Joffrey who really kicks things off by behaving like the little monster he is, when he starts screaming for the culprit's head. This bears emphasis: imagine seeing someone you love dying horrifically. The way to free yourself to save them is right in front of you, but just barely out of reach. You struggle to reach it, but the more you struggle, the harder it is to breathe. You know you're just being tricked into making your death more agonizing, but you have no choice, so long as there's a chance, no matter how slim, that you could succeed. But you grow weaker and weaker, and your attempts grow more feeble, and your last thought before you die is that you failed. That is why Jaime felt he had to kill Aerys. Jamie's comments that there were "trials of a sort" before describing what happened. His plural use of "trials" suggests Brandon's companions and their fathers may or may not have died in quite the same way but were almost certainly subjected to similar sadistic games. This also raises the question of whether Brandon's young squire survived due to being deliberately spared or had to go through such an ordeal but somehow survived. Near the Gods Eye, Arya finds a wooden gibbet strung with corpses so rotted and bloated they hardly look like people at all, their eyes and faces eaten away by crows. Of the sixth corpse, nothing remains but a single leg, tangled in chains and swaying in the breeze. The effigies of the Seven in Dragonstone's sept being burned in tribute to R'hllor in Davos' first chapter. By itself, it wouldn't be especially disturbing to anyone except the Faith's followers in-universe, except that Davos' narration makes it sound as if he's seeing subtle signs of actual, pained,humanreactions from the silent, burning gods. Considering how there are most certainly supernatural forces in play in the world and how often similar symbolic visions turn out to be true, it might even be that the Seven are also real (in some form or another) and if so, that the sacrifice is actually harming them. "The Maiden lay athwart the Warrior, her arms widespread as if to embrace him. The Mother seemed almost to shudder as the flames came licking up her face. A longsword had been thrust through her heart, and its leather grip was alive with flame. The Father was on the bottom, the first to fall. Davos watched the hand of the Stranger writhe and curl as the fingers blackened and fell away one by one, reduced to so much glowing charcoal."	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AClashOfKings
A Christmas Horror Story / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Caprice watching her family be picked off by the Krampus, one by one. Pretty much the entirety of the elf zombie massacre. Especially when its revealed that it was the delusions of a mall Santa who killed countless employees and customers.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AChristmasHorrorStory
Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes You get a taste of how ruthless the Eruseans are in "Escort". Mobius-1 is dispatched to fly escort for a pair of airliners carrying defecting Erusean scientists, and from the dozens of aircraft sent to intercept the airliners, they do not want them getting to ISAF custody alive. You can hear the panic in Flight 701's voice as she pleads with the Erusean fighters: Flight 701: This is Air Ixiom Flight 701. We're carrying civilians! Don't shoot! I repeat, there are civilians on board! Hold your fire!	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceCombat04ShatteredSkies
A Christmas Story / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - Scut Farkus: When he first shows up, he's laughing maniacally and chasing Ralphie, Flick and Schwartz. - Schwartz's screaming "uncle!" while being tortured is pretty disturbing. It's very convincingly agonized. - Just before that freak gets the beatdown from Ralphie, he taunts the latter with faux-crying. The zoom-in on Scut's face while he does that and the shrill noise he makes is just....shivers. Gawd! That's one UGLY kid! Fortunately, Ralphie proceeds to beat the shit out of him shortly thereafter. - The scary department store Santa going into slow motion, with the music in the background slowing down to match. Aided and abetted by the 1st Person POV fisheye camera shots as Ralphie goes up to see him. We see a distorted and fast view of a very bitter Santa (with lurid red nose) and two mean elves! HO... HO... HO..... - Schwartz being the victim of quite audible child abuse after Ralphie scapegoats him for the fudge incident. This qualifies more as Narm, though, since, although child abuse is terrifying in reality, the mom sounds like a chicken or a duck as she's screaming. Granted, as funny as her sounds may be, the sheer deranged fury she emits is unsettling. - The expression on Ralphie's face in the DVD cover◊ for the movie is rather... disturbing. - The adults dealing with Flick's flagpole situation. When a wet extremity is stuck to a cold surface, what you want to do is pour warm water over it until it can be pulled away safely. This does not happen. - Ralphie's fantasy about himself becoming blind from "soap poisoning" from having to put soap in his mouth for accidental cursing, and his parents blaming themselves for it. Though as Narm as the sobbing is, there is a reason children don't have soap put in their mouths as punishment anymore as children have suffered accidental poisoning and hospitalization in the first place.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AChristmasStory
A Clockwork Orange / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes "Stop it, stop it, please, I beg you! It's a sin! It's a sin!" - Alex's unsettling Kubrick Stare during the opening scene of the film. - The rape/violence scene done to the Soundtrack Dissonance of "Singin' in the Rain". - Half the soundtrack is Soundtrack Dissonance, including Timesteps by Wendy Carlos, the Suicide Scherzo (an incredibly synthesized re-working of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, which was initially composed to glorify peace and universal brotherhood!), and the theme music itself. - Alex's face and voice as he tells his story; it's just as creepy as any of the acts of ultraviolence he commits. - A detail of Nightmare Fuel that comes solely from the book. While skipping school, Alex goes to his favorite record shop and comes across two ten-year old girls whom are also playing hooky. So he decides to lure them back to his apartment with the promise of music and drinks. So when they get to his apartment and have to climb ten floors to his room, he encourages the tired girls to drink Scotch, which made them very drunk. And after he plays their pop music on his record player, by this time both girls were naked on his bed, he decides to bring out Beethoven's Ninth to play and a hypodermic to jab into his arm to give him energy for what he was about to do next: There it was then, the brass strings like govoreeting away from under my bed at the rest of the orchestra, and then the male human goloss coming in and telling them all to be joyful, and then the lovely blissful tune all about Joy being a glorious spark of heaven, and then I felt the old tigers leap in me and then I leapt on these two young ptitsas. This time they thought nothing fun and stopped creeching with high mirth, and had to submit to the strange and weird desires of Alexander the Large which, what with the Ninth and the hypo jab, were choodessny and zammechat and very demanding, O my brothers. But they were both very very drunken and could hardly feel very much. - And while he's doing this, the two girls wake up to what he was doing to their bodies, and were both utterly horrified and furious. They called him a wild beast and a hateful animal, not to mention that they were bruised and pouty. All these heavily imply that he raped them hard with violence. - And the predatory way Alex alludes to his actions. He claims in his narration that since they aren't going to school, they should at least have their education, with him as their teacher. These girls are going to have serious PTSD from this. - Not to mention that he was when he committed this. fifteen years old - The Ludovico treatment itself: imagine being put in a strait jacket, with your eyes held open by small hooks so you can't close them and having eye drops put in your eyes every few seconds while watching violent videos that eventually will make you sick because of a serum you were given beforehand! And you can't look away! - Alex's torture at the hands Dim and Billy Boy (who are now police officers), where he's beaten while his head is dunked in a pig's trough filled with water. Even more since it is a case of Leave the Camera Running, with actor Malcolm McDowell genuinely having his head dunked for a full minute. He later said that he was repulsed by the very smell of it after being forced to do 27 takes of it. - The very idea a bunch of street hoods can become police officers and have a certain degree of impunity for their actions is frightening, whether or not you feel Alex deserves their abuse. - The final scene, where Alex envisages himself having sex with a girl, surrounded by 19th century type people applauding him. And then his mocking quote: "I was cured, all right!" For some reason... it's so weird, it's disturbing. And when he says "I was cured alright" he means he was cured of his "cure".	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AClockworkOrange
Ace Combat 2 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - In the original game, the Z.O.E. was just a bonus boss that could fought on multiple levels, and served no purpose in the plot. But in the remake, the Z.O.E. gets expanded upon, and its all but implied to be an Artificial Intelligence. Whats more, the Rebels dont know anything about it. It just shows up to assist them, with little to no information on why its assiting them. - The sheer length the Rebel Forces take to destroy Phoenix, eventually leading to them to FREAKING NUKE HIM, along with all of St. Ark. Did these idiots NOT learn from what happened in the Belkan War? - The cutscene that plays if you fail to shoot down the missile is pretty chilling as well. St. Ark goes down in flames, then the game cuts to the briefing room where you are told, while the alarm is wailing in the background, that a great number of lives was lost, and then you get to the credits. Thankfully you can try and beat the level again if you want the good ending.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceCombat2
Ace Combat: Joint Assault / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The attack on Tokyo as early as the second mission. After the mission, you are treated with a rather disturbing news report of how Tokyo is under attack, straight out of a disaster news report.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceCombatJointAssault
Act of Valor / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - The ice cream truck bombing at the beginning. What really seals the deal is that, right before the scene cuts to black, a child comes running from behind the corner screaming, looking bloodied and severely burnt. Thankfully, you don't get to see the kid or the aftermath of the blast in much more detail. - Morales being tortured by the narco-traffickers. The beatings are bad enough, but then we see the drill. And implied electric torture and possibly rape, if the bed she is tied to when the SEALs reach her is any indication. - Miller's interrogation of Christo is terrifying psychological Nightmare Fuel. Miller is being polite and friendly the entire time, and Christo knows he's in deep shit and is trying to remain cool and calm, right up until Miller gets pissed. Then Miller goes right back to being polite and friendly, and lays out the painful truth to Christo that he will never see his family again, because he'll be in prison for the rest of his life. You can see the pain and fear in Christo's eyes as he contemplates this. - Speaking as someone who has actually lost a family member in the military, the last few scenes are horrifying.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ActOfValor
Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - The "Chandelier", not only was it designed as a last ditch effort to save Estovakia from devastation, even after ceasing construction before Ulysses, it was repurposed into a weapon of mass destruction only for destroying a capital city. One can only wonder what hatred concocted such a plan.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceCombat6FiresOfLiberation
A Cure for Wellness / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes All spoilers on this page are left unmarked. You Have Been Warned! We'd think it's best not to watch this scene before a dentist appointment. - The part where Lockhart goes to see the vet. The vet cuts open a cow, her guts spill out and reveal a stillborn calf and a bunch of eels. - The scene where Volmer has Lockhart in the iron container, shoves a tube down the executive's esophagus, and sends multiple eels inside him. - Dear god, the Soundtrack Dissonance in that scene. Good luck getting images of your stomach getting pumped out of you head when you hear Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 "Pastoral": II. Andante molto mosso. - Volmer drilling through Lockhart's front tooth a la Marathon Man. Even worse, it isn't a Gory Discretion Shot. - When we see Volmer's hideously burnt face.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ACureForWellness
A Christmas Carol / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes ## Works with their own pages ## The novel Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge - The scene where Scrooge enters his lonely mansion late at night. He sees the ghost face of his former partner Jacob Marley on his door, then a ghostly hearse riding up the stairs. Later he goes to his room but still can't forget the image he saw earlier. Then the bell in his room starts ringing on its own and Scrooge hears chains rattling from beneath the cellar and slowly coming towards him. Then Marley's ghost flies through the door. - When Scrooge mocks Marley, the ghost flies into a rage and his jaw falls open unto his chest. - This part especially is something that few people know these days, the cloth tied around Marley's head and his jaw opening creepily wide is because the ligaments in the jaw are among the first part of the human body to decay after death, resulting in the unsettling "screaming corpse" effect. To prevent this, before embalming was developed, people were buried with their jaws held closed with cloth ties. So yeah, Marley isn't just a ghost, he's a rotting corpse of a ghost too. - Marley's fate in general. He warns Scrooge how he is doomed forever and carries a chain with the weight of his crimes. When Scrooge sees him disappear through the window, the night sky is filled with ghosts of former colleagues of Scrooge, all doomed to wander around with chains and weights. One of them tries to help a poor woman crying over her child, but since he's doomed, he can no longer do anything for her. - Even worse, Marley mentions that he's seen the set of chains waiting for Scrooge, and it was longer than the one Marley was burdened with. And it's only gotten longer in the years since Marley's passing. - The second paragraph describing the Ghost of Christmas Past makes it sound like some kind of Eldritch Abomination. No wonder most adaptations don't bother trying to match it on screen. "... its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever." - The Ghost of Christmas Present showing Scrooge the children Want and Ignorance from under his robe. These starved and bony children even frighten Scrooge. - The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a towering, wraith-like figure in a dark hood whose face is never seen, and who never utters a word, simply pointing and letting Scrooge's Bad Future speak for itself.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AChristmasCarol
Ace Lightning / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Chuck getting hit with an electrical blast by an emotionally disturbed Ace, after accidentally firing Mark's wrist cannon at him. Chuck lies on the ground motionless and Ace freaks out until Mark arrives. Chuck awakens moments later, but it is still pretty shocking to the show's primary source of comic relief get hurt like that. \|\| Sparx's Disney Death. She is electrocuted by her own sword wielded by Googler's puppets, and is sent back to the Sixth Dimension flickering and disintegrating. She comes back later on in good shape.\|\| If Ace doesn't power himself up with electricity, he starts flickering and becomes fuzzy like a bad TV station. It turns out if he doesn't charge himself, he will eventually fade into nothingness. Lord Fear is usually treated as a quirky Saturday morning villain, but he is a talking skeleton who often is accompanied by creepy cracking bone noises, particularly when he stretches his limbs. Oh, and he also plays the pipe organ, takes pleasure is scaring kids senseless, and has a wicked cackle. Lord Fear and Lady Illusion's...disturbing romantic relationship. We never see them kiss or anything apart from one embrace, but considering Lord Fear is a lich and undead. Well, the rest can be left to your imagination. Random Virus is technically a good guy, but that doesn't stop his Ax-Crazy evil side from taking over to attack anyone he deems to weak or useless to live. His evil side could be viewed as a twisted version of his sense of justice, vowing to remove all weakness in the world - the only problem is that he thinks kindness and good virtues are evil. And the worst part is, we don't even know how he became a cyborg, other than he had some sort of accident. Rotgut is perhaps the most pathetic of the badguys, mainly because he's so useless and ineffective as a villain, but that doesn't stop him from being grose when his limbs keep falling off. And then there's the time he possesses Chuck's body. There's one point where Kilobyte rewards Lady Illusion for her loyalty to him by stroking her cheek with one of his tentacles. Kilobyte's change of character after he is freed from Rick's control. At first, he is a very cold, calculating with the mind of a hunter who wants to hunt Ace slowly and painfully. After being freed, he still has the basic personality but is now Ax-Crazy with a desire to take over the world. He becomes hellbent on trapping humanity in the game world, eliminating all loose ends in his plan like Mr. Cheseborough and Random, and laughs like a nutter. No wonder Ace and Lord Fear team up to defeat him. And let's not forget his giant wasp Fred, who was an ordinary bug until it stung Kilobyte, taking on his power and become a gigantic monstrosity. The eleventh episode starts with Mark having a nightmare where he is lost in the carnival being chased by the villains, and Ace isn't there to save him. Lord Fear then starts stalking Mark around school and the streets in Duff's ice cream truck. Mark takes a wrong turn and the truck pulls up in front of him. Mark can only stare in terror as Lord Fear's head and arms poke out and he says "Come to Papa!" before kidnapping him. Mark escapes at the carnival and his nightmare plays out in real life, with Lord Fear and Anvil cornering him. Mark lets out a Skyward Scream, but this time, Ace does come to his rescue. Brett, Heather, and background characters get trapped in the carnival funhouse by Lord Fear and there's no way out. The camerawork makes it look and feel very claustrophobic. Chuck's urban legend of the Radioactive Guy goes to near creepypasta levels. The story involves an astronomer named Cornelius Fowler (portrayed in Chuck's imagination by Mr. Cheseborough) who spots a radioactive comet crash on Earth. He chisels the remains apart, only for it to suddenly break in two and expose him to radiation. Chuck then reveals Fowler went nuts and sealed himself in the observatory, and his ghost haunts the building. We then cut to Fowler, with crazy white hair and a psychotic expression barricading himself in the astronomer. A man outside shouts at him to come out for help, and we get this creepy chat: Man Outside: "Cornelius, we just want to help you." Fowler: "You can't come in. No one can ever come in again! I'm radioactive! I'm radioactive! I'M RADIOACTIVE!" Mr. Cheseborough's predicament throughout the series. He is kidnapped by Lord Fear and replaced by Lady Illusion in a plan to destroy Mark, and kept in a cage at the carnival. Lord Fear frees him but has Dirty Rat erase his memory of the experience. Turns out that only partially worked. Mr. Cheseborough remembers the whole thing, thinking he was abducted by aliens, and slowly goes mad over the course of the series with everyone thinking he is a looney. This costs Mr. Cheseborough his job at the elementary school, and by the end of the series when he is trapped in the game world, he has gone quite frantic and is condemned as a wanted man by the police. The Carnival of Doom is quite a creepy place. While it avoids the Amusement Park of Doom traditions, it still has a lot of disturbing noises like creaking rides and spooky gusts of wind. Not to mention it is home to a bunch of supervillains who could jump around the corner to capture any unsuspecting intruders as Mark, Chuck, Sparx, and Kat have experienced. A moment from the first episode where Mark hears noises on his roof and looks out the window, only for Lord Fear's head to appear upside-down. Think about this from his perspective - he is thirteen, living in a new country, a blackout occurs, the only people he knows are at a party, and strange noises can be heard on the roof. Then a skeleton appears outside his window. Lord Fear and Staff Head's return in the second season. Wayne goes looking for them in the carnival at night. Going to the haunted house, a ghost train mysteriously slides out to meet him and Wayne goes around the ride looking for Lord Fear. In the back of the cart are two skeletons that start glowing. When Wayne exits the ride, Lord Fear and Staff Head have replaced the skeletons and sitting behind Wayne. They then scare the pants off of him. Ace's story arc in the second season. He is infected with Lady Illusion's Emotion Bomb, erasing his original programming and leaving him with out of control emotions that effect his actions - he spends one episode really angry and taking his rage out on Lord Fear, Random, and Chuck. In the next episode, he encounters Kilobyte and is terrified out of his mind to the point he has an Heroic BSoD and thinks there is no reason to being a hero anymore until Mark proves him wrong. Lady Illusion has her moments. Aside from her Yandere qualities around Ace, she can shapeshift into any person or animal. Paranoia Fuel indeed. Then there's the episode she shapeshifts into Mark and tries to destroy his social life while the real one is in bed with a cold. Imagine that happening in real life. The episode "The Not So Great Outdoors" has Mark wandering in the dark forest with creepy spotlights accompanying him - then he runs into Staff Head, Pigface, and Dirty Rat who gang up on him to kill him. He deceives them with Chuck's portable version of the game. Video Games We only see glimpses of the Sixth Dimension, but it looks like a dark Crapsack World with Everything Trying to Kill You. You get a more better look in the PC and Playstation 2 games, but it is still a nightmarish hellhole where everything is a monster trying to kill you. The Playstation 2 game's version of the carnival is dark, empty, and quiet. The haunted house has giant animatronic heads of Lord Fear and Staff Head, staring out over their domain. The Gameboy Advance's version looks quite ordinary aside that the villains can jump out of nowhere to issue a sudden boss fight. The game's soundtrack can be very unnerving and creepy. In the Gameboy version, the first level is a ghost train where you encounter a vampire who jumps out of a coffin. The player has to dispatch the vampire immediately with an electric blast or he will follow the player throughout the level, even if you use the flying power up to try to move on to avoid him, he flies after you! The Sixth Dimension comes with a Circus of Fear, Lady Illusion's terrifying manorhouse which is nicknamed the "Freaky Funhouse" right out of a Disney Acid Sequence, the Weird West where everything is undead, and a medieval castle built atop a volcano. Among the monsters of the Sixth Dimension are - acrobats whose bodies have been twisted back-to-front, killer robotic clowns, evil garden gnomes whom Ace despises in the series, zombies riding mowing machines made from bones, giant flytraps, killer wardrobes, ovens, and fridges, maids, butlers, and chefs who have been bitten by the infestation of spiders and turned into mutant freaks, the giant spiders in Lady Illusion's boss fight, the Mad Bomber canaries who are strapped to time bombs and explode in your face, zombies dressed in cactus suits, Circling Vultures, Hellhounds, strange freaky one-eyed chicks, and weapon-wielding ferrets. Heck, even the tumbleweeds attack you!	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceLightning
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is easily the darkest entry in the series, with a more realistic depiction of War Is Hell, its high body count number, and the fear of not knowing friend from foe. - Mission 3 "Two-pronged Strategy" is where we are first introduced to Mihaly and the Arsenal Bird. - Halfway through the mission, Brownie is ordered to retreat due to her aircraft being damaged. Gargoyle One is sent to escort her outside the operational airspace, when they're ambushed by Mihaly. Mihaly effortlessly wipes out Gargoyle One, and proceeds to go after Brownie. Only, he doesn't finish her off right away, and simply toys with her, causing her to have a mental breakdown, until she's screaming and begging for support. Unfortunately, it's at this point that Mihaly decides to put Brownie out of her misery, and there's nothing anyone can do to help her. - The Arsenal Bird shows up just before this. Its design is clearly reminiscent of the Arkbird, but unlike the Arkbird, the Arsenal Bird is completely unmanned and was designed solely for combat. It can also deploy a huge number of unmanned drones to defend itself, but the most nightmarish part about the Arsenal Bird is its Deflector Shield that renders it invulnerable to almost every attack. A large chunk of the plot revolves around just how powerful of a monster this airborne drone carrier is; even after both are taken down, there's always someone around to comment how even in death, they're still intimidating. The disturbing strains of "Two-Pronged Strategy" only make things worse. - The contrast between the Arsenal Bird and the Arkbird is a bit terrifying itself, if symbolically; the Arkbird was a bird of peace...but the Arsenal Bird is a bird of war. - For Mission 7 ( First Contact), picture the following: You and the 444 Squadron have been tasked with taking out anti-air and radar facilities. Simple enough. Then, the Cyclops and Strider Squadrons are pursued by the UAVs and you have to help them out even though there's a risk of getting your plane electrocuted. Not as simple, but still manageable. But then, an Su-30SM ambushes and effortlessly dispatches your squadmate, Champ. Bandog tells you to keep the new arrival busy while everybody else flees, and you'd think this would be the perfect opportunity to avenge Brownie, right? Instead, you desperately try to keep your cool as Mister X pulls off aerial stunts that you can barely keep up with, even as his on-board computer constantly issues serene warnings such as "Systems malfunction. Systems malfunction." and "Over-G! Over-G!" And as the fight drags on throughout the swirling winds, thick clouds and ever-present lightning strikes, you notice that Mister X is breathing laboriously. As the two of you trade missiles and gunfire, you realize that he sounds... old. And despite his age, hes easily the most dangerous pilot youve had to fight against since the Lighthouse War began, and hes determined to see if you can provide him with the challenge he so desperately craves. And in the end, he calmly withdraws with his squadron, but its only a brief respite because deep down, you know youll probably have to fight him again. - IFF systems are meant to make it simple enough to identify friend or foe. The second act of Mission 09, however, opens up with what appears to be Osean fighters approaching Spare Squadron, staying silent when Bandog asks them to identify themselves...and then opening fire on the Spares, leaving the Spares helpless and unable to not only unable to distinguish who's enemy or otherwise, but not even able to lock onto enemies they can identify since their IFF systems don't let them target aircraft marked as friendlies, including these fighters that are clearly non-Oseans spoofing their IFF signals. It takes some quick thinking on Tabloid's part in the midst of Spare Squadron's numbers being horrifically reduced for Bandog to be able to sort out who's friendly and who's enemy. - During McKinsey's escort mission to Bulgurdarest's border, everything seems to have calmed down after you took down all the SAM sites and the Erusean interceptors. Then a white unidentified aircraft flies past you and the cargo transport, ignoring all hails to identify itself as it stays motionless for a few seconds, before diving down in a twirl and engaging you in a brutal dogfight to the sound of its theme; because the song takes drum cues from "Zone of Endless", it becomes clear to Ace Combat veterans that this is an advanced drone unlike the other ones seen in the war. During the Battle of Farbanti, Mihaly pulls a similar maneuver in his introductory cutscene, meaning that the ADFX-10's pattern was not a coincidence. - After the Osean/Erusean ASAT strikes take down communications, order within both armies completely breaks down, to the point that there's factions committing outright warcrimes. One cutscene shows Erusean soldiers lining up a group of civilians, including children, and shooting them all dead for suspicion of being tied to the radicals in the armed forces... all while the Erusean Princess watches with silent horror. - Everything about Mission 16 is this. From the eerie electronic synth playing in the background to the chaos occurring in the city below as the Osean forces clash with the Erusean Radical and Conservative factions, neither side being able to determine friend from foe due to the collapse of the satellite network. Later in the mission, you're tasked with protecting an EASA transport plane carrying Schroeder and Mihaly's granddaughters when the drone fighters escorting the transport suddenly attack you without warning. Even worse, the drones' AI hacks the land based UAV launchers to summon reinforcements, overriding Erusean commands to abort their launch, indicating that the drone program Schroeder worked tirelessly to perfect has gone rogue and has put all of Strangereal in danger. - Remember when it seems like you killed Harling in Mission 04? And when you and the rest of Spare Squadron got attacked by "Osean" fighters in Mission 09? Labarthe, the Erusean defector who's the escortee of this mission gives a pretty nasty reveal: The Erusean Radicals were giving their drones and IFF spoofings a spin, with two of their deployments being in Mission 09 with that "self-identify as Oseans and then attack Oseans" stunt, as well as in Mission 04, where he reveals that yes, one of those drones killed Harling and made an Osean (read: you) take the fall for it. Those bastard drones were the reason you got kicked out of the regular forces, had your reputation as a soldier completely ruined, and sent off to a penal unit to die, and who's to say that they aren't capable of other Frame-Up jobs with their IFF-spoofing technology? - After the Osean-Erusean coalition manages to destroy the second Arsenal Bird, the war appears to be finally be over. Cue the arrival of Hugin and Munin, two highly advanced UAVs containing Mihaly's flight data that decimate the Osean-Erusean forces in quick succession. Worse, in the final mission where you have to confront them, they are seen trying to use the space elevator's transmission capabilities to transmit all their combat data to automated drone factories across Usea and mass-produce an army of drones that combines the advanced technology of Hugin and Munin's construction with the skills of the top ace pilots in the world and none of the human restrictions. Even worse, in the final battle, they are still learning: the drones are recording and analyzing Trigger's flight style on top of the already-formidable data they have from Mihaly. In short, these two drones came very close to triggering a Skynet-esque revolution that would have plunged all of Strangereal into an apocalyptic Robot War. - As the final fight progresses, casualties among your allied aces pile up as Hugin and Munin brutally mow them down without giving them a chance to eject, with Salamander 3 and Skoll 2 being killed within seconds of each other right after they panic over the comms. - What's even scarier than that? What sounds like a screech can be heard several times over the radio feed. Hugin and Munin are communicating with each other. Or worse, they're laughing at you. - Just how smart they can be? During the underground tunnel chase below the space elevator, the fleeing ADF-11 manages to hide itself and ambush you from behind with its laser guns where there is no room to dodge, and funneling you into a single tunnel to boot. Everything could've gone wrong if it wasn't for Count blocking the shot. - Then there's their nature and origin. The A.I. program is derived from the latest iteration of the Zone of Endless system, marking its first appearance since the Usean coup d'etat in the late 90s. Then comes the reveal that the drone program given to Erusea, as well as the origin of Z.O.E. itself, came from none other than Belka. It seems that whatever the conflict, the grudge of the fallen nation will come back haunting the free world of Strangereal, and this time, their revenge really was a hair's breadth from being fulfilled. - The cutscene that plays prior to the final mission shows what appears to be recordings from previous cutscenes being displayed as the Z.O.E. activates while an eerie choir is playing in the background (a darker rendition of the game's credits theme that's sung at several points in the story). The implication is that Z.O.E. has been silently watching the events of the war unfold in real time, gathering data and information to improve itself before being unleashed upon the world. - The shot of Z.O.E. activating, revealing an eerie red electronic camera lens very similar to the HAL 9000's infamous camera eye, amidst a completely dark background, provides the page image. - And the worst part? It's all for nothing. Electrosphere's Omega Ending reveals that Nemo, its protagonist, is actually an AI acting out a simulation, no doubt a descendant of Z.O.E. Out of malice and revenge, it's ultimately released to the world to recreate whatever route you followed (with one route basically described as killing everything/everyone in sight). Every single action made at the Lighthouse, all for naught, thanks to one man's desire for revenge. Not crazy enough for you? According to concept art, that one man worked for Schroeder. - The VR mode, funny enough. Since you can't have sudden camera changes in VR without risking motion sickness, there is no perspective shift when you die! If you're shot down you get the pleasant experience of being in a burning cockpit as the flames creep towards you, before the screen mercifully blacks out. - Imagine you are in a massive air battle where you are significantly out numbered. However, you making headway on the enemy. Then suddenly two unknown fighters come into the battle, one of them takes out an enemy fighter. Reinforcements? Nope. They're coming after you and only you and they are relentless and by now you may be low on ammo. This is what Trigger has to deal with in Unexpected Visitor. - Rage and Scream's Villainous Breakdowns when you kill their other sibling first in "Anchorhead Raid" are quite unsettling. The former goes into a murderous fury as he spends the rest of the mission screaming that he will kill Trigger, while the latter alternates between tearful, maniacal giggling and begging Trigger to kill her. Should Scream be shot down last, in her final moments she will state that she's sure her brother will be in heaven... because she will be waiting for Trigger in hell. Rage's aircraft is shot down. Rage's aircraft explodes. Scream: "AAAARGH! [sobbing] I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME AN IDIOT!" Count: "Only one left! We'll run 'em down together, but the death blow will be from you, Trigger!" Scream: "NO!" Long Caster: "Don't let the enemy's emotions make you lose your cool." Count: "Hah, I don't pity 'em, not one bit." Scream's aircraft is shot down. Long Caster: "That's a hit! We got the bat!" Long Caster: "Unidentified aircraft, eject." Scream: "No." Long Caster: " Eject now." - If Rage is shot down last, his final words are more unsettling than Scream's. Instead of saying she's going to heaven, he admits they're both going to hell, but he'd still rather go to hell than live in a world where Trigger's alive. Scream's aircraft is shot down. Scream: "(hyperventilating)" Scream's aircraft explodes. Rage : "SCREAM! Dammit, you'll pay for this, Three Strikes!" Count: "Only one left! We'll run 'em down together, but the death blow will be from you, Trigger!" Rage: "Oh, I'll kill him! I'll kill him, alright!" Long Caster: "Don't let the enemy's emotions make you lose your cool." Count: "Hah, I don't pity 'em, not one bit." Rage : "I'll kill you! (hyperventilation) I'll kill you! [Laughing Mad ] I'LL KILL YOU! You'll pay for this, Three Strikes! How dare you! You're dead...! She was my one and only...! What makes you a hero?! We tried to be heroes too! We really tried! I'll kill you! I can tell... I know you're with me! Here we go, Scream , we do this together! I can't do this alone, but if I have you with me... I'll kill you!" Rage's aircraft is shot down. Long Caster: "That's a hit! We got the bat!" Long Caster: "Unidentified aircraft, eject." Rage: "(hyperventilation) Aaargh!" Long Caster: " Eject now." Rage's aircraft explodes. - Anchorhead Raid demonstrates what it is like to be on the other side of the slaughter Trigger commits. In the mission, if you kill all targets, you destroy four fleets made up of battlecruisers and air defense cruisers with escorts, a divisions worth of ground equipment, multiple air wings, five targeted strikes on Erusean Royal Navy officers including the Vice Chief of Naval Ops, a fleet admiral, two war hero captains and a task force commander being groomed as future commanding officer of the entire Navy and the Mimic Squadron is finished off here. After high command flat out refuses to believe one squadron could do all that this exchange takes place: Erusean Command: Four aircraft destroyed the entire port? You must be hallucinating! Radar Officer: It's not a hallucination, it's a nightmare! - Even if it's wartime, the detached way Osean military announces the deaths of targeted Erusean officers (at your own hands no less), along with effects it would have on future Erusean government in relation to Osea's own gain during Anchorhead Raid can be quite chilling to some people, that widespread killing is now done by just casually pressing buttons often with lost-lasting ramifications no matter who did it to whom. Even more so when you put Torres and later the drones into focus. - Torres and the crew of the Alicorn can come across as pretty unnerving once you learn more about them. To start, when the Alicorn started her initial shakedown cruise, something went wrong and the crew ended up stranded at the bottom of the ocean for almost two years before they managed to be rescued. But...something had changed in them. Now, every single member of Torres' crew is utterly devoted to him, and the man himself is a borderline-manic extremist who can be best described as the bastard lovechild of Colonel Kurtz and Marko Ramius. To get an idea of just how fanatical they are for Torres, listen carefully to the SACS squadron as they flee the airspace: They're reciting a mantra as they fly, and the escorts even go so far as to throw themselves in front of missiles aimed at the payload plane. When you finally down the payload plane, the pilot screams, "SALVATION!" and detonates his payload rather than eject. What Torres has done is created a cult... one that has the keys to one of the deadliest superweapons in Strangereal history. SACS Pilots : "I hereby swear that I will be a proud, brave, and vigilant soldier. To uphold the honor of our nation and its military. To submit to the orders of my superiors. " - The Alicorn is an terrifying weapon in her own right. Originally built by Yuktobania, she is the bigger and more vengeful sister of the Scinfaxi and Hrimfaxi. Her standard armaments and force projection capabilities are staggering and the equivalent of an entire carrier strike group. This includes two side railguns that have immense firepower and tracking capabilities (and are incredibly durable, capable of sustaining multiple missile impacts before failing), similar to Mihaly's railgun in his final fight. The railguns and standard armaments wiped out an entire Osean fleet sent to capture it without taking a scratch. Then there's the hidden, 600mm (as in, larger than a battleships main guns) monstrosity of a rail cannon underneath the runway that can launch thermobaric shells from long distance, as well as nuclear warheads, with a range of over 3,000 kilometers. Add onto that VLS launchers that can send a miniature Macross Missile Massacre at all sorts of targets and the capability to launch swarms of multi-purpose drones (that are armed and capable of engaging targets alongside advanced "barrier" drones that project EM fields that nullify missiles and cannon fire) this level of blistering firepower makes the Alicorn a mobile Stonehenge with the destructive capability of Belka's V2 nuclear weapon and the ability to stay submerged and hidden for long periods of time before emerging to strike its target. Not to mention it's durability; Scinfaxi and Hrimfaxi for the most part were powerful, but withered under sustained fire as soon as they surfaced. Alicorn on the other hand, can take multiple volleys of sustained fire to its hull, shrug off a combined ASROC (dedicated anti-submarine munitions) strike from a fleet of Osean missile destroyers, lose multiple ballast tanks, and still be capable of submerging and retaliating. It's almost as if Yuktobania when designing her, looked at the Scinfaxi and Hrimfaxi and decided to combine each of their capabilities into a far more durable, nightmarish and powerful weapons system. Then Erusea bought it and went even farther in enhancing its capabilities... - The Alicorn is an upgraded successor of the already powerful Scinfaxi-class submarine; Yuktobania sold the Alicorn to Erusea as scrap after the Circum-Pacific War only for Erusea to extensively refit her and deploy it to the frontlines once the war began to turn against them, making the Alicorn yet another relic of Osea and Yuktobania's Cold War that has come back to haunt Strangereal. In terms of raw destructive potential, the Alicorn outclasses every other superweapon that has been shown in the franchise thus far. And as mentioned above, it's in the hands of a madman that's willing to use it to butcher millions of people. - The sheer lengths that Torres is willing to go through to nuke Oured in Ten Million Relief Plan, from faking his surrender in order to buy time for the Alicorn to prepare its rail cannon, which is a massive violation of the international rules of war, to flooding the sub and forcing it to sink just so that the rail cannon can gain the elevation it needs to fire and hit its target, regardless of the risks to the ship and her crew. At the same time, Torres' true nature comes to light as he rants over the radio about how "beautiful" and "elegant" it is to kill a million people and demands to know why Trigger and the others cannot comprehend and appreciate this. Beneath all of his posturing of wanting to end the Lighthouse War, Torres was nothing more than a monster that got off on the thought of butchering millions of innocent people. Torres : A powerful boat, a powerful gun, powerful ammunition! Add to that lots of people and a precise aim! Then sprinkle death over all of it, and the formula is complete!...Don't you see?! Don't you see?! [laughter ] Landing a clean shot on a difficult target! That is what makes it elegant! That is true beauty!	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceCombat7SkiesUnknown
Achievement Hunter Minecraft Series / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes While the conversation is Played for Laughs, the conversation in "Achieveland #2" about Lindsay potentially having a stroke in the future (due to that running in her family) proposes the hypothetical situation of Lindsay having a stroke at work, and no one noticing the issue due to them mistaking it for a bit. Lindsay: See, I'm fucked, 'cause everyone here's just gonna be like "Lindsay's being weird again," [and] I'll be like "(violent stroke noises)"	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AchievementHunterMinecraftSeries
Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Mission 12 seems like just another bomber intercept mission, albeit this time the bombers are carrying nuclear ordnance. At first success looks like success, all bombers shot down without any nuclear devices initiating. But then, there's a flash in the distance and the screen goes white... The story scene that would follow that mission depicted an act of malevolence that would break any hardened gamer's psyche. The nuclear detonation you just saw was followed by six more, and all of them were dropped on civilian cities. That flash you just saw was several thousand civilians dying. By the express order of their own government. If you played Ace Combat 5 and happen to remember the dates of the seven nuclear detonations, loading the mission and seeing "June 6th, 1995" will send a chill down your spine. Mission 11 (also known as Operation Cannibal), where you are helping Allied forces destroy/secure a Belkan Industrial center via providing escort for bombers that pretty much carpet bombing the entire place. Keeping in mind that you are literally helping cause the deaths of untold military personnel and civilians. "This isn't a weapons factory! What are you doing?!" "All facilities in the main sector have been destroyed! Damn those Allied forces!!" Lampshaded by Pixy. "I thought this was supposed to be a precision bombing mission..." In the mission briefing, you are told that the targets are inside a city. And then your bombers get there, where they promptly start dropping bombs all over the place, deliberately trying to destroy everything. Keep in mind, this is a city. Full of civilians. And you actually get to hear some of them die, having been right next to an exploding target. Pixy and PJ are both completely disgusted. Pixy: Damn them all... And it most definitely doesn't help when the Belkans themselves start contributing to the destruction out of spite. PJ: This is PJ, something strange is going on down there. The number of burning areas suddenly increased!	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceCombatZeroTheBelkanWar
Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The Gleipnir, an absolute monster of an airborne fortress. With its Shockwave Ballistic Missiles capable of decimating entire squadrons from long ranges, an optical camouflage system to render it undetectable until it attacks, a Shock Cannon for vaporising ground forces below, and to top it all off, a terrifying theme that sounds like it came straight out of a horror movie. - Its first appearance is right at the end of the very first mission, where it straight up annihilates the Gryphus squadron at Cape Aubrey with just one SWBM fired from the Puna Plains, leaving Eugene "Crux" Solano absolutely devastated. Crux: This...there's no way anyone could call this mission a success...I'm sorry. - The captain of said airborne fortress. So determined in his cause to destroy the Southern Cross, that in one version of the battle over Santa Elva, Standoff in the Skies I, he flips the Gleipnir upside down just to try and kill you with the shock cannon! - In the Standoff in the Skies II version of the Santa Elva battle, you face off against the Gleipnir at full strength. Worse, during the Gleipnir's death throes, the captain pulls off one last ditch attempt to destroy the city with the shock cannon, just to spite Gryphus One.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AceCombatXSkiesOfDeception
Adekan / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Under all the Ho Yay, Scenery Porn, and Fanservice, Adekan has more than enough Nightmare Fuel to keep you up all night, between monsters, madmen, and a massive unsettling conspiracy run by a clan behind the scenes... - In the first volume, the Copper Demon hunting an innocent young girl is utterly horrifying \|\|even if it is only a mask.\|\| - The very first story shows Shiro being befriended by a kind but poor neighbour woman, Mitsu, who takes in abandoned babies and cares for him. \|\|Mitsu turns out to have been killing the babies so she could horde the money for their care and give it to her lover, who'd promised her they would be married once he had enough to escape the gang he was in. Not only that, but the guilt of her crimes drove her to madness, causing her to black out and wander around in a bloody wedding dress, and hallucinate the demonic shades of the babies she'd murdered. Brrrr...\|\| - "Onna-neko... help me..." - Kusuko's insane father is terrifying enough: a powder box merchant who enslaves low-born young women and sells them to men to be abused, after murdering his low-born wife for unverified suspicions that she was cheating on him, he then turns around and imprisons his daughter in a Gilded Cage while telling her terrifying tales of the outside world...and having sex with a girl who looks like a carbon copy of her on the side. Not horrifying enough for you? To keep his daughter in line, he tells her scary stories about a monstrous yuurei, Nainai-sama, who haunts their box-maze mansion. Except Nainai-sama is real... - Everything that happens to Ippei after he gets captured and enslaved for use as a tool against Anri qualifies as this, including \|\|being the front-line witness to the triple murder-suicide of his new master, his new master's boyfriend, and his new master's pregnant wife, in an epic case of Murder the Hypotenuse.\|\| Keep in mind that Ippei is a sweet kid who idolizes Kojiro and has trouble standing up to people and saying no in the best of circumstances... - How he falls into the part of town where half human cannibals live. - The taxidermist. Dear god, the taxidermist... - Anri and Shiro's backstories. - Anri deliberately makes himself into Walking Fanservice. From what we've seen, his reasons for doing this were less than family-friendly. There's also his general psychotic nature which once led him to cut off two of his subordinates arms because they were arguing too loudly and it annoyed him. - The half humans which are excluded from regular society, for good reason. They're cannibals and if one should happen to fall into their domain... - There are numerous bitches in sheeps clothing in the manga that make extremely unsettling nightmare faces and have sociopathic natures. - The worst had to be the Alpha Bitch who's tormenting of a poorer but prettier girl including having her raped and beaten and she later tried to cover it up when she believed she returned but has lost her memories of the incident including trying to kill her. - The Nehates are made of Body Horror. They are huge ugly men with huge boils all over their body and they are unstable in nature. - Anri threatens to rape a guy at one point and gets on top of him. It's horrifying even though Anri ends up stopping and admits he was kidding. - Spider fights with poisonous bugs and nearly has his arm chopped off at one point. - Shiro is impaled with spikes and two guys nearly chop his arm off as well with a knife. - The introduction to the Southern Troupe's leader. He sees his men begging for forgiveness, dangling over a cliff for their execution. The leader just callously listens to their pleas and dismisses them, sending them over the edge. Keep in mind that the group of men he executed for failing him was enough to fill a large fish net. - And when another one of his blood brothers protests about the excessive nature of the executions, he squishes that man's head with one arm. He then orders the execution of that man's entire family line straight afterwards. Not only do we witness the horror of the Lack of Empathy towards hundreds of lives, we see a socially untouchable tyrant willing to end clans if their opinions aren't shared. - The true leader of the Ha clan, despite looking delicate, is just as viscous as the rest of the people under her thumb. She claims she wants Shiro and is betrothed to him, but as we see with the bodies of the rest of her previous "husbands", he won't like ending up with her one bit.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Adekan
A Christmas Carol (2009) / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes And you dare to say that this is "a movie for kids". - Marley's corpse at the very beginning of the movie has two coins placed over his eyes while his glasses are turned up on his forehead. The overall look is somehow creepier than when Scrooge steals the coins back. - The whole scene with Jacob Marley. He's introduced by throwing his ghostly safes through Scrooge's door, he floats in midair, his eyes rarely focus - and that's just his general appearance. He's constantly scaring Scrooge by screaming and howling, and at one point he dislocates his own jaw and, still needing to vent his anger, he jerks it up and down with a whole lot of cracking sounds. - Even worse is his very first appearance: after Scrooge approaches the door to his home, he drops his keys. After bending down to pick them up, he is surprised to see a green ghostly face (Marley) in the door knocker. Reaching out to touch it, we are then greeted with the horrifying sight of . Many have commented that this is the scariest jump scare in the film, and for his eyes and mouth suddenly opening, complete with his teeth flying out and a very loud bang very good reason. - Once Marley has given his warning, he leaves through the window and drags Scrooge towards it... where he sees the streets of London FILLED with screaming ghosts of tortured souls, some bound to their own tortures. One is seen banging his head on the cinder block he is chained to, and another flies around a homeless woman clutching her child to keep it warm, shouting how he wishes he could help. - The Ghost of Christmas Past is presented as a candle with a face inside its flame, which is even more Uncanny Valley than everyone else - particularly with the creepy whisper he speaks in. - The death scene of the Ghost of Christmas Present, which is more disturbing than in any other adaptation. As in the novel, he rapidly ages, but instead of just disappearing when his time is up, he clutches his heart in pain with each chime as the clock strikes 12, then collapses. Then he turns into a skeleton, still laughing all the while, and then crumbles to dust. - Ignorance and Want. Instead of just being shown as two starving, ragged children, they also age before Scrooge's eyes into the type of adults that such children become if they're not saved. When Ignorance grows up, he becomes a vicious knife-wielding criminal and is locked away in jail. When Want is shown as a grown-up woman (most likely a prostitute), she is strapped in a straitjacket and dragged away screaming (which was a common fate for "women of loose morals", either for their families to get them out of the way or as a result of syphillis). And they are laughing as they quote Scrooge's line back to him, "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" - The beginning of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come scene involves Scrooge being chased by Marley's funeral wagon, driven by ghostly horses complete with Red Eyes, Take Warning. - The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a Living Shadow, and is almost never seen in 3D, being up against the wall, floor, in Scrooge's shadow, or slithering across bedsheets as it tries to make Scrooge look at his own corpse. - An overlooked moment is shown when the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come sits on the staircase with Scrooge when he's watching the Cratchit family reminisce about Tiny Tim. You can see the ghost's hand on the wall behind Scrooge's head. In any other Christmas movie, this would be a gesture of comfort, but here, the gesture screams "Don't you dare look away, look at what you've done" and looks like the ghost is holding Scrooge's head so he won't be able to look away. (Of course it would do so — he's the embodiment of Scrooge's shadow self, the worst aspects of him.) - Then there's also the graveyard scene where Scrooge receives confirmation that the man whose death people celebrated over was his. Scrooge tries to run away only for the ground beneath him to sink and open up to reveal an empty coffin. As Scrooge is desperately clinging to a branch in the open ground, the ghost hovers in front of him and stares at him with cold black eyes in a manner not unlike the Penance Stare. By this point, it all becomes clear: Scrooge wasn't looking at a ghost that's the spiritual embodiment of his negative traits. He was looking at Death himself. No wonder Scrooge is absolutely scared shitless! - Given how the coffin is lit with an eerie red glow, one could be forgiven for thinking Scrooge is being dropped into Hell itself. And this wouldn't be the first time this happened in a Disney adaptation of this story. - There's also the snow gradually coming off the gravestone. His death date is explicitly December 25th. The events of the movie, from Marley's arrival onward, could very well have been a Dying Dream! - Yet to Come's stare might actually be more frightening in the motion capture studio footage that can be viewed on the Blu-Ray release. Jim Carrey's face is both intimidating and inscrutable at once.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AChristmasCarol2009
A Demon Among Devils / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned. - Chapter 16 is full of this! - The look we get at the battle between Minato's army of Persona vs Erebus and The Shadows, while it's full of awesome moments where each individual Persona pretty much wipes out an army's worth of Shadows each, the sheer hopelessness that can be felt from fighting against an enemy that is literally respawning endlessly is chilling, especially as we see how everyone, Heroes, Demons, Angels, Dragons, and even Gods, are slowly overwhelmed and cut down until only Metatron, Belial, and Thanatos are left. That's not even taking Erebus into account who in all likelihood could have probably soloed all of them even without the help of The Shadows. - The very fact that Trihexa is described as being at least a magnitude greater than Erebus in strength, or just how close humanity had come to inadvertently awakening it back when they built the tower of Babel. - The detailed descriptions of the army of brainwashed Sacred Gear users, of the sheer damage that they take without feeling it, of the sheer carnage that they deal out and are dealt to them how their expressions were completely blank due to the mind-wiping they had undergone. It's scarily reminiscent of a Zombie Apocalypse. - The moment when it becomes clear to Sirzechs just how far the Old Satan loyalists have managed to infiltrate their ranks when he sees the symbols of Leviathan, Asmodeus, and Beelzebub on their soldiers' armor. - Remember how Rias' peerage felt when Minato summoned Nidhogg? Well... The real thing shows up later in Chapter 17, and it damn well deserved the dread it gathers.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ADemonAmongDevils
A Dance with Dragons / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The end of the prologue is some of the most terrifying writing Martin's put in the series. When they reached the crest the wolves paused. Thistle, he remembered, and a part of him grieved for what he had lost and another part for what hed done. Below, the world had turned to ice. Fingers of frost crept slowly up the weirwood, reaching out for each other. The empty village was no longer empty. Blue-eyed shadows walked amongst the mounds of snow. Some wore brown and some wore black and some were naked, their flesh gone white as snow. A wind was sighing through the hills, heavy with their scents: dead flesh, dry blood, skins that stank of mold and rot and urine. Sly gave a growl and bared her teeth, her ruff bristling. Not men. Not prey. Not these. The things below moved, but did not live. One by one, they raised their heads toward the three wolves on the hill. The last to look was the thing that had been Thistle. She wore wool and fur and leather, and over that she wore a coat of hoarfrost that crackled when she moved and glistened in the moonlight. Pale pink icicles hung from her fingertips, ten long knives of frozen blood. And in the pits where her eyes had been, a pale blue light was flickering, lending her coarse features an eerie beauty they had never known in life. She sees me.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ADanceWithDragons
Adolescence of Utena / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Spoilers Off applies to all Nightmare Fuel pages. You Have Been Warned. - A flashback shows that Akio slipped a drug into his sister Anthy's drink and then took advantage of her sexually. This is icky enough, but it then goes on to show that afterward he realized that she was awake and began to panic, and wound up stabbing her and then falling out a window to his death. Yikes. - The revelation of Anthy's scar during the nude sketching scene is made all the creepier when you can hear what sounds awfully like a dentist drill. Not to mention that said scar is shown as a huge hole in her chest. Or that the collection of Akio's paintings turns into a composite image of Anthy being raped. Say whatever else about the English dub, but Sharon Becker's delivery of the line "This is the secret of the Rose Bride" carries with what could only be described as coming close to sickening amusement as she reveals to Utena the open wound in her chest and the fact her brother raped her. And it is fucking terrifying. - Saionji makes some downright terrifying Axe-Crazy faces during his duel with Utena. He also acts like he's trying to kill her. - Touga was raped by his adoptive father as a child. - The entire butterfly scene, for that matter. Shiori growing butterfly wings may be beautifully animated, but even besides the obvious fact that all this is combined with a scene of child rape, it's creepy how she rants about how much she hates Juri at the same time, all in the same sugary-sweet voice she always has. What's more, the butterflies themselves symbolize all sorts of squicky things: 1. Parasitism; they're cabbage white butterflies, and fittingly enough, the scene takes place in a cabbage patch. 2. Cruel innocence, a phrase associated with Shiori in the series; note how the butterflies perch on the child Touga in his worst moment. - Kozue holding a razor to Miki's throat while they're both in the bathtub together and calling him a traitor when he refuses to divulge details of his personal affairs to her. And then the rubber duck that had been in the bathtub along with the two of them during that scene reappears in the garage (near a car with a license plate reading KOZUE) on the ground, in a puddle of water that reflects the red lighting in a way that looks like blood... - Anthy is just as miserable and emotionally broken as her series counterpart. It's implied she's about to commit suicide before Utena finds her in the Rose Garden at night. And whereas in the series, it's a Heartwarming Moment when she stops her, here, Anthy's subtle jabs at Utena make her fly into a rage, throwing her down to the floor and screaming at her. And just after that scene, Anthy is swinging an ax and looks very close to decapitating Utena. - This generally comes far behind the rest, but some viewers find the infamous "car wash" scene rather scary. Mainly due to the fact that this scene is where they choose to play the notorious "Absolute Destiny Apocalypse" song from the series. - The area outside of Ohtori Academy appears to be a wasteland. What happened to make everything outside the school so utterly wrecked?	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AdolescenceOfUtena
A Certain Scientific Railgun / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - Episode 12. \|\|Screaming psychic fetus monster fits the bill nicely\|\|. - Episode 23. Therestina. Think of Major's looks of madness, just that look of "I shall kill you, and it won't be a quick death," And amplify that to 11. And then add the idea that she's either doing this For Science!, or maybe just for power, but either way she has this unsettling look, a look that says "Don't fight, become a guinea pig." Brrr... - A huge amount of the "Sisters" story arc. The series depicts Mikoto's breakdown into despair a little too well. - \|\|Accelerator ripping off a Sister's leg and crushing her with a train car, then laughing about how tonight's "entertainment" is over.\|\| - The resultant fight between Misaka and Accelerator has some too, as while we thought we saw Misakas full strength against the AIM Burst and Telestina, this shows that she was demonstrating restraint on both occasions as she is trying to murder Accelerator, and his powers allow him to casually deflect every attack and almost kill her in return on multiple occasions. - Right when Mikoto thinks that it's all over, and is finally able to relax a bit after expending enormous effort, \|\|another Sister arrives and confirms that the experiment is on-going: Mikoto barely slowed it down.\|\| - Mikoto finally gives up and sees no way out of this situation except by sacrificing herself. The girl is ready to do something literally suicidal just to get this pain to end. Thankfully, Touma shows up to help. - Railgun T, Episode 10. Where do we start? - \|\|Exterior is a giant brain formed from Misaki's. The purpose? Allowing anyone to use her powers. Anyone.\|\| - \|\|Gensei hijacking Exterior for his own use.\|\| - Even Gensei's line about Mikoto being "\|\|Aleister's favorite\|\|" is incredibly creepy in context. \|\|How long have they been planning to use her like this?\|\| - The episode ends with a single, terrifying statement: \|\|"Now, let the experiment begin; Can Misaka-kun reach Level 6?", all while a demon-like Mikoto is just sitting there with an empty gaze\|\| Thanks for that, \|\|Gensei Kihara.\|\| - To make it worse, \|\|Mikoto is supposed to be able to No-Sell those kinds of things. It's that powerful where it can easily overwhelm a Level 5, and mutate her entire appearance to boot.\|\| - Railgun T, Episode 11: \|\|The possessed Misaka is apparently able to be controlled. And the ones doing it have no trouble nuking buildings as a testing method\|\|. - \|\|Seeing transformed Misaka stand there with an empty look just looks chilling\|\|. - Railgun T, Episode 12. Just on that episode. - It's no longer a question of \|\|"Can Mikoto reach Level 6?"\|\|, it's a matter of \|\|"Can they stop her from reaching Level 6?"\|\| To make matters worse, \|\|Touma can't stop the transformation even if he does touch her, he can only slow it down.\|\| - \|\|Mikoto becoming even less human-like.\|\| It's even mentioned by \|\|Gensei that when she's 53% of the way there, her personality won't be that of a human anymore.\|\| - \|\|Gensei is using Level Upper to give himself Multi-Skill.\|\| - The whole prospect of \|\|the experiment succeeding: Mikoto will die, and the entire city will go down with her.\|\| - Railgun T, Episode 17: The visual analysis of Shaei Miyama's abilities can be disturbing to look at. Examples are: - Megumi Ookawachi about to be crushed by steel beams. - Pero the stray dog being caught up in a fire. - In Railgun T, Episode 16, a schoolgirl about to be hit by a car. - Railgun T, Episode 22: The 'Soul Diffusion' theory. According to Ryouko Kuriba, who is a young expert in cybernetics, when a soul gets released from a mechanical body, this "free soul" can possess anything in its surrounding and can devour the whole city. \|\|And to fix that, Ryouko created Indian Poker so that the soul of her Doppelganger can be erased from her body.\|\| True to Mikoto's words, this sounds really occult and is even weirder that this is not even related to science. - \|\|We find out in Episode 24 that this is not actually the case. The doppelganger used mixture of artificial muscles and mold to absorb materials on its surroundings. So indeed, no occult involved and still sticks to science.\|\|	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ACertainScientificRailgun
Ad Astra / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Monkeys see, monkeys chew.The sheer, vast and hostile emptiness of space is enough to drive you insane, let alone how it's played up for its sheer terror in Ad Astra. Suspense isn't the only element of horror this film dips its hands into. As with all Moments pages, beware of unmarked spoilers! - The initial destruction of the International Space Antenna is horrifying, seeing infrastructure break off and astronauts falling to their deaths, in addition to the screams of the terrified dying personnel on board. It's even worse from Roy's perspective, where he probably knew these people he heard screaming in horror as the antenna collapses. - Roy himself barely manages to escape alive, having one major hole in his parachute, with debris around him threatening to perforate his lifeline even further. - That scene with the baboons. Dear god, those baboons. - To elaborate, Roy McBride and the Captain of the Cepheus are investigating a distress call from a Norwegian space vessel which has been seemingly abandoned. They decide to split up, all the while tension continues to build as they dont know what has gone on on that ship. McBride eventually pushes back a metal plate to find the Captain wiggling unnaturally, with something unknown on him. Eventually, a horrifying-looking baboon peeks over the Captains shoulder and launches itself with surprising speed to tear him apart. - The claw marks on some of the ships interior and our inability to see just what is eating the Captains face makes it unclear at first if the creature that got on the ship is even of Earthly origin. - After a second Baboon charges McBride, him turning it into Ludicrous Gibs via Explosive Decompression offers no relief whatsoever. - The Captains chewed on, mangled face isnt exactly easy on the eyes, either... - The fact that there are healthy-looking lab animals drifting about (a rat is briefly seen in one of the modules) while there's no sign of the human crew whatsoever implies that the baboons specifically targeted and devoured only the humans, which raises all sorts of horrifying questions about what the hell the Norwegians were doing on this station. It's eerily reminiscent of how the Zombie Apocalypse in 28 Days Later began. - The last messages sent by Clifford McBride are obscured by a muddy, old cathode-ray effect that also distorts his voice. This, coupled with his Creepy Shadowed Undereyes, gives you a feeling that there's a much darker side to this man than it seems, and it makes you wonder about the horrible deeds he's done- and is still doing by the time the film starts. - As Roy McBride travels through the Project Lima ship (with his father still alive on it), a lifeless corpse floats by (one of Clifford McBride's victims), truly enhancing the feeling that Roy is Alone with the Psycho. - The first corpse has a spacesuit but no helmet, only a bloody bag over his head, suggesting he tried to prolong his life by covering his face, but was killed via Explosive Decompression before he could find a proper helmet. - Both Clifford McBride and the baboons in the Norwegian station give the viewer one message: going into space will drive you batshit insane, as life was never built to go beyond Earth in the first place. - There are no borders on the Moon, but rather than creating a spirit of international cooperation, this has only led to anarchy as nations try to pirate each other's resources and frighten off rivals with random attacks.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AdAstra
A Christmas Carol (1984) / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes On Scrooge's doorknocker appears Marley's blue-glowing, deathly staring face. As though from a distance, he calls Scrooge's name. Scrooge's disused bell ringing on its own, Marley's face appearing in the tiles around the fireplace, and the triple-locked door unlocking on its own and slamming open. The music is very ominous, and the mounting, disbelieving dread of this most unflappable of Scrooges stretches the tension to its breaking point. Jacob Marley is ghastly. Unwrapping his jaw initially causes it to flop open, and his chains are so heavy and long he can barely raise his arms. His deathly glare and furious, sorrowful voice imply that regret has driven him to the edge of sanity. They do indeed disturb the very marrow of one's bones. His screams are even worse. And as he leaves the room other spirits' screams are heard from outside, but never seen. As Fred's house party fades out, the last simile given is "silent as the grave" over a completely black screen. The Ghost of Christmas Present is fine right up until the end, when he reveals Ignorance and Want, yells at Scrooge while using his own words against him, and disappears abruptly to leave Scrooge in an empty snow field, with enough of a Beat that Scrooge genuinely thinks he's been left to die in the dark before The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come arrives. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is generally seen from a distance or as a shadow, and what we do see has creepily long fingers. Whenever it "speaks" a sound like a rusting iron gate is heard, and the scene where it shows Scrooge his own body in an attempt to make him lift the cover is set during a lightning storm. Scrooge's body lying there in the dark is one of the scariest versions put to screen, especially with the storm and blue lighting included in the scene.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AChristmasCarol1984
[adult swim] / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes As the Darker and Edgier counterpart to Cartoon Network (itself a darker version of Nickelodeon and Disney Channel), [adult swim] takes full advantage of its watershed format with a penchant for Surreal Humor and Surreal Horror. It's designed to scare kids away from watching... and the adults can certainly vouch for its effectiveness. <!—index—><!—/index—> - The Dawn Is Your Enemy, a former [as] sign-off bump that aired from 2005 to 2010, designed specifically to scare away children. It has gained infamy for it not being outwardly scary, but incredibly creepy. It contains a static composite image devoid of color that focuses on an uncomfortably large pair of fearful, nervous eyes and a glowering sun in the background. What makes the bump especially creepy is the quiet, ominous background noises they use — resonating, rumbling, and scraping metal. - As if that wasn't scary enough, a creepypasta was eventually built around the bump (which was roughly remade here). In this story, the bump that we all know is actually an abridged version, and the full version contains what appears to be the audio of a mass murder, including a deafening cacophony of screams, slicing flesh, grinding bones, and gushing blood, topped off by the sun in the background winking at the viewer. - In May 2020, [as] unexpectedly brought the bump back as "The Dawn Is Your Frenemy", striving to make it less creepy by adding piano music, a red balloon, and making the sun wink (just like the creepypasta mentioned above). It is still creepy, though; the piano music combined with the original sound effects make the environment much scarier, the red balloon will remind those of It and the sun's wink could catch those by surprise. Hell, this version might be scarier than the original (though not as scary as the creepypasta), which is actually lampshaded at the very end. [not sure it's working] - From the 5th to 7th of September 2021, it returned as the sign-off bump in glorious HD. - On November 14th, 2021, the Adult Swim Twitter account posted an HD rendition of the creepypasta version, effectively rendering it Ascended Fanon. - As of 13th of May 2022, it turns out that the audio sample is taken from a hip-hop track titled "Violence is a Menace" by Bola Adekimi. While the full rendition's quite good, it still can invoke unease to listeners due to the ominous sample being present through the entire track. - Before The Dawn, this was the sign-off, an assault of flashing, distorted images and odd sounds ending with a synthetic voice telling the audience "Good night, sweet dreams". - This interstitial, where a child's voice narrates society going to ruin over a sauce that makes everything it is put on taste good. Everything. - Their Fall 2014-2016 sign-off bumper can be pretty unnerving, but absolutely mesmerizing. - It was then replaced with a pixel art sign-off for only a year or so... then it was replaced with something a million times worse. WARNING: DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ARE PRONE TO EPILEPSY! - This new bumper was so much worse, in fact, that over halfway into the year they replaced it with a still somewhat surreal, yet much less freaky one. - So far, this obscure bumper has appeared very rarely aired on AS, and for good reason. - Any bumper that Cyriak has made for the block has at least some form of horror in them. - Some of the station IDs can be quite unsettling and can catch a lot of people off guard in the middle of the night, like this one. - This bumper, which is centered around the Nightmare Face of a creepy Japanese robot. - This odd variant on the typical [as] introductory message, as recorded by a freaked-out little kid. After the regular content warning is displayed, three buttons pop up ("ANSWER", "ANSWER WITH VIDEO", "DECLINE") and the Skype call sound starts playing on loop. Then the message gets menacing. - Watch Harder has similar energy to The Dawn Is Your Enemy, with a still close-up shot of a Creepy Doll while a nursery rhyme plays, eventually transitioning to an increasingly louder scream of anguish... and then cutting abruptly. - Franky Bartol 1 depicts an utterly terrifying scenario. - Anyone remember the "This is fine" dog? Well, that very strip was animated as a bumper, and it's just as unnerving as you'd expect when put to motion. Are you still okay with the events that are unfolding currently? - Any bumper made for the 2017 Heart and Brain Co. ARG. Not only the bumpers themselves are pretty creepy by all means (especially the music), but when you learn more about the context, it become worse. - Several of the Adult Swim infomercials are dark or upsetting in some way. For example, "Fartcopter" is about a sinister Creepy Child who becomes obsessed with a toy called "Fartcopter", which is pretty much Exactly What It Says on the Tin, leading his family to stage an intervention. The kid appears to reform his ways, \|\|but he then proceeds to murder his entire family with a fart noise so intense it causes their internal organs to explode.\|\| Sweet dreams! - In October 2014 they aired this with no prior advertising. Too Many Cooks starts out as a parody of sitcom intros featuring large families a la Full House with Adult Swim's typical absurdity, but turns into some of the most violent and nightmarish imagery ever seen on the network. The horror starts around the 4-minute mark. - Unedited Footage of a Bear. What starts off as being Exactly What It Says on the Tin \|\|is interrupted by an ad for a decongestant that slowly goes off the rails and becomes the closest thing the channel has gone to genuine horror.\|\| The tie-in website, accessible by clicking "Skip Ad" in the linked video, is equally disturbing. - This House Has People in It is just the start of an entire ARG of unnerving events. - What also helps is that the ARG eventually reveals that Unedited Footage of a Bear was not only made by the same guy (Alan Resnick) but according to the creators it might also take place in the same universe. Even they're not sure. - The idea that either the house itself is an Eldritch Location or a experiment of some sort is equally creepy either way. \|\|And what IS THAT PINK CREEPY PERSON DOING?!\|\| - Flayaway is an infomercial about a new beauty procedure for women that removes unwanted body hair and blemishes by cutting off all their skin. What follows is 11 minutes of some of the grossest imagery Adult Swim has ever aired, including the hideous costume portraying someone who has just gone through the procedure (which, if you click on that link, is the image that appears as the video is loading).	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AdultSwim
AdventureQuest Worlds / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - The whole Living Dungeon event has this with the Tree Titan fighting a red serpentine dragon, it does not hold back on the nightmarish aspect of the quest. It does not help that the dragon wants to eat The Hero in question! It eventually ends up with The Hero controlling the Tree Titan via \|\|journeying into its Brain with a Manual Control.\|\| - The Fear Chaser event generally has this as its theme, especially for the Terrorkind monsters. If you thought the big baby doll head and several zombie baby doll heads in the area where you fight the Fear Feeder were creepy enough, just wait until you fight the big boss of the event: \|\|A gigantic, winged, skeletal entity simply called FEAR itself that not only has spiders crawling all over his body but also cries tears of lava\|\|! EEK! - \|\|Fear\|\| is more of a Nightmare Retardant. The thing that would be most fearful is the intro cutscene in The DoomWood Saga where chaos tentacles are going out of control on King Alteon's chaorupted body and slowly chaorupting him in a more terrifying looking way. - The \|\|Pie of Rising Evil\|\| from the 2011 Mogloween event couldn't have been more aptly named. That thing is creepy. Especially its voice, which \|\|has a hypnotic quality on those who hear it, and which uses their fears against them when that doesn't work in order to lure them to the shop so that it can eat them. The especially creepy scene was with Farmer Northrup of Willow Creek and his poor kid, who knows something is going on, but can't convince his father not to listen to the evil voice...\|\| - We know it's supposed to be rather dramatic, but come on! We all know \|\|Desoloth is a Magnificent Bastard, and that's why he frightens AQW players. Oh, but his magnificence isn't the only thing that frightens us. He nearly kills Galanoth, too, which is also more than enough to scare players even though it's considered very dramatic and is not actually supposed to be meant to do that. Galanoth leaps at Desoloth in an attempt to kill him, Warlic lets out a Big "NO!", and BAM! Just like that, Desoloth ACTUALLY bites off Galanoth's GODDAMN ARM! And in the next cutscene, the hero receives an Oh, Crap! reaction to seeing Galanoth having lost his arm (despite not actually getting an actual Oh, Crap! face). So there you have it, Desoloth NEARLY KILLS Galanoth by biting off his arm\|\|. - As if \|\|nearly killing Galanoth by biting off his arm\|\| wasn't enough, \|\|a short while after his death by the hero's hands, Drakath releases his skeletal remains from the Cor Draconis and Chaorrupts him into the Chaos-empowered Desolich\|\|. Oh, snap. - \|\|The Chaos Children and the worst of all is Stalkwalker trying to feed on the children's parents and trying to eat the children when they become adults as well as repeating the whole thing over and over again\|\|. - The Flood of Chaos event has \|\|a plague of Chaorruption sweeping Swordhaven, with its sewers a bright purple with Chaotic taint. The artists did a very good job in making Chaos utterly nightmarish, including incredibly freaky-looking Chaos Spiders and Rats\|\|. And to make matters worse, \|\|King Alteon, our wise and noble King of Good, has finally fallen to the ongoing case of Chaorruption that has been plaguing him all game since the Chaos Incident\|\|. - The Princess Anglers in the doom vault dungeon look seriously creepy, and if you go wrong at the start you briefly see one early, as it lunges out and presumably eats you! - In the Tower of Doom, when you reach the 50th floor of the top half of the tower, you enter the "brain room", where Zoshi comically pokes at all the neurons with his sword. Soon enough, a strange arm emerges from the "brain" and your character reacts. Then the rest of a body that belongs to a nasty monster called Creel actually emerges from the "brain", and we have both Zoshi and your character appropriately reacting to its appearance in horror. In fact, Creel itself is pretty disturbing in terms of appearance. - And the tougher section beneath the tower leads into a huge digestive tract, ending with a fight against Slugbutter, which is even more hideously disturbing than Creel. In this case there is a degree of Nightmare Retardant in Zoshi insisting on calling it Fredderick, and some other slapstick comedy. Even so, appearance wise the tower as a whole is one of the creepiest releases in the game. - \|\|The way Banshee Mallora kills Chamat when he tries to harness her screams for use as a weapon for the Queen of Monsters during the Stolen Screams event is perhaps one of the most gruesomely-depicted deaths in an otherwise-lighthearted game. She attacks him by screaming at him with her death wail, causing his mask to fall apart. Following that, even his eyes and ears melt off, followed by the rest of his face, reducing his head to nothing more than a white skull as his body collapses. As The Hero points out, his face literally became a puddle after Mallora used her death wail on him.\|\| - The 13th Friday the 13th event is perhaps one of the most gornographic events in an otherwise lighthearted MMORPG. There's a blood moon in the background, and not to mention the skull statue in the center of Battleon, along with the statue of King Alteon, both cry Tears of Blood. And then there's the 13 Lords of Doom, and they resemble some of the most infamous characters in Artix Entertainment history, both in name and in appearance, ranging from Sepulchure himself to Vordred to even Maximilian Lionfang \|\|(who was also a Chaos Lord, of course)\|\|. - If the appearance of the Ruins of Elfhame isn't enough to creep you out, \|\|once you enter its mouth, you discover to your horror what General Nevanna does to her own former partner Aven\|\|. - Kolyaban's transformation of \|\|Aria\|\| in the Darkblood war. - \|\|Laken's Villainous Breakdown when he finds out that Dage doesn't have any interest in conquering Lore nor replacing Nulgath anymore. It begins with him charging himself with mana from the World Core as he points his weapon at Dage in a newfound anger towards him for abandoning the very goal he worked so long and so hard to help him fulfill, declaring his intent to take over the leadership of the Undead Legion and replace it with his Blood Legion. By the time you face him in the Seraphic War, he's gone completely mad, with almost half of his face torn off by the mana from the World Core that he's been charging himself with, further confirming true the realization that any Legion run by an insane Laken would pose a threat to the entire world. Also doubles as a Tear Jerker, when Ada is ultimately forced to slay the very man who took such good care of her when the insanity he's given in to proves too much for him to handle.\|\| - Dethrix Drakath, the father of the main villain Drakath himself and former king of Swordhaven (which was Dreadhaven during his reign), isn't just terrifying in looks with the appearance of his armor of choice. There is a good reason why he was considered a tyrant so cruel that he was dubbed as the Monster King, the fear feeder, the death mage, and even the self-proclaimed Champion of Darkness. Once he was crowned king, Dethrix slaughtered many heroes, forced many bards to sing songs of his many victories, and united many underlords and slave traders under his rule. Even his speed and strength were inhuman, according to Drakath's journal. And then we have his kidnapping of Lynaria and the fact that his armies were attacking both Ostfort and Highwick (the latter of which Valen ignored and left to burn against his former friend and superior Alteon's orders out of refusal to accept that Lynaria would die while they were fighting to save both towns), his cold-blooded beatdown and murder of Valen, and finally his death at the hands of the resurrected Valen (who had stolen the Champion of Darkness armor not long after being revived and became Sepulchure as a result), which involved Sepulchure stabbing Dethrix through his chest with his Doomblade and then ripping out his heart in a similar fashion to how Drakath would later rip out his own former boss' heart in the prologue to the 13 Lords of Chaos saga. All that is what really makes Dethrix himself really stand out in terms of scariness and evilness. - Need more of the fear factor that Dethrix provides? Just go to his throne room in Ebonslate Fortress. You'll see several corpses of dead heroes who failed against Dethrix there, one of who is Valen. You'll see it when you fail against him as Valen himself the first time you fight him. - The monsters in Ivoliss' castle look absolutely terrifying, in a way that almost makes them resemble creatures from the Alien franchise, including but not limited to Ivoliss himself. Even the boss, \|\|a corrupted Arthelyn\|\|, is terrifying on sight. - \|\|The Queen of Monsters saga finale, "Shadows of War", gives us a terrifying new antagonist to face: Malgor. Appearing from a rift in the sky near the Queen's castle, he's not just terrifying in looks, but also attacks a nearby village and uses his dark power to brainwash and corrupt people into fighting for his side, turning them into monstrous shadow versions of themselves. When the Hero challenges him, they get captured by him as the battle progresses, and when they demand to know where the Queen is, he responds by holding out her decapitated head, meaning she died somehow during the Shadowflame Army's invasion! What's worse is that he accuses the Hero of being responsible for her death and threatens to imprison them forever unless they agree to serve him. All that points to one thing: Malgor cannot be trusted.\|\| - \|\|Another great way to give you a good idea on how terrifying Malgor is is when you and Jinx end up in Battleon 20 years in the future, seeing what would happen if Malgor isn't stopped. There, in that time, the town has been severely damaged and demolished and is being overrun by Shadowflame Army minions, and the only La Résistance left in that time is made up of an elderly Yulgar and a Magpie named Niknak. Then corrupted versions of three of the class trainers (Arcana, Juvania, and Metrea), who have all been corrupted by Malgor, corrupt said version of Yulgar into attacking and forcing the Hero and co. to fight him to the point where he fades away upon defeat, afterwards leaving them to scream that the corrupted class trainers that betrayed them that they would answer for what happened to him only to find that they're already gone. Now, imagine what would happen if you agreed to serve Malgor and therefore ended up not being forgiven for betrayal against the world you were fighting to defend... Brr...\|\| - The Summit of Insanity area has quickly shaped up to be one of the creepiest areas in AdventureQuest Worlds so far. A red night sky lit up by a red moon, black and red monsters everywhere with giant red eyes on different parts of their bodies, giant canisters of red liquid with humans and animals inside, giant stone arches with Volcanic Veins, and the boss monster itself looking so eldritch that it looks like it wouldn't be out of place in Neon Genesis Evangelion, fought in a cavern with giant red eyes spread all over that cavern... Yeah, all that gives you quite the idea how terrifying this map is shaping up to be. - And then you learn... that boss you fought? \|\|It was the lost adventurer you were looking for that ended up in one of Darkons experiments, turning them into the monstrosity you see. Then you see the adventurers soul screaming while being turned into one of the Debris weapons that some players farm for in that area.\|\| Listening to Darkons dialogue in the area implies that \|\|every single one of those items is, in fact, the transformed, agonized soul of whatever poor schmuck ended up in the Garden and attracted Darkons attention.\|\| - It only gets worse when you hover your mouse over the pieces of paper littering the place. \|\|They're an Apocalyptic Log showing just what it was like for the lost adventurer before he was found by Darkon. Apparently, the adventurer was trapped in the Garden for at least a few months, and due to malnutrition, he was forced to drink the red fluid within the soul capsules and eat the Eldritch Abomination creatures wandering around the piles of trash. Eventually, Darkon begins to stalk him, before capturing him to serve as a test subject. Based on that last, torn note, killing the now-monstrous adventurer was a Mercy Kill... at least until Darkon turned his soul into one of his Debris. Rated E10+!\|\| - Just how powerful can Drakaths Chaos Amulet be? As Captain Laguna witnessed, \|\|powerful enough to (temporarily, thankfully) warp her body to the point where it envelops part of her ship and leaves her now-monstrous nervous system exposed!\|\| - The Darkon storyline continues with a visit to another Eldritch Location, Eridani Village. As you investigate the mysterious murders and help the paranoid populace, \|\|you end up getting framed for a murder by Re, and how do the villagers react? By turning into humanoid abominations out to execute you! And all of this as a result of yet another experiment.\|\| - And that's not all there is to this area; the monsters you'll fight here count too, as you fight even more red-and-black eldritch mutants, including but not limited to degraded but modified versions of Marchosias' monstrous wolf-like form from Stryche's storylines and the true form of THAT from the Mogloween 2019 events, both of which were already really scary in terms of appearance. And if you thought all that was scary enough, \|\|what the mayor of the village turns into takes the creep factor even futher, as he turns into a giant mutated eldritch head that not only looks like it came out of Castlevania or some other form of horror media, but Dage also collaborated with Darkon to create the Creatures design to only ramp up the creepy factor\|\|. Even the backgrounds don't help lessen the scariness either, as they make it look like the village is suffering from a bloody rainstorm, and the boss' background looks like a massive sea of blood with huge black arms with eyes on the palms of their hands rising out of it. It's no wonder the staff described it as another tale told from Darkon's twisted mind. - And speaking of Re, \|\|after you've beaten the boss, the resulting explosion tears off half of her overshirt to reveal that one of her arms is missing\|\|. Oh, and you should also check out her Psychotic Smirk. We dare you. - The third chapter of Darkon's story involves you running around fighting Eridani's disease that has now just spread to Astravia, with more freaky Eldritch Abominations featured, this time with crazy humanoid creatures either praying in a weird pose or hunched over with extra arms sprouting from their backs. Even the boss is really freaky, being a giant monstrosity with lots of faces running down its back and holding a moon and a disembodied head that spits blood at you. There's also the outside of town, which features a river of blood and giant tentacle-like columns with Volcanic Veins planted all over the banks. - The fourth chapter doesn't seem to start out all that scary (not minding the eldritch monsters from the previous chapter as well as some new ones), until you get to a hallway that has a blood-like substance running across much of the floor. And then you meet another creepy Eldritch Abomination, this one resembling a centaur-like creature holding a polearm dripping with a waterfall of blood with faces on it and a giant sun-like face with glowing swords all over its sides and leaking black Tears of Blood from its eyes. And after you beat that, you get to witness a giant trumpet descending from the sky above Astravia Castle with giant skeletal arms reaching out to it as Darkon confronts \|\|his brother,\|\| King Drago and vows vengeance against him for what he did to him. - For the fifth chapter, you witness Astravia undergoing a creepy transformation while fighting stylized art monsters resembling multicolored arms with eyes, creatures playing trumpets with bones sticking out of their bodies and heads on their legs, and humanoid creatures with eyes where their heads should be and heads on their stomachs. The latter parts of the area look like something that came out of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and you climb up a list of crossed-off names against a backdrop resembling a color-inverted space and even get to fight a group of three faceless people that are blaming you for their condition while dealing no damage to you. \|\|And in the cutscene that plays after you defeat La, Darkon drops you from the platform where you fought her and turns her into one of his debris weapons.\|\| - The start of the much-more-lighthearted sixth chapter \|\|has you floating in the middle of the air, upside-down, after you were just dropped from the platform where you fought La by Darkon, being met up with by Do Dusk and Do Dawn, a pair of ethereal-looking Humanoid Abominations who proceed to tell you the story of the events that led to the Scale's attack on Astravia\|\|. The seventh chapter isn't all that scary either until \|\|you get to Suki's nightmare, where she, to her horror, meets up with a frightening-looking monstrosity known as the Forsaken Husk, which resembles a writhing version of Darkon's body held up by strings of a blood-like substance with limbs resembling his own hanging out of it, in a darkened garden-like area of flowered bushes in a completely black background filled with what appear to be faceless corpses resembling Darkon placed all over the area. Even worse is that the Forsaken Husk is speaking with Darkon's voice and accusing her of betraying him and all of Astravia. Thank goodness the real Darkon managed to wake her up from her nightmare. The last scene of the chapter's final cutscene, of course, features then-prince Drago speaking to some kind of shadowed Mechanical Abomination, and you could bet that things are going to escalate from that point\|\|. - The eighth chapter takes you to visit \|\|the First Observatory, and the upper part contains a blood-like substance spanning across much of the floor similarly to the hallways leading to The Sun back in the fourth chapter, as well as frightening-looking versions of the Shadowscythe aliens whose faces also strikingly resemble the Eldritch Abomination creatures you've been fighting in the early chapters of Darkon's saga, and the Empress' Finger, which resembles a giant eldritch tentacle with a toothy humanoid face on its tip that also happens to be a form taken by Alprecha\|\|. - Everything about King Drago is pretty unsettling, even without mentioning what a petty scumbag he is. He's willing to kill in cold blood just to get what he wants\|\|, and he even sacrifices his own men to summon Eldritch Abominations, including two of the bosses fought in the early chapters, and as revealed in the eighth chapter is responsible for Suki's tragic death that sent Darkon down the path that made him the special kind of unhinged that he is today\|\|. - Speaking af how Darkon became what he is today, \|\|the ninth chapter opens with an Eldritch Abomination called the Primordial Fool resembling a robed lich with a rose in its hand and a giant eye in place of a skull but keeping the skull's jawbone greeting him and Suki's dead body and reviving him by fusing its eye with his soul, after which he then tests out the new poer given to him in this form by turning Suki's corpse into his first Debris weapon, and when he revives Regulus, Titania, and Aurola, the first of the three starts sporting the insane grin sported by her current self with a red sclera in one eye, and the second sports the scary-looking black armor that he wears today. The last part of the map takes place in a landscape that sports the same blood moon shown in the first four maps of Darkon's storyline. At the end of the final cutscene, you get to see a giant eerie humanoid emerging from the portal that Judgement emerged from in the present day\|\|. - The legendary calamity in Undead Abomination form known simply as the Beast really takes the cake, being a massive humanoid monstrosity that looks strikingly like a souped-up version of its other half, Dage the Evil. There's a good reason why it was sealed away by Nulgath deep within the seventh of the Seven Circles. This thing was responsible for so many villages being ravaged and so many souls being consumed, and Death was worried that it could result in the destruction of the natural order. Even the fiend swarms sent by Nulgath weren't enough to stop its hunger, leaving him to cleave its soul in two himself; one of its souls would later infuse the cursed king that would later become the Dark Lord himself. When you finally get to face the Beast itself, \|\|it seems rather eager to devour your soul and have it build its vision of a "paradise" together with it, sensing that you are the reincarnation of the Eternal Dragon of Time itself. This thing even makes a good point when it notes that the players are driven by the sins of pride, envy, and greed. And that's not even the worst of it; it's apparently become clear to Virgil that the closer Dage gets to the beast, the more influence it has over him. Luckily, after you beat it, it becomes clear that he's no longer influenced by it as he comes to save the day and take his legion back by draining souls from it until it turns to stone. Even the Beast's Villainous Breakdown as Dage drains souls from it is truly terrifying\|\|. - \|\|Malgor's plan involves taking control of the Mana Core, believing it to be able to help with his plans to "bring peace to Lore", but what he really wants is to destroy it in a wave of despair and shadows. He appears to have gained complete control over the core at the end of the cutscene played after Avatar Tyndarius' defeat, but it is revealed that he lost control over it and it's now lashing out at both him and all of Lore. Just how bad could that be? Take a good look at the glowing white markings appearing on the different characters as you play through the saga finale. It's so bad that his dragon Gar even mentioned that he lost an arm when a fellow Shadowflame exploded near him! And to top it off, this situation even results in Gar melting into a dragon-like monster!\|\| - \|\|During your second encounter with him during the finale, Malgor appears badly damaged as if the markings appearing all over him during the first one weren't bad enough, and now he's extremely pissed off and angrily blaming you for what's going on after his attempt to corrupt the Mana Core to his will resulted in it going out of control. He shows you visions of Gravelyn dying in the kingdom where Sepulchure was killed, Brentan condemning Victoria as the new Queen of Monsters and sentencing her to execution, and you falling into despair as a Mumbler approaches you and Drakath comments that he'll be becoming a pawn again. Imagine how much worse things would've gotten from there had Drakath not interfered and neither had Gar...\|\| - \|\|Malgor's One-Winged Angel form in the final battle, known as the Mainyu, can be seen as both this and having a truly badass design. It sports his armor just like the one we're used to, but has a gigantic red draconic tail and wings with glaring red eyes on them and glowing red chains hanging from them, as well as a giant red rune floating behind his wings, plus his head has been morphed into that which resembles a red and distorted version of the Dragon of Time's own. According to descriptions of the capes based on his wings, tail, and rune, this form is the one he would've taken had his creator, the hero/Dragon of Time, tutored and cared for him well enough after his creation in another timeline, which would've resulted in an impossible dream where he was seen as both a protector and an overseer.\|\| - \|\|The Eldritch Abominations found in the Frostval 2020: Eldritch Horrors event are also creepy, and what's worse is that they happen to be members of a family belonging to Howard, a lonely man who lost them to the Queen of Monsters and her faction. His wife was horribly mutated into a humanoid with detached limbs connected by arteries, multiple tentacles connected to her waist by a multitude of writhing humanoid heads, and a tentacle in place of her head with teeth, plus a single eye peeking out of one of her breasts. His kids' appearance is no better, with Arthur being a humanoid body with a single black eye floating above it and a huge gaping mouthful of teeth placed where his stomach and chest would be, and Elise being a grey-skinned naked girl hanging out of Arthur's mouth. Worst of all is when Howard himself absorbs the corrupted energy of the Plane of Monsters and turns into a corpse-like Humanoid Abomination with a multitude of Floating Limbs connected to his body by glowing green arteries and what appears to be a mouthless face revealed by a huge wide-open mouth with green energy surrounding his head, and appearing to be meditating. To further add to this creep factor, he takes this form as a result of being consumed by rage towards both Frostvale and the rest of the world for the fact that the players had to kill both his wife and his children in order to right whatever wrongs he made them do for him, and he, in this form, wrathfully declares his intent to make the entirety of Lore feel the weight of his rage. Thank goodness the players, Warlic, and Sora were able to stop him, save Frostval, and revert him back to his old human self.\|\| - \|\|If the abominations you fight in this event weren't creepy enough, Howard's Villainous Breakdown after you kill his horribly mutated wife definitely took the cake. It's one thing to reject that his wife was transformed beyond saving, but the elixir he used to summon her wasn't the only one: he has another elixir, and he uses it to tear open a portal to the Plane of Monsters against the players' wishes and unleash a chaotic power that he attempts to use to twist and transform all of Frostvale beyond recognition - all in an attempt to throw everything into despair as revenge for taking his beloved wife away from him. The breakdown Howard suffers is enough that he eventually uses the chaotic energy of the gems gathered by the players to assume the aforementioned transformation into an Eldritch Abomination fueled by his own rage.\|\|	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AdventureQuestWorlds
Adventures in Zambezia / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Budzo. This guy is a bird's worst nightmare. With his deep voice and frightening appearance, he is easily one of the scariest animated villains ever! His first scene where he's talking to the Marabous is pretty unnerving, especially when he talks about death. "It's just part of the cycle of life. The last part." When Tendai finds Budzo, he eavesdrops on him to overhear his evil plan. He looks away from the rock for one second, then he looks again to find that Budzo has vanished. Then he turns around and sees Budzo rushing at him! Even better, it's viewed from Tendai's perspective! The revelation that Budzo was the one who killed Kai's mother.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AdventuresInZambezia
A Cry in the Night / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes ## Spoilers are unmarked: - When she first moves into Erich's house, Jenny rearranges things in one of the rooms and places the plants she brought from her old flat there, too. She's woken up by the sounds of someone shifting furniture and strongly suspects Erich is changing things back around. The next morning, Jenny finds that the room has been set up exactly how it was before and her plants are missing; Erich acts like it never happened and Jenny decides not to confront him, chalking it up as a grief response. She later stumbles across her plants thrown into an outside bin. It might seem minor at first, but it's a chilling indicator of how determined Erich is to always have his way and keep the house frozen in time, and his willingness to literally destroy Jenny's attempts to put her own personality into the place. - Erich shooting Joe's puppy is as horrific as it is heart-wrenching. Jenny sees the puppy running about near the Krueger family cemetery and thinks about trying to catch him, when she suddenly sees Erich emerge from the trees with a shotgun. Without a moment of hesitation or remorse, Erich shoots the puppy, even as Jenny runs forward, desperately screaming for Erich to stop. The first shot doesn't kill the dog, merely wounding it, and it gives a horrible yelp. Erich coldly shoots the dog again as he's lying on the ground, leaving Jenny utterly horrified. Erich tries to claim that he thought the dog was a stray, framing the killing as protecting Jenny's children, and that he had to put him out of his misery, but the sheer ruthlessness of the act means Jenny has a hard time buying Erich's excuses. It's implied that Erich really shot the puppy to spite Joe for letting him run loose and because the puppy trampled some of the flowers on Caroline's grave. Jenny even suspects that if she hadn't witnessed it, Erich wouldn't have even told Joe about it and would've let him believe his beloved pet had 'gone missing', just like his previous dog. - Joe's mother watches helplessly as her son is mauled by a mad horse; it kicks and tramples him, crushing his chest with his hooves. Joe is extremely lucky to have survived. The other farmhands are forced to shoot the horse to save Joe and it later turns out the horse was slipped poison, driving it insane. Jenny watches the whole thing go down as well and it's made even worse when Joe's distraught mother begins screaming that it's all her fault and that something awful will happen to her own child. - Jenny finding her baby dead - seemingly of cot death - would be horrible for any parent, but it's made even worse when people start to suggest she killed her own child. Jenny is so vulnerable and mentally frail at this point, she starts to believe it could be true. It's later revealed Erich - dressed in a wig and shawl to resemble Jenny and/or his mother - smothered the baby in his crib and tried to gaslight Jenny into believing it was her. - It turns out that Beth likely witnessed her baby brother's murder but because she's so young and was half-asleep at the time, she didn't fully understand what she was seeing, including mistaking the disguised Erich for Jenny. When Beth tells Jenny this at the funeral, Jenny begins freaking out a bit, thinking she really did kill her own baby unknowingly. - Jenny opens a closet and finds a black mink coat Erich bought her as a wedding gift. She notices that it seems to be hanging lopsidedly on the hanger and tries to readjust it, only for pieces of the coat to fall off. Confused, Jenny takes a closer look and realizes that the coat has been deliberately slashed into ribbons and left hanging in the closet for her to find. It's not stated outright that Erich did it, but it's not really necessary; Jenny and the reader both instinctively know it was him, and the message is clear. - The moment where the novel finally catches up to the opening scene and gives context to what Jenny finds in Erich's cabin that terrifies her so much. Jenny is poking around the dark cabin, alone in the snowy woods, looking for any clue as to where Erich has taken her daughters. She notices something off about one of his new paintings; it has another signature, Caroline Bonardi. Catching on, Jenny checks another painting, then another, and another, realising they're all signed by Caroline. At first, Jenny thinks Erich has been copying Caroline's paintings, until the real explanation soon dawns on her: Caroline is the real artist everyone so admires and Erich has been forging his name to her works. Not five minutes ago, Jenny had been admiring one of the paintings, wondering how a man who is so suspicious, jealous and manipulative can paint something so stirring, sensitive and beautiful. She now realises the truth: Erich never painted them at all and everything she thought she knew and loved about the man based on his art is an utter lie. She has no idea who she's married at all. It also immediately raises another unsettling question for Jenny: if Erich is just forging his name to his mother's works, what the hell does he do all that time he spends in the cabin? - Exploring the cabin further, Jenny goes upstairs and discovers one of Erich's real paintings, and it's absolutely the stuff of nightmares, revealing just how twisted Erich truly is. It appears to depict Caroline as an evil half-woman, half-snake wraith, smothering a helpless baby in a crib and guiding a horse's hooves to trample the terrified Joe. And in the centre is Jenny, her face twisted in agony, with her two daughters lying dead at her feet with belts tied around their necks and Erich's laughing face leering at her through curtains. Jenny then realises that the face of the snake woman is not Caroline's, but Erich's. It's at this moment Jenny finally realises what's been happening: Erich is the one who poisoned his horse so it would attack Joe, killed her baby and has been dressing up like Caroline to frame Jenny. And now he has Jenny's daughters with him and Jenny has no idea if the image of them strangled is something Erich is planning to do...or has already done. It's not surprising Jenny rips the painting off the wall and then flees from the cabin, screaming for help the whole way. - When Jenny returns to the cabin with Clyde, Mark and Sheriff Gunderson, they find more of Erich's twisted paintings and it somehow gets worse. They find a painting revealing that Erich, at the age of just ten, was in fact the one who caused his mother's so-called accident, shoving her into the stock tank and intentionally knocking in a lamp to electrocute her, enraged that she'd told him she was leaving him. Then they find another painting depicting Clyde and Rooney's missing teenage daughter, Arden, peering into the cabin window and Erich with his hands around her throat. It becomes very clear that Arden didn't run away; she had the misfortune to disturb Erich at the cabin and he strangled her to death for it.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ACryInTheNight
A Crown of Stars / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Page for scary moments found in A Crown of Stars: - Don Barceló was a bloody dictator that ruled Buenos Aires and kidnapped women to rape, torture, and murder. When Asuka and Shinji's troops sacked his mansion, they found the latest batch of his victims. As their medic officers healed the survivors, they noted that Barceló possibly raped and murdered dozens of people. - And then they forced him to revisit each crime he had committed from the point of view of his victims. - And Asuka did not pity him because until a few days ago she thought she had been raped several hundreds of times for Winthrop and Jinnai during the last three years.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ACrownOfStars
Across the Universe (2007) / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - The army segment of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". - Naked Vietnamese women who do a weird kind of gymnastic dance thing while standing in water about three feet deep, presumably near a beach... and then fall over dead for no apparent reason. Then we're treated to a lovely shot of dead naked bodies with water washing over them. - Lucy walking into Paco, the anti-war radical who was all about peace marches and giving flowers to cops, building bombs. It's even more horrifying that after Lucy calls him out ("I thought it was the other side that dropped the bombs") it doesn't affect him whatsoever. He just continues to build the bombs. Later on after that scene, Jude opens up a news paper and the headliner says that anti-war strikers were killed in a homemade bomb blast. Jude's horrified face when he thinks that Lucy was killed in there as well (she wasn't thankfully), and the Scare Chord that plays along with his expression says it all.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AcrossTheUniverse2007
Action Man (2000) / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The life of an Action Hero has never been for the meek of heartBefitting a World of Badass, the world and life of Action Man is as unsettling as it is awesome. Especially with the menagerie of insane freaks hunting after The Hero led by a maniac who wants to destroy most of the world so he can rule the rest! - Dr. X is pretty unsettling all around and only gets worse as time goes on. He starts off as a creepy mutilated scientist, later stated to be the result of experimenting on himself, with a glowing red eye and nasty skin with a Creepy Monotone voice. Then you find out he has an army of killer machines, small and large, at his beck and call all over the world and plans on using them to cause a planetary apocalypse that would kill off much of humanity in an attempt to evolve the human species. All so he can rule HIS new humanity. The ways he goes about doing so include trying to start a nuclear war, attempting to bring about a new ice age, releasing a deadly mutagenic gas over the planet, and eventually destroying most of humanity with an asteroid! - His fate at the end of the series is pretty awful too. Having obtained an immortal body and the AMP Factor, Dr. X gets sent hurtling into space on an asteroid and he'll be on it fully aware for a LONG time. Even worse is Action Man implied that Dr. X might even manage to return one day and he's got all the time he needs to plan thanks to being immortal and not needing oxygen to breathe. - Templeton Storm aka Tempest is pretty creepy as the page image will attest. He started off as an emotionally unstable Teen Genius and millionaire who had his Berserk Button pressed too many times when he was mocked over his young age despite his success. His experiments eventually backfired on him and turned him into a human dynamo at the cost of driving him insane and causing his body to become translucent whenever he gets pissed. Showing his skeleton all! - The abuse Brandon Caine goes through in the show is positively heinous. He starts of as The Rival of Action Man and agrees to be experimented on by Dr. X to even the odds but ends up horribly mutated into a rampaging monster at Dr. X's leisure. It's then revealed the experiments were part of a test so Dr. X could steal Brandon's body by downloading his brain into Brandon's, effectively killing him and actually succeeds! Worse is Brandon managed to survive by some miracle and accidentally had his brain downloaded into some of Dr. X's machines, turning him into a mechanical mass of monstrous nanobots while clearly screaming in mental anguish. He eventually gets him mind placed in a newly cloned body but it's clear from his behavior afterward the trauma from all that horror is permanent.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ActionMan2000
Aeon Natum Engel / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Because in this fic, nothing is unintended. Everything to do with Iceland. The whole "rescuing" of the slaves sequence in particular. Instances when Rei is acting even more creepier than usual, and we are using ANE standards here.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AeonNatumEngel
Active Raid / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - Mythos' successful hijacking of most of the Orochi system. Not only does it bring Japan to most of a standstill, but it forces the NPA to declare a state of emergency with a risk of arrest if anyone fails to stay at home after 8 PM. - The 2nd season gives us a brief moment where \|\|Takeru sees the old professor in his rear view mirror, giving him quite the scare. Sure, he calms down when he looks back, sees nobody there, and concludes that he's just imagining things, but after he almost had his body taken over by that guy, it is still very unsettling. Not to mention it could still be a possibility.\|\|	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ActiveRaid
Action 52 Owns / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - The monsters in Non-Human are either disembodied body parts or mutated zombie-like abominations, which are all very unsettling. Even worse still is that they were once human until Dr Murdon turned them into the titular horrors. - The ending to Jigsaw. It would be horribly gruesome enough even if it didn't come totally out of left field.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Action52Owns
A Dead World / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - The first chapter. It opens up with citizens of Vault 20 heading to a special event, from the perspective of a young man named David Mordin. He and his wife are talking excitedly about what a wonderful day this is as they wait for it to start. Unfortunately for them, the event was releasing Alex Mercer into their vault, and the first thing he does is shriek, leap, and slaughter them all. - Honestly, Alex in general, as per usual. He's still the unstoppable, shapeshifting, human-eating, viral abomination he was in [PROTOTYPE], but now he's in a setting where people are even less equipped to deal with him. Even when he isn't trying to be scary, he still is—his Icy Blue Eyes are way too piercing to be human, and at one point Cain mentions that the sounds when he eats are going to give her nightmares. - A string of bad luck during their adventures leaves Alex dropping lower and lower in biomass, and growing hungrier and hungrier. And the only people around are his two companions At the lowest moment, hes actually reciting to himself NOT to eat them, and practically throws Cain into a wall trying to get her away from him before he does. The thought that you might lose control and accidentally eat your companions is singularly terrifying. - Its also terrifying from their point of view. Learning that your travelling companion is a superpowered viral monstrosity is surprising, but Cain and Arcade take it in stride. Learning that your travelling companion also devours people, and was moments away from devouring you? And that said companion is both far deadlier and faster than you? And that you are currently alone in the middle of nowhere with said companion? - Upon absorbing a deathclaw, Alex discovers it has chameleon DNA, and promptly tacks it onto his skillset. Alex can now turn invisible, on top of everything else. - During their infiltration of the White Glove society, Cain has a moment of realizing that they kidnap people from Freeside...and Arcade used to walk around there alone at night. He could have been snatched off the street and eaten by cannibals. - After Cain spills some of the beans on what Alex is to Veronica, he drags her away from her bedroll to ask her what she was thinking. We get a mention in the next chapter of how Cain was sure for a minute that Mercer had lost it and was about to eat her. - The Sierra Madre, just like in the game, has way too many of these, thanks to Everything Trying to Kill You meeting Bag of Spilling. - The explosive collars are terrifying enough in the game. Now you get to read Cains panic and fear when she realizes just what is around her neck, and how she has absolutely no control over whether it goes off or not. In the game, the companions will just wait for you, but as far as she knows, they could be getting themselves killed and taking her with them, and she cant do anything to stop it. - Radios, thanks to the little fact they can detonate her collar. And they're everywhere. Sometimes where Cain can't see them. All the warning she gets is the sudden BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of her collar. The first time this happens, she practically has a panic attack. - The Cloud. Not just is the literal air poisoned, Elijah says it has infected everything, including the water, and then goes into lovely detail about what prolonged exposure will do to you. In short: corrode you from the inside out. And it can also burn away Alex's biomass. Now remember that Cain is trapped in that stuff, and after a while, she picks up a cough that just wont go away... - Speaking of the Cloud, thats the light version. The congested version is so poisonous, it will kill you in seconds. - And of course, there are bear traps and landmines everywhere, so Cain can't just run through the Madre to decrease her time in the Cloud. Nope, she's got to double-check every step she takes, lest she wants to end up minus a leg or blown to pieces. - Ghost People. They move wrong, they bleed wrong, and theyre hard to kill—one gives Cain a near-deadly Jump Scare by leaping at her when she thought shed killed it. And when Alex tries to eat one? It makes him explode and melt at the same time, creating deep, oozing holes in his body and boils that rupture goo. Ewww, and ahhh! - Christine's introduction, as usual. Alex and Cain find her trapped in the malfunctioning Auto-Doc, and rescue her to see that her vocal chords were torn out. It doesn't take them long to realize someone did it on purpose. In fact, this trope is straight-up invoked In-Universe, with Cain particularly horrified at the possibility of being trapped and voiceless. - Dog. His introduction rings of Mood-Swinger, with him going from cowering in lost misery to perking up at the thought of eating Alex and back again in a few minutes. He's almost like a little kid, except he's an eight-foot-tall Nightkin who reminisces at the thought of chasing food, in this case people. It's equally disturbing as it is sad. - When the Sierra Madre crew manage to bargain a few hours of rest out of Elijah, Alex takes watch. A throwaway line has him liken the Cloud to how the sky burned in Manhattan in his earliest memories. Alex may be a viral abomination, but he's clearly unsettled by the Sierra Madre as well. - Alex manages to bring a bit of horror to this as well - at one point, Cain accidentally bloodies her own nose and leaves drips and spots of blood on the floor. She looks back to see Alex kneeling over it, his feeder tendrils scooping it up off the ground because he's that low on biomass. - In Chapter 38, while fighting off Ghost People, the shockwaves from some of Alex's tasks blow the Cloud around—engulfing Cain. It's only for a brief moment before Alex gets her out, but his description of what she looks like is horrifying; third-degree burns, blood dribbling from her ears, and skin sloughing off. When he sets her down to treat her, bits of her flesh actually peel off and stick to him. - Down in the Sierra Madre's vault, Alex comes within a hairsbreadth of eating Cain. As in, starts scraping bits off of her because his Horror Hunger has gotten so bad. - After Elijah finally dies at Alex's hands, Cain's collar starts spinning up to go off, and the elevator isn't going to move fast enough to get them out of range. Alex forms himself into armor around Cain, tanking the explosion for her, but as he doesn't have time to explain to her what he's doing, she sincerely thinks he's eating her alive while he's doing it, then starts flashing back to being buried alive. - While Cain and Alex are at the Sierra Madre, Veronica and the Brotherhood of Steel have figured out who - and what - Alex is. If and when they get back to the Brotherhood's bunker, things are not going to go well. Doubly so now that Veronica - the only peacekeeping element they might have had between them and the Brotherhood - fled the bunker and is on the run.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ADeadWorld
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes While this series might not be as blatantly dark as Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), it does have some disturbing themes that, if fully realized, make the world of Mobius out to be much more nightmarish than it appears, with Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine being a good example. The entire series has Sonic and/or Tails barely surviving all kinds of dangerous situations. - Dr. Ivo Robotnik, for all of his ham and comedy, is still a threatening character if looked at beyond face value. This version of the character is a petty Bad Boss who will arrest citizens over the smallest things. And his usual penchant for enslaving innocent animals is still in full force. It's not without reason as explained below, but imagine how bad having a Psychopathic Manchild as an Authority in Name Only would be in real life. It's all but stated the only reason he seems like a complete goofus is largely because of Sonic stopping his evil schemes. - A few of Robotnik's Villainous Breakdowns can amount to this simply because of how wrathful he can get. His red irises and tendency to growl and/or gnash his teeth don't help. - Mama Robotnik is quite a disturbing and menacing presence due to just how vicious and monstrous she is. Robotnik's fear of her is completely justified. As Wes Weasley rightly put it on one occasion, she makes Robotnik seem "as meek as a lamb" by comparison. To say nothing of how she routinely escapes prison, breaking right through the walls and later storming directly into her son's fortress unhindered. - Katella the Huntress is pretty damn scary in her own right. Past her attractive appearance, she's a ruthless poacher who kidnaps sapient beings and sells them off to zoos. And she is able to essentially vanish them, one by one, without being seen. And that's not even counting how vicious she is towards those she likes, let alone loves. Let her rough treatment of Robotnik and his utter fear of her stand as proof of that. - The climax to "Robotnikland" has this in the form of a haunted roller coaster, the afore mentioned Hellevator, a grotesque landscape with demons laughing at the villains, a door that sends them into a torture hall, Scratch's shadow getting decapitated (and putting his head back on!), a hallway of axes (where Scratch pulls out his heart), and fire breathing Badniks. The facade of this nightmarish landscape? Sonic's head! - "Spaceman Sonic" - This episode features a rather freaky slime alien thing. While it has some Nightmare Retardant moments due to its cold, it nevertheless is a Cyclopean monstrosity that seeks to eat Sonic and Tails after having nothing for thirteen years. - Throughout the episode, the possibility of Sonic, Tails, Scratch, and Grounder being marooned in space forever is treated seriously. Robotnik even remotely controls one of Grounder's weapons to destroy the only way for them to return to Mobius in an attempt to ensure it happens. It takes everyone involved, including the aforementioned alien, teaming up and using Scratch and Grounder's robotic body parts to repair the escape pod for them to make it back alive. - The episode ends with the alien, now loose on Mobius, chasing Robotnik with the intention of eating him. The Sonic Says segment tries to rein this in a bit with the alien being friendly with Sonic as the hedgehog gives him a drink to help with his cold, but it only does so much. - Scratch and Grounder melting in "Birth of a Salesman"... while still conscious! - Sonic gets turned into stone (or at least encased in it) thrice: once thanks to Grounder the Genius, again due to Robotnik's Super Supreme Stopper Zapper, and a third time courtesy of Coconuts and his magic. Imagine what that experience is like. - "High Stakes Sonic" - Sonic has to decide if he wants to free Tails or people who got captured in the Casino Night Zone. He has to deliberately lose a race to Grounder in order to get Tails back. While he's sadly trudging along, you hear Robotnik repeatedly yelling "YOU'LL NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN!", and laughing madly. And it's echoed. - The same episode also has a bunch of Mobian sheep being tricked into losing all their savings and livelihoods. Once they have nothing left to lose, Smiley his flashy con-man representative takes them as slaves to work on building Dr. Robotnik a sphinx in the desert. - Though Unwilling Roboticisation isn't a horror visited as much as in other series there have been a few cases of Robotnik robotising unwilling specimens like Blackbeard the pirate, a whale, a pterodactyl and worst of all innocent little Beans in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. - The method through which Robotnik transforms lifeforms into robots is alarmingly efficient. Whereas roboticization in the SatAM series requires rare specialized equipment and has significant delay, all this Robotnik needs to do is just shoot someone with his Robot Transmogrifier Ray to instantly turn them into a robot. It gives the impression that he could essentially nullify resistance to him if he wanted to get truly serious, but chooses not to. - "Mass Transit Trouble" has a particularly disturbing moment where Scratch sadistically fantasizes about blowing up Sonic and his bones then falling into his burial hole in the ground, a la Itchy and Scratchy. - The whole episode thrives off Realism-Induced Horror. While most of Robotnik's schemes even at their worst are cartoonish and over the top, this one hits much closer to reality as a blatant act of terrorism. Robotnik has his Badniks plant three time bombs at the most important transportation hubs on Mobius relating to land, air and sea to cripple any attempts to escape his reach. All the while, they tire Sonic out with distractions while the bombs are planted so he can't even disarm a single explosive. Robotnik knows that as fast as Sonic is, he can't be in three places at once, especially when he's pushed to the brink of death, almost drowning as he tries to stop all 3 bombs. - To make matters worse? This is the only episode where Robotnik doesnt really get any consequences for his Evil Plan. At worst he suffers a self-inflicted injury once he learns he failed. - "Tails' New Home" has Robotnik making robot parents to capture Tails. Sonic only figures it out when he realizes they kept calling him "Tails", not "Miles", his real name. - Almost anytime Tails gets captured is this for some of the adult viewers. However, you'll probably become desensitized from it due to it happening Once per Episode. - Sonic and Tails getting trapped in the past in the Chaos Emerald saga due to Sonics time-travel boots being destroyed. - Goopster is an alien with an insatiable appetite that can devour anything in his path. And Tails wanted to keep him as a PET. Yikes. - "Sonic the Matchmaker" has a subplot of Robotnik wanting to capture and dissect Breezy and Robotnik Jr. in order to figure out how they pulled off a HeelFace Turn and prevent it from happening to his latest creation. He succeeds on that front, and has them decapitated so that he's able to poke around in their robotic brains while they're still fully conscious before having Scratch and Grounder throw their disassembled bodies out the window. While robots getting torn apart is often Played for Laughs in this series, this time isn't. - Coupled with Nausea Fuel, Wolfgang Puke's rotten egg and maggot surprise dish in "Sonic gets Thrashed". Tails barfing was pretty much expected at that point. - During the beginning of "Robotnikland", Scratch and Grounder make Robotnik hotcakes with syrup, only for him to mash Scratch's head into the food and beat him senselessly until he falls to the ground with the syrup dripping all over the floor. The syrup has a reddish color that makes it look like a pool of blood forming around his head and neck area despite Scratch being a robot, and Scratch doesn't get up and lays frighteningly still for at least 15 seconds. Way past extreme for a kid's show. - The game really amps up the pressure during gameplay compared to the cutesy original Puyo Puyo game. When your area begins to overfill, not only is the 'panic' theme a more sinister fast paced remix of the Dark Prince's theme ("Final of Puyo"), but most of your opponents start laughing evilly or bare a creepy Slasher Smile at you. Notable examples include Frankly's fierce glare, Skweel's rapidly flopping head, Dynamight's Cheshire Cat Grin, and of course, Scratch's Smug Snake smirk.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog
Adema / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - "Needles" is the band's heaviest song, bar none! It's also perhaps their most terrifying track overall, and that's saying a lot. The subject matter will defintely cause those who fear needles to cringe, and the song closes out with Mark Chavez repeatedly shouting "Problems" in a distorted voice as audible, creepy laughter comes in from the background. - "Drowning" is about somebody that's at their breaking point and now wishes to commit murder by drowning someone that did them wrong. Lyrics like "I wish I could watch you drown and die and take my time" are greatly unnerving. Hell, the opening for the song is a rapidly increasing drum beat that then leads into Chavez screaming in feral manner for at least six seconds. - The music video for the band's most famous song, "Giving In" is disturbing to say the least. Highlights include what appears to be an attempted rape, a little girl facing the camera and eating a lollipop despondently, and a video showing someone being thrown out of a car door apparently bisected at the waist. Other scenes include a couple making love in front of one of their family...and a guy whose smirking at the whole scenerio in Creepy Uncle manner, the aftermath of a car crash with Chavez embracing a girl covered in ash and a man locked inside a water tube banging for the woman outside to let him out which she clearly doesn't look like she will. - Freaking Out is another unsettling song. The song's about a clearly distraught and disturbed kid reflecting on his childhood which implies parental abuse and drug addiction, with the person never receiving any help for either. And if you thought the original was scary, they did a remix in collaboration with Chris Vrenna which is 100 times scary with a more Marilyn Manson kind of sound to it all ending off which a slowly receding psycho cord at the end. - Estrellas, the final track on the "Planets" album before the hidden cover for "The Thing That Shouldn't Be" is an instrumental track featuring only a piano playing an ominous tune for thirty seconds before ending off on a long, deep note.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Adema
A Force of Four / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - Mala had hoped that maybe Power Girl "might realize our position, join the alliance, and bear us the start of a new generation of Kryptonians." So their plan was to gang-rape her until getting her knocked up over and again? - U-Ban is a super-powerful rapist. He declares he'll follow Power Girl beyond the ends of Earth to take her. Should Kara have been unable to depower him...	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AForceOfFour
A Fool's Study into Witchcraft / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - Akko once found a Distortion in a train station that belonged to a train molester that was apparently rather horrible. Akko was forced to get the pervert arrested to deal with it because the shadows were too strong to deal with herself. - Sucy gets access to Cognitive World poisons. You can panic now, especially after what she does to the Minotaur Shadow. - The way Diana is kidnapped by her Shadow self. How she reached out from the tear Akko opened into the Tree of Heart and spirited her away. - Jasminka turns out to be possessed by Holodomor, which can take control of her and produce a massive monster that loves eating Shadows, and which Jasminka can barely restrain from eating people. - How Jasminka got possessed is also pretty horrifying. She was playing in the woods, but slipped and fell, apparently breaking her neck and paralyzing herself from the neck down. Due to her parent's work hours, no one even knew that she was gone before Holodomor found her, and she can barely remember it taking control of her body and getting her out of there. - A baseball game in Tokyo before Akko came to Luna Nova descended into a riot because of a Cognitive World disturbance. The disturbance was caused by Croix's drones, meaning that she knows about the Cognitive World.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AFoolsStudyIntoWitchcraft
A Feast for Crows / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - Biter pins Brienne down, breaks her forearm, sinks his filed teeth into her face and rips off a good portion of her cheek! Brienne: He is eating me! - Maggy the Frog's prophecies. Cersei's prophecy is already terrible but what she says to little Melara is far worse: Worms will have your maidenhead. Your death is here tonight, little one. Can you smell her breath? She is very close. - Worse if you consider the possibility that the death Maggy is talking about is Cersei, standing by Melara's side, who it's believed may have murdered Melara by pushing her down a well and leaving her to drown. - Cersei offering a lordship to anyone who brings her Tyrion's head creates a slew of bounty hunters murdering random dwarfs (and in some cases, children) in hopes of claiming the reward. Worst of all, most of these bounty hunters get away with it because Cersei refuses to publicly punish anyone who kills an innocent dwarf for fear it will discourage other bounty hunters and allow Tyrion to escape her. - What Randyll Tarly orders done to a whore that gave some of his men the pox - he has her private parts washed out with lye◊. - Sansa's description of Marillion singing day and night while he's imprisoned and how it permeates the Eyrie is very unsettling. Even after he's dead, Robert Arryn/Sweetrobin can still hear him. - The Black Cells, particularly after Qyburn, the Westeros equivalent of a Nazi doctor, takes over them. You never find out exactly what he does, only that he prefers women and runs out of subjects rather quickly. Cersei provides for him a pretty steady supply, and mentions that what happened to one was enough to make even her stomach turn. - Two of the guards Jaime sends to search the labyrinth of secret passages in the Tower of the Hand disappear, and can't be found by their colleagues even though they can hear someone calling out to them. - Made even more horrible by the fact that soon after the incident, Cersei ordered the tower demolished with wildfire, presumably with the lost guys still inside. - Cersei's plans to bring down Margaery Tyrell include torturing Margaery's singer, the Blue Bard, until he agrees to lie about Margaery's supposed lovers. Then, when Margaery's arrested, he's seized by the Faith and tortured again. By the time of A Dance with Dragons, the poor boy's gone mad, and small wonder. - Also, the Faith's treatment of Osney Kettleblack; when he makes the (false) confession that he commited adultery with Margaery, the High Septon is skeptical. So they whipped and scourged him until his back and shoulders were almost laid bare to the bone, and he was soon singing a very different song... - The High Septon takes a sharp right turn for the creepy when he admits to Cersei that he often has himself whipped for his sins. He is not spouting religiousness just to win followers, he really does believe in every single word he says. Varys may have said "there is nothing on earth as terrifying as a truly just man", but replace "just" with "pious" and it would be perfectly fitting. - When Cersei coaches the Blue Bard on what he is supposed to accuse Margaery and her cousins of, her narration mentions staring into the one eye that Qyburn hadn't carved out yet. Yeesh. - Arya's encounter with a Faceless Man in the House of Black and White. Quoting it in all of its horrendous glory will do. The priest lowered his cowl. Beneath he had no face; only a yellowed skull with a few scraps of skin still clinging to the cheeks, and a white worm wriggling from one empty eye socket. "Kiss me, child," he croaked, in a voice as dry and husky as a death rattle. - Euron "Crow's Eye" Greyjoy can put on an amiable nature, similar to Robert's charisma, but he shows himself to be one of the most dangerous and villainous characters in the series. The descriptions of him in prophecies, as a Drowned Crow and a creature sailing on a sea of blood, help this. - Aeron in his POV Chapters has very creepy memories of when he was a child. "The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted hinge. Euron has come again." The implications of what Euron was doing to his little brother are... not pleasant. - Jaime's recollection of his time as Kingsguard to Aerys II Targaryen, the Mad King are nightmarical. The Mad King got so aroused by burning men alive, he'd afterwards go and sexually abuse his unfortunate queen. Jaime, forced to stand guard during one of these incidents after Aerys had his third Hand of the King burned alive, considered having to listen to Queen Rhaella's screams as her husband raped her worse than listening to those of Lord Qarlton Chelsted being burned alive. When Jaime tried to protest that the Kingsguard were sworn to protect the Queen as well, his partner on duty, Ser Jonothor Darry bluntly replied "We are, but not from him". Jaime was further haunted by overhearing some of the Queen's maids gossiping after bathing their mistress the next morning, saying the Queen looked like she'd been mauled by an animal. Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone. The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed inside the royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegons High Hill to the waiting ship, but he heard her maids whispering after she was gone. They said the queen looked as if some beast had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and chewing on her breasts. A crowned beast, Jaime knew. - The remaining Brave Companions laying waste to the town of Saltpans. Although only the aftermath of the raid is seen and described, as told to Brienne and her companions by the Elder Brother, the descriptions are gruesome enough. Rorge brutally rapes a twelve-year-old girl before giving her to his men, who cut her nose and nipples off (though she survives). One woman is raped a dozen times and her breasts are chewed off and eaten by Biter. And what does Ser Quincy Cox, the Knight of Saltpans, do during all this? He bars the gates of his castle and stays safe inside while the raiders slaughter his smallfolk and burn the town. The aforementioned woman curses him instead of the raiders as she lays dying. - When Euron is feasting his men after the conquest of the Shield Islands, the women and girls of House Hewett are reduced to serving wenches in their family's hall. Lord Hewett's bastard daughter Falia, who had previously been forced to work as a servant to her father's family, becomes Euron's mistress and makes them—including a ten-year-old girl—strip off their fine gowns in the middle of the hall and serve the Ironborn naked, while their lord father is tied to a chair and Forced to Watch. Later, Left-Hand Lucas Codd rapes one of the girls on a table in plain view of her sisters as they scream and cry in horror. Even Victarion is somewhat disgusted by this—and remember, this is a man who follows Ironborn tradition so rigidly that he beat his wife to death with his bare hands after she had been raped by Euron.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AFeastForCrows
Afraid of Monsters / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes One of the scariest game mods that has been made for If you see one of them while you're running low on ammo, then RUN! Half-Life requires its own page to elaborate fully on the fear within. The mods title lives up to its name, you see, and the main article is becoming full of it. In short, if you aren't afraid of monsters when you start this game, you will be. - The mod's first Nightmare is one of the most frightening moments. In David's nightmare, he is told to Follow the Red. Without the ability to do anything else, he does. One part of the nightmare is darker somehow, and the player might notice it seems to be a tunnel. Regardless, he has to go through it. And then half-way through it happens: The lights turn on, revealing him to be in a room with caged monsters in the walls, screaming when they see him. Then they calm down and don't do anything but constantly blink, staring at David until he leaves the tunnel to continue following the red dots on the black road. To more scares. - The first time you encounter a zombie is definitely another big shocker. When exploring the hospital after the nightmare, David encounters a two-legged monster which he kills easily. The monster happened to be in a closet with a button, that David has to push to progress. So when the player goes in, the zombie comes from the door behind and attacks David. You don't even have time to react you are looking at the button when you suddenly hear a high-pitched gibberish and start taking hits from behind. The zombies are fast so if you were unprepared when it came, you probably lost half your health on that single enemy! - The blackout. You have to turn off the generators that yields electricity to the hospital from the basement. When it is done, it becomes pitch black everywhere, followed swiftly by VERY SPOOKY music. There are many more zombies running in the hospital now, and the only things to help you against them is a knife, a pistol, some ammo, and a puny flashlight. Save Scumming for your life. - You might receive damage as you fumble in the dark, and you might need health. You are not worried about that, as you remember, there are more painkillers in the bathroom where you started the game. So you get there, and as soon as you open the door there is another zombie standing there, waiting. You'd think the area where you started the game would be free of enemies, but it isn't. - Markland Forest manages to become even worse, because it introduces one certain enemy that you have been lucky to avoid all this time: Invisible zombies. You hear their uncanny screams but cannot find see them, and you don't realize they are invisible until you take hits. However, you can see them with the flashlight; when you aim at one of them, the light becomes a glowing orb around the zombie's feet. That is how you know it is running after you too. They're also very fittingly introduced when David (you) suddenly start hearing eerie, unintelligible whispering voices that'll certainly unnerve first-timers a very great deal - As hilarious it might sound, the first time one can actually get scared is before you start playing Director's Cut; the menu has a dark picture of a Twitcher in the background, with loomy music playing (which is Stone In Focus by Aphex Twin). But even then you might notice that the music is in low volume, so you crank it up and decide to start playing. But then you scroll over New Game and- BZZ BZZ ZZZ - The Half-Life engine has two sound systems. One is for noises caused by the game, and the other for music playing while the game is on. It just so happens that the DC mod has the noise filter much higher, and the music filter lower on default. You have to change this in the options to set it right; something not required with other Half-Life modifications... - When you're fighting the final boss yourself stabbing him for the first time makes him pull an axe out of his body, bleeding, even. To wit the fire axe is the best melee weapon in the game. Crap. - Mona Lisa's new look.◊ Worse than it sounds. - On the Sven Co-op server, whenever the admin (IceBlueDeer) decides to show up as the original protagonist, David Leatherhoff. So far, he's appeared out of nowhere to kill a random player in full view of everyone, burst open out of previously unopenable doors (or some CAGES) to kill someone, fuck with the players by using macros to open their CD drives, and other scary tricks. Needless to say, they did more to the mod than just porting it to Sven Co-op. - Here's a few examples. - Did we mention he has access to some weapons other players do not? Armoredscout 1 was recording a playthrough on the server, and around a corner in the subway came David carrying a machine gun. - If you for some odd reason decide to play the game in a Sven Co-op Server alone, you would realise that it has an extra creepy addition: The enemies have audible footsteps now. A fast zombie running at you is one thing, but when everything you hear in the dark is a thundering thumping marching your way that is anything but a player? It gets worse due to the fact that Sven Co-op is supposed to be played with others, so the monsters have much more health. Truly one of the most terrifying things you can experience is being alone in this case, and it's the easiest way to die. And that's if the server admin isn't bored and doesn't kill you themselves. - Watching the game from David's perspective is quite scary as he types in commands to the console to create incredibly scary noises. If you watched his perspective during the live finale on Spike And Barley Play, then you'd notice that when the screeching occurred in the house, his viewpoint twitched around wildly, the same thing occurring during the final battle in the good ending where the view twitched throughout the whole fight. - Most of the screams and mumbles heard in the mod are from different sources on the internet. Sources such as Liquid Generation Screamers. If you are enough of a schmuck, this mod might actually continue to haunt you after you stopped playing it. - Double that for the soundtrack. The majority of the music is taken from Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II, which is one of the most acclaimed ambient albums (containing not only some of the most beautiful tracks in the genre, but also some of the scariest). There is a high opportunity that you'll hear these tracks outside of the mod sooner or later. - The wheelchair-bound enemies are surprisingly disturbing. In contrast to the other enemies in the mod, they are slow, and it is quite easy to be thrown off by that. But they still pack a punch, and they mostly appear as Jump Scare. - The floating heads that can shoot their own eyes at you and teleport. They love showing up in cramped spaces, such as office cubicles and bedrooms. - Afraid of Monsters can best be described as " Silent Hill meets Half-Life." Despite being on an outdated engine, it was scary, and apparently programmed in the language of sheer terror. The forest level is probably the worst, but some of the endings might top it. One includes finding out that the monsters you were killing throughout the game were actually innocent people that only looked like monsters due to your psychosis and the massive amount of drugs you've been taking. Player Punch indeed.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AfraidOfMonsters
Adopted Displaced / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes ## The Trained Six fics (listed alphabetically): - In this story, Suri is revealed to have used Coco as a Sex Slave, a revelation that prompts Rarity to sic Nightmare on her. - Fluttershy's appearance caused Pyro, who had already created "Rainbow World" as a coping mechanism to deal with the horrible reality of their job, to start questioning whether or not Rainbow World is actually real or not. - Because of the respawns, Fluttershy becomes a Blood Knight with no issues over killing her opponent in grisly ways, even slaughtering her friends repeatedly after returning to Equestria, thinking that it's all in good fun, forcing the Princesses to alter her memories so that she won't freak out when she realizes what she's done. - The Cragmites started their genocidal rampage because they were so scared of the Loki that they felt that killing anything that they could use as a host was a better alternative to letting them possess others unchecked. - Nefarious sees a vision of the Loki possessing Twilight. - In Rainbow's first fight with the Wrecking Crew, not only do the villains show no hesitation in trying to hurt her, but she reflexively sharpens her wing armor when taking a swipe at Wrecker's back, paralyzing him as a result, which she is horrified by when she realizes what happened. - Just the thought of Pinkie combining her Toon Physics abilities with actual combat training. - Pinkie Pie and Calliope going to town on Ares after he kills their father right in front of them. Seriously, Pinkie Pie's reality warping reaches such dangerously high levels that Zeus and Hades have to speed up Kratos' return journey so that his pony daughter doesn't end up destroying the world by accident. ## The Not-So-Bad Guys fics (listed alphabetically): - Discord is the reason for the splinter timelines the stories take place in, as he accidentally sent Tirek somewhere where he could gain a lot of power, and all the ponies going through the Took a Level in Badass route in their new worlds is just to get them to the point where they can be strong enough to stop him. ## The Supporting Characters fics (listed alphabetically): - Spike eats Ridley, killing him for good in the process. - When Clock-La cripples Bentley, Coco uses her magic to give her the immortality that she wanted, then pushes her immobile form into one of the deepest ocean trenches on the planet. She doesn't regret doing so, and that very fact haunts her for the rest of her life. - \|\|Seft blackmailing Penelope by sending an assassin back to the night of Bentley's surgery, which causes Bentley to start flickering in and out of existence. When he flees, they're left with no idea which button calls off the assassin and which one gives the "go ahead" signal, and only a certain Cooper knight smashing the device ends up saving his life.\|\| - \|\|Seft becoming a Fell God and deliberately causing a Reality-Breaking Paradox by killing one of Sly's ancestors before he could have kids, causing time itself to start unraveling.\|\| - The Ocean Spirit sends a literal Kraken to kill the entire Fire Nation Navy just to make sure Admiral Zhao doesn't kill his mate. Cadence vomits when she realises what he's going to do. - Cadence is forced to Mercy Kill Azula after the comet passes due to how her messed-up chakras have affected her. - Azula's Villainous Breakdown owing to her damaged chakras. Apart from having gone mad, she's also nude and horrifically scarred because of the fire leaking through her skin, and with her power growing but no way of controlling it, she's in danger of exploding and levelling the Earth Kingdom. No wonder Cadence was horrified. - Shining's Dark Knight form, which comes out after Chrysalis attempts to take Twilight and Cadence hostage. It's noted by the narration that in that form, he was taking sadistic glee in torturing Chrysalis. - Audrey, while friendly, is still a giant carnivorous plant, who has apparently eaten criminals on at least one occasion, the fillies even threatening Hsi Wu with it at one point. - The Rat Talisman ends up in an H.P. Lovecraft book, creating a facsimile of Cthulhu that escapes and starts causing destruction in San Fransisco, forcing the Enforcers to work with the Chans to stop it before it grows strong enough to summon the real thing. - Hsi Wu once defeated a group of mages and Anti-Magic warriors by basically stripping away the Earth's electromagnetic field and exposing them to unfiltered solar radiation, a spell referred to as the Unfiltered Eye. And remember, he's one of the weakest of the Demon Sorcerers. A later chapter reveals that he has spells capable of killing gods. - Apparently the Book of Ages, with all of its Rewriting Reality powers, has checks to its abilities that make it one of the less dangerous artifacts stored in Australia and almost impossible to misuse successfully, Hsi Wu, having made five of them, his imprisonment having been prompted by trying to make a sixth despite a cease and desist order (Shendu having had an army sent after him just for trying to access the complete record of what's stored there), says that some of them could tear the universe apart if misused, and is relieved when he realizes that Valmont is only going after the Book. - As punishment for his actions and what they caused, in the Demon World timeline, Wong is fully aware of what's going on, but helpless to do anything about it, being trapped watching the actions of his counterpart, who is Uncle's willing apprentice. - The fillies, due to their extradimensional origins, not only are not affected by the Book's changes to reality, remembering what things were like before, but the Book is basically feeding off of them to sustain the new timeline, preventing them from going too far away, and if their magic were to run out, the original timeline, the one that would have been if they had never come to Earth, would be all that remained. It's a good thing Valmont knew that he couldn't win... - The Chosen One needs to be a virgin for their powers to awaken, and if they lose their virginity before it starts awakening it will move on to a new host. Losing their virginity while it's awakening is bad news, Hsi Wu having created the Deja Vu stone to fix things after a previous Chosen One lost their virginity during this process, which basically caused them to explode, destroying the system and disrupting good magic worldwide. - When Sonata's "pecking order" command is given, she absolutely slaughters the Sehkmet cultists. - Wong's ultimate goal is to essentially become a Physical God by gaining mastery over the three types of magic using the fillies. ## The Megaverse trilogy:	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AdoptedDisplaced
A Frozen Heart / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes A Frozen Heart includes some disturbing things about Hans and his world (note that this has not been confirmed as canon): Note that many of them also double as Tear Jerker moments: - For starters, he had glassware and food thrown at him, not to mention being the victim of many pranks and subjected to extensive abuse over the years. - His father is a Social Darwinist, so in his view, Hans being beaten up by his older sons is a sign of strength. Hans's relative meekness at the beginning of the story has made him The Unfavorite of 13 sons. - By the time he's a young adult, Hans not only suffers from clinical depression and possible Self-Harm, he believes that abuse is normal. He practically gives up fighting back, but it only makes things worse. No wonder he's got so many issues, as being the proverbial Black Sheep and Extreme Doormat of his family, and growing up the youngest but most forgettable of his clan wound up becoming his Freudian Excuse. - As Hans grows up, the abuse warps him into a bitter man who sees people as objects, thinks it's a Crapsack World out there with everyone out there for themselves, and assumes Love Is a Weakness. This really shows how warped his mind has become over the years, leaving him clueless on what love actually is thanks to the harsh environment he was raised in. The betrayal scene near the end shows that he's heaping the same abuse on his fiancé just as his father and brothers do it to their spouses. - His thoughts after being ordered by the king to beat up dissenters or delinquent taxpayers imply he secretly hates his job and despised his father for being unnecessarily cruel towards their subjects. But he also fears what could happen if he ignores the king's orders. Notably, anything involving the royal family of the Southern Isles isn't funny . Anytime they're mentioned, the humor level drops. - The king of the Southern Isles is a walking Nightmare Fuel in many ways: - He believes in Social Darwinism and often encourages his 13 sons to abuse each other for the sake of politics while deviations from his beliefs must be corrected forcefully. As his sons grow up, his toxic influence corrodes them into becoming sycophantic enforcers doing his bidding. He demands them to follow his orders and emulate him, and it's implied he even physically abused them when they were younger. Having been born into a family that believed in Virtue Is Weakness, Might Makes Right, Misery Builds Character, and Meekness is Weakness, Hans Used to Be a Sweet Kid who abhorred their violence towards others, but slowly becomes a power-hungry Manipulative Bastard over time. The severity of the king's abuse rendered his older sons equally miserable as well. - At one point while fighting Marshmallow during the assault on Elsa's ice castle, Hans notes the Snowlem looks tame compared to his father, who is implied to have a Hair-Trigger Temper. Judging by the interactions with his family, Hans is clearly terrified of their wrath as he's being sent back home. After becoming the king's gofer, Hans briefly thinks of turning back, only to suddenly change his mind by believing that if he wants to earn his father's trust in going to Arendelle, then he must follow whatever orders he gets, even if it involves violence. It leads Hans to compromise his own morals over the years and do things he once loathed. - He's also shown to be a cruel dictator who strong-arms his subjects for more money like a Mafia extortionist, reacting violently when they don't do so or when they criticize him. - Except for Lars, most of Hans' brothers are brutish thugs who take sadistic joy and cruelty in punishing Hans in whatever methods they can, ranging from practical jokes to outright physical abuse. That he even downplays it by stating "it's what brothers do" warped his view on normal familial relationships. For example: - He's lost countless fistfights and shouting matches, been thrown off moving carts, and repeatedly shoved in the mud numerous times despite trying to find a peaceful way out. - Three of his brothers pretended he was "invisible" for two straight years. - The fake "ransom note" from a certain "King Gotya" who "kidnapped" one of his brothers and would "return" him on the condition that Hans run around the entire castle three times in just his underwear. He was only four years at the time. - He also fell for the old "present in that oddly scary room down in the catacombs" prank many times. - At one point, he even woke up with ink all over his face after one of his brothers quietly dipped his hands in an inkpot while he slept. - Hans hates attending family gatherings, as they always end with him being humiliated in some manner. For example, before reluctantly attending his mother's birthday, he's nervous showing up aware that he'll end up being the family's laughing stock. As such, he stands outside the door for 20 minutes. When he finally appears, his father scolds him for being late, while his brothers mock him for being a Momma's Boy. Rudi and Runo even toss glassware at him when he starts daydreaming. Plus, Hans finds it oddly better to Self-Harm himself by running his fingers along the rough wood splinters of an old table than the constant emotional abuse his family heaps on him. - Most of the men in the royal family have many of the traits of abusers, including superficial charm and All Take and No Give. - Hans is ridiculed by his father and brothers for his unwillingness to murder people. Having had enough of their abuse, Hans decides that if he wants to earn their respect, then he'll have to accept whatever tasks he gets, even if it involves violence. Fast forward three years later, he's a much different person now, having no qualms murdering Elsa or Anna in a bid to take over Arendelle. - As with Hans, it's implied his older brothers didn't start out as mean jerks, but the king raised them to be ruthless. They now have no problem hurting others or using questionable means to get their father's respect. But due to the Social Darwinist behavior espoused by the king, they do not get along with each other and retain their immaturity even as adults, rendering the entire family dysfunctional. - As he doesn't get along with his brothers due to Parental Favoritism, who's to say Caleb's legitimacy will be challenged once he becomes king, possibly triggering a Succession Crisis, a coup d'état by military officers or nobles loyal to some of the sons challenging Caleb, or even worse, a Civil War? He's also seen as an immature Royal Brat who isn't serious about his job by his brothers, knowing he'll be a stupid ruler. - It's implied most of the royals don't get along with their spouses, but keep a Happy Marriage Charade for social reasons. Aware how Caleb's pregnant wife is uncomfortable being ignored, how Lars's wife Helga hates living in the Isles, and how his mother is treated like wallpaper, Hans notes that his entire family is utterly dysfunctional. - The king has been a Domestic Abuser for almost 30 years. It's implied his wife criticized his actions in the past, but she eventually gave up. One can only imagine the immense mental stress the queen is still undergoing after accepting her fate, giving birth to so many sons, and being forced to watch her husband abuse their sons out of contempt. - The Like Father, Like Son trope is in effect as Caleb is heaping the same abuse on his wife. - Despite loathing how his father and brothers are abusers, Hans came off as a hypocrite by selfishly exploiting Anna's desire to be loved. - The king's Big Fancy Castle. Generally mistaken for a giant Sea Monster by outsiders, most people think it is beautiful and jaw-dropping even as it flourishes in a harsh environment, but Hans sees every inch of it as an ugly prison with his father and brothers as corrupt wardens. - At the end of the novel, Hans is shown panicking when the guards drag him to be deported home without even seeing Anna and Elsa one last time. He's begging to be spared and not wanting to return to the hellhole he came from in the first place, aware what punishment his family will dish out on him when they get wind of his actions. As shown in Frozen Fever, he's now in a worse situation than before, having been condemned to hard labor and part of it involves shoveling horse manure. He's in a bleak and unfriendly environment compared to the lively atmosphere in Arendelle, with the stables alone looking sinister. - From the looks of it, the kingdom is an incredibly harsh Police State and its government being a corrupt dictatorship. Even minor problems are solved with outright violence. The princes (including Hans himself) also basically act as the king's musclemen. For example: - At one point, Hans reluctantly "talks" to a peasant who insulted the king. - The king's "solution" to a farmer having a problem he didn't like? He torched their farm to the ground and seized their livestock. - God help those that are behind on their taxes they're collected forcibly. Hans nearly barfs while giving a detailed account of the tax collection he "conducted" to the king. - In essence, the king only cares about maintaining an iron fist over his hellhole of a kingdom, leaving Hans to wonder how his father "could be so stupid." That his older brothers are not different from their father doesn't surprise him either he even remembers the many times they belittled or pummeled him despite trying to find a way out. Also, whenever he felt hesitant to use violence, Hans remembers his brothers gloating about killing people and imagines being mocked for "not having the guts to do anything."	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AFrozenHeart
After Earth / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - The Ursa. A creature explicitly designed to be a killing machine against humans. Its design plays on audiences' primal fears; it's insect-like, it's huge, you can't predict when it senses you, and it kills any living thing it "sees" indiscriminately. The way it quickly evokes the fear pheromone in its prey? Post dead humans, hanging and impaled, in plain sight. - The slug-like creature that bites Kitai, and the gruesome effects of its toxin. It's even more horrifying to those who are aware of somewhat similar creatures already living in today's world. We can literally see the effects of the poison at work, including his face visibly swelling from the venom. - Kitai's dream on the raft, where he talks to his loving Ranger sister starts out sweet and endearing, but then slowly builds tension and suspense until she reveals the urgency of his situation through her shocking near-mutilated corpse.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AfterEarth
Aftermath of the Games / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Sci-Twi's near kidnapping by the Changelings in Humans IV. - While while washing her face to recover from her near kidnapping, Midnight appears again in the mirror, taunting Twilight about not being able to defend herself despite having magic. She even starts preying upon her fear of losing Spike. It's implied that had Shining not burst in on Twilight, Midnight could have convinced Twilight to accept her. Midnight Sparkle: All it takes is a little bit of (magic), and you could have stopped Spike from getting hurt. Sunset, Shining Armor, Cadance, the others... they wont be around forever. Sooner or later, youll need me. Its just a matter of time. Why fight it?	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AftermathOfTheGames
A Dovahkiin Spreads His Wings / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes ## As per Tv Tropes policy, this page is Spoilers Off on any and all plot points. You Have Been Warned! - The nail which changed everything: after accidentally eavesdropping on Ned and Benjen talking about his true parentage, the fourteen-year-old Jon is so upset he decides to run away from Winterfell, only leaving a small note that doesn't explain anything. Ned almost went mad from grief, spending six months overturning the countryside, while the other Stark children had nightmares about their half-brother lying dead in a dirt hole. They don't receive any assurance about Jon's survival and health until several years later. - What happened to Jon immediately after is no picnic either — he was mysteriously taken to a whole different continent, with only his wolf and the clothes on his back, unable to speak the local language and almost executed on the spot merely for being in the wrong place. Oh, and Word of God mentions he was so desperate for cash he joined the Thieves' Guild. - Everything about the butcher incident. An eight-year-old Jon innocently trusts a kind-looking man when he finds himself lost in town, only for said man to attempt to sexually assault him. Jon escaped with his innocence intact only because Theon intervened in the nick of time. - However, what traumatized Jon the most wasn't the butcher, it was Ned's reaction: instead of explaining what happened and how to avoid this kind of predator, the boy's own father only told him it was a misunderstanding, blatantly lying and leaving Jon vulnerable. - Thirteen-year-old Theon being forced to intervene to rescue Jon and having to explain the boy paedophilia is both Nightmare Fuel and Tear Jerker. - All of Ned's efforts to keep Jon safe are suddenly ruined when Robert takes a fancy for the boy and invites him to King's Landing, the very place in which his nephew's paternal family was slaughtered for their family name. - The bandit attack on the royal procession. Arya is almost killed in front of Jon, and is badly shaken afterwards on realising she just stabbed someone. - In-Universe, Joffrey as King of the Seven Kingdoms is this to Jon Arryn and Jaime Lannister — Jaime actually prepares himself to commit kinslaying, that's how freaked he is after learning the boy murdered two maids on a whim. - Miraak's psychic remnant taunting Jon with his grandfather Aerys' craziness, claiming the youth is doomed to sink into dementia as well. - Jon having a psychic nightmare in which he helplessly watches how Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch slaughtered his stepmother and half-siblings. - Imagine you're dining with your friends and family, busy listening your future daughter-in-law detail her wedding plans, when your father figure suddenly vomits blood and faints. Poor, poor Ned... - The aftermath of Euron's pirates ravaging the Northern coast. And if his captured follower is to be believed, the guy killed his own brother and is currently doing something awful to his niece for being a potential obstacle to his plans. Theon's reaction to all of this is sheer dread. - Jon nonchalantly burns several guards alive when they come after him. Sam's reaction is to violently puke. - The aftermath of Lannister guards trying to arrest the Volkihar women are extremely gory and bloody. - Selyse Baratheon takes a sword to the gut in front of Shireen. Grimly aware she won't walk away from this, she urges her daughter to flee without her. - Little innocent, gentle Tommen tries to defend Serana and Sansa from Joffrey's threats and gets killed for it. His loving sister Myrcella is immediately driven into a murderous frenzy that leads her to slaughter Joffrey, then has to immediately flee, not even able to mourn over Tommen's body. - Enzo arriving too late to protect two of Robert's bastards and their mothers, finding their corpses instead, and if he had been less quick, a third would have been killed too. - Arya almost finds herself abducted by Lannister cronies, managing to escape after realising "Jon's" message was weird only to be chased in the streets. - Margaery is spending a sweet morning with her brother and potential husband when someone knocks at the door. It immediately goes to hell with Renly beaten into a coma and Margaery herself losing her eye — no wonder her parents freak out. - Cersei's paranoia went so out of control she decided it would be a terrific idea to kill her own father with a letter opener, and tries to murder Tyrion right after that. - And she's now taking control of the Iron Throne. May the Gods bless Westeros... - Being a very perceptive child, Shireen noticed that Melisandre was more reminiscient of a predator hungry for blood than a human woman. And now, Valerica is giving her a strong feeling of the crawlies. - Right after getting outed as a Targaryen, a knight openly tries to assault and kill Jon — for being the Mad King's grandson. Yes, Jon doesn't deserve it, but the knight isn't exactly wrong in fearing him taking after his paternal ancestors. - Melisandre finally appears onscreen and doesn't waste diving so far in the Uncanny Valley that she's giving off vibes of The Fair Folk, appearing from shadows and her necklace being saturated with magic so thick you can almost taste it in the air. And she apparently received visions about Jon in her flames, leading her to make moves to manipulate him and claiming he won't be able to deny his fate. - Cersei's utter paranoia and hunger for control over everything now that she's Queen Dowager — Jaime himself is unsettling by her craving for war, as she wants to use battle to punish her foes. And the way she claims the Crown's enemies ought to burn is very much alike Aerys in his last days...	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/ADovahkiinSpreadsHisWings
Agatha Christie / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes One would expect the world's most famous mystery author to have some scary moments. After all, murder and death are the order of the day. ## Novels with their own pages<!—index—><!—/index—> - Henet's murder in Death Comes as the End, especially with the modern Western association of mummies with horror. - The cover◊ of Agatha Christie's The Hound of Death. It's a skull with one eyeball swollen so big (or, perhaps, under a magnifying lens) as to be nauseating. - The title locale in "The Idol House of Astarte" is heavily implied to have satanic influences that contributed to someone committing murder. - Nevile Strange's Villainous Breakdown in Towards Zero. It's deeply unsettling to see such a seemingly nice young man turn out to be a psychopath. - Apparently his breakdown is so bad as to be very likely to claim his life before the trial, which makes his insanity even more unsettling since pushing the right buttons could not only trigger a breakdown but cause his death which is in of itself disturbing. - The Downer Ending of "The Last Seance", where Simone is reduced to a shriveled, bloody corpse and Raoul loses his mind. - The Reveal of what really happened to Felicie Bault in "The Fourth Man": she was more-or-less enslaved by her childhood bully, who then possessed her after her death in order to keep on living and drove her to throttle herself in order to escape her. - Letardeau's explanation is pretty creepy on its own. She was very fond of life... - The premise of "Wireless" is pretty creepy, revolving around an elderly woman who receives messages from her dead husband telling him she is about to join him. The climax of the story has her poring over her will when she hears the door opening, looks up and sees a familiar face...the next day she's dead from fright. - This culminates in The Reveal that the whole thing was a trick by her nephew, who used a wire attached to the radio and a false moustache to scare his aunt to death so he could inherit. Whether this makes things better or worse is unclear. - The concept of The Pale Horse is terrifying to think about. Three elderly women are accused of being witches with the power to cast fatal curses on people; during their gatherings, one of their number also trots out a massive machine that she claims fires "waves" of some kind into the air, swaying even the most skeptical people into believing that something suspicious is going on. Sure enough, everyone they "curse" begins to suffer and slowly die of unknown symptoms, and no one can explain why. The Reveal makes it even scarier by mixing in Paranoia Fuel: it turns out the women have an accomplice who sneaks into the target's house and quietly switches out various household cleaning products and cosmetics with versions tainted with thallium, a deadly poison—and no one object is poisoned enough to be fatal, so the victim keeps unintentionally using the products until it's too late. - The sheer worries involved in the murder of Daisy Armstrong in Murder on the Orient Express. A little girl was kidnapped by a vicious gang, who demanded a ransom from her rich parents or they would kill her. The parents eventually paid the ransom, only for it to turn out that the gang's leader killed her anyway after receiving the ransom seemingly For the Evulz. Plus the Police Are Useless aspect, since before the gang was identifed the police were convinced a completely innocent girl did it and ended up driving her to suicide with their relentless harassment. - In "The Wife of the Kenite", the protagonist is revealed in a flashback to have, during the invasion of Belgium in World War 1, cut off a four-year-old child's hand, laughed about it and then battered the child to death because he wouldn't stop crying. And even he doesn't appear to know why, with the only explanation he gives being "It was war". - The short story "Philomel Cottage" is packed with scary moments, including a truly Mind Screw ending. First, we have Gerald Martin, who's The Bluebeard—he's married at least three women in the past and killed them all. We learn this when his new wife Alix snoops around and finds newspaper articles about the crimes. What's worse, Alix is able to correctly deduce that Gerald plans to murder her that very evening. The second half of the story consists of Alix sitting in the drawing room with her husband after making a coded call for help, knowing that the man sitting in front of her is a cold-blooded killer with everything laid in place. Then, just as he starts to make his move, Alix cries out that she wants to make a confession, and proceeds to tell an outlandish story about how she is secretly a Black Widow who has murdered two husbands by poisoning them. She deliberately invokes Dissonant Serenity as she explains this, smiling and even bragging about her supposed misdeeds all while internally panicking. And what makes it truly terrifying? Somehow, for some unexplained reason, Alix's story is so convincing that Gerald dies of fright. He definitely deserved it, but the fact that a simple story (plus a bitter cup of coffee that he suspected was poisoned) was able to kill a fully-grown man through the power of suggestion alone is unnerving. Even Alix is affected by the death, entering an almost trance-like state as the police discover Gerald's corpse: And presently...he died... - The coded call for help deserves a mention, too. Alix knows that her husband is listening to her use their phone, so she uses a quirk of the receiver to temporarily stop and start the call. The italicized words are the ones the friend she's trying to call hears: " Please come to the cottage right away, because I need help planning a party...you'll think me silly, but it really is a matter of life and death..." - By the Pricking of My Thumbs. Killers in Christie-verse sometimes display some psychopathic traits, but this is probably the only case (with a possible exception of Crooked House) in Christie's oeuvre where being deranged seems to be the sole murderer's motive for killing. And the result is terrifying, especially since the victims were children. ...You could only atone for murder with other murders, because the other murders wouldn't be really murders, they would be sacrifices. They would be offered up. You do see the difference, don't you? The children went to keep my child company. Children of different ages but young.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AgathaChristie
Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Keep in mind, this is one of the more serious villains. - Several of the writers for Galaxy Rangers, including Christopher Rowley, had a background in horror. For a "kids" show, it did not shy away from screwing with your mind or going for a scare. Consider "Rogue Arm", where Zach's arm comes to murderous life. Not only does Zach start dying without it— after it tries to strangle him—the thing creeps around the darkened halls of a giant but poorly-staffed and supplied ship, even sucking two Red Shirt crew members into space. Who, by the way, are never rescued. - "Scarecrow" was pretty nasty too, with this Sealed Evil in a Can coming back to life, killing a pair of Red Shirts (Remember, this was The '80s - Never Say "Die" was standard operating procedure), then pulling Mind Rape on Shane's sentient, AI horse. After this, he leads the Rangers into the swamp, and wounds Niko pretty badly. Niko has a nightmare of waking up in her own grave, seeing the Scarecrow hovering over her, and choking her to death. Lastly, after Shane's chased it into a burning house, it runs into the night, still on fire, laughing. The very last scene? After Shane and Niko leave the planet, thinking they've defeated the thing, the technician that was gassing up their ship chuckles. His face melts, revealing him as the Scarecrow, and he does an Evil Laugh directly into the camera. - I'll see it and raise you the opening Nightmare Sequence from "Psychocrypt." shudder He's dreaming he's stuck in the Queen's palace and that his wife's calling out to him. Askew angles, Zach staring at his own corpse, his badge melting, a giant hand picking him up and tossing him into oblivion...and then you realize is' no mere nightmare but a form of Mind Rape that Her Travesty has been inflicting on both Zach and his wife for at least a week and probably longer. - For that matter, the Psychocrypt itself. See entry under Fate Worse than Death. - One with a side order of Fridge Horror. The Queen is absolutely delighted when she has Zach in her clutches. Now, the most innocent possibility is that she immediately tossed him in the Crypt for a nasty Mind Rape. Now, add the seductive tone of voice she was using earlier in the episode, Rowley's DVD Commentary saying the scene has "S & M vibes," and the possibility that maybe she didn't toss him in right away... - The end results if Shane's Involuntary Shapeshifting abilities break down on him.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers
A Game of Thrones / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - When Jorah is carrying Dany into the tent as she goes into labour, while Mirri Maz Duur works some black sorcery... What was wrong with them, couldn't they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur's voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! She screamed. The dancers! - "The shadows come to dance, my lord..." - Let's go with the whole paragraph of Patchface-related, nursery rhyme horror, here; with one additional thought — where, exactly, did all those shadows go to stay? "The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord," he sang, hopping from one foot to the other and back again. "The shadows come to stay, my lord, stay my lord, stay my lord." - Daenerys's stillborn child, as described by Mirri Maz Duur. "Monstrous. Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years." Darkness, Dany thought. The terrible darkness sweeping up behind to devour her. If she looked back she was lost. My son was alive and strong when Ser Jorah carried me into this tent, she said. I could feel him kicking, fighting to be born. That may be as it may be, answered Mirri Maz Duur, yet the creature that came forth from your womb was as I said. Death was in that tent, Khaleesi. - Sansa is a better judge of character than she's usually given credit for: on first meeting Littlefinger, she is disturbed by how his eyes "did not smile when his mouth did". - Sansa as an eleven year old knows little of lust, but Petyr stares so intensely at her at the council meeting that it makes her feel as though she's naked. He also constantly gets in her space and touches her face like a lover. Again: she is the medieval equivalent of a sixth grader. - On the topic of Littlefinger, whilst being held in the deepest, darkest cells of the Red Keep, Ned dreams of Robert mocking him for putting Honor Before Reason, only for the King's face to shatter and reveal a twisted version of Littlefinger, who smiles psychotically and breathes moths at Ned. - Ned Stark's execution. Sansa truly believed he was going to be spared and... he has his head cut off in front of her eyes. - Joffrey forcing her to watch her father's head on a spear is terrible as well. Her septa's head has her face rotten and eaten by birds. - Old Nan's story of the Long Night is gripping but foreboding. This could be Westeros' future: millions dying of cold, weeping as they Mercy Kill their starving children, kingdoms and cities falling into chaos, the Others hunting people in the woods, and no one able to do anything about it. Oh, my sweet summer child, what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods. - The scene of the raided Lhazareen village is pretty horrific; there are heads piled up in the streets, old and young, while young Dothraki girls run around collecting the arrows from the corpses. As Daenerys walks through the ruined streets, she feels sickened, even as she tries to justify it as "the price of the Iron Throne". However, when she hears the crying of a girl being thrown down and raped over a pile of decapitated heads, Dany cannot stomach it any longer and orders her guards to stop the warriors from raping the women, bringing them under protection.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AGameOfThrones
Advice and Trust / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes SEELE wanted Gendo to send Unit-03 to Germany as soon as possible so they could study its S2 core. Gendo at least wanted to attempt to rescue the pilot beforehand, but the SEELE members stated they would decide if he was allowed to make such an attempt. In other words, if Shinji had not extracted Hikari accidentally, she would have been trapped in the Evangelion forever. Rei being put back on her drugs against her will and suffering from an overdose. It's also horrifying in-universe for Shinji, Asuka, and Rei herself. Don't worry, you won't feel a thing. Unit-00 going on another rampage and trying to kill Ritsuko. Asuka finally makes contact with her mother in Unit-02, and it's a heartwarming reunion, right up until she tries to say goodbye: To clarify, Asuka discovers her mother's soul speaking in two voices. Both voices are the Kyoko that Asuka remembers, but while one voice is relatively sane, the other is an Ax-Crazy presence obsessed with death, telling Asuka to die with her.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AdviceAndTrust
Æon Flux / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - From the pilot: - One of the dying enemy soldiers hallucinates a strange, Steamboat Willie-style scene of a little creature on a boat paddling its feet in the sea. Suddenly, the scene shifts, and we see that what the soldier was actually seeing was a bullet hole and streak of blood on a wall, a gun floating in the literal lake of blood that Æon has shed, and a glove, or perhaps dismembered arm. The soldier sheds a Single Tear of horror and dies. - Another hallucinates a bomb in front of him inflating like a balloon (which we see from his POV). It turns into a big helpless fish that swells inexorably as it lies on the floor, just waiting to explode as it gasps for water. Tears gush from the fish's eyes, as if it knows it's about to die, and we see its gills and scales open from the swelling. And then it explodes (which we see flash-frames of the bomb in mid-explosion), and the screen goes white with a thunderous boom. - The ending to "Thanatophobia." In the beginning of the episode, there's a young boy who helps his friends enact pretend fights by clapping his hands in order to mimic the sound of punching. But then he has both arms cut off by the government after he messes with Bregna's sentry guns too many times, resulting in the now armless boy watching helplessly as his friends start fighting and beating each other up for real. - Pretty much the ending of any of her shorts where she dies in some horrific fashion. Though a few are more Black Comedy than disturbing. - In "Leisure," she has an uncontrollable urge to torture and kill a baby alien, and she enjoys it. Almost like Laser-Guided Karma, she ends up getting killed by an adult version of the alien. - Just the idea of Bregna keeping its people in using sentry guns, which are later replaced with traps that amputate people's limbs. - Æon's And I Must Scream fate at the end of "Ether Drift Theory": floating in the lake of paralytic fluid, paralyzed but still conscious, watching the device and key float past and narrowly miss each other.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AeonFlux
After (2003) / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes A school gains a new crisis counselor after a shooting incident, who strictly enforces the zero tolerance policies, gets students expelled over minor issues and has them sent to a program called "Operation Turnaround." Operation Turnaround, is later revealed to be a detention camp for students and teachers, and it is implied that anyone who attempts resistance is killed. And the school where the shooting took place is mysteriously completely cleared out by the end.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/After2003
Advertising / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes "Beware the Judderman my dear, when the moon is fat ..." "This is like if you took every psychopathic thought anyone's ever had and put them all together to make an advert." — easportsbig899, on TNT's "Walking the Bird" promo. Isn't it surprising the lengths some advertisers will go to make you buy things? Particularly scary commercials can become a Memetic Mutation, and in decades' time fall into Pop-Cultural Osmosis. Unfortunately, the side effect is that nobody can remember, "What Were They Selling Again?" Due to the sheer amount of nightmare fuel they always give off, PSAs and PIFs not only have a subpage, they have subpages of that subpage. # Sub-pages:<!—index—><!—/index—> - This ad produced by Scion manages to make something that would be Narm (IE, people with square heads) and turn it into horror with the use of Body Horror, Uncanny Valley and What Were They Selling Again?. - And then there's the ending, where \|\|the one guy who doesn't have a square head is tased and put in the box, and his terrified screams are muffled by the website, which is even creepier\|\|. - This Honda ad also revolves around square headed people, and the Uncanny Valley is even worse, especially the kid at the end. - There was a series of Volkswagen commercials that, at first, seemed rather simple and aimless, featuring friends talking about whatever silly little subject comes to mind, when suddenly, BAM! Car accident. No one is hurt, but the commercial then cuts to one of the friends looking at the wreckage, saying "Holy-", the commercial cutting off to the pricing and safety features of the car. Check out one of them here. - In December 2013, an advert for the Japanese company Autoway Tires generated a lot of headlines, with newspapers asking "Is this the scariest advert ever?" How scary is it? So scary that it comes with a disclaimer and health warning at the very start. The ad shows a dark, snowy road from the driver's night vision POV - the perfect setting for the horrific Jump Scare that follows \|\|the Slit-Mouth Woman from Japanese folklore appears in front of the car\|\|. Also an example of What Were They Selling Again? - many news outlets pointed out that the viewer would be too shocked to concentrate on what was actually being advertised. We strongly advise against checking it out. It's that bad. - A memorable Audi RS4 ad shows the car being tangled up in a creepy spider web, with the commercial eventually building up to a Giant Spider dropping down, screeching loudly, and then charging towards the camera before transforming into said car at the last second. Makes Just as Much Sense in Context. - An old ad for Vespa scooters shows King Kong destroying a city as the populace flee. Suddenly, a heroic young woman drives in on a Vespa and manages to charm him! Kong takes her off her scooter and she continues to flirt more with him, and it looks like it's all going good until Kong suddenly devours her and pulls out her bra from his teeth, which he uses to polish the Vespa she left behind. Looks like in this case, beast killed the beauty. - There was an old Rolly Pontiac commercial that was a parody of The Phantom of the Opera dubbed The Phantom of the Dealership. It's as cheesy as any local dealership commercial, with the Phantom's overdramatic voice and the way he disappears with the swish of his cape. But then comes this line, "The professional staff at Rolly will take care of you." As this line plays, the Phantom slams the trunk of a car...with a bound and gagged man in it! - This infamous ad for the GM EV1 has the camera panning ominously over disembodied silhouettes, accompanied by creepy music from the 1990 horror film Jacob's Ladder, as a creaky-voiced old woman repeatedly intones, "How does it go?" - This 2016 Argentinian Ford Ka commercial (supposed to showcase its heating feature), featuring anthropomorphic corn people parking in a drive-in theater before bursting into popcorn while laughing at each other. We might suggest not looking at it if you're prone to trypophobia. - German ads for K-fee energy drink. These ads were Screamer Pranks, starting off with a calm environment... then a goblin or zombie (depending on the ad) would come out and scream its freaking head off and then say that "You've never been so awake". It Makes Sense in Context considering that it's a caffeine drink. What's funny though is that they parodied three of them for their decaf version. - Another variation is often referred to as the "Ghost Car Ad" due to the prank associated with the ad- telling people that a ghost appears when the car goes around the bend. It doesn't, it's another zombie screaming its head off. - This Coca Cola commercial urges viewers to watch and unlock secrets about the formula. It's extremely disturbing, complete with blink-and-you'll-miss-it weird, flashing images and creepy smiling ladies from the sixties. - The keys which you had to click to unlock the secrets don't work anymore, but back when they did, they had several "clues", including a website that contained a "webcam" (actually a video on a loop) of the vault where the secret formula is held. While it had some weird things like a dog walking by and a ninja throwing a smoke bomb (that would loop the video back to the start), the creepiest part was the ghost of John Pemberton, the creator of Coca Cola, appearing at various points. Towards the end, his ghost appeared right in front of the camera, with his finger on his lips and doing a very unsettling "Shhh...", no doubt startling those who saw it. - This commercial for Australia's Bluetongue Brewery Beer features a Japanese businessman getting the "Full Whale Experience" at a sushi bar. It was made using money donated by the Sea Shephards, a group of eco-pirates (of Whale Wars fame) who disrupt Japanese whaling activities... that, or Bluetongue really hates the Japanese. - This Tango advert, where a man is attacked by a clawed, bright orange disembodied foot. It doesn't get better when the foot's owner shows up to claim it. - Speaking of Tango adverts, this ad from the same era is confusing, scary and just plain freaky. The two figures seen by the man drinking the Tango can remind one of various horror movie archetypes, and that's before his head comes off. - There's the Florida's Natural Growers Orange Juice commercial that shows a pair of hands in leather work gloves holding a cluster of leaves. The leaves grow, bloom, and slowly develop into an orange. The problem here is Fridge Logic: where are the roots of this plant? Gives a whole new meaning to the concept of blood oranges... - Mike's Lemonade and Iced Tea had some unique taste in their commercials - In the early 2000s, Nestea ran an ad campaign that involved a snowman whose snow acted as skin. When melting, he'd become a skeleton, and had to find a bottle of Nestea in order to regain his snowy skin. These commercials sometimes aired on children's TV channels, and while these commercials were funny to older viewers, children were scared shitless by them. - "Beware the Judderman my dear, when the moon is fat." This infamous Metz advert from 2000 features the Judderman, a ghoulish, Jack Frost-like creature who lures weary travellers with his bottles of Metz. The people behind the ad went to great lengths to make it as creepy as possible, including using a hand-cranked camera to film it, playing creepy music, and hiring a ballet dancer who could perform the eerie movements of the Judderman. There's even a crow whose head spins 360 degrees. In fact, they succeeded a little too well, as children were terrified by it, and the ad was eventually banned from early evening television. It was later voted the scariest advert ever by the British public. - And while we're on the topic of alcohol, how about this disturbingly surreal Drambuie ad? - The Pepsi One commercial starring Kim Cattrall as Little Red Riding Hood has her trying out different sodas. She rejects two of them, tries the Pepsi One and says "This one's just right". Her eyes turn green and wolf-like and there's howling in the background as if she was going to turn into the Big Bad Wolf. It's scary for those who don't see it coming. - There was a needlessly scary advert for Hooch Lemon, with a man sleeping in the most uncanny cliff-side house imaginable. A mosquito has a sip of the drink and cuts a hole through the apartment's window. The man wakes up, gets bitten by the mosquito and screams at the top of his lungs. Another version of the ad ends with his significant other waking up with an even more earsplitting shriek. - A popular Herbaria tea advert represents the tea's calming effects... by showing a variety of horror monsters slowly drowning. The slogan at the end is "Drown your fears", but the ad only reignites them for the viewer, if anything. - An ad for Sprite was disguised as an ad for another drink called Sun Fizz, with a mother serving the drink to her two children...only for the mascot on the bottle to jump out of the bottle as an unsettling, overly-cheerful CGI abomination, terrifying the family. The ad than shifts into the slasher movie-esque tone as the mascot proceeds to chase after the mother and children through the house; resulting in the mother tripping over something and falling down. The ad cuts away to promote Sprite just when the mascot closes in on the children's mother, with her screaming for her children to run. - There was once a Diet Coke ad that showed some football players melting from the summer heat until they drank Diet Coke and reform. The end-of-ad comedy beat was someone who was far too melted to reach his drink asking for help as he continued his slow dissolution into oblivion. View it here. - Apparently, the best way to convince people to drink more Sprite is to show people drinking it, running into each other, and exploding into Sprite. At least the Coke commercial suggested that their product helps you avoid death. - The Super Bowl 50 "Puppymonkeybaby" ad for Mountain Dew Kickstart has a disturbing hybrid of a puppy, a monkey, and a baby moving around in a jerkily way shilling the product to a group of guys in a couch. Even worse when it starts licking the face of one of the guys. The real nightmare is trying to get the chant of "puppymonkeybaby" out of your head. - Coca-Cola's "Sprite Boy" mascot from the 40s (seen here◊) was a good concept, being a character that would talk through the fourth wall to inform people that "coke" was short for Coca-Cola. Unfortunately, it's hard to look past the Cheshire Cat Grin he was often drawn with, which can be extra unsettling when the ads speak directly to you. - Take a look at this Folgers commercial entitled "Mongoose". A woman in a Zoom meeting can't figure out how to turn off a mongoose filter. Unfortunately, it fills the whole screen with one of the worst designs possible, with her normal eyes and mouth pasted over an overly-realistic mongoose face. All of this is accompanied by an extended version of the trademark Folgers "best part of waking up" jingle. - Fosters ran a trio of adverts that had people being comically decapitated by animals. Even though the ads lack any actual gore, they still managed to prompt nearly 200 complaints for being disturbing, not helped by the documentary-style footage or the way the headless bodies stay standing afterwards. - This ad for Wrigley's X-cite gum in the UK featured a man retching and spitting up a dog (literal "dog breath") after a night of heavy drinking. It was banned after more than 700 complaints showed that it had terrified both child and adult viewers alike. - Maynard's wine gums ads. Not so much scary as just creepily hallucinatory, with even the bus stop poster ads◊ being disturbing. - The 2010 Halloween commercial for Snickers features two kids dressed as an adult woman (one on top of the other's shoulders) convincing a neighbor to stock up on the candy kids want. That sounds funny and charming, right? Wrong. The kids are horribly outdated in their dress, the proportions of the body are like something designed by Dr. Frankenstein, and behind the pallid, molded face, are two piercing, unblinking eyes. And then the creepy caress, the voice ("I'm only trying to help you" as the woman tries to wrestle her cart away when the kids grab hold of it)... - A Jello ad that is just made of this trope: it's late at night and the parents are facing their children in front of an open refrigerator. The mom tells a story about a little girl who fell down a deep dark well filled with monsters and boogeymen, with no cartoons, and she was trapped there for a hundred years with no hope of escape. While she tells this, the children look as if they're crapping in their jammies in pure terror. She ends it with "And that's why we don't take Mommy's nightly [insert jello name] snack" right before Dad tells the kids to go to bed. Even worse is the one where the mother tells her daughter she will ship her off to work in a coal mine if she takes her mommy's snack. - A 1995 Jello Ad done in a old school horror movie style has a boy enter a school bus with his lunch box, containing Jello. As the kid sits down, the Jello begins moving out of the lunch box while he says, "It's alive!", prompting him to eat some of it. After that, the other students look at the boy with horror as we are shown his POV filling up with a red, Jello-y screen. Then, as the narrator says "Eat it before it eats you!", without warning, the bus driver's head spins 360 degrees like Regan from Exorcist while laughing in an evil tone, with the ad ending with the jingle in a creepy tone. It's heavily implied that the Jello consumed the boy ala The Blob (1958), which probably kept a few kids away from Jello altogether. - The commercial for Fruit Roll-Ups which began with a woman calling to her son. The camera pans left to show a giant cocoon of Fruit Roll-Ups. A boy (presumably the woman's son) all but slithers out of the cocoon, dropping to the floor. He looks at the camera, puts a finger to his lips and says "Shh" in the creepiest possible way. - Hostess did a series of commercials in the 90s and 2000s that featured an animal approaching something that appeared to be a Hostess snack product, but wasn't, and would prompt that animal to ask "Hey, where's the cream filling?" However, the creepiest ad involves a boy teasing a doll with a toy cupcake, which prompts her to come to life with one angry face. - Little Baby's Ice Cream infamously put out a commercial with some ice cream/human hybrid eats ice cream off the top of its head, making very slow movements and staring unblinkingly into the camera while a cryptic voiceover plays. You haven't experienced true fear until you've looked into his eyes. The ending music to the commercial is just as alarming, sounding like a distorted xylophone. - Similarly, here's a Reese's Pieces commercial of the same time period. At 00:05, the man grunting combining with his growl may surely have crept out many a younger viewer. - An old ad for Kinder Surprise that features a very human-like Humpty Dumpty speaking mostly gibberish has gained a lot of attention on the internet for being creepy. - This commercial for the now discontinued Wazoo bar is 1 part creepy and 1 part strange to give it an essence of Surreal Horror. - This 1992 Nestle Fun Size Candy Christmas ad revived the Farfel family from the the 50's into a modern Christmas setting. While the 50's Farfel was cute and cuddly, the 90's Farfel looks really creepy. Case in point, the dogs' snouts in the latter are shaped like alligators' muzzles. Not helping matters is their singing with empty stares into the camera as their mouths snap as if trying to eat the viewer. This is one of the rare times that a Christmas commercial could be considered scary. - This 2017 Hershey's ad shows a young woman eating a Hershey's bar on a park bench when a voiceover plays that informs her that if the Earth didn't have layers, she'd be drowning in magma. She only has some time to ask "Wait, what?" before the camera cuts to the entire area covered with lava, as she desperately tries to eat the chocolate and then screams in pain as she sinks into the lava. The comments on the video even call the ad out for being so randomly cruel. - Cadbury Bournville has more than a few weird or disturbing commercials: - The infamous "Not So Sweet" commercial (also titled "Sally"). It starts off with four women sitting at an outdoor cafe where one cheerfully tells the rest about the kitten her father gifted. She then goes on about how cute it is, how she even prefers it over her boyfriend, how it scratched her when she went to the cat spa, and that she plans to name it Snowflake. As she says the latter, one of the decorative potted Venus flytraps behind her randomly grows to giant size and devours her, and while one of the other women at the table is clearly disturbed by this, the two others (previously established as being annoyed with the devoured woman talking about her cat) seem perfectly happy about it. - This commercial shows a "cocoa expert" in Ghana analyzing the cocoa beans harvested by the townsfolk. As he states that one of them is imperfect, it grows eyes and starts sobbing. One of the villagers responds by callously shoving the cocoa bean off the table, much to the expert's and other villagers' shock. The commercial then concludes by stating that only the best Ghana cocoa is made into a Bournville. - "Have You Earned It?" takes the style of a low-quality Found Footage video, showing an American TV presenter filming an episode about the Bournville chocolate at a strange town in Britain. He snidely talks about how the British had to earn the chocolate, and then states that even though he hasn't earned it, he'll eat it anyway. As he does so, the sky goes dark, the people around the presenter become increasingly panicked and run in all directions, and the music turns extremely ominous. Then a giant bird suddenly swoops down and carries the presenter away. Luckily enough, the end of the commercial reveals he's all right (though bandaged and clearly disturbed by the incident) but the commercial is still frightening. - This Halloween commercial starts off with footage of babies before quickly becoming a Jump Scare featuring the face of Regan McNeil used in the infamous Scary Maze Game. - In 2003, British confectionery company Mr Kipling used this as their Christmas advert of the year. It shows a woman depicted as Mary, mother of Jesus, giving birth while endlessly moaning. It's then revealed that it's happening in a nativity play live on stage, in front of a crowd of hundreds. A lady backstage then asks "Has Mr Kipling ever directed a nativity play before?", leading a vicar to reply "No, but he does make exceedingly good cakes." Unsurprisingly, this advert was only shown three times before a flood of complaints forced it off air. - The "Carvel's Wish" commercial. Most commericals for Carvel are cute, sweet, and even funny. This commercial on the other hand is anything but. It starts off with the family singing happy birthday to their daughter. After that, her father tells her to make a wish. Then the daughter blows out the candles with a smile on her face after that they clapped but then the grandmother, the mother, the brother, and the father all fell over and died. The daughter doesn't even seem phased by it; she seems more happy about it and drags the cake to herself, implying that she wished for her whole family to die so she can have a cake all to herself. There's also no music as well. - Skittles: You'll be hard-pressed to find a post-2000 commercial that's not nightmare fuel. - "Fancify the Rainbow": Ladies and gentlemen: Yogurt Boy. A creepy mass of white goo with an unnerving gurgling voice whose body is constantly distorted (especially when the butler sticks the Skittle in). Even the valet quietly calling out "Yogurt boyyyyy..." is unsettling, and he looks creeped out by the creature as well. - "Harvest the Rainbow": There's a Skittle tree growing out of a boy's stomach, with an implication hanging over it that it's sprouted from a Skittle he ate. - This 1987 Danonino commercial aired in Mexico. It initially shows a young girl eating the aforementioned product while describing its benefits and a clown with X-shaped eyes sitting with each other in front of a dark blue background. Eventually, the girl attempts to wake up the clown as he opens up his eyelids in close-up and starts grinning into the camera during the last shot. The jolly-sounding bell music in the background doesn't help either. - These Rice Krispie Treats commercials showed kids who, upon having none of the treat left to satisfy their craving, would morph into a disturbing monster of some kind while screaming " " into the camera. IIIII WAAAAANNNTTT OOOONNNNEEEE!!! - The 2020s commercials for Trolli gummy worms are way creepier than anyone would expect. One of them, titled "Hiding Place", features some monster frightening a child who is holding the gummy worms, along with the worms singing an upbeat yet creepy song inviting the child to bite their heads off that makes it really unsettling to listen to. It is rather unsurprising to learn that said ad, along with the rest of the campaign, was made by Becky and Joe, who are best known for Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. - While M&M's commercials aren't the least bit scary, this one from Russia is an exception. It features the M&M's Red and Yellow laughing hysterically at a joke written on an M&M's wrapper, with Red stating that he might burst from laughing so hard. He actually does off-screen. Yellow's reaction does not help. Oh, and the cherry on top? We see Red's chocolate splatter on Yellow. That's like seeing blood splatter on another human. - In a "Fruitsnackia" commercial called "Camping", the fruit-snacks Larry, Linus, and Llyod are sitting by a campfire next to a huge fruit snack tree. A fruit snack snake suddenly slithers from above the tree and they freak out, even causing Larry to Faint in Shock. A fruit snack bear comes out of the forest and slurps the fruit snack snake like a spaghetti noodle. The bear roars and apparently wakes up the fruit snack tree who then promptly grabs and eats the fruit snack bear. The fruit snack campers breathe a sigh of relief. Their lives are saved right? Not quite. The fruit snack tree suddenly blows out the campfire, leaving us with the sight of the trees' eyes and toothy grin and the campers' terrified eyes. The commercial ends with the tree eating the campers from behind. - Apple is no stranger to making some dark commercials. - The famous "Nineteen Eighty-Four" Superbowl commercial can come across as a bit unnerving with its harsh dystopian setting and Big Brother bellowing out propaganda the whole time. - Their 1985 Lemmings spot takes place in a harsh barren landscape where blindfolded businessmen mirthlessly whistle "Hi-Ho" as they all march off a cliff to their deaths. Not exactly subtle, but very creepy nonetheless. - This ad features HAL 9000 reassuring you that Y2K wasn't the machines' fault and that only Macintosh was equipped to handle the bug, while the camera slowly zooms into his eye. Dated message aside, the dissonant calm in HAL's voice and the use of Nothing Is Scarier make for a very unsettling commercial. - This Nokia N900 commercial. It starts with a guy in a business suit talking with 3 other guys about the Nokia N900. When one of them is reminded that there are people watching the room behind one-way glass, he flips out, transforms into ''something'', and starts wrecking the place. He yells, "I am the medium! I am the message! I am the one." and transforms into a phone. - This particular Virgin Mobile advert is pretty funny when you first see it. But when you're up at night, alone, and that psycho music is playing... Especially at the very end, when you think the thing is over, but in actuality there's a quick flash of her eerie grinning face before it closes. - A series of ads for Phones 4 U in the UK showing people being stalked by ghosts and zombies trying to promote mobile phone deals to them: "Missing our deals will haunt you!" There were complaints. - There's also this commercial. A woman walking to her car in a parking garage late at night is stalked by a creepy little ghost girl who suddenly appears and disappears. The woman suspects someone's following her, starts to panic and rushes to the car. Once she gets in, the ghost girl suddenly appears on the window and the woman screams. Turns into Nightmare Retardant when she starts telling the woman about all the money she could be saving on an iPhone. - This commercial for Rayovac batteries starts out this way, with a scary mid-90's CGI CD player with two rows of sharp teeth coming to life in the middle of the night, and starts eating whatever batteries it can find, compounded by the batteries screaming in terror as they try to flee. It gradually transitions into Nightmare Retardant when the lights come on and the CD player is chastised by Michael Jordan for not using Rayovac batteries, as well as the fact that said batteries the CD player was eating were frightened Duracell and Energizer batteries. - One of the reasons why Nipper (a Mexican service which allowed people to pay for items with their cellphones) failed was their infamous ads, due to the strange decision to make Nipper's mascot a snake with a girl's head. Having it rendered in low quality 3D animation made it even worse. Even worse is that some ads had the snake girl burst out of the logo, chiding the viewer for not immediately going to the bank to get a Nipper account. The ads have become a regular feature for Mexico's "scariest commercials" listicles. - This Chilean commercial for phone carrier Carrier 117 promotes its cheap international fees with a mime. The context itself seems to be perfectly normal, but it isn't helped by the abruptly changing facial expressions of the mime, the exceedingly bright setting and the absence of any Background Music, all of which terrified young Chileans in the early 2000s if the comments section is to be believed - A certain Toshiba ad turns surprisingly scary when, after the power outage, a person drinks spoiled milk and turns into a zombie, who then rapidly and singlehandedly causes a Zombie Apocalypse. Sure, it was just being imagined, but it scared many unsuspecting viewers. - This iPhone 13 pro commercial used to advertise its advanced low light camera. Low light? Check. Creepy whispering saying "help me" and urging the woman into entering the basement? Check. The fact we never see who's whispering? Check. - The Burger King commercials that feature their incredibly eerie mascot of the same name. Especially their breakfast-themed commercials that feature him in other people's bedrooms, waiting for said people to wake up so he offer them breakfast sandwiches. - The Swedish McDonald's coffee commericals. First there's a man snickering creepily while the camera pans across his unnaturally long nose \|\|which ends in another man\|\| all while broken xylophone music plays. And then there's the Yog Sothoth or something, which is talking in Black Speech. These ads may be a case of literal Nightmare Fuel, since the "WAKE UP!" slogan implies both were dreams. - Not to be outdone, the American McDonald's decided to create a new mascot for their Happy Meals, called Happy. This one's tame compared to most things on the list, but still somewhat creepy. Here it is◊. - The McDonald's commercials from Pakistan. - The Crash Bandicoot commercial might be a contender of the creepiest of them all, because Cortex has a realistic face. - In the Hello Kitty commercial they gave her a mouth, and it doesn't look pretty. - The first McDonald's commercial to feature Ronald McDonald is very scary. The announcer talks about how McDonald's has a new mascot named Ronald McDonald while showing the black and white screen of the restaurant. We then zoom out to a dark room with the clown in it and then the announcer says that it's Ronald McDonald, and when the lights came on we are treated to the very creepy, but early version of Ronald McDonald, who is not the sunny clown we know and love today. He looks like a man with a cup for a nose, weird-looking yellow and red clown suit, with two trays with food on it, one on the top of his head and another at his waist with the same food on it. Ronald speaks in a raspy voice like he has strep throat. He looks creepy and sounds creepy as well! Though it ends with Ronald using his hands to squeak, which sounds funny, and after that Ronald is seen dancing around in front of the restaurant. - Ronald in McDonald's Land commercials is very tame for the most part as Ronald is looking more like how he does now, but some of his friends look creepy and very uncanny, like Grimace, Hamburglar, and Captain Crook. Grimace is a very large, four-armed monster who steals drinks, but he has a voice that sounds goofy which tones down his scariness, Captain Crook has a creepy face with small eyes, crooked nose with an orange moustache, and a croaky pirate voice. But the Hamburglar is the worst of them all and looks very sinister; he still wears his black and white suit with a red tie, but his face looks demonic as if he came out from Hell! He has a scrunched-up face like a prune, a black mask, scary eyes, a long crooked nose, and two buck teeth with a creepy voice that probably scared kids away from commercials for a very long time or even McDonald's for that matter. Thankfully, they changed the characters: Grimace into a big chubby purple friendly fellow with only two arms and a happy face, Captain Crook into a more friendly character, and Hamburglar into a friendly character with a cute round face with chubby cheeks, smiling mouth, one tooth, short nose, and two round eyes and sounds like Cow from Cow and Chicken. Hamburglar and Grimace are now the cute characters we know today, but back then they were Nightmare Fuel. - This Subway advertisement from 2005 is a ten-second clip of a group of kids making a snowman. Suddenly, they all stare blankly at some unseen thing and one girl shrieks before the screen goes black and yellow text says "They're Coming". Somehow this is a teaser for Subway's food, though the ad itself was played alone, without any following segment explaining what exactly about Subway it's advertising. - This was actually part of a series of ads, one of which features a police officer looking into the window of a pulled over car in shock, one of which features two men in a barren snowy wooded area before one suddenly gets a blank look on his face and the other looks over his shoulder in shock. None of these ads make any attempt at explaining what they're advertising in any way. - They were teasers for a then-upcoming sandwich ("New Hot Fresh Toasted Subs"). The full ads are mild compared to their teasers, and they are: - Snowman: Three kids are making a snowman until a fourth one comes to play, and they don't let her. She goes home and finds out her dad bought her the new Subway sandwich. As revenge she goes outside and lays it on the snowman's hands; the sandwich is so hot it melts the snowman. - Ice Fishing: Two men are freezing trying to find fish under the ice, until one of them eats the new Subway sandwich, prompting him to take off his clothes and stay only in his boxers. - Lovebirds: Two officers pull-over to a couple apparently making love in a car. When they lower its window, it's shown that the "lovebirds" are actually two guys eating the new Subway sandwiches. - Another unsettling Subway ad is this one, though the implications are far more frightening than the actual ad itself. The ad features a guy and his girlfriend having a romantic night together looking at the sky. The girlfriend points out a shooting star, and guy suggests they make a wish. Both silently think of their wishes, when the girlfriend suddenly turns into a Subway sandwich. In response, the guy happily says "Yes!". The implication being that he turned his girlfriend into a Subway sandwich and plans to eat her. Let's just not hope she's conscious throughout the whole thing. - The infamous Quiznos ads featuring the Spongmonkeys, tarsiers with bulging eyes and human mouths, singing about how they love their subs. - This KFC commercial from the 60's has a group of women asking Colonel Sanders, who is hooked up on a lie detector, what the secret ingredients to his chicken are, only to be angered when the Colonel manages to fool the detector while making up random recipes. It's weird angles, electronic sounds, dark lighting, and the narrator's laugh at the end make this ad extremely unsettling and freaky. - This Dairy Queen Popcorn Shrimp commercial has a shrimp man enjoying the product when his wife asks him what he's doing. After the man tells his wife he's eating Dairy Queen popcorn and offers some to her, she realizes it's popcorn shrimp and chastises him for it. Right after her husband remarks how he felt something familiar about them, she asks him where their kids are, before they look at the popcorn shrimp box and realize they're eating their own children, leading them to scream. - This Taco Bell promo for Nacho Fries is a parody of horror movies, starring a young man trapped in a haunted house and terrorized by visions of \|\|Nacho Fries.\|\| But both the creepy atmosphere and Joe Keerys performance make it genuinely scary. - An advert for the $5 pizza special at Little Caesar's features two gamers who try to get out of their beanbag chairs when their associate tells them he's going for pizzas. They sink further and further into the chairs (as expected), one even commenting that they're sinking faster the more they struggle. The scene is fairly disturbing. Then it becomes Nightmare Retardant when one, so determined to get said pizza, begins moving the beanbag chair towards the door. - One Jack in the Box ad, shot at night with COPS style Jitter Cam, has Jack approach a guy named Brad who called the restaurant "Junk in the Box" and insist he apologize and try the food. When Brad shoves Jack, Jack starts screaming and chasing the guy, eventually pushing him to the ground, pinning him, and apparently kneeling on his spine to force Brad to eat a Jack in the Box burger. It's comedic, but the way it's shot and Jack's static smiling clown mask makes Jack look like a horror movie villain more than a mascot. - Universal's Halloween Horror Nights has most definitely mastered the art of scary commercials: - 1997: This ad is rather tame compared to the ones below, but nonetheless still contains the unpleasant imagery of a small goblin-like creature lifting up a man's eyelid and then biting into it. - 2000: A couple is shown walking into a photo booth, and as they have their pictures taken, they are suddenly attacked and killed by "Jack the Clown"; which is shown in a twisted variation of the Photo-Booth Montage. - 2001: Jack the Clown sinisterly watches as a group of people wonder where he is, just before a chainsaw maniac bursts out of a window and attacks them. - 2002: This is where the ads really start to get scary. - The first commercial is done in a very quiet and creepy manner as "The Caretaker" is shown picking out which tool he will use to dissect his victim alive with, via "eenie meenie minie moe". Upon uttering the last "moe", he picks up the chosen weapon, which looks like a dreadful combination of a surgical clamp and a pair of garden shears. The victim then silently gives an Oh, Crap! look before the information for the event is given, with the ad's quiet mood then being broken as it ends with a Jump Scare. - The second commercial features a couple walking down an ominous dark alley, not noticing that they're being watched. The wife then briefly suspects that something's up; only to soon have that suspicion confirmed when The Caretaker closes in on them with his surgical clamp, followed by the wife's scream. - The third commercial has The Caretaker creepily messing around with the toes of his dead victims, while doing the "This little piggy..." rhyme. - 2003: - Perhaps the scariest out of all of them, the first commercial features "The Director" forcing a jester to smile by impaling two hooks into each side of his cheeks and then pulling said hooks upwards. A single tear is briefly shown coming out of the jester's eye before The Director moves closer, and the last shot is of a jester bell that has a drop of blood on it falling down. - The second one is not as bad as the first, but that's not saying much. It shows The Director filming a victim he's placed in a Electrified Bathtub. He films the victim's sheer terror for a bit before turning on the bathtub, sporting a major Slasher Smile on his face as he does so. There's also a black and white version of the ad that has the victim screaming in pain as he's being electrocuted to death. Both of these ads were considered extremely controversial when they were first released, with many upset viewers attempting to get them taken off the air. - This trio of commercials, features The Director talking about how he makes snuff films because of a very twisted form of Doing It for the Art; along with showing some extra footage of the two above commercials. - 2004: A man is shown walking into a completely white room, when arms and faces begin to start coming out of the wall. In terror, he flees out the door, only to find himself right back in the same room. This time, he sees a body bag get up and begin to unzip itself. In vain, he tries to run again but ends up in the room once more; where the walls now begin to bleed while he watches in horror. - 2005: What appears to be a kind old lady reading a bedtime story to a young man turns out to not be what it seems when she pulls back the bedsheets to reveal that the man is laying on a bed of nails. The camera then shows that there's a giant anvil hanging right above him, which the lady ("The Storyteller") is about to cut; but not before wishing him "sweet dreams". The anvil then falls towards the man as he lets out a horrific scream just before being forced into the nails. - 2006: A victim finds himself waking up inside a giant glass box. As a series of feet are shown walking towards his location, he panics and desperately tries to get out, but to no avail. Looking above him, he now sees the event's four icons above him, here to celebrate the "Sweet 16" of the event. The Caretaker is about to "cut the cake" before the commercial ends. - 2007: A sketchy-looking carnival is shown as a man gets into a fortune teller tent. He sits in front of the fortune teller as said teller then brings out cards of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Leatherface. The man, puzzled, asks, "So what's my future?", to which the fortune teller then reveals himself as Jack the Clown, responding, "You don't have one!". Freddy and Jason then appear and briefly terrorize the man before Leatherface comes in for the kill. - 2008: Bloody Mary is shown preparing herself (including using blood as her lipstick) as a man begins to summon her. As he says "Bloody Mary" the third time...you can imagine what happens from there. Along with that, an unaired version of the commercial ends with Bloody Mary appearing behind a female victim and then grabbing her by the throat and lifting her up as she desperately gasps for air. - 2009: As the intermission song, "Let's All Go To The Lobby" plays, a trip to the concession stand goes horribly wrong as a man walks out to see that the area has been trashed, not noticing that The Wolfman and Chucky are hiding within the wreckage. He is then met with Billy riding in on his tricycle and announcing, "Let the game begin." Immediately after, the man finally notices The Wolfman and Chucky and screams as they lunge in for him. For the event in Hollywood, a different version of the commercial was made, which replaces The Wolfman with one of Jigsaw's pig-masked minions. - 2010: A security guard patrols a warehouse filled with props from the event's past years until he notices a sole lantern acting strangely, realizing all too late that said lantern contains the personification of fear itself, which then busts out of the lantern and kills the guard. - 2011: Frank Sinatra's "Luck Be A Lady" is heard as a much more sinister version of Lady Luck spins a victim on a wheel, laughing the whole way through before eventually revealing her true face. - 2012: A group of people appear chatting together, before someone comes in and screams at them to run, with it being revealed that he's running from a horde of zombies. They all desperately run and eventually manage to trap the zombies behind a gate...before it's shown that on the group's side of the gate lie far worse monsters that are threateningly standing behind them. Cue Gory Discretion Shot. - 2013: A group of people are once again shown, this time standing in the middle of a forest. To their terror, they see an army of monsters running right towards them. They get down on the ground, only to be confused when all the monsters run right past them. It turns out that those monsters were actually running away from a much bigger creature (one that's never shown). Via Shaky P.O.V. Cam, we see the creature moving right in for the group before the ad cuts to black. The commercial itself is actually a slightly shortened version of an advert that was used for Hollywood's event in 2010 and 2011. - 2014: The Walkers are shown breaking into an airport and wreaking havoc, with the commercial ending with one of them about to kill a Screaming Woman. The radio ad for the event acts a prequel to this, themed as a Distress Call a plane flight attendant is sending out, saying that all of the plane's passengers have been turned into the zombies and that she and the captain have locked themselves in the cockpit. Shortly after, the zombies can be heard breaking in, with the screams of the flight attendant quickly following. - 2015: A couple is shown strapped to some chairs that's on top of an oversized spin board, before being greeted with "Chance", a demented-looking clowngirl, giving them a creepy smile. She then walks off and begins to spin the two while a vinyl record plays a creepy-version of "Pop Goes The Weasel". It's shown that there's three cages the spin board could end up facing, one that has Freddy Krueger in it, one with Jason Voorhees in it, and one with a horde of Walkers inside. The spin board, along with the couple, end up facing the Walkers. Jack the Clown then emerges from the shadows and declares, "Looks like I win...again!", before releasing the undead monstrosities. As the Walkers close in on the now-screaming for dear life couple, Jack decides to also release Freddy and Jason just for the heck of it. - 2016: A man screams in horror as the camera pulls back to reveal Twisty, Leatherface, Walkers, and Regan MacNeil, before moving to show "Chance" screaming with sinister excitement. An alternate version of the commercial released for the Hollywood event instead ends on Regan doing her infamous Exorcist Head move. It's best to lower your volume before watching both ads. - 2017: This commercial, directed by Eli Roth, depicts a group of friends being led into a freaky-looking house party where things quickly take a turn for the worst as they come across the Grady Twins, Jack Torrance, and a woman struggling in a reverse-bear trap as Billy watches, before the group is attacked by the Piggy Man. - 2018: A woman is wandering through the sensory-deprivation world from Stranger Things. She first comes across the television screen from Poltergeist, where a ghostly hand suddenly tries reaching out for her. She then encounters Micheal Myers, and finally the Demogorgon, which roars at her just as she screams. - 2019: A party between friends goes awry as they all meet their demise in various ways. Two guys are pulled into the Upside Down where they see the Mind Flayer and a Demodog, which attacks them. Meanwhile, a woman is slain by a Tethered clone of herself. Finally, another woman preparing food in the kitchen suddenly has the lights shut off on her. She only gets a few seconds to wonder what's going on before Dracula yanks her away. - The commercials for the Universal Studios Singapore version of Halloween Horror Nights: - 2011: An aspiring actress arrives at a seedy-looking location for a film audition, where she ends up receiving far more than what she had bargained for as The Director comes out and terrorizes her while filming everything with his camera. - 2012: A couple is shown desperately trying to escape from a narrow space, and are then cornered by two demented figures, one of which takes the woman away. The man desperately tries to run after her, but is met with a dark Egyptian priest that breathes demonic bats at his face, knocking him out. Upon waking up, he sees that his girlfriend has been turned into a human-marionette by "The Puppet Master", who then offers the screaming man to "join his collection". - 2013: Not really containing much of a plot, this commercial consists of a series of shots depicting three twisted sisters going nuts and tormenting two victims. - 2014: A powerful world leader walks past an adoring crowd of citizens and into his office, where he shows his true self as he transforms into a demon while giving the camera a Kubrick Stare. - 2015: Probably worth noting that this one flat-out starts off with a viewer discretion warning. In it, the moon is shown being experiencing an eclipse that turns it into the "Blood Moon", which causes numerous dark forces to start appearing; which all eventually builds up to the graphic ending shot of a bloodied body being dragged away. Most notably of all, the commercial's stinger contains a very effective Jump Scare. - 2016: This ad is quite unrelentless, to say the least. A man is shown investigating a mirror... that a Mirror Monster suddenly appears out of and pull him in. The man finds himself inside a seafood restaurant, where he is attacked by the restaurant's diseased and zombie-like employees before being saved in the nick of time by a glamourous woman that not too long after reveals that she's actually a werewolf-like monster and attempts to kill him. After seemingly escaping her, the man ends up inside a morgue where the bodies start coming back to life. He attempts to dash towards the exit, but discovers that he's still trapped within the mirror and is then taken down by the inhabitants he came across earlier. - These three commercials for Universal Studios Japan's HHN start off scary, but then very swiftly become Nightmare Retardant as, unlike all of the above ads, the victims shown in it are in the end hardly scared by the terrifying situations they get into. - The commercials for the Howl-O-Scream event at Busch Gardens: - 2005: This one is rather simple yet pretty effective, showing creepy close-ups of a child's room whilst the narrator talks about how childhood fears never truly go away. The toys in the room are then shown coming to life and causing mayhem, with the commercial then closing on shots of blood seeping out of a jack-in-the-box and a baby doll doing a very disturbing smile. - 2008: Two twins preparing for a date gets progressively more and more demented-looking before they open the door for their date, revealing that both of their faces are horrifically disfigured on one side as they then proceed to yank the screaming man inside to be killed. - 2009: A normal-looking fashion catwalk presentation quickly takes a horrifying turn when the models reveal that they're blood-thirsty vampires and massacre the audience. - 2010: What at first looks like some sort of music video gets disturbing when the lead punk rock singer brings a man backstage and proceeds to rip his index finger off. - 2011: Several shots of a very creepy-looking garden are shown, with an also-creepy lullaby being played. These shots then build up to a rose opening up to reveal that it has an eye in it, before a series of shots of zombies and screaming victims are shown. The commercial then (of course) ends on one final Jump Scare courtesy of a female zombie. - 2012: Continuing from the previous year's commercial, this ad depicts a man being yanked into a grave by a living vine and then Buried Alive. - 2014: A group of friends accidentally listen to a cursed song, causing all sources of light in the house to go out as the group is teleported into a forest filled with wendigos; the final shots of the commercial showing the wendigos putting their hands all over the victims' faces. - 2015: Shown entirely from the perspective of a camera, an excavation worker films himself going into a mysterious home buried beneath the ground. His findings only get progressively creepier until he accidentally awakens the home's demonic owner, who then proceeds to kill him. - 2016: An evil puppeteer is shown designing several puppets, which, as you might have guessed, quickly come to life and wreak havoc. - Knott's Scary Farm: - 2012: It's revealed that berries aren't the only thing that's being produced at the farm, as a farmer is shown breeding and raising a wide variety of zombies, before herding them into a truck that'll take them into the park to terrorize guests. - 2016: - The first commercial shows a man getting a little too curious for his own good and walking in on an evil dentist pulling out the teeth of one of his victims. The dentist quickly notices the man and lunges right in for him. - The second commercial depicts a similar situation to the above, where a woman comes across a decrepit room filled with the sounds of creepy laughter and foolishly decides to walk forward; eventually discovering the source of some of the laughter: a Monster Clown, that then laughs manically as she screams. - In the third commercial, another woman finds herself in the middle of a morgue where the dead bodies begin to come to life. She freaks out and runs into a room for protection, only to discover that in the room with her is a group of sinister surgeons with deformed faces. - Fright Nights at Warner Bros. Movie World: - 2015: A group of teens become trapped inside the park at night and then find themselves being chased by an army of zombies and monsters. They soon come across the park's exit gate, with a security guard making sure it's locked. They frantically beg the guard to unlock the gates, until said guard turns towards them, reveals that he himself is a monster, and smiles evilly at them. Through a Gory Discretion Shot, the group is then mowed down by the monster horde. - 2016: Two girls find themselves in the middle of The Conjuring 2 as one of them is possessed in a manner most unpleasant while the other girl's fate is left uncertain. The advert ends with the possessed girl proclaiming that the park is hers and then uttering a very-dramatic Get Out!. - Even the Disney Theme Parks have gotten in on this. This 2007 commercial for Hong Kong Disneyland's Haunted Halloween event shows a group of teens going into a haunted hotel. The two boys decide to mess with the girl by locking her inside. Once locked in, she quickly witnesses the piano playing itself and promptly screams. She then sees much of the hotel's furniture start to come to life before the commercial cuts back to the boys outside. Their laughter quickly turns into screaming once they see the girl walk back out to them...with her head twisted backwards. - There's also an alternate version of the commercial that features no people in it, just some unnerving shots of the abandoned hotel coming to life. - This 2016 online ad◊ for The Basement of the Dead haunted houses in Aurora, Illinois. It features a woman wearing a creepy, painted-on doll mask staring right into your soul. - Halloween Fright Nights at Walibi Holland: - 2015: A group of people on a roller coaster arrive back at the unloading station, only to see that the ride operator has been killed. To their side, they then see a bunch of monsters trying to bust through a door to get at them. The riders futilely attempt to lift their safety harnesses before "Eddie the Clown" appears and opens the door for the monsters, who then proceed to devour the guests in what just barely qualifies as a Gory Discretion Shot. - 2016: - The first commercial is shown through the perspective of a camera, as a man videotapes himself screaming in excitement while enjoying the park, just before things go south when the camera shows him being knocked out and kidnapped, and later him screaming in terror as he's being Buried Alive in a coffin. - The second commercial focuses on a creepy woman quietly breaking into the house where a sleepover appears to be going on. She makes it into the room where everyone is sleeping when a photograph falls over, waking up one of the guests. The awakened girl looks around the room, but doesn't see anything, not realizing that the creepy woman is now under her bed. The undead woman then crawls out from under the bed, as the commercial then cuts to the outside of the house, where the screams of all the house occupants can be heard from. - A Local Haunted House has a radio ad that starts with a guy calling OnStar, "This is OnStar, how can we help you?", The guy mumbles, then screams "They're trying to get into the car!", "Oh, you need to get into your car, let me just unlock those doors.", "NO! They're trying to... ", sound of unlocking doors, screams and growls and groaning. "Is there anything else we can help you with today?", Demonic voice, "No, he'ssss... goooood." - One ad for Bobbejaanland's 2015 Halloween event shows a security camera footage of the Adventure Valley area, from multiple points of the area. Near the entrance, a crawling woman slowly creeps her way towards the camera, while the camera switches to the other areas. It returns to the entrance camera, but the woman is nowhere to be seen. After a few seconds, she pops up in front of the camera and does a loud shriek. - The 2001 commercials for "Carb Solutions" featured someone offering someone on a low-carb diet some snack food before suddenly morphing into a demon with a distorted voice to try and scare them into taking the food, but they turn them down in favour of a Carb Solutions product. The first takes place at a baby shower, while the second (and arguably scarier) happens on an airplane. The name of the product itself had been forgotten for years until 2021, likely due to What Were They Selling Again? and the name being generic. note : In fact, this very wiki had a major role to play in the search; the entry for the baby shower ad had been on this very page for years prior to the search getting underway, and when more people started posting about the ad in an attempt to find it, the entry was discovered and was used as crucial evidence that the ad actually existed. - LifeCall / LifeAlert, famous for their cheesy "I've fallen, and I can't get up!" commercial, created a more grim version of the ad in 2014. The rebooted commercial starts off dimly lit with shots of an empty house as an elderly lady cries out for help, with the camera revealing that the lady fell down a flight of stairs. The ad received enough complaints that a local news story was broadcast about it, comparing it to a horror movie. - Some anti-depressant commercials choose to portray the "depression" as a cute little blob of sadness. Apparently, somebody in charge of a commercial advertising anti-abdominal pain/diarrhea medicine thought that this was a neat concept, and designed this horrifying thing◊: a happy, smiling lump of knotted intestine. - Print adverts for Risperdal, an antipsychotic medication, feature pastel drawings of people having schizophrenic episodes. All effectively drive home the slogan's message that relapses "are a living nightmare". - Bryn believes that his Scottish descendants sear his flesh with boiling rain. The image depicts just that, as Bryn kneels in the rain — hands buried in face — as steam rises from his cowering body. - Mary remains seated in a chair, dehydrated and unable to control her bowels, claiming witches are perched on her back. Said witches are depicted as black-hooded beings with creepy, emotionless humanoid faces. The kicker? Mary couldn't move for three days. - Edward hallucinates that other peoples' flesh rot and fall off. The art style makes his horrified face rather creepy-looking. - Amelia◊ believes herself to be stalked by a menacing dog...and that she and the dog are merged together. - Andrew thinks demons inhabit his chest; the image depicts him unbuttoning his shirt to reveal a cluster of tiny, bald heads. Perhaps the most surreal of the bunch. - The "Crime in America" infomercial, broadcast in the mid-90s as an advertisement for a self-defense stun gun, begins with a viewer discretion warning before hitting the viewer with a fast-paced montage of child abuse, date rape, gang violence, home intrusion, old people being robbed, voyeurism... pretty much any crime you can think of that would give the average housewife enough nightmares to convince her to buy a stun gun. We also hear the audio of a woman's frantic 911 call as a man is inside her house; we hear her shout "No, leave me alone!", and her fate is left unknown. See it for yourself here. - Aczone Mirror Faces has a woman who walks into her work area to see many people with hand mirrors for heads staring at her with her reflection surrounding the area. This goes on until she uses the Aczone product, turning the people's heads back to normal. - Flu medicine Viro-Grip launched an ad series entitled, "Que la gripe no te ponga llorón" note : Don't Let the Flu Make You a Crybaby, making a reference to teary eyes caused by the flu. However, said ad series does it by depicting people with the flu as crying infants with adults' heads superimposed on them. Two of these ads can be watched here and here - One ad for anti-smoking kit Smoke Away begins with a beeping heart monitor as a narrator describes in Creepy Monotone the negative effects smoking can have on someone's health. The heart monitor gets more fast-paced as the narrator goes on, and eventually flatlines after the narrator stops speaking. No music plays throughout this opening segment, either. Even worse is that this ad would sometimes air on networks meant for children, such as Toon Disney. - The Salvadorean version of an older ad for antiparasitic medication Zentel. The designs of the CGI singing worm family look disturbing, not helped at all by the Camera Abuse, poor lighting and the fact that their song is directly addressing the viewer. Fortunately, the product in question shows up to wipe out the worms with cartoon lightning. - GEICO - The "This is the money you could be saving with Geico" ads. They feature a stack of bills with unblinking googly eyes, just staring into the camera. The song playing in the background, "Somebody's Watching Me", turns the ad from creepy into Paranoia Fuel, although it is mild compared to some of the items on this list, given that it straddles the line between creepy and cute. - In this spoof of children's cereal commercials, the CGI mascot looks rather horrifying at the end, when he removes his Cool Shades, glares at the viewer in closeup, and asks, "Why haven't you called Geico?" - This Progressive ad begins with a mom driving a car. She briefly turns around to look at her infant. All of a sudden, a person from the car's hood pops out and begins sucking the window, complete with Scare Chord. She turns back and screams upon seeing said person. Even more people pop up, and she tries to get rid of them in various ways. The ad ends with her placing Progressive's Snapshot into the car, and the people slide off the car and walk away. - The singing truck ad from Safe Auto. If a vehicle is going to sing, you expect the hood to open, not the bumper. You would spend years expecting the area between the bumper and the grill of vehicles to open up and bite you. And you sure don't expect the headlights to suddenly to look just like eyes and stare at you but be unable to turn, as if it can't see anything directly to its right or left. Then it openly mocks the other vehicles that break down for trying to move loads that are too heavy. It would be like watching a human break their leg and then someone else just sing about how funny that was and walk away. - In one GEICO radio commercial, the narrator talks about how she's jealous of Geico's job. She tells the listener she is a glue stick, and her job is to be used with kids. The ad is silly until the end, we hear the sound of children running in from recess and that's when it becomes scary. The voice starts to try to catch the attention of the school teacher not being heard wanting to be saved, as the children are obviously going to use her up. Then the commercial ends without any resolution. - This ad for Danish Bacon, modeled after the Exorcist. The full version of the ad, which showed the girl snarling and a creaking noise playing as her head spins round, was removed from TV after around 200 concerned parents complained to the Independent Television Commission about the scariness of it. They did permit this version to stay on the air but it could be shown only after the 9pm "watershed." Said version attempts to dilute the scariness by playing unfitting circus music as the girl's head spins, but, in all cases, just makes it even worse. - Back in 2009, there was a Planter's Peanuts commercial on the radio where an interviewer was speaking with an older man who ran the facility where they gave Planter's Peanuts their characteristic crunch. When the interviewer asked why Planter's Peanuts were so crunchy, the older man, who had a vaguely Germanic accent, exclaimed that they used "the rendered fat from boiled children" and laughed maniacally. Then, to put the cherry on top, the ad ended with a child's scream followed by a crunch. - This Eggo commercial with a boy trying to steal Eggos from his little sister, who's innocently talking to her doll while eating Eggos. But as he reaches for her plate, she suddenly turns into a Medusa-like monster and shouts "Get away from my Eggo!" in a monstrous voice ala the Clown with the Tear-Away Face from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Her brother is so scared, he sits there petrified with his mouth hung open and his sister continues talking to her doll as if nothing happened. - This 1950s Green Giant vegetables ad. The people who made this ad sure did a good job making the Jolly Green Giant not so jolly-looking. - The Fruit Winders adverts, mainly because of how insane the methods of "winding" and stretching the living fruits in them were. Tying them to an airplane wheel during takeoff, flattening them with a steamroller, grabbing them face first through a cardboard cutout, having them pulled apart. All of them sound like Danganronpa punishments. - There used to be a biscuit snack called Munchsters back in the day, and there was a rather freaky advert for it with a rather odd sock puppet man and a creepy child's voice at the end. - An early 90s New Zealand commercial for Hudson Toffeepops is the perfect example of Last Note Nightmare. It starts off normal enough, with a young woman teasing her husband with some toffeepops and then both of them goofing around the house. But there's still an unsettling undertone to the whole thing, namely the repeated shots of the couple's lip-shaped sofa saying "Mmmm". Eventually, the couple relax on the sofa and eat the Toffeepops together, and it looks like the commercial is going to end as it shows a picture of the biscuit being filled. Until the commercial cuts back to the sofa and shows they've completely disappeared; aside from their feet and the woman's hand (still holding the can of biscuits) sinking into the sofa. Once they've been completely consumed, the sofa lets out a terrifying Evil Laugh as it changes to a smiley face. - Teddy Bears and Dinomac Kraft Macaroni and Cheese ad from 1993 had a boy making a scary-but-funny face and creepily laughs with his unusually large lips. Just imagine the viewer reaction from little kids. - This French cheese ad shows a young woman peacefully eating some cheese by the waterfront and listening to music, when suddenly a highly realistic giant monster (looking like a more cartoony version of Gwoemul) leaps out of the water and causes havoc among the crowd. It notices her and starts racing towards her. She looks up and gasps just as it jumps on her and swallows her whole (complete with muffled screaming). Luckily enough, the ad does get better when the monster gets indigestion and spits her out into the water and instead chooses the cheese she was eating at the time, as well as the fact that the whole thing is a light-hearted parody of The Host (2006). Still, the sight of a monster suddenly devouring a young woman can be very unsettling the first time. - This 2018 Airhead's commercial starts off with a guy sitting on a subway bringing a bunch of airhead candies asking, "Wanna play?" to everyone to which they respond by eating them. This makes their heads huge like a balloon with tiny bodies; almost resembling the character designs of The Emoji Movie. The rest of the commercial continues with them bumping into windows. Bonus points for alluding to G-Rated Drug - Seven of the Panda Cheese Ads usually featured two people somewhere either in the hospital, resturant, work office, or anywhere else. One of them usually has the Panda Cheese product on their food and they would ask another one if they wanted some cheese. The other one would refuse because they didn't like cheese for some reason. After that, the Panda mascot for the cheese product appears out of nowhere with a close-up on his uncanny-looking face with small black beady eyes and a frown on his face, while the song "True Love Ways" by Buddy Holly plays in the background. As he stared at the person who rejected the cheese as people looked on with confusion, he would without warning usually thrash the place where the man or woman were at all because they rejected his cheese products. It then ends with the announcer saying to the viewer, "Never Say No To Panda". Getting people to buy their products is one thing, but showing the panda going crazy because they rejected the product is going too far. This probably scared kids into buying Panda Cheese because they probably thought that if they refused, the Panda mascot would come after them. Three of them stand out: - The first one has a boy and his father at the grocery store shopping for stuff they need. The boy asks his father if they can get some Panda Cheese, but the father says no to him. Then the panda stands there as the boy and the father look on with confusion, and tips the cart over in anger for rejecting his cheese products. In the second one, which is part two of the shopping ad, the boy asks the father again for some Panda Cheese. The father is about to say no, but then he sees the panda standing there. He remembers what happened the last time he said no, scared of what the panda might do to him, so he gets two of the cheese products. After that the panda follows him and the boy to make sure the father doesn't reject the cheese again. - But the scariest one is the last one: a man is in the hospital as the nurse comes in with his food and she asks the man if he wants some Panda Cheese, but the man refuses to have some cheese with his food. The Panda appears again he then goes over to the man and thrashes the whole place, and then snaps his IV support, probably killing the man in the process, all because the man doesn't like Panda Cheese. The Nostalgia Critic: This is how every one of them goes. And it's kinda scary as hell! The way he appears out of nowhere, the way he stares at you, that eerily creepy song, everything about this is a world of no. Most of the time it's him destroying something, but here, it's attempted murder! Nostalgia Critic: This is so creepy, I could legitimately see him in horror films. Like imagine him in the hallway in The Shining instead of the girls. [shows the scene where Danny meets the girls, only it's the Panda instead of the twins] Or maybe he was really on The Ring tape the whole time. [shows Rachel watching the tape, only to see the Panda. The phone rings, and when she picks it up, "True Love Ways" plays] - This Doritos Crash the Superbowl 2016 commercial has a girl on her bike riding down the street. She passed by two neighbors who wanted some Doritos but she told them politely that they were not for them as she was riding down the sidewalk. Suddenly, a big bully boy grabs the bag, prompting the girl to put a demonic purple face, complete with black hollow eyes and red pupils while shouting in a low demonic voice that those doritos were not for him. Scared, the bully gives the Doritos back to the girl and runs away in terror. Then in the end the girl gives the doritos to a young boy around her age telling him that the chips are for him. - Another Doritos commercial starts with a mother telling her husband to pick up some items as her daughters walked by her telling her that they want Doritos. She tells him to pick up the snacks as well. Later, when the father comes home eating a bag of Doritos, the tall daughter grabs the bag and whines in a demonic voice that he ate all the Doritos. She screamed loudly as her eyes turned red, the background turned black, and the lights flashed on and off in front of the girl. The father then tells his daughter that he'll pick up more Doritos, making the girl turn back to normal and thank him. - This Skippy commercial starts with the man answering the question to the member who sent him the letter about will hypnotizing work through TV then the camera gets close to the man's eyes as he tells the viewers to look deep into them as he tells them about how Skippy Peanut Butter is the only peanut butter that tastes like fresh toasted peanuts while scary music plays in the background. The light glowing in his face makes it even more scary like he's trying to hypnotize you for real! It then ends with the camera pulling away from his face and back to his normal friendly self. - Back in the 1980's, there was a Japanese commercial for Kleenex. This ad featured a woman in a white dress and an infant dressed as a creature from Japanese mythology in a red room that was empty except for some Kleenex. The ad had very unfitting, but catchy music (It's A Fine Day, by Miss Jane). The ads received complaints from Japanese viewers, who said the imagery and the song (which some claimed sounded similar to a German curse) were disturbing, and were subsequently pulled off the air. - Due to the ad's disturbing nature, there has been talk that the commercial was cursed and that everyone involved in the production of the ad either died or suffered terribly. For example, many say that the infant was killed by the paint used on it for the ad, and depending on the version of the myth you're hearing, the woman either killed herself in a mental asylum or gave birth to a demon baby. - There was also a rumor that if the ad was played at midnight, it would become very distorted and would be even more creepy. In addition, many believed that the viewing of this ad at midnight would curse the viewer and ultimately cause their death shortly after. - There was also another ad that aired around the same time, that also tried to be charming with the little girl dressed as an angel while blowing around tissues in slo-mo, but the dark shed setting accompanied with the creepy Gregorian chanting suggests the opposite. It's practically a Dada Ad. - An advertisement for Sure woman's deodorant featured women riding a "ghost train" attraction at a carnival, which features animatronic displays that portray typical life situations that girls face which might cause them to sweat (a teacher yelling at them to "come up to the blackboard", a puppet father showing off his embarrassing dance moves, and an unnerving little boy on a bicycle). Some might find the ad hilarious, while others might be unsettled by the out-worldly mannequins. Child Animatronic: [innocently] I like to read... [sinisterly] YOUR EMAILS! [laughs manically as the girls in the car scream in horror] - There's a U.S. version made for Degree Girl, that starts the same way. It starts with the teacher, who tells them "You girls, come to the front of the class!", followed by the father who comes to take them home, and instead of the boy on a bicycle, it's replaced by a police officer who tells them, "License and registration" please, causing the girls to scream. - One freaky Lynx deodorant ad in the UK note : It was also used in the US by Axe Body Spray features a guy becoming "as irresistible as chocolate"...and that means turning him into a chocolate man with a creepy, dead-eyed frozen grin. As if that's not bad enough, the fact that he's breaking off pieces from himself and people are eating these and off of him is downright questionable. Despite being disturbing, it earned a U rating for cinema release. - Orkin had a series of commercials in which a creepy person repeatedly tries to get into suburban homes using a variety of flimsy stories, such as delivering a pizza, his car broke down and he wants to call his brother, etc. The creepy part is that the person is a six-foot tall termite/ant/cockroach. Not a guy in a cute costume, but a giant, talking, realistic-looking CG insect that sounds like a serial killer. One can hope that someone thought it would be funny, perhaps they wanted it to be just a little creepy. What they managed was "Giant alien insects are going to try and con their way into your homes to rape you and dangle your intestines from the ceiling". That would suffice better for an ad for a new shotgun. There's another one where a giant mosquito tries to get into a pool with a couple that were having a romantic moment. He drops his swimsuit and asks "are we...dipping skinny" before the Orkin guy shows up. - This one has a vacationing family return to find two rats playing guitar in their living room. One of the rats says "You were not supposed to be back until Sunday." and then adds "we could use the boy on drums" in this menacing tone that sounds like he's going to rape and murder them all then and there. Makes the Orkin guy practically look like a Big Damn Hero. - And just when you thought it couldn't get worse... During the 2011 bedbug scare in New York City, Orkin released a new commercial about a woman chatting with someone in a singles bar...a someone that was another six-foot, realistic looking bedbug. That alone is terrifying, but the ending sees the bedbug asking her, "What do you say we go back to your place?" Considering what kind of creature this is, and where you find them, the implications couldn't be any clearer. - Some ads for Baygon aren't safe from being this. Case in point: - This ad from the Philippines starts with the shot of a cockroach egg behind a fridge at night. The caption reads, "THIS EGG CONTAINS 28 ROACHES." Then, the camera pans away from the egg, replacing the caption with another one that reads, "ABOUT 1,000 EGGS ARE IN YOUR HOME." When the cockroach that laid the egg crawls out of the fridge, a man squashes it with a sandal. Then a voiceover says... - Another Filipino ad for Baygon Total Insect Killer depicts cockroaches, flies, and mosquitoes with bulging 3D letters across their backs spelling out the names of the diseases they carry. When the product is shown, it knocks them (and the bulging letters) away in the viewer's direction. - This time from Argentina, this 1996 ad for Baygon Verde Ultra starts in a dark room with three doors. The first swarm crawls towards the left door and terrorizes a woman in the middle of ironing. The second swarm takes the middle door and scares another mid-shower, but the third swarm stops abruptly at the last door and they run in terror instead; the door was sprayed with Baygon previously (one of the roaches even flies toward the screen). - The very first negative political TV ad in the United States was Lyndon Johnson's iconic 1964 campaign ad "Daisy". A little girl innocently counts the petals on a flower in a meadow, before looking up suddenly, at which point the frame freezes and we are treated to an extreme close-up of her eye. While this occurs, a male announcer has begun counting down to one. At the count of one, shots of nuclear explosions and firestorms play until the ad concludes with Lyndon Johnson's voice: "These are the stakes: to make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die." Then the voiceover, by sportscaster Chris Schenkel: "Vote for President Johnson on Nov 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home." The ad — obviously referencing Cold War nuclear paranoia — was broadcast only once and has since gone down in history as one of the most successful ads ever: Johnson won a landslide victory. - Tom Campbell. Is he what he tells us? Yes, it's Carly Fiorina's infamous "Demon Sheep" advert, widely considered one of the weirdest political adverts ever made. - This Nixon ad from 1968 shows still frames from what appears to be the Democratic National Convention, with patriotic music playing in the background. However, every time the ad focuses on Hubert Humphrey, the image is distorted, the music turns into a creepy echo, and we're shown images of violence, war, and poverty. At the end, before the image begins to distort once more, the ad suddenly shifts to text on a black background, with no music playing, asking the viewer to vote like their world depended on it. - Chuck E. Cheese's: - In early-1995, the restaurant ran a pretty spooky commercial where three kids were at a German, Chinese and Mexican restaurant looking at their food in disgust (with some pretty creepy culture-appropriate music playing in the background - such as an off-key yodeler for the German restaurant). The kids all whined "I should've said Chuck E. Cheese please" and were abruptly teleported to a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. - The 1994 Crabs ad. The announcer tells the viewers that Chuck E. Cheese's has pizza, games, and prizes while seafood restaurant has crabs. It's tame until the very end, where a giant crab monster making silly sounds waddles toward the boy who backs away in fear. He shouts, "I should've said Chuck E. Cheese!". Chuck E. comes in, throws the net over the crab saving the boy, and he takes the boy to his restaurant. While the sound the crab monster makes is funny, the aspect of the crab is creepy. - The 1994 Boring Restaurants ad where one boy is waiting for the waitress and food. But then it gets progressively creepier as time passes, cobwebs appear, candles melt, the boy grows a very freakishly long beard and the music, clock noises and even the man's voice slows to a halt. We also get a close up of the bearded boy's face as his says "I should've said Chuck E. Cheese please!" and at the very end of the commercial, his head falls to the table. This commercial is the creepiest of all. - IHOP: - This 1969 ad tries to be whimsical with its Moog synthesizer music, Chipmunk singing and footage of a family running in slow motion, but the execution is just disturbigly surreal. - A fall ad from 2018 does this intentionally with a human-faced pumpkin. It works very well. Uncomfortably well. - In 1998, when British Sky Broadcasting were launching their new Sky Digital TV satellite service in order to promote their launch, BSkyB composed this advertisement of different 90's era televisions seemingly moving, floating and flying about and wreaking themselves apart in various and apparently brutal and violent ways. This at first might not sound like much; however, along with all the different TV sets doing everything from flying about, breaking their own exteriors or just plain exploding on the spot, there are messages appearing on the screen of each television something along the line of I have so much more to give and I can do so much more, all while being shown in various locations ranging from a darkly lit living room, to the middle of a forest in the night, to a hospital ward on a patient's bed to a children's roundabout right in the middle of a deserted beach-cliffside like something out of Prypiat, Ukraine meets the opening to Terminator 2 Judgmentday (Flaming TV set not withstanding). Couple that with a disturbing choir-soundtrack and substantially executed quick an dramatic editing of all these situations much like something you would expect to see in an Aphex Twin music video, all to get to the view of another cliffside with more TVs attempting to throw themselves of the cliff, only to be stopped by a sky digital truck passing by, before the advert's intended message comes up saying that: From this day forth, all televisions great and small will be able to reach their full potential followed by: Sky Digital It's what your television's been crying out for. - The DirecTV ads that are meant to show how ugly wires are - they have a man married to a woman who is a hideous-looking puppet with wires. This gets really creepy in the second commercial where the man's son appears...who is also a puppet. A third commercial has the puppet woman trying to look sexy for her husband. - This 2014 IKEA ad shouldn't be Nightmare Fuel. Unfortunately, due to the narrator's Creepy Monotone and the lack of context to her words, it is. - Even familiar everyday supermarkets arent safe from this. In 2023, Tesco decided to promote their long-running Clubcard loyalty scheme with a TV advert in which customers delight at saving money causes their faces to distort into cartoonish grins in a manner akin to a grotesque Snapchat filter. The ads visuals prompted an immediate backlash from viewers, who called it terrifying and creepy. - To advertise new episodes of The Heart, She Holler, [adult swim] would randomly throw a Jump Scare into commercials for their other shows. To make matters worse, they would show up in the middle of the night. People were so ticked off by it that some refused to watch the channel until the promos are taken down. - The series most notably had this ad, which consists of nothing but Meemaw (one of the show's characters) laughing wickedly while blood comes out of her mouth. Not exactly something you would want to see in the middle of the night. - All of the teaser ads for American Horror Story's sixth season are short but in no way sweet. Depicted in the individual ads are scenes of bugs crawling across a woman's face, hands coming out of a staircase and grabbing a victim's ankle, a man getting "?6" stapled into his scalp, a woman swallowing an eyeball, a creepy doll coming to life, and much more. - When easportsbig899 compiled his "Top 10 Scary Adverts", he chose this for the #1 spot. In case you're wondering (and you will if you watch it), it's a TNT promo, and it's an indescribably horrific blend of Mind Screw and Surreal Horror. - An Autumn 2011 Discovery UK ad for Deadliest Catch is this: a deep man's voice singing a slow version of "Row Row Row Your Boat" while clips from the show play in the background, with no context for any of them. - There was an ad in the '90s for The 700 Club. The ad began with a shot of Earth from space, and the narrator ominously asked, "Could this be the end?" And immediately after, the Earth explodes. The narrator then says to buy a book about "the signs of the times". - The ads for Shark Week on the Discovery Channel featuring a cute little seal, named Snuffy, being released into the ocean on a gurney. However, at the last minute a shark jumps out and eats him. - Back when Game Show Network still aired The Price Is Right, they had an ad featuring two clips from the show: first showed Bob Barker remarking that both Showcase contestants had made the same bid, and it had never happened before. The second clip was from an earlier episode showing it had happened before. Nothing scary yet...until the screen fades to black with the message, "Be careful what you say...Game Show Network is watching." - In the 90's, Mexican TV channel Canal 5 hired Alejandro González Iñárritu to create some idents for the channel. These idents are now remembered for not only their surrealness but also how horrifying some of them were to kids watching: - This one has a narrator talking in a demonic voice about how Canal 5 will trap your five senses as he changes the channels in the TV. A couple watching it dismisses it, calling them clowns and turning off the TV. \|\|Then, the narrator tells them that they may turn the TV off, but that they can't escape. The couple panics in horror as they realize that they are trapped in a TV. The narrator laughs as the ads ends.\|\| - Another one from the same TV channel has a man walking up to open the fridge while the TV is functioning in the background, then a monstrous hand comes out from the fridge and grabs the screaming man into it, the TV then shows static for a few moments until it then shows the man trapped underwater looking around confused. - Spain's TV horror channel Calle 13 used to run what they called ''idents'': tiny pieces of psychological horror (and sometimes Fridge Horror) who varied between "oh, that's creepy" and "HOLY FUCK": - "Andén (Platform)": A man is waiting in an empty train station \|\|and another man gets behind him, ready to push him onto the tracks as a train comes in\|\|. - "Báscula (Scales)": We see a closeup of somebody measuring their weight \|\|then the noise of a chainsaw is heard, and the weight starts to go down\|\|. - "Bate (Bat)": A man is in a sports store, looking over the baseball bats \|\|probably looking for one strong enough to smash someone's head in\|\|. - "Contenedor (Container)": The camera zooms on a dumpster, but then some men moves it out of the way \|\|and we see a suspicious trash bag (probably a body) hidden behind\|\|. - "Cielo (Heaven/Sky)": Probably the most creepy of all of them. We start with a nice shot of a blue sky and the sun \|\|and then, very slowly, the lid of a coffin covers the sight\|\|. - "Diana (Bullseye)": All we see is a dartboard. As the camera zooms in, we see two darts being thrown at the dartboard, \|\|and hear a third being thrown at something offscreen\|\|. - "Jardín (Garden)": We see a normal house, with a telephone ringing inside it. \|\|Then the camera pans down, while the telephone sounds closer and closer, until it focus on the garden, where there's something buried...\|\| - "Patito (Duckling)": The camera zooms on a bathtub, where we can hear air bubbles pop \|\|and suddenly a rubber duck emerges from under the water (for bonus points, it then turns to look towards the camera slightly)\|\|. - "Ascensor (Elevator)"": The camera pans towards an elevator in an empty building. \|\|It opens, only to reveal a suitcase with no one next to it.\|\| - "Copas (Wine Glasses)": A shot of two glasses filled with wine, with someone briefly moving in front and walking away. \|\|A pair of hands then swaps their place.\|\| - "Lista (List)": Someone is seen highlighting something in a book. \|\|It appears to be a list of names in a phone book. Perhaps he's making a hit list?\|\| - "Maletero (Trunk)": A man has trouble closing a trunk. \|\|It may or may not contain a body.\|\| - "Parque (Park)": A shot of a chair swing ride currently not being ridden on that seems normal \|\|until it pans up to show a someone working on a ladder\|\|. - They also made two other idents for a promotion called "Total Action." - The first one has a teen walk into a bus, shortly after, a woman panics, trying to stop the bus and telling the driver, "We're going to die!" \|\|At the end, a well dressed businessman goes up and tells everyone to stay still or risk being shot.\|\| - The other one has a young man and a woman at a supermarket, with a worker near them. Then, the worker squirts ketchup around himself, pleading for help. The other people look at him weirdly. \|\|It ends with the young man opening up his jacket filled with bombs, threatening to set them off.\|\| - A closer look a both shows that there's no real danger in either ad and they're depicting ordinary folks acting out action movie cliches for fun: the \|\|businessman is merely holding up a newspaper\|\| and the young man in the second ad has a \|\|bunch of artichokes strapped to his chest, not grenades\|\|. They can still be alarming at first glance, though. - Another series of idents all played out the say. Each started out with a perfectly normal situation, only for someone to hold up a photograph that can give certain implications... - Parking: A man is packing up his car. Someone holds up a tablet. What's playing on the tablet? \|\|A guy stuffing a dead body into his trunk. The fact that the body's legs are obviously fake can either make the situation better or worse\|\|. - Secuestrado (\|\|Kidnapped\|\|): The camera shows a waiting room, with a guy reading a newspaper. \|\|Someone holds up a picture of a guy (who too has a newspaper, though is just showing the headline) with a gun pointed at his head\|\|. - Vértigo: Some walks up to a curb, with the camera pointed at their feet. \|\|They then hold up a picture of them standing on the edge of a building\|\|. - A variant had a similar scenario, but instead of a photograph, the person holds up a smartphone playing footage of \|\|a guy hanging by his fingers\|\|. - Barbería (Barber): Camera shows a guy getting a shave. The cameraman starts reading a newspaper. He turns the page, what's the headline? \|\|An earthquake is expected\|\|. - Boda (Wedding): Camera is centered on a church, with a 1930's car parked nearby, decorated. \|\|Cameraman holds up a picture of a similar car, only riddled with bullet holes\|\|. - Chica duerme (Sleeping Girl): We see a woman sleeping with the lights on. Seems peaceful. \|\|But then, the cameraman holds up what seems to be a dark green filter, giving the footage a creepy night vision effect\|\|. Even worse? \|\|He starts breathing furiously as the camera approaches the woman\|\|. - Cortacesped (\|\|Lawnmower\|\|): Camera shows a girl relaxing in the grass. Cameraman holds up a magazine. What's on it? \|\|An advertisement for a lawnmower, with the front of the mower placed right over the girls head\|\|. - Francotirador (\|\|Sniper\|\|): Camera shows a busy street. The cameraman holds up a magnifying glass \|\|over someones head, with the lens being decorated with a sniper reticle\|\|. - Maleta (Suitcase): Camera is in a hotel room, with an open suitcase on the bed. \|\|The cameraman holds up a picture of a suitcase with a gun and (possibly counterfeited) money inside\|\|. - Piscina (Pool): Similar to the Vertigo ones, with a guy walking up to the edge of a pool. \|\|He then holds up a postcard depicting a shark jumping out of the water\|\|. - In 2003, CBBC was advertised with two kids' necks elongating to ridiculous lengths and snaking around an assortment of CBBC characters, set to Basement Jaxx's "Where's Your Head At". The result is hideous. You can see it in this video at 1:50. - A later one had children's heads turning into space hoppers, which was arguably worse. - Playboy TV of all things once had an unnecessarily disturbing advert in which an old man talks about how a subscription to the channel has rejuvenated his sex life. His freaking smile at the end is bad enough, but that's not all — the caption that accompanies his horrifying grin claims he's only 28 years old. It seems to imply that watching Playboy TV causes Rapid Aging. - G4TV's ad for their short-lived Midnight Spank block, involving a man and a guinea pig. It starts out simply a bit eerie, with a random guinea pig demanding this sleeping man get out of bed with his wife to watch TV, and then, well...\|\|"Tom, do you want me to eat your other kidney?"\|\|. The music also would work really well in a horror movie. See for yourself. - And that's not all. There's also a deer \|\|who can "make everyone you've ever loved disappear forever"\|\|, and a butterfly \|\|who threatens to reveal the writhing, bleeding contents of a "horrible bag"\|\|. The deer one has a particularly creepy addition where \|\|the faces of the main character's family burn out on a picture, accompanied by horrifying screams\|\|. - There's even a second version of the guinea pig ad where the guinea pig \|\|has eaten the man's leg instead of his kidney, and threatens to eat the other one\|\|. It's possibly even worse due to the part where \|\|the man wiggles the stub where his leg used to be\|\|. - One ad for MTV's Scream on YouTube had scenes of the show combined with the visuals of the mask of the killer all set to someone whispering ''Click Skip and Die'' over and over again. So many people complained (there was even a twitter account about it) that MTV probably pulled it and the ad was lost until it was re-uploaded in 2020. - The marketing campaign for Channel 4's Humans, which ran on pure Uncanny Valley. The trailer was presented as an advert for Persona Synthetics, a company that makes androids, and showcased one family's particularly creepy robotic servant. - This Japanese advert for Shizuoka Broadcasting. We have a tired guy watching a Samurai film. As he tries to turn off the TV, the Samurai start talking to him. They bargain with him to keep watching by threatening to kill an actress and offering him Soccer and Music as alternatives. Anyways he shuts it off, and \|\|a Samurai opens the TV Screen and starts chasing the guy with the TV.\|\| Samurai: Let's Talk, \|\|Face to Face!\|\| - This promo for Gravity Falls makes great use of suspense and Nothing Is Scarier. Dipper and Mabel are waiting for a mysterious creature thats hiding out in the closet. Its fairly humorous...until the ending where something jumps out of the closet and attacks the twins. It sets the shows tone perfectly. - This Freaky Friday night block promo from the Singaporean free-to-air youth-orientated channel Okto showcasing Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Dark Oracle feels like it came out from a horror movie trailer, which is justified as it is a block showcasing horror themed shows. But what makes this worse was when this block was shown in a kids timeslot and not the adult timeslot. - Universal Studios attractions: - This commercial for Revenge of the Mummy certainly isn't recommended for people with a fear of snakes. It shows a massive horde of scarab beetles and cobras escaping from the ride building, with one of the cobras making it down into the sewers and eventually ending up inside a home when it crawls out of a bathtub spout. The cobra then begins to crawl under a sleeping boy's blanket as if it's about to attack, until the boy wakes up via Catapult Nightmare and realizes it was All Just a Dream. - One of the commercials for King Kong 360 depicts a young boy getting so scared by Kong that he rapidly ages into an old man (a la the Xbox commercial mentioned under Video Games) while continuously screaming and staring deep into the camera. What makes it especially disturbing is the fact that the effect is done with very Unintentional Uncanny Valley-inducing CGI. - The 1999 Dr. Seuss-themed advert used to promote the opening of Universal's Islands of Adventure, primarily due to the unintentionally creepy-looking Cat in the Hat that appears towards the end. - Universal Studios Japan had this ad for its temporary Biohazard: The Real 3 attraction (an interactive experience based around the Resident Evil series). Shown entirely from a participant's POV, we see him first get briefed on his mission, which ends up going horribly south as his teammates are shown being taken down by zombies while he desperately tries to shoot as many of the flesh-eaters as possible. It seems as if he has the upper hand for a while, but that all changes when he gets cornered by the enemies, with the commercial cutting to black as a zombie dives in for the kill. - Alton Towers attractions: - The coaster, Thirteen had an advert that was only allowed to be shown at post-watershed times. In it, a creepy-looking girl that's covered in vines slowly walks through a forest while warning viewers to "not go into the woods alone". Following right after is a shot of a bunch of people on a roller coaster suddenly falling down into a Bottomless Pit. - These ads for The Smiler is filled with these. All 4 ads, when watched together, tell a disturbing story: A couple are making a school project about Miles Cedar, from the Ministry of Happiness. They visit him and have an interview with him about his book. After taking some VHS tapes and fleeing from him, they watch the VHS, and realize that he's been brainwashed by the Ministry, in a series of disturbing videos. It ends with the girl becoming brainwashed herself, and the guy having a video call with Miles, who asks him to "Join us." The Jump Scare at the end of the first video does not help. - The main ad is just as scary, with a rider telling another rider to "Join us." At the end, the other rider is brainwashed too, and after the first rider tells him, "You belong to The Smiler", we are treated to a closeup of the second rider's face as the announcer talks about the ride. - Thorpe Park ran an advert for Derren Brown's Ghost Train that was later banned for being "too scary." It begins with text asking the viewer to count as many Christmas bunnies as they can. The bunnies are shown playing around a snowy railroad track, while a cheery Christmas song plays in the background. Then, a monster tears through the scene and screams, as we cut to a message from the park wishing us a Happy Christmas. View it here. - The 1999 Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom ad for the Dominator drop tower features a man riding the ride alone while a pressure gauge goes up. Then, the ride stops at the top for a few seconds and plummets down. As it plummets down, the man screams at an increasingly high pitch, the pressure gauge drops, and as the ride speeds up, the still screaming man's face is stretched out and his screaming causes the camera to crack and shatter. - The now-infamous commercial for the "Baby-Laughs-A-Lot" doll was intended to be cute and funny, but fails at that in every single way imaginable. - Similarly to the above, the commercial for the "Baby Secret" doll also fails horribly in being cute, as the whispering noises it makes sound straight-up demonic. - Transformer commercials from the '90s are pretty awesome, showing Transformer toys and robots with cool retro music playing in the background, but at the end of each commercial, the boy stares at the camera as his eyes turn green and he says the tagline ("Robots in disguise!") in a robotic tone of voice. - An ad for the game Turok: Evolution showed two people swinging on a swing-set when suddenly, at random, the boy's hand becomes slashed and bleeds. Roars are heard and it cuts to numerous dinosaurs running about. It then cuts back to the boy and girl, both screaming. Cut to more dinosaurs before the final cut of the swingset, which has red mulch and a broken, red swingset seat. - There was a set of commercials for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. During which, people around the world watched on as the moon slowly descended upon them. A radio show took calls and kept a countdown going. In one ad, it showed a boy, playing alone in a white room, sweat rolling down his forehead while he continuously glances upwards... at the end, everybody is running for their lives... here's the link. - This little horror advertising Assassin's Creed II can potentially be a mixture of this, Unintentional Uncanny Valley, Paranoia Fuel, and Nothing Is Scarier. It's just pictures of characters' faces with an ominous churchbell playing. And yet it manages to creep the pants off of many people who see it, especially if they see it in the middle of the night for the first time without knowing what it is. The commercial gets worse if you're aware of the game's narrative, because \|\|all of the characters shown in the video have been murdered by the assassin protagonist Ezio (who's own face shows up as the very last one). So you're effectively staring at a bunch of dead people (even given they are fictional characters).\|\|. - The PlayStation brand seems to have an unfortunate knack for these type of ads. - The original PlayStation's American launch campaign, eNOS. Each commercial consisted of small clips of gameplay from launch titles mixed in with live-action clips of various imagery, all accompanied by a distorted, robotic-sounding voice. Watch one of the ads here...unless you plan on sleeping tonight. - This European ad. The family speaking only in video game sounds could be funny.....but then the commercial decides to go into Nausea Fuel territory and zoom in their mouths to reveal their uvulas are shaped like the PlayStation buttons, in a very gruesome display. Seriously, do click on that link if you're planning to eat. NOT - Mental Wealth features a freaky humanoid alien girl. She stares at you in an empty white room and philosophizes about the human endeavor in a thick Scottish accent. Some versions of the ad end with her looking at something off-camera and giggling sinisterly. As Cracked put it, the tagline "DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF PLAYSTATION" that appears at the end of the commercial sounds much more akin to a threat. - This demented advert for PlayStation 2 directed by David Lynch. It starts off pretty normal, with a dude walking down a slightly spooky corridor full of smoke. Thirty seconds in, his head flies off and swims in front of him for a moment, then re-attaches itself before a disembodied arm with a clenched fist at the end appears to punch him in the face and then flies out of his mouth, distorting his face for a moment. It gets worse: he then looks down at his hands and sees they have disappeared, with only smoke pouring out of his sleeves. Then the smoke clears and he sees four figures sitting on a couch - the disembodied arm, a clone of himself, a disturbingly still mummy with bloodstains at the mouth and one eye, and a person with a duck for a head who croaks at him, "WELCOME. TO. THE. THIRD. PLACE." Despite its horrible content and the fact that it was directed by the man who gave us Eraserhead, it would be shown on TV in the middle of the day. - The infamous PS3 launch commericial with the robotic baby. - A teaser for the European PlayStation Store's 2016 Black Friday Deals had a group of people "play it cool" while waiting for the eponymous deals...which is shown by having their faces distorted in slow motion in the most unsettling ways possible while they waved. The ominous orchestral music that was playing didn't help matters. Thankfully this example is tamer than most, as some may find the general concept of the ad and the faces made to be heaping amounts of Narm. - The commercials for the Game Boy Color often had the C on "Color" morph into a pair of lips and suddenly shout "Get into it!" at the end, functioning as a Jump Scare. - Sega had something similar with a loud voice yelling "SEGA!" at the end of their commercials. Not so bad in the Genesis and Game Gear commercials, but it was really freaky in the Saturn commercials, in which a disturbing blue head would come flying at the camera really fast, yelling something like " YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, SEGA!" or just "SEGA!" in a creepy distorted voice before morphing into the Saturn logo. In a few ads, the head would have a different shape and color, like in the NiGHTS into Dreams ad, in which the head was purple and shaped like NiGHTS' head. - Speaking of the Sega Saturn, many commercials from that particular era would make one wonder if they were all seemingly designed to induce fear onto unsuspecting viewers. Infamously marking the beginning of this era was the freaky Sega Saturn promotional tape and the Theater of the Eye" ad campaign. Funny thing is, Sega of America wanted the Theater of the Eye campaign to succeed, they even heavily promoted it on FOX and MTV, but it ended up scaring potential customers shitless. - This commercial for Eternal Champions has two older fighting games running and screaming in fear from the titular game's box, which growls at them and chases them down as the announcer says, " Eternal Champions is gonna eat your old fighting games for lunch!". Eventually, the box corners one of the older fighting games in the kitchen and devours it, with it screaming the entire time. Then the box lands on WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL, Sega's slogan at the time, which is made out of silverware, and belches "SEGA!". The music and the atmosphere certainly don't do the commercial any favors. - The "Do me a favour, plug me into a Sega" commercial from the UK, for the Sega Master System (but identified only as "the Sega"), starts with the colour bars and quickly morphs them into a CGI face for your television, as your set starts overexcitedly rambling, in a voice that's a mix of a Cyberman and Max Headroom, about wanting to be connected to a Master System, while its eyes show very tiny footage of the games it namedrops before they and its mouth detach from the face and wander around the screen in a circle for a moment. It legitimately comes out of nowhere, and the actual marketing footage and images either are very hard to see, or are only on the screen for a brief moment before the commercial ends. - The UK's "Sega Pirate TV" campaign, which took the premise of a pirate broadcaster interrupting the commercial break, punctuated by a computer generated skull screaming "You have just been invaded by Sega Pirate TV!!", before cutting to the deranged host, Fezhead. Another ad in the line included Fezhead as a barber, upgrading a cyborg gamer playing Sonic 2 via the "cyber-razor cut." It even extended to fake billboards being erected for other products, that suddenly had the Skull and a message that "Sega Pirate TV Invades Friday" appear overnight. - Sega Pirate TV was then adapted into the equally nightmarish and confusing "Pirate STC" for Sonic the Comic, which itself had been given terrifying no-context adverts in prior issues. - The UK advertising for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 used the imagery of a cartoon hedgehog squashed flat after being run over by a car, with the snarky note that the animal was "obviously not as fast as Sonic the Hedgehog." - The Netherlands and Sweden briefly gave the Mega Drive the ominous and threatening tagline "Beat us. If you can." - The early American marketing for the Dreamcast, which features little to no explanation of what the Dreamcast is, but focuses on the line "It's thinking..." - Sega of America's explanation for what "It's thinking" meant? A "technology engine inside Sega Dreamcast that can evolve and continue to outsmart human opponents." - This one from France, with the same CGI animated color bars as the UK's "Plug Me Into A Sega", shows the color bar face speaking in a weird distorted voice. At some point, some weird colors flash about. And if that wasn't bad enough, the ad ends with a creepy laugh that rises up in pitch with a haunting echo. - When launching the original Xbox, Microsoft apparently felt the need to copy many of the Playstation's traits... including their creepy commercials. - The mosquito ad. It begins with mosquitoes buzzing in the form of music, and all the other jungle animals dancing to the beat, while the narrator (who is a mosquito) tells us about how his species used to make music. Seems innocent so far, right? But then the narrator says "One day, a voice told us, 'Get a job!'" Cut to close-up shots of a mosquito on a pulsating heart, mosquitoes sucking blood from arms and people in the hospital, and a close-up shot of a mosquito's abdomen filling up with blood. It's very unsettling, to say the least. - And that was the one that wasn't taken off the air. Another launch ad that was eventually banned from broadcast, "Life is short", details the...exceedingly short life of a man. In that the man is born, at high velocity... launched into the air, ages from birth to old age in the space of around 30 seconds, then finally crashes into his grave. See it here at your own risk. - This obscure horror. A security guard is asleep in front of TVs showing security camera feeds. A man appears in front of each of them at the same time, one-by-one, and launches into a cryptic monologue about the dawn of a new age. At the end of the commercial, the camera zooms out to show the entire security room, \|\|the man appears for a split second in the room, looking directly at the viewer.\|\| It can come as a Jump Scare if you're not expecting it. - The American ad for Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island depicted a man eating more and more food at a restaurant, and getting fatter and fatter, while the narrator talks about how much data and features are crammed into the game's cartridge. Pretty soon, the man eats one little piece of whipped cream, and then explodes a la Mr. Creosote, with his stomach contents splattering everyone in the restaurant. A piece of spaghetti then splatters the game box, and then we cut to a shot of more of the stomach contents splattered on a wall, spelling out the SNES motto (Play it Loud). Due to the sheer number of complaints of how sickening this commercial was, it was only aired a few times before it was replaced with a bowdlerized version, in which the splattering and exploding is heard off-screen as a woman at a table turns and looks to the left, the spaghetti doesn't fall on the box, and the stomach contents spelling "PLAY IT LOUD" are now a bright, rich, thin, non-gross green slime that resembles Nickelodeon slime. - The American ad for the Game Boy Advance Re-Issue had a daughter who is pushing the crosswalk sign's button after a short day of shopping with her mom in which she unlocks the car to put her daughter's things in, enabling Yoshi to throw an egg towards the car, thus breaking it. The screen reveals to what we see, a slowly rotating Game Boy Advance, showing clips from the remake of Yoshi's Island, then it slowly rotates, showing only a black screen, as the rest of the car falls off. - And here's an obscure '80s Nintendo commercial from Australia that features various enemies from Nintendo games (and the Duck Hunt dog, for some reason) taunting the viewer over and over with, "YOU CANNOT BEAT US" in a menacing, Dalek-like voice while the sinister "Bowser's castle" theme from Super Mario Bros. played in the background. The commercial ends with the "game over" music, which never sounded more depressing. The primitive computer graphics on the characters only makes the ad creepier, to the point that you might want to go to the bathroom to empty your bowels in pants-pissing terror. - A un-aired European commercial for Donald in Maui Mallard (SNES version) (from 1996) had Donald Duck (disguised as a ninja) fighting off the evil witch doctor and his minions while finding the lost Shabuhm Shabuhm idol as he travels to different levels to track down the thief who stole it (as a blonde-haired Hawaiian tour guide says "OW! THAT DOES LEAVE A MARK!" after being zapped by the evil witch doctor's powers). While the blonde-haired Hawaiian tour guide is knocked out, Donald chases after the evil witch doctor through the jungle, with the announcer saying "get yours today or the witch doctor could zap you!". The commercial ends with the slogan "Will You Ever Reach the End?" (with the name of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System appearing in front of it). - A Pokémon Red and Blue commercial had a creepy bus driver take a bus full of Pokémon to a car compactor. In goes the bus, out goes a Game Boy with the Pokémon trapped in it. - This Pokémon GO commercial about the 2022 GO Fest Finale can pass off as a creepypasta video featuring Ultra Beast sightings. Special mentions to the Buzzwole who jumps off from an Ultra Wormhole right in front of a man trying to attack it and the Xurkitree that was hanging outside of a building. Then it goes back to continuing the first footage where a woman filmed a Nihilego, and then it approaches her in a seemingly friendly manner (although based on what Nihilego actually does if it runs into a person, this isn't pleasant) before it goes up to reunite with a whole swarm of Nihilego. - This ad for FIFA '14, which features the player turning into Lionel Messi. Literally. - A magazine ad for Cardinal Syn depicted a severed head impaled on an axe, with the tagline "Happiness is a warm cranium". - The print◊ adverts◊ for Resistance: Fall of Man took old-timey sepia photographs of children and edited them to look like the monsters from the game. The result is a mix of Uncanny Valley and Nightmare Face. - This OUYA commercial, which shows a stereotypical pantless angry gamer raging over paying $60 for a game, then proceeding to vomit so much he floods his own room, then pull out his jaw and his spine and beat himself up with it, mutilating himself, before finally lying in the pool of his own vomit and weakly proclaiming "OUYA!" - The official WWE 2K17 commercial has a Fallout-like setting, textbook-Soundtrack Dissonance Background Music, several Superstars looking legitimately ready to invoke The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You, and this Wham Line: - There was a commercial from the late 90s for Intelligent Qube that featured a snooty middle school-aged girl at a spelling bee and about to spell a ridiculously long and difficult word. As she's twelve letters into spelling it, all of a sudden a large block falls out of the sky and crushes her. It's Played for Laughs (apparently) and thankfully involves Bloodless Carnage, but still. - This Dutch commercial for Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins is basically a live-action remake of the memetically famous "Obey Wario, Destroy Mario" advert. Not only does the actor playing Wario make him seem downright demented, but the hall of mirrors-like camera effects make the whole thing rather trippy. - A Mexican ad for toilet cleaner Bref begins with a screaming CGI little red devil representing dirt, spreading it all over the bathroom. His twisted facial expressions and the fact he appears to be close to the camera enhance the scare factor. - Those paint ads that are only a few seconds long and feature nothing but a creepily grinning person painted from head to toe and asking you if you've found what you're looking for. They can be quite startling if you don't know what's going on. - The commercials for the Goldwater Law Firm (the one that defends people who die or suffered from the side effects of medical products) play some incredibly unsettling, horror movie-type music in the background, note : Word of God says that the music is called "Ominous"; most of the Goldwater commercials have used it starting with an ad for the Vioxx fiasco of 2004. and they often depict stock photos of people in some kind of pain (for instance, a woman looking sad or a senior citizen in a wheelchair). This makes sense, obviously, since the commercials talk about defective medicines and stuff, so it's meant to make the situation life-threatening, but apparently it works a bit too well. Wanna know what's worse? That those commercials once aired on Cartoon Network. Here's one of the commercials. - Even worse, new ads for similar companies are doing the exact same thing, although not all of them play unsettling music in their commercials (most of the Sokolove Law's commercials, for instance). Some of them go as far as to use the same "Ominous" stock music the Goldwater Law Firm uses most of the time. - Not all Goldwater Law Firm commercials use "Ominous". This commercial for people or their loved ones hurt or killed in car accidents uses different music, while not quite as chilling, is still unsettling, especially the last 10 seconds of the ad. - This Goldwater ad for mesothelioma victims might just be the worst of them all. It uses "Terrain of Memory" by Jeff Greinke, which is arguably two times worse than "Ominous". Needless to say, it's horrifying. - The ads for RA.com (RA meaning rheumatoid arthritis) really know how to get their point across. Seriously, they talk about how preventing an illness can salvage your hobbies. And then, we see the very items each respective ad is named for decaying in a frightfully realistic fashion. It's a real double-whammy of disturbing. - There's these advertisements for a cleaning product known as SCOE 10X. Both of their commercials are essentially animal women going to the bathroom on the floor, and none of it's censored. Add in the fact that it's usually shown at late night, and you're bound to confuse it for horrifying scat porn that made it on TV somehow. - Until they were replaced with CG models, the Wonga.com adverts, which air in the United Kingdom, used puppets that were firmly rooted in the Unintentional Uncanny Valley. Despite being considered so creepy that people try to avoid them, they're paradoxically Memetic Mutation in the U.K. - Oddly enough, the situation is the opposite for some people: they consider the puppets fine, but find the CG models to be creepy instead. - This cinema ad from Co-Operative Bank describes what would happen if a landmine went off in the cinema. - In another horrifying ad, a woman asks why you would switch to the Co-Operative Bank, visuals intercut with images of animals dying in polluted landfills and covered in spilled oil, etc. She basically admits that the Co-Operative Bank has the same features as every other bank but they'll never knowingly contribute to pollution. Expectedly, the ad has a lot of Jump Scares. - There is also another one which features images of war and oppression instead of pollution. - This commercial for PUR water filters from 1995 which involves a goldfish freaking out at an ad in a newspaper read by its owner about the deteriorating quality of drinking water. After the woman pours herself a glass of water from said water filter and sets it on the table, the goldfish decides it would rather be swimming in that water, so it leaps through the air and lands in the drinking glass. The hideous visual effects for the goldfish are bad enough, but just watch the very last shot of the commercial where the woman reaches for her glass to get a sip. Better hope either A.) the goldfish can manage to jump back out, or B.) the woman notices before taking a sip, or it won't end well for both of them. - There was once a series of web ads for California's Summer of Fun that used to be plastered frequently on This Very Wiki. It first shows a boy or a girl smiling. But then, their faces become creepily stretched and morphed in an uncanny fashion. - The Mr. Yuk advertisements, which featured a sinister display of items turning into monsters accompanied by a creepy song sung about knowing Mr. Yuk's face. The people behind the campaign seemed pretty desperate to keep children from getting into bottled poisons, huh? Watch the commercial here or hear the full song here. - In 2014, Virgin America made an almost six hour-long advert in which pale, wide-eyed mannequins with unnervingly fixed faces experience a mind-numbingly boring flight. Unfortunately, despite the many comic elements to it, the ad loses altitude and crash lands right into the Unintentional Uncanny Valley. And you have to put up with it for five hours and forty-seven minutes (or you could just change the channel). - A 2014 advert for the UK's Royal Marines featuring a nightmare of a guerilla stationed in the jungle. The guerilla is shown frantically running in the middle of a dark jungle. As he's being pursued by hostile wildlife and hordes of mysterious men on the beach, the images are accompanied by creepy and ominous whispers of his incoming doom. And just when you think it's over after the man wakes up near a house, \|\|a pair of eyes glow behind him before two British marines abduct the guerilla and put him on a boat.\|\| - There was a commercial, that featured major Mood Whiplash, and this should date it, for a video rental service, Blockbuster or something along those lines, that featured two boxers going at it as a narrator speaks of what he wishes to see. "Perhaps a sports movie," then after one of the boxers punches out another the narrator decides "or maybe a drama," as the other boxer is revealed to actually be the man's father. The two embrace and make up, humorously as the spectators let out a unison "Aww!" But then it takes a turn for horrific as the narrator fittingly decides "or perhaps a horror," as the Father turns into a hideous vampire and instantly bites and drains the son of his blood. What makes this a kicker, is that while the crowd is freaking out and fleeing the blood is still dripping from the Father/Vampires mouth while the son is lying dead in the middle of the ring. The only way they got away with this is probably because the commercial was shot in monochrome. Still words can not do this justice at just how disturbing and terrifying this commercial was. - This 1980's ad from Sekonda has a steamroller crush a Sekonda watch and an expensive watch in a dimly lit room. The narrator talks about how Sekonda watches are cheaper to repair than to repair the glass in the expensive watch. Both the narrator and the music are ominous, and the silence at the end doesn't help. - This freaky-as-hell advert for The Guardian from 1990, which shows the faces and voices of various political figures being stretched and distorted. Would you believe it was given a U certificate? - The Adidas Predator Instinct ad features people running around in the dark pursued by dystopian enforcers and blurry closeup shots of snarling dogs. - The "Creepy Bunny" ads for Anim'Est have a Bugs Bunny like bunny sitting in a barely lit toilet, staring at a man, and then moving to it's left so the guy can sit next to him. - An advertising company called DanDad uploaded an ad to YouTube in 2016 that...really doesn't get their message across. They're talking about helping small businesses create advertisements of their own, but it's hard to focus on any of that when we're shown horrifying visuals like this. - This cinema advert for Philips irons features fire fighters rescuing a baby from a house fire, all set to haunting hymn-sounding music. It ends with them bragging about their irons turning off in 30 seconds after being used, but at that point, you'd probably never use an iron again after seeing all that. Even worse, it's rated U. - This 1979 Benson & Hedges advert consists of divers recovering a giant packet of cigarettes and then displaying it in a museum. Sounds like a normal advert, right? Well, not when it's accompanied by what sounds like horror music and Psycho-like chanting in the end. PIF and Advert uploader easportsbig899 even declared it the scariest advert he's ever seen. - A print ad for a radio station is this. It has a woman smiling at something offscreen. However, her eyes have been replaced by her ears, making this pure Body Horror. See it here.◊ - Monster, a job finding website, started a series of commercials starring, well, a monster. A huge, hairy monster whose face only consists of two glowing eyes, speaking directly to the viewer about how he can sense them. The tone usually shifts to be more humorous, and the monster is telling the customer about how it believes in their potential to find a job, but seeing this thing come on in the middle of the night can definitely be unnerving (as the YouTube comments can attest). - This TV advert for a gossip magazine called ''Sneak'' aired on UK television during children's spots in the 2000s, meaning it was mostly seen by kids. Right off the bat, the ad is unsettling; the music is strange and aggressive, the editing is jagged and it's set in a school; subverting a familiar environment into something cold and uncomfortable is an easy way to disturb young viewers. It almost feels like a horror movie at times, with the ad's main girl character seemingly desperate to tell someone something. Eventually, she reaches an assembly hall full of students and staff, where she explodes into pink gunge. As another girl is wiping the pink slimy remains off her face in the bathroom, she sees the magazine that contained the information that caused the girl to explode, implying that this magazine contains information so volatile it causes you to explode unless you tell someone. - NRJ Mobile's Whaaaaaat?! ads have teens enjoying something on their phones before they turn into Body Horror abominations. From the linked video: - A boy is listening to music at a skate park and bopping to the beat. Suddenly his ears grow bigger and begin to flap, and then his head detaches and flies away into the sky, to the horror of the nearby skaters and bikers. - The second ad is the most disturbing of the bunch. A girl at school is looking at her phone, and begins to laugh, her mouth becomes bigger, before her head jerks back and her mouth is massive and wide open, looking like her head was nearly cut in half. Her friend looks at her phone and immediately widens her mouth as she laughs. Even worse, the video reverses and forwards itself until the end, resulting in jerky movement which only further pushes the uncanniness of the ad. As if this ad wasn't disturbing enough, there is an alternate edit, where the girls' eyeballs jump out of their sockets and float above their gaping maws, as if they didn't already resemble Barbara Maitland's Nightmare Face. - Finally, the third ad features a boy with arms coming out of his ears, nostrils and mouth. - Even fashion commercials of all things can be scary, thanks to German fashion company NewYorker, which produced some of the most twisted fashion commercials around for their "Dress for the Moment" campaign. - "Halloween" (slightly NSFW, some female toplessness) is probably the most disturbing of the batch. It stars a guy who lives in a haunted house (complete with plenty of shots of things like creepy dolls) who apparently keeps hidden throughout. The commercial follows him severed female body parts replacing his own body parts with these. Once the process is over, the resulting woman walks out of the house and meets up with her apparent boyfriend. Squick doesn't even begin to describe the whole thing. - This one starts with a bunch of happy young people in the desert rushing to a bunch of seats as a cheerful song (either about sweet moments or experiments, depending on whether it's the YouTube or Vimeo version) plays in the background, while a bunch of scientists deliver them special glasses. Then it's revealed that they're going to watch a nuclear bomb test, as the bomb is launched into the air. It seemingly explodes into fireworks, but then causes a massive explosion, as a huge shockwave rushes to the audience and strips them into glowing, screaming skeletons, which also disintegrate. A worn-out version of the intro song plays and shuts off as the camera pans through the fallout, focusing on a woman's fur coat, as the wind blows dust off it, revealing a NewYorker tag. - "Look for Love" is pretty disturbing too, even with the heavy Black Comedy throughout the whole thing. The commercial follows a young woman walking down the street, who's so attractive that she enraptures almost every guy in the vicinity. So much, that the guys often forget what they're doing and end up getting themselves or someone else killed; the first guy skateboards onto the street and is hit by a car, the second guy, a tattooist making some tattoos for a gang, accidentally draws a heart onto a gang member's back and gets shot, and the third, a group of firefighters carrying a stretcher to save someone jumping from a burning building, accidentally follow her and the guy falls onto hard ground. She pays no attention to any of this. Finally, near a roadwork area, she comes across a guy that she's clearly quite attracted to. She tries flirting with him and walks backwards into a hole being filled in, and is subsequently pulverized by tons of heavy stones. The ad ends with a worker using a jackhammer on the stones as a small piece of the woman's dress sticks out of them, which the worker is clearly paying no attention to. - In "The Dress", a young woman is walking alone by the side of a desert road after her motorcycle breaks down. An older woman arrives in a car, while running over a bird. The younger woman flags down the car and gets in, while the older woman looks enviously at her dress. The video then cuts to a gas station, where what appears to be the younger woman walks out and gets back into the car. Then the younger woman runs out of the bathroom, almost completely clothesless, while it's revealed that the older woman has stolen her dress and is once again stranding her in the middle of nowhere. The older woman drives away as the younger woman bangs on the windows and yells. - In this commmercial, a stylish woman walks down the street and sits at a bus stop. A creepy guy walking his dog sits right next to her and leers at her. Clearly uncomfortable, she flags down a garbage truck, and a bunch of buff garbage men put something into the truck. The camera then shows the woman sitting alone at the stop. While it's never actually shown what happened, given that the dog is now leashed to the inside of the truck and you can audibly hear bones cracking as the trash is crushed, it's pretty easy to guess. - In "Lifeguard", a female lifeguard at the beach sees a man floundering out at sea. Rather than immediately go help him, she decides to find a better outfit to save him with, leading to a montage of her changing into several bikinis as the man becomes increasingly panicked. As she finally wears her preferred bikini and runs out to save him, she finds that he's been eaten by a shark. - In this Levi's commercial, a guy takes a pair of jeans off a mannequin and buys them. The mannequin then silently stalks him throughout town to his house. Then, at night, during a thunderstorm no less, while the man is sleeping, the mannequin breaks into his house and silently approaches him, the commercial ending as the mannequin's shadow is looming over the man's sleeping form. Adding to it is Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I'll Put A Spell On You" playing the whole time. - This ad for a Japanese men's magazine features the horrifying visuals of a Rokurokubi with a stretched out neck reading the magazine, complete with the sounds of her neck stretching. The fact that it's all in black and white and the music intensifies at the end does not help at all. - Ironically enough, the "Better Help" commercials (an online service for people who want to talk to a therapist via the internet) are this. One frequently aired ad consists of almost no sound save for a pretty young woman's desperate hyperventilating and moaning. We see her doing this in the privacy of her car, a restroom at work and her own home's bathroom. As she is leaning over in pain, she then unbuttons her top to reveal a zipper in her flesh and then unzips it for huge, clunky black words like "ANXIETY" and "PANIC" to come spilling out of her chest as she then begins to cry. - A 2019 ad for ancestry.ca has a young man with a weak heart begging a stubborn doctor to let him join the army. The commercial then hard cuts to a black screen with white text saying; "Without you, the story stops here." Then reveals that the man was Eric Allen, a young man who died during the attack on Pearl Harbor. It doesnt really make sense, but the atmosphere is certainly unsettling. - An ad for Nemours shows a bunch of women (possibly mothers) in eerie grey rooms crying while creepy music plays. It then reveals that their loved ones are in the hospital. The ad has a happy ending, but YIKES. - This advert for Our Dynamic Earth, which features a man devolving all the way back into an amoeba and then getting sucked into the Big Bang. The CG of the creatures he devolves into can come off as Unintentional Uncanny Valley. - The ads for the Argentinian print production company Type & Magic began with what seemed to be a normal Candid Camera Prank show turned horribly awry with the appearance of the last victim, a middle-aged bald man: - The first one had a prankster playing a tourist who appears to fall into the waters, but actually lands on a mat. The bald man takes out a gun and shoots the prankster. - The second ad involved two pranksters giving passerbyers a food product before revealing it was dog food. The ending is even worse here because the man shoots one of the pranksters in front of the other, leaving her screaming in fear. - The last ad is also the most famous one. A man is put in a mailbox by two other people. He ejects the mail whenever someone puts it inside. The bald man arrives and when he sees the man inside, pulls his gun, shoots the man several times, then puts the mail inside the now smoking mailbox. - This one has circulated online without the "We know you don't like surprises" tagline and the Type & Magic logo, with some versions even placing a fake "In Memoriam" card instead, leading to some internet users to believe that it was a real recording of a shooting! - This 1977 ad for Armor All protectant has a viking (representing Armor All) fighting against a creepy alien looking monster (representing rot) in a red lit cave-like place, with the viking using Armor All to kill the monster. It contains rather unsettling electronic music and sound effects throughout the ad, and the stop motion (done by Jim Danforth) makes the monster's movements look uncanny. The ad was eventually taken down after viewers complained it was too scary◊, and was later edited to be toned down. - The Tax Doctor commercials are well known for being both cheaply made, and also unsettling. The ad begins with creepy music and a heartbeat as the narrator asks the viewer if the IRS is threatening to take your money. The rest of the ad focuses on the how the Tax Doctor can help you, who is represented by a creepy animation of a doctor running towards you. What makes it worse is that his head gets bigger when he gives you the thumbs up in the end. These ads would frequently run on children oriented channels, and if the Youtube comments are to be believed, many children were scared by the ad. - This 2003 promo for a Football/Soccer event by The Guardian titled "Bambi 3: Now with Testicles" by the uploader. It starts out as an Black Comedy parody of Disney's Bambi (complete with hand drawn animation featuring two rabbits and a blue bird). It involves a calf and a mother cow calmly discussing about what will happen to him once he enters the "Golden Pasture in the Sky". The mother cow tells him that "Your shoulders and ribs will go to the nice big supermarket. And your tongue and your legs, to that lovely local organic butcher.". The animated section and music quickly ends after the calf says "But mama, what about my testicles?", which cuts to live-action showing a man eating a meat pie. This promo actually received several complaints resulting in the ad being edited. - The 1996 Screamers Discovery Zone Ad starts with the announcer telling the blonde haired boy, "So, you've got what it takes to play Screamers at Discovery Zone." The boy screams, and as he screams, the arrow on the meter shaped liked the Discovery Zone logo moves up a little. Then the announcer says, "Oh, come on. You can do better than that." The boy screams louder and the arrow on the meter now points to the middle section. But after the announcer says, "I can't hear you.", The boy screams even louder and the meter reached the lower right and breaks. Then the still screaming boy is screaming so loud, everything around him gets destroyed and his face turns red and grows to freakish levels until his mouth hole covers the screen in darkness and his uvula appers with the Discovery Zone logo on it. - All around America, there's a fleet of anti-abortion trucks that drive around showing real-life graphic pictures of aborted fetuses, partial-birth abortions, dismembered fetal body parts compared to everyday items such as erasers, quarters, bottlecaps, on the sides and backs of their trailers. Most of those pictures aren't even of what they claim to be, but show the result of stillbirths and miscarriages, because those images make for a higher grade of nightmare fuel. Here is a picture of one of the trucks.◊ View at your own risk. - What's even more horrifying is that in some places (like Kansas), these types of trucks are parked in front of elementary schools. - An advert from 2003 featured a clearly distressed woman struggling to speak as she and her husband recount the time a kite knocked out half her teeth, and ended with a close-up of her face. The advertised product? Scotch tape dispensers. No teeth, no problem. - This 90s ad for Caritas Manila, a Philippine charity, is infamous for its depiction of a dead child beggar, with flies surrounding his body. The creepy music used doesn't help matters, as well as the usage of the traditional Filipino proverb "Aanhin pa ang damo, kung patay na ang kabayo?" (What good is the grass if the horse is dead?) at the end of the ad. - A 1990 ad for Asahi Shimbun newspaper consists of a scene from Yuri Norstein's Tale of Tales, with dialogue about the newspaper added in. However, the scene chosen for the ad is the lullaby scene, where we get treated to a creepy close up of the wolf's face. The distorted quality of the VHS makes it even creepier. - This religious bumper from the Philippines promoting Catholic family prayer begins with a sudden and unsettling close-up of a statue of the Virgin Mary, accompanied by a very loud church choir, in what might as well amount to a Jump Scare. Then a distorted woman's voice, somewhat drowned out by the sound of the choir, urges families to pray the rosary. Many Filipinos who grew up in the '90s when the bumper aired recall being terrified whenever it came on. "I ask every family... Please, pray the rosary!" - A short-lived ad for Spanish radio station Onda Cero featured a recording of a program interspersed with the sound of radio static that's usually heard while changing from station to station. Every time the static appeared, a set of disturbing and scary images was presented in rapid succession, as an attempt to convey negative ideas towards the poor quality of radio sound. This ad had to be quickly pulled from air, after being shown several times during late night programming. - This Thai ad for gas features a Notzilla with incredibly demented facial expressions and creepy closeups of its eyes and face. Meanwhile, while meant to be humourous, the way the booming music keeps cutting and pausing can cause discomfort. - A 1999 Nike Air Presto Rabid Panda ad has a cute cartoon panda bear slowly zig-zagging down to the bottom of the screen while cutesy music plays. It stops at the middle and roars, revealing sharp teeth while it's head grows large enough to nearly cover the screen before the head shrinks back to normal and the panda goes back the way it came from. The background is also red making it even more scary! - A 1991 ad for the Nike Air Max 180, directed by Jean-Luc Godard has a little girl and her father walking down a field as Death, represented as an old lady, approaches them. As the girl and father flee from Death, disturbing artwork such as Francisco de Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son and other artwork featuring skulls flash on screen while the music intensifies. The girl and father escape and mock Death as creepy jingling suddenly replaces the intense music, and the final shot is of a single Air Max 180 shoe laying on the grass and nothing else. - An advertisement for the Aphex Twin album Drukqs features a deformed humanoid creature sitting in a chair in a dark room. The creature is already freaky enough, but then it suddenly begins speaking in electronic noise as its eyes glow. It's especially horrifying since it doesn't actually say anything. The idea of this ad was later expanded upon in Chris Cunningham's short film Rubber Johnny, which is even more infamous for its nightmare potential. - A 2005 ad for The Philippine Star promoted its "responsible journalism" over the "shock journalism" of other newspapers, which it claimed could cause panic. This is demonstrated by showing a writer in a dimly lit room typing out a story on a typewriter, except the sounds of the typewriter are replaced by the sounds of people screaming. At the end, the writer is seen typing faster as the audio becomes a cacophony of people screaming in fear.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Advertising
Adventures of the Gummi Bears / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - Most of the episode "For Whom the Spell Holds". In contrast to most episodes, which are usually upbeat and colorful, this one takes place in gloomy underground caves and features fairly kid-unfriendly imagery, such as a boiling chasm and the villain's animal sidekick getting his hand burned in a realistic manner rather than as Amusing Injuries. The most disturbing moment, however, comes when Zorlock, seeking to show Zummi the price of disobedience, creates a living sculpture of a frail Gummi Bear struggling to support a globe on his shoulders, then melts it into a steaming puddle. - "Rocking Chair Bear" had an evil sorceress kidnap Sunny, one of the youngest Gummi Bears, and drain her youth away to keep herself beautiful, resulting in Sunny undergoing Rapid Aging and becoming old and decrepit.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AdventuresOfTheGummiBears
Age of Warscape / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes "Don't hide. You're just wasting your last minutes." Lord Jesavich - Everything related to the Umbristic State. Considering the fact that they do not kill who they capture, but \|\|torture the hell out of them, using some of the most gruesome, cruel, and downright sickening techniques. Lacerating somebody and applying extreme heat to the wounds? Hanging somebody above a deep shaft by their tongue? Just to empower Lord Jesavich by torturing a soul just before killing it\|\|. - The backstories about the State are not too pleasant either, especially when \|\|Jesavich bombed a Human village for no clear reason, along with raiding a section of Ironwall just to get the Kings attention. Plus, he did this alone\|\|. - Haed'Vishnu's army, which is mainly composed of grotesque, disgusting mashups of Human parts and organs. Worst part is, they also retain the memories and feelings of the original person. - The Sorcerers of the Red Eye, which is practically a satanic cult who worship the Red Eye. Dressed in Sorcerer-like robes with pointed hoods that have an eye painted on them, the members of the cult have been known to kidnap all kinds of people, be it men, women, or children, cut their hearts out, and burn the collected hearts in a large bonfire. The bodies of the victims are occasionally tied to public buildings, too.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AgeOfWarscape
Against the Moon / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes How Ross must be feeling when he is anticipating Greyback's attack, and then realizing that despite his precautions, Greyback succeeded in his aim.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AgainstTheMoon
Águila Roja / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Sátur's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the man who wanted to die as Águila Roja in order to be remembered. It is not just a peroration of insult - it actually breaks the guy down and makes him come to his senses. If it wasn't so sad and vicious, it would be also a Moment of Awesome. "No, you are not the Red Eagle. You are an imposter. Just an errand man, that's what you are. You deserve nobody to cry for you, do you understand? We all want to be remembered, to leave a legacy, we want it despite we had to work our balls off and break our backs everyday - but by our own merits, not by stealing another man's place. When you have the sword over your neck you will not be able to fool yourself. You will die knowing you are a loser. That's what you are, do you understand? A loser, that's what you have been for all your life. Loser. Loser!"	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AguilaRoja
Afro Samurai / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes You can never escape the Cycle of Blood!Despite it's action-packed awesome moments, the story of Afro Samurai is a blood-curdling tale of horrendous death all for the sake of revenge and power. Even worse, it's implied it will never really end as long as the Headbands exist. - The whole idea of a person having a headband strictly trying to kill another person that has a headband that shows that person higher social status than the other. - Not only that, the Number One headband is held to make the wearer a god. This motivates people all over the world to endless murder and atrocity simply to possess the Number Two headband, which is required to take on the Number One and anyone can try any means necessary to claim it at any time, putting the wearer in constant peril. Afro's whole life revolves around these two mundane things, thanks to people obsessed with the whole system. Society in Afro's world is fighting and killing countless innocents over a mere superstition. There's little evidence to suggest that these headbands are more than just pieces of fabric, which Shichiguro lampshades later on in an attempt to convince Afro not to kill him for the Number Two Headband to no avail. - Just the whole intro of a child Afro having to watch his father, the Current Number One, being decapitated by Justice, having his father's head thrown at his feet, and hearing his father's slowly dying disembodied head whisper its last words to Afro before Justice beckons Afro to come back and challenge him one day for revenge while Laughing Mad. No wonder he grows up to be so messed up. - The slaughter of the Dojo students is pretty horrifying as it shows that not even children are safe when the Number Two Headband is around, as the assassins gunning for it ruthlessly slaughter Afro's friends and surrogate family in front of his eyes before he decides to cut down the Sword Master simply because he can't let go of revenge. - Afro's mindset is also pretty disturbing, considering all he thinks about is the day he watched his father die while all his other emotions are shunted into becoming Ninja Ninja, who criticizes Afro constantly for how monstrous he has become while spurring him forward. His mind is a mixture of Roaring Rampage of Revenge and suicidal self-loathing all in one. Afro also continuously hallucinates horrifying visions of his dead father calling to him, which gets worse after he comes the Number One. - Afro himself is Nightmare Fuel In-Verse, seen as a "Demon That Challenges God" that ruthlessly and solely slaughters whole armies in his wake, leaving nothing but Ludicrous Gibs, uncaring about doing nothing but moving forward. He's even used as fable to scare little children, until it's revealed he completely real and as deadly as the legends make him out to be. - The world of Afro Samurai is described as being completely crapsack because of the influence of the Headbands, with people killing each other for generations just to get their hands on them and ruled by assassins longing for power. It's so bad that the monstrous Justice taking the Headbands to give the world some type of order is seen as a good thing and his death only makes the world even more crapsack since people simply killed out of the joy of killing with no headbands to give them a purpose. - What happens to Jinno is also pretty tragic. He went from a plucky kid who wanted to open a dojo to protect his friends and new brother Afro to being mutilated, having to watch his younger surrogate sister and father-master die, nearly falling to his death, and being painfully reconstructed into a cyborg to serve the Empty Seven Assassins. His appearance resembles a stitched up naked rag doll than a humans with a constantly crying human eye while insanely obsessed with the sole purpose of getting revenge on Afro for killing his master, blaming Afro for the death of his fellow students, and betraying him. He spends his time stewing in his hatred for decades atop a mountain guarding the Justice slaughtering anyone who comes by, and by the number of funeral stones around him he's slain thousands, waiting for the day Afro will show up so he can get his revenge at last. - Justice, despite being a Well-Intentioned Extremist, is pretty nasty to look at considering he's an emaciated gunslinging cackling blank-eyed cowboy that regenerates using blood with chemical burns all over his body and a third arm on his back. He only gets worse when he uses Body Horror to sprout spikes from the ground and reattaches his own head after talking with it dangling from his neck. Not to mention he's voiced by Ron Perlman. - Whatever happened to Sio's retainers in the Afro Samurai: Resurrection film is pretty awful, as despite being a Noodle Incident, the incident was so bad the retainers had to be turned into monstrous cyborgs to survive with one having the skinned face of her husband on her weapon. It's enough to make Sio pathologically hateful of Afro until the very end. - The clone of Afro's father is pretty nightmarish considering its Implacable Man status with Black Eyes of Crazy as it mindlessly tears through and kills whatever is in front of it. It's essentially Afro as a mindless killing machine! - Worse is Afro can't bear to fight it since it's a clone of his own father and lets the thing give him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown until it chokes him to death.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AfroSamurai
Adventure Time / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes " Just talked to the creator of Adventure Time , Pendleton Ward (@buenothebear). He said that he'd be happy if the show gave people nightmares. " " Before there was time, before there was anything...there was nothing. And before there was nothing...there were Monsters... " —- The Lich What time is it? Not the time to give us nightmares, that's for sure! Adventure Time was easily one of the darkest shows Cartoon Network have ever come up with in The New '10s. When the series moved into Darker and Edgier territory, some episodes managed to show really disturbing (and somewhat depressing) stuff, even by the standards of a children's show. - The Lich. There's a reason he provides the page image here. For the horrific details, see the ends of the folders for Seasons 2 and 4, and the beginnings of Season 5 and 6. - The Complete First Season DVD, which depicts every layer of Finn's head, from his hat, through his hair◊, muscles, skull◊ and brain◊... The DVDs for seasons two, four, and five respectively dissect Ice King, Marceline, and Jake in a similar manner. note : The Complete Third Season seemed Nightmare Retardant by applying this treatment to BMO, who has no internal organs. The fourth disc of the fifth season also shows Lady Rainicorn swimming around in the dreams inside Jake's mind, thus adding a level of retardant to it as well. - The fact that Simon went completely insane and gained treacherous ice powers just by wearing a crown. Wearing it once made him unable to get rid of it in the first place, too. - The Complete Second Season DVD adds a little insight into this. Like the example with Finn above, the case and discs dissect the Ice King's head. The second disc shows the crown sitting upon Simon's completely frozen brain. - The fact that his final progression to the Ice King happened while effectively raising Marceline-who was a little girl at the time. Simon's ice powers and insanity are terrifying enough, but the fact he has to keep a child safe from monsters is scary on a whole other level. - The Official Adventure Time Encyclopaedia, the last chapter, they filled it with as much creepypasta as they possibly could. The Chapter is called "If you read this you will die" for a good reason... - In The videogame "Explore The Dungeon Because I Don't Know" it is revealed at the beginning that Princess Bubblegum locks all the criminals of the Candy Kingdom in her Dungeon "FOREVER!!!" if you thought her mental state was unnerving before, this seals it. - Also the fact the dungeon has characters that wouldn't really be considered "Criminals" more like savage monsters. Such as Giant Oozing tentacles, Hugwolves, More Deer like the one from season 3, even the Demon Cat from "Dungeon" somehow made it down there, plus many many more abominations of nightmares. Imagine being trapped down there until you die with all these things running around. Lemongrab's dungeon from "Hey Ice King Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?" which was just a simple jailcell is looking nicer and nicer isn't it? - By this logic, this makes Lemongrab giving people twelve years dungeon, thirty years dungeon, or fifty years dungeon seem downright reasonable. To be fair to PB, they weren't serious offenses to get a million years dungeon. - Pen Ward warned that "It Came From the Nightosphere" would be filled with this. And rightfully so! - Marceline's Dad. A soul-sucking malevolent Eldritch Abomination who shows his innards to other people for fun. His voice is creepy. He sounds like a pretty average, nice man. Definitely not the voice you'd expect from such a character. Also when he turns to the Ice King and although we can't see it that well, his face basically EXPLODES. - Perhaps it's the more subtle things that make Marceline's Dad creepy- like the way he walks. His gait is like a mix of a creeping spider and an Uncanny Valley marionette. - Word of God states that he pretty much represents Satan in this show. - Marceline looked pretty scary whenever she had red eyes and sharp claws. - While played for laughs the implications of Gunter bitch slapping and being treated with awe by what amounts to the devil does not bode well - After Finn stabs Marceline's Dad in the head after growing to a gigantic size, he nonchalantly glances at the sword, smiles, and widens his mouth as he deflates his entire head, making way for the more Lovecraftian-looking one we've seen behind his throat! - In "The Eyes," you can see a tiny, skeletal figure next to Finn and Jake's window, hanging itself. - The whole episode is a parody of Edgar Alan Poe's Telltale Heart, including Finn being exhausted enough to let Jake trick him into killing the creepy stalker cow. - In "Guardians of Sunshine", the 3D animated versions of the monsters are pretty creepy. Honey Bunny is a hideous dripping Blob Monster, and when Finn tries to sneak up on Sleepy Sam, Sam suddenly lets out a blood-curdling scream that sends Finn flying. - Both "Belly Of The Beast" and "The Limit" have their moments: - "Belly of The Beast" - Just the knowledge that a whole cave's worth of party-happy bears could be swallowed and be completely oblivious to the fact for , continually partying for those three days without stop for rest, personal need, or food, is pretty unnerving. three whole days - Cubby's reaction to their father yelling at them for, what he thought, was bothering Finn and Jake with their "nonsense about being inside a monster's stomach". They were obviously frightened for their life. - "The Limit": - Jake's reaction to being put under peer pressure- it nearly stretched him to oblivion! - The snake-genie at the end of the labyrinth. Creepy tone of voice, and way too sadistic for a children's show. - The Royal Tart Toter. He's insane, has deranged eyes, foaming at the mouth and everything. - The grotesque, cave-dwelling humanoid monsters that attacked Finn and Jake in the same episode. Especially the build-up: Finn: Jake? Jake: Yeah? Finn: Hey man, did you just like, sniff my butt? Finn: Yeah. Jake: No. Finn: Hmm... Alright. (Finn and Jake continue walking, then stop again.) Jake: Hey, Finn? Finn: Yeah, Jake? Jake: Did you just uh, lick me all the way up my arm? Finn: No. Jake: Hmm... Strange. Finn: Jake, let me see those matches. (Finn lights a match, revealing themselves to be COMPLETELY SURROUNDED by hissing blind creatures.) Finn and Jake: AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!! - The torture the gnomes put Finn through in "Power Animal". - Throughout the series, Finn gives very realistic screams. This episode in particular will make you very uncomfortable with the raw pain in Finn's voice as he struggles to stay alive. - The very last line of that episode. Jake: Let's go eat Cinnamon Bun. - The way the gnomes seem to give off vibes of pedophilia, especially when they make Finn pole dance! - In "Her Parents", Lady Rainicorn's parents try to EAT Finn! It doesn't help that Bob Rainicorn is voiced by none other than Henry Rollins... imagine that guy threatening to eat you. - At the end of the episode, the Rainicorns and Jake indulge in "soy people" which allegedly tastes just like real human flesh. Jake remarks "Finn, you taste delicious!" after trying some of the ersatz human, which prompts Finn to give it a try... The last shot of the episode is Finn's wide grin as he realises how delicious his own flesh is. Brrr... - The very end of the episode has the background music steadily getting louder leading up to, during, and after Finn's eating some of the "soy people" to the point where it's heavily distorted. - Much of "Susan Strong". Susan going completely manic, and her gathering up her hyoomans to eat everyone in the Candy Kingdom, (except for red stripe man.) - Jake's scary line: "We could rule them like gods! squints eyes, rubs hands, talks in low, soft voice Angry gods..." Of course, Jake was kidding, but the way he said that line was insanely creepy. - Peppermint Butler in "Death In Bloom". "Hehehehehe... Stop bein' silly, Peppermint Butler!" - The fact that he knows how to enter the realm of the dead and is good friends with Death himself is more than a little disturbing. - Plus the quick scene in the season finale where he brings tea to a Lich-possessed Princess Bubblegum and upon catching sight of her sprouts fangs and hisses like a cat before running away on all fours. What the hell is that guy? - Apparently, Peppermint Butler is also a friend of Hunson Abadeer, which is horrifying in of itself. In the background of Return to the Nightosphere is a picture of them playing golf. Keep in mind, the Nightosphere is meant to represent Hell and Hunson is meant to represent the devil. - He also gets very nervous in You Made Me when Finn wants to see Peppermint Butler's aura. Peppermint Butler: "No, you don't want to see that!" - All of the scare chords in "Mystery Train," in addition to the atmosphere in general, the lighting, the creepy conductor, and the horrifying ending. - The train falls off an open cliff and lands on a gelatin person. Jake says that this wasn't planned, and he was the one who arranged the train ride for Finn. The ending seems to suggest that Jake knew this the whole time and either he or the designer of the train tracks was planning to commit a mass murder-suicide. - Please, didn't you ever think that train was supposed to stop near the end of tracks so that everyone could use some kind of safe way to get down and the joke just got a bit too far? Especially since it would have been able to stop if not for Finn damaging the controls in the fight Nice Job Breaking It, Hero (Almost) - Marceline's ghost friends are a little bit terrifying in their Comedic Sociopathy. Marceline tricks Finn and Jake into thinking she's turned them into vampires, and has them do ridiculous things as "vampire training." The ghosts claim that Finn and Jake being kicked repeatedly by them is part of the training, and trick Finn and Jake into throwing themselves off a cliff because they think they can fly. - The season 2 finale as a whole. The Lich, who looks as terrifying as expected? Check. Princess Bubblegum hospitalized in serious condition? Check. Her SKIN MELTING OFF HER BODY AS FLAMES DANCE ABOUT HER? Check. - Unlike most villains on the show, The Lich is a monster that even Finn and Jake had trouble dealing with. - If you look closely you can see very tiny and faintly seen pupils in the Lich's eye sockets, for some reason it's just disturbing. - Here's the link. The low voice for Bubblegum actually makes it worse. - To top off the two-parter, a Lich-possessed Bubblegum turns into a gigantic Eldritch Abomination and wreaks havoc on the kingdom. Finn asks Ice King to freeze her to buy Finn time to save her, and IK does so. The citizens gather around and rejoice... until the frozen monster tips over and shatters, sending the body into pieces. The entirety of part 2 deserves a place of honor here. - During the first showdown with The Lich, Finn shoves his sweater into the Lich's eyes, pulling his skull out and shattering it to pieces. How does the Lich react during all this? He laughs. - The Lich is basically the personification of this trope. The dude has no brilliant evil plan or secret weapon: he's just there to KILL EVERYONE. - And at the very end of part two, it's shown that the snail is still possessed by the Lich's evil influence... Probably for the sake of cliffhanger, but still... - What makes this even worse is that any further appearance of the snail shows that the Lich is silently watching Finn and Jake's every move... - The Lich was redrawn as the creators didn't think he was scary enough. - Which, essentially, makes it look like The Horned King, an already terrifying character design in its own right, with such lovely additional features like a partially-rotted face with flying skin flaps, empty eye sockets, and large, curved fangs in a constant Slasher Smile - But, wait, there's more! He's gifted with extremely talented Mind Rape abilities that let him force unwitting victims, who are not even aware of the fact they are being mentally possessed, to do his bidding, just by looking at them! And he's still able to pull this off in a cryogenic state! - "Five Short Graybles". PB and Peps actually killed a cute little jellyfish for the sake of making the greatest sandwich ever by cooking it. If you think about it, it died in a pretty awful way. - The ending of "Web Weirdos", where Finn and Jake are buried under a mountain of baby spiders infinitely gushing out of their mother's backside. During the fade to black. Jake: Love like theirs will always find a way. It'll crawl all up over you and drain your body fluids, poisoning you slowly until you pass out. Finn: WAAAAAHHHHH!!! Jake: Circle of life, Finn. Circle of life... - Jake in "Return to the Nightosphere". He turned into some kind of gross demon for real: http://youtu.be/vwlO3o3vmRo. - At the end of "In Your Footsteps", the Lich has returned and appears to be plotting something along the lines of vengeance. - That scene at night where the bear is standing in front of the mirror, wearing Finn's clothes, imitating him. This creeps Jake out, so he silently walks away, looking just as disturbed and confused as us. It's one of those scenes where it's hard to explain why it's unsettling, but it is. - When Finn and Jake are having a nasty argument (lots of shouting), BMO, who just got home from soccer, sits on the floor quietly, absentmindedly rolling his soccer ball back and forth. This brings to mind the way a child reacts to his dysfunctional parent's arguing. The scene is pretty weird and mundane to the average person, but it probably caused countless fans, who grew up in dysfunctional households, to cringe or just feel disturbed. - After the climactic hug battle at the end of "Hug Wolf", Finn turns back into a normal boy, and the original hug wolf turns into a surprisingly beautiful woman. After Finn and the woman remark that they both feel like they don't need any more hugs, Jake goes up to the woman ask if he can get a hug, and she flashes a pained look at the ground before spontaneously turning into another Tree of Blight, there's there's a short cut to Jake screaming, and then the episode ends. This isn't as random as it might seem. During the opening scene, the Alpha Hugwolf was hit with a piece of the exploding Tree of Blight. Evidently, this causing the victim to transform into another Tree of Blight, who will, presumably, be dealt with in the same way as the first one. Poor girl. - The whole premise behind "Princess Monster Wife," which is essentially about Ice King stealing the princesses's body parts. We see LSP cut open, PB with a chunk of her head missing, and (disturbingly) Turtle Princess with about three fourths of her head gone. - The way PB tries to talk with most of her head missing. Incomprehensible gurgling. Sweet dreams... - And of course the titular "Princess Monster Wife" in question... 'she' is about as disturbing as you can imagine... - The way the Princess sounds- three voices at once. Also a HUUUGE Tear Jerker- as when she cries, we hear three voices crying. - The combined Princess is alive... and essentially takes herself apart, which could be seen as killing herself for the good of the other Princesses. - PB's frazzled, exhausted, slightly unhinged appearance in "Goliad." We haven't seen her looking so "off" since "The Duke." - The fact that PB has made a clone of herself that can live forever. Has she really lost it this time?! We all remember what happened the LAST time she tried making an heir to the throne. Knowing Adventure Time, this will not end well... - It DIDN'T end well. Goliad was even WORSE than Lemongrab. LG was an asshole, but PB's newest creation is completely evil and sociopathic. - Goliad herself, a sociopathic, telepathic sphinx mutant whose entire premise is based off the alien children from Village of the Damned (1960) (really easily obvious when Finn tries to keep his thoughts away from Goliad). Especially the part with the bee... - She crushed the bee in her paws (we saw blood, too!), and brought it back to life with her psychic powers. This made even PB frightened! - Her disturbingly logical speech upon her turn to the Dark Side, delivered in that perfect Creepy Child voice: "No, Princess. Bee cares not for flower. If getting pollen hurts or kills flower, bee would not care. ::crushes bee:: Bee is stronger than flower. ::reanimates bee:: Goliad is stronger than bee. Goliad is stronger than all... " - It's worth mentioning that the hypnotic eye stalk looks and functions identically to Edward's mutated pineal gland in the horror film From Beyond. [1]◊ - Incidentally, Goliad was voiced by an actual little girl. And as long as we're here, how about a more realistic version of the battle? - The children entering Jake through his eye sockets in an attempt to damage his brain. And when Goliad mind-controls the kids to do the same thing later. - Jake freaking out and yelling at the candy kids. - The implication that, for all intents and purposes, Finn's son and PB's daughter are doomed to spend the rest of eternity in a meta-world, fighting each other, with no hope of ever coming back. - Although, if Stormo inherited some of Finn's Blood Knight nature, he might be enjoying it... which may not be very comforting, really. - The implication that (because of Goliad's current state) if PB really DOES die, Lemongrab will inherit the throne to the Candy Kingdom. Oh dear Glob, save us... - But it might not be that bad - Lemongrab has settled down with his clone, so maybe they'll rule the Candy Kingdom together? - Unfortunately, "Too Old" reveals that Lemongrab has become a sadistic tyrant who oppresses the lemon people and cannibalizes Lemongrab 2. The idea of a disturbed Lemongrab on the Candy throne is frightening enough, but a disturbed, unfettered, sociopathic Lemongrab is even worse! - When Finn asks PB why Stormo didn't turn evil, she says it's because he is based on Finn's "heroic DNA". Considering Goliad, who was based on PB, became an evil sociopath bent on ruling the world with mind control, what does that say about her DNA...? - It might not be PB's fault. During the scene that depicts what PB put in the formula, one can see Cinnamon Bun getting thrown in the mixture with candy biomass, and climbing out before she puts Algebra in. Cinnamon Bun may have a repressed evil side covered up by his klutzy and thoughtless nature. - Also keep in mind that she hangs out with Peppermint Butler almost 24/7. Wouldn't be surprising if tiny shavings (Candy Person Dandrift) from him got in somehow. Or he sabotaged her from the beginning. Who knows? - The fact that all this could have been avoided if PB hadn't played God is also pretty terrifying. Making Goliad is one thing but creating another with Finn's DNA... What would happen if Stormo didn't want to fight her? - They'd have been exactly as screwed as they already were, so hey whatta ya got to lose at that point? Fire with fire, or mad science as the case may be. - "Beyond this Earthly Realm" had plenty to offer in the nightmare department. - Finn gets trapped in the Spirit World after touching a magic artifact, leaving him out-of-phase with the real world— he can see and hear Jake, not vice versa. It's a situation eerily similar to Transformers: Prime's Shadowzone, except that Finn lacks the convenience of being able to text Jake for help. - The Spirit World is inhabited by a vast collection of bizarre, Lovecraftian creatures that drift about with no rhyme or reason, seemingly just there to creep us out. - The only one who can help Finn is Ice King, who's able to see him with his Wizard Eyes. That's not the scary part, though— this reveals that all the crazy things he sees with said eyes actually are real. The whole time, he's been able to perceive the denizens of a world out of phase with our own, akin to the protagonist of From Beyond. He mentions to Finn that they scare him a bit, but that he's relieved that they can't actually interact with him. Once he gets pushed into the Spirit World as well, he's absolutely terrified once the monsters are able to touch him for real. There's also a disturbing rape subtext when he Madness Mantras cries that he's sorry and that he needs Finn's hat as a buffer because they were touching his body. - The... head-spitting, Shub-Niggurath-like thingy that stalks the Spirit World version of Ice King's castle. Even he finds it off-putting, which is saying something. - Lumpy Space Princess wearing lipstick. shudder - The shadow Finns in the mirrors. While they're easier to dispatch, they still got in a LOT of claw-swipes at Finn, and if he hadn't been there to break into the chamber filled with them, LSP would be a complete and utter goner. - There's a quick scene towards the end of "Gotcha" in which Finn is sitting on a log next to the snail, who, last we've heard was possessed by the Lich. The idea that Finn could be within striking distance of the Lich and not even know it is quite frightening. - Between the mirror!Finn undressing and LSP saying that she took it too far/blaming her lumps for turning Finn into a "grody monster", that scene in the mirror room may be very... uncomfortable to some viewers. - The previews of "Princess Cookie" are just chilling. A rogue cookie is taking hostages in a convenience store... with a baseball bat as a weapon. We see Princess Bubblegum trying to offer things to the criminal, who screams at her that he wants her crown. Later on, we hear him saying "I'M ABOUT TO FLIP OUT!" Geez... - THE COOKIE TRIED TO COMMIT SUICIDE. HOLY HELL! - According to Jesse Moynihan, the Tart Toter is "beyond rehabilitation." The way he is now, he'll always be like that. - Several faces during "Card Wars". Here's one with Finn◊. And another◊. Can't forget this one◊. This one has Jake◊. Finally, we have◊. - The entire episode "Son Of Mars" is pretty chock full of it. Magic Man starts the ball rolling by transforming a deer into a telescope, and then neglecting to transform it back afterwards! Magic Man: You're welcome! - It's lessened when there is the distinct possibility it's that freaky stag. - He still has the telescope in Normal Man, several seasons later. - All of the torture that Magic Man inflicted upon the Martians- Body Horror, conjoining all of their arms together, bringing their shadows to life to attack them, mutilating them, and replacing all of their drinking water with... Hair... - Magic Man's house, which, according to Finn, "is a reflection of his sick mind." It's an old, decaying (literally!) house, broken, filled with mold, and there's a dead rat in the corner. Magic Man seems utterly unaware of how disgusting it is. - Magic Man himself. Although he's a very funny character, he's EXTREMELY disturbing. First of all, he tried to have Jake killed just so he could get his powers back- and obviously he felt no remorse. There's also his disgusting lack of empathy for others... and the creepy, sing-song way he avoids Finn's direct questions, such as Finn's inquiries about his home or his girlfriend. - On the subject of Magic Man's girlfriend, the King of Mars hints that something happened on Olympus Mons between them which turned Magic jerky. Some promo art◊ for the Sons of Mars title shot reveals his jerkiness may stem from survivor guilt as Margles' appears to have fallen to her death in the dead volcano's crater. - THE GUNSHOT. Supposedly, the only way to save Jake was to have Abraham Lincoln travel back in time to Ford's Theatre and be shot again by John Wilkes Booth. - Grob Gob Glob Grod's design, which is eerily reminiscent of the Flatwoods Monster. - The skull with worms crawling around in it. - The 37th Dead World.◊ Note that the tall, skeletal creatures remain eerily still, as if there is no time there. - In "Burning Low," Finn almost died of oxygen deprivation. - Flame Princess exploding. - Flame Princess falling down into the ground. - Everything Princess Bubblegum reveals about Flame Princess. She knows how Flame Princess works, and knows that Flame Princess is physically incapable of romance. Basically, Flame Princess is so unstable that if she gets romantic with Finn, she'd cause a reaction that would have her burn into the ground and eventually burn up all of Ooo. The viewers knew how volatile and dangerous Flame Princess can be, but Princess Bubblegum states what exactly could happen. - Finn's burned face. - The dream sequence from "BMO Noire". There's one part in which BMO has a creepy, male "detective" face, complete with Lemongrabb-ish eyes and a nose. It looked so wrong. Not to mention the images of BMO setting up his detective roleplay implies BMO has a somewhat weak grip on his fantasy life. - Especially because we saw that face in shadow, for a split second, making it seem like a subliminal message of some kind. The message? Sleep well, kids! - When Finn and Jake come home from adventuring, Finn is carrying a blobby seal-like creature called a "lard" in his arms. When BMO reveals that he found the sock, Finn drops the lard and it doesn't even twitch. While we find out more about it in "Princess Potluck", people can be forgiven for thinking he was carrying a dead body. - "King Worm". The entire episode is one horrifying Mind Screw! - The title card. It's a mess of giant eyes, Finn/King Worm hybrid vomiting out melting Jake heads, Lady Rainicorn with multiple mouths on her body, PHIL FACE (the face on Mrs. Cow's udder, the face used to open the Nightosphere), all around Body Horror... oh, and The Lich is in the background. - The title card music is absolutely terrifying. It can be heard in the episode proper when the Gunter abominations are on the march, but the music's mostly drowned out by the noise. - Finn with Lemongrab eyes and a pointy nose. - Finn's voice distortion before he describes the sword he want to appear, the whole scene with Jake's Dad, the LSP rain splattering on the ground, Lady Rainicorn's voice, Jake FREAKING MELTING as he tries to assure Finn "Everything's normal...", the King Worm's scary laughter, the Lich coming out of Finn's belly button, the dying Worm King, much EVERYTHING in "King Worm". - In Finn's dream, PB is having coffee with the Lich. Finn asks what's up, and PB makes a horrifying Nightmare Face and says "You wouldn't understand, because you're TOOOOO YOOOUUUUUUNG!!!" in a demonic voice. - Two giant monsters made of PENGUINS chase after the Ice King. - The ghost girl from "The Creeps" makes another appearance. - Peppermint Butler appearing and telling Finn how to get out of the dream. Not that the warning in of itself is scary, but because you somehow get the feeling that it was the real PepBut invading Finn's dream, because it seems the sort of thing Peppermint Butler could do. - After later episodes from the season, specifically "Reign Of Gunters" and "The Lich", many of these examples become even worse, and watching the episode again highlights some downright disturbing Foreshadowing. - The Title Card for "Lady and Peebles." It's so creepy. At a first glance, it's a bunch of photographs of PB and LR scattered on the table. Look closer. Finn and Jake are actually in a lot of the photos. But they're all scribbled out in black pen, as if someone wants to get rid of them... - It gets even creepier when you notice that the pictures are laid down on what appears to be intestines, and a couple of worms are slithering over the pictures too! - Somehow Ricardio manages to be even CREEPIER in this episode. His face is somehow stranger and it doesn't help that he now has giant muscled arms and legs attached by creepy red sinews and tendons. - In one shot, it looked like Ricardio was going to rape PB! - The Ice King, minus his heart, lying on the ground, veins and arteries snaking out of him. - Lady Ranicorn's speech at the end of the igloo portion. For those who don't speak Korean, she basically talks about a dream where zombies attack her house and kill her family. And she apparently has this dream all the time... Lady Rainicorn : I'm little bit too worrying sometimes. I always got haunted by the nightmare that half-dead corpses attacking my house! My uncle, aunt-in-law, cousins were all present, I even hear the crying coming from the upstairs. I just wished that I could protect my family... I become too stressful during that dream, I even grind my own teeth! (Grinds teeth) When I wake up in the morning, all my teeth are cracked up! I usually try to forget about it, thinking that it's just a dream or I'm being paranoid, but I was actually attacked by these half-dead corpses before, twice! - What Lady Rainicorn and Princess Bubblegum were attacked by in the episode. Long, grabbing hands, giant eyes that shoot lasers, and a huge tongue. The cave they were in was a Womb Level made from Ice King's biomass. - "You Made Me!". - "Who Would Win?" The Farm's all-black, slanted eyes and broken, lolling neck. - Jake himself is a source of this in that episode, especially once Finn breaks his portable Kompy's Kastle console and pisses him off. Jake: I'm gonna break every bone in your body, then heal you later with that magical goo we got from the Cyclops' eye! - They end up beating each other until they're both bruised. At one point, Jake ends up as deformed as Ephialtes from 300. - "The Hard Easy" had a pretty terrifying frog monster with its gaping mouth along with the disturbing transformation back to Prince Huge. - The trailer for "The Lich" that aired directly after "I Remember You". Seeing The Lich's face zoom in at you directly after Simon Petrikov-era Ice King gives a young Marceline a toy during the Mushroom War is unsettling. - The title card.◊ Good Glob! - The episode begins in a creepy manner, with Finn having a weird dream, where the Bear from the episode "In Your Footsteps" appears wearing a human mask, Billy briefly transforms into the Lich and the dream concludes with the bear eating Billy´s lady and the snail transforming into the Lich and attacking Billy. - Billy's half shredded face, revealing the Lich underneath it is deeply unsettling. - The implication that the Lich has killed Billy. - And that the dream Finn had was actually Billy's croak dream. Finn essentially saw the way Billy died and didn't even know it. - People with freeze frame televisions (or quick eyes) got to see the reveal coming in an eerie Marble Hornets kind of static millisecond during Finn's dream. An awkwardly gangly Lich reclining and just staring into the camera is somehow even creepier than the page image.◊ - Princess Bubblegum "playing" with little creatures just as a child would with ants: cutting off their legs and sticking them in other parts of their bodies just to see how they would react. What the HELL, Bubblegum. - The truly disturbing thing? The little creatures are still smiling when Bubblegum cuts off their legs! Like they don't even mind that they're being horribly crippled! - They could be still smiling because they can't feel pain. They could have been created by Bubblegum specifically with no nerve endings as part of this experiment. What the experiment would be for, however, isn't too apparent... - The moment after Billy is hit by the gumball guardian, half of his face is gone, revealing that it's indeed the Lich. The fact that the half that's still Billy's face has a single, cloudy eye and skin-flaps? Yeah, creepy. "Finn The Human" and "Jake The Dog" - The mushroom war's mutagenic/nuke turned some poor sod into the Lich. In the Finn's wish universe, that poor sod was Jake the (regular) dog. - "He wished for the extinction of all life." - The scene where the Destiny Gang not only sets fire to the entire town, but AU!Finn's house. With his FAMILY STILL INSIDE. And they're LAUGHING while doing it. Brr... - In the universe Finn created with his wish, it was Finn, via possession by Simon's crown, who caused magic to return. - Ice King!Finn in general. He seems more insane that Ice King is normally. "The voices, they tell me to freeze the world. I am the end and the beginning. I am the hand of madness..." - Marceline's burned up, still talking skeleton. That she only speaks up to call Finn a "butt" doesn't really soften the blow. - AU!Finn kicking Marceline's skull off. - So wishing that the Lich never existed would have made Ooo a more peaceful and happy place, right? Actually, in an effort to avert the Lich's creation, it is implied that Prismo altered events so that Ice King!Simon stopped the first bomb that fell during the Mushroom War, which resulted in his death and the crown he wore going berserk and freezing all of Earth for 400 years. This of course averted the mushroom war which Marceline implies would have created the Lich we all know and fear, but in the end, humanity's society had backpedaled a little in technological advancement, they are still as selfish as during the war, Marceline was never bitten by a vampire and thus grew into a very old and crazy lady, AU!Finn took the crown for himself in an effort to save his family but became crazier than the Ice King and caused the bomb that Simon!Ice King had frozen to detonate, resulting in magical mutating nuclear fallout. And to top it off? Marceline died in the explosion and AU!Jake became the new Lich. Not exactly the happy ending Finn was hoping for. - Finn in the wish universe looks a like Lemongrab with the eyes and nose. It's kinda... unsettling. - When the bomb landed on Simon he weakly called for help, meaning he was only pinned down. You are now thinking about how long he must have lain there before being crushed to death or starved and how desperately Marceline must have tried to pull him out from under it safely, before being forced to leave trapped under what would become his tombstone. - Or she didn't find him in time to help. - Remember, she was only a little girl at the time. - When Prismo explains to Jake how important the wording of his wish is, he mentions that the wishes he grants affect both the past and the future. In other words, one wish could erase memories, cause people to be unborn, and cause entire worlds to either cease to exist or never be created in the first place. Jake becomes so overwhelmed by this, he throws up. "Five Short Graybles" - The last "Five Short Graybles" had Princess Bubblegum and Peppermint Butler crushing an innocent jellyfish to death on screen. This one has the incredibly disturbing imagery of BMO (and "Football") drinking tea, causing visible sparking and burning because of BMO's electronic nature, without knowing that it's killing itself. "Up a Tree" "All The Little People" - Finn romantically pairs up random mini-characters, and we see Marceline licking the red off of Peppermint Butler. Later, when we see how horrible these pairings have turned out, we see that Marceline has licked off half of Peppermint Butler's head. - Also, Finn's increasingly creepy behavior over the course of the episode, to the point where he stays in his house for weeks just staring at the tiny people and messing with their love lives. It's implied that he barely moved from his spot at all, not even to bathe. The fact that this is Finn we're talking about here just makes it spookier. - The entire soundtrack of the episode (mostly consisting of an off-tune piano) was an intentional use of something called quarter-tone music, where "off-tune" notes (notes with half-sharps, half-flats, etc.) are played along with "in-tune" notes (any note on an everyday piano), producing a spooky and dreamy effect, kinda like this. And they indeed succeeded in producing that effect. "Jake the Dad." - "Baby Eating Fox and the Babies". Paused at just the right moment, a graphic description of the baby being eaten and digested can be read. It's even lampshaded when Jake realizes that the book is a lot darker than he remembers. - When Jakes thinks his kids died in their sleep, kids watching may not worry so much, but actual parents watching... "Davey." - The titular Davey takes more than a little persuading before he leaves. It's one thing to put on a costume for a day or two; it's quite another to have it argue against returning to the status quo. - When he first starts to become the mask is fairly creepy as well. It's just him laying wide awake at night, murmuring to himself with his eyes wide open... "I'm Davey..." "Mystery Dungeon." - Lemongrab still has the ability to contort his non-neck and rotate his head around 360 degrees. Lovely. - A manic earl, with a mouth filled with sharp fangs, asking the Ice King "How do you taste?" When the Ice King responds with "Nice, I guess," Lemongrab screams at him. - The promo art. It shows Ice King, Tree Trunks, Lemongrab, Shelby, and NEPTR backed up against a wall, staring fearfully up at what appears to be a giant. Ice King is clearly terrified, and is exchanging a desperate hug with Lemongrab, who stares up at the giant in shock, gripping his sword... - Lemongrab pulling his mouth open wide to reveal a whole mess of sharp fangs. Eeep. - The giant rat that comes through the floor. That in itself is creepy enough. Lemongrab literally punches the rat in the head and the rat either dies or passes out. Lemongrab shoves his face into the mouth of the rat and eats the pre-chewed pie from the rat's mouth. "All Your Fault". - Basically the entirety of this episode. It starts off unnerving, but once Finn and Jake go into the dungeon, it becomes downright terrifying. Lemonjon's giant organs strewn around the castle, the two-headed twitching lemon creature behind the door, the tiny screaming lemon monster whose face peels off, the four-mouthed green lemon creature that licks Jake's hand, and of course, the completely emaciated Lemongrabs that have wasted all their food to give life to these things. - It doesn't help that the tiny screaming thing with the peeling head sounds just like a certain other abomination. - Put it this way: The dungeon sequence is like a Shout-Out to the Silent Hill games, or possibly the nightmare scenes from Jacob's Ladder, with its random, freaky lemon monstrosities (a two-headed one shakes its head just like one of the monsters from SH or the film), the organs of Lemonjon strewn about, and the darkness illuminated only by light sources haphazardly placed in the area. No wonder Finn and Jake are so freaked out by that place! - Princess Bubblegum erasing the candy life formula from the Lemongrabs' exposed brains. They don't seem to mind in the least, but it's still pretty freaky. - A Freeze-Frame Bonus of this scene gives us a glimpse inside Lemongrab's brain, and we can literally read his thoughts. And unsurprisingly, some of them are downright awful. One of them reads "Call me crazy, but I think it's time for us to die." Others read unsettling, bold, all-caps things like "RAGE" and "SUFFER." Others imply that Lemongrab is legitimately paranoid and insane, and others imply that he is a pyromaniac who wants to set things on fire. - When the Lemongrabs destroy the Candy Seeds to create Seedwad, who immediately goes on to puke. While merely plants, those seeds were already alive, destined to grow into something beautiful and life giving and the Lemongrabs transformed them into a creature that most likely suffers every moment it is alive. - Just the fact that the Lemongrabs's stupidity resulted in a child's death, and Lemongrab 2 didn't even seem to care. His complete lack of facial expression was horrible. "Little Dude" - The Magi creature is pretty freaky when he isn't in Woobie mode. - At the end of "Bad Little Boy", it shows that the Ice King has an entire room filled with Fionna and Cake fanfiction books, with huge ice sculptures of them in the middle. Not to mention that the room is sealed with a lock that looks like Fionna's head, and Ice King dedicating himself to finding Fionna and Cake one day. It's all very... disturbing. - Xergiok's torn-out eyes. And his empty sockets are somehow even worse. "Simon and Marcy" - The mutated zombies. To make matters worse, they are implied have been the human inhabitants of that city. - More than that, we see a pink goo that seems to be growing sentient, suggesting that this is a proto-Princess Bubblegum and the goo's behavior (though also a Crowning Heartwarming Moment, provides the much sought-after soup to a sick Marcy) sets the tone for PB and Marceline's whole relationship. - From that same episode, the first time we see what Simon is like under the influence of the Crown is extremely creepy. It's like someone flipped a switch and turned this quiet, sweet guy into a cackling maniac. "A Glitch is a Glitch" - The "Glitch" video that the Ice King sends to Finn and Jake. The vid consists of a random emotionless woman eating her own hair. What makes it scary is just how unnerving the vid is. See it for yourself... - Probably because her physical reactions (gagging, glancing at the camera) are portrayed realistically, which is seriously out of place for this show. - The entire episode is a disturbing eleven solid minutes of pure nightmare fuel, mostly because it's rendered in 3D. - "A Glitch is a Glitch" is so terrifying. You watch the inhabitants of Ooo glitch into nothingness as the scenery degenerates into blank polygons. - What do you get when you cross a giant spider with a rattlesnake? The stuff of nightmares. - No one mentions that the Ice King, usually a Harmless Villain, has come dangerously close to erasing ALMOST EVERYTHING IN THE WHOLE ADVENTURE TIME UNIVERSE??? "Puhoy" - GOLB, the thing that Finn flies by after he "dies". - Finn dancing with Roselinen. His arms actually sunk into her sides and disappeared. - The Blanket Dragon writhing in pain slowly before it dies. Surprising how a blanket dragon bleeding little pillows can appear so painful and graphic... - Heck, the episode itself is disturbing, Finn just experienced an entire life in a day and even died, and doesn't remember a thing about it. It does leave one question, was it All Just a Dream, or did that stuff really happen? "B-Mo Lost" - Bubble the air spirit's shudder-inducing speech to B-Mo at the end of the episode, about how from now on, he'll always be watching him everywhere he goes until the end of time. B-Mo doesn't seem overly affected by it, but it's still pretty creepy to the viewer. The subtle change from happy, heartwarming music to "Psycho" Strings doesn't help. "James Baxter the Horse" - Finn and Jake try to cheer up people at a funeral, but leave when they realize their attempts aren't working. Then the coffin starts shaking around as if the person inside was trying to escape. It's later shown that the person was not actually being buried alive, but the truth is hardly more comforting—later in the episode, they return to the funeral, and the coffin starts shaking again... and out pops a reanimated skeleton that crawls around like something out of The Exorcist, which then becomes an enormous ghost and begins chasing Finn and Jake around, trying to kill them. "The Suitor" - Quite a bit, from Peppermint Butler's demon summoning to the... creatures guarding the Soul Stone. The grand prize, however, has to go to Braco's appearance after he makes a Deal with the Devil to win Princess Bubblegum. Just... UGH. - There was a bit more of it too. What with his burning, bruising and bludgeoning, he get's a nice progressive mutilation to bother the audience deeply. "The Party's Over, Isla de Senorita" - The Ice King sneaked into the Candy Kingdom palace, duct taped Princess Bubblegum's mouth and woke her up with a creepy "Hey baby," with the intention of abducting her (as usual) so he can give her breakfast in bed. He does this all the time to the point that it's becoming a Running Gag, but the fact that he considers her his girlfriend even though she (for every good reason) doesn't want anything to do with him drives home how demented the crown made him. "One Last Job" "Another Five Short Graybles" - The Earls of Lemongrab's section in which Lemongrab 1 starts to eat Lemongrab 2 because the two fought over their "son", just a toy Lemongrab, and dropped and broke it. - Just Lemongrab's Start of Darkness in general. Once he tries to eat his brother, he sets himself on the path that leads to his horrific actions in "Too Old" and his death at Lemonhope's hands. Lemongrab 2: [holding a yellow hat on his finger] Beautiful... [Lemongrab 2 looks back and watches to his horror that his brother is playing with the fragile lemon doll alone, making it frantically dance with his hands] Lemongrab 2: OOOOOOOOOH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! BROTHER STOP THAT!! [Lemongrab shakes his head before moving the doll towards his cheek] Lemongrab: We. Hate. You. Lemongrab 2: WAAAAAH!! [slaps Lemongrab, making him drop the doll, whose head shatters on the floor] * beat* [Both Lemongrabs stare at each other] Lemongrab: ONLY OOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!!!! [bites his brother and starts forcing him down his gullet] The end! Lemongrab 2: AAAAAH!! AAAAAH!! - Seeing as the Lemongrabs seemed fine in their last appearance, fan speculation has abounded as to what changed between that episode and this one. General consensus, as well as the game being deemed fully canon, is that the experiments that PB put the Lemongrabs through during "Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know" managed to screw the two up even more. Seeing as it caused Lemongrab 1 to grow an extra arm and that he's the one with the past negative history with PB, it somewhat makes sense that he's in a much worse place than his brother. That portion of the game can be seen here - It worse after "Too Old" reveals that Lemongrab partially ate Lemongrab 2 alive and horribly mauled him to the point of deformity, then abused him and deprived him of food and medical attention. - It's also Harsher in Hindsight in that it foreshadows the fate of the REAL lemon children in "Too Old". Lemongrab 2 wanted to put their "son" to bed because he claims he was tired, showing that Lemongrab 2 is a caring father. But Lemongrab wanted the "son" to dance around for his amusement. And then in "Too Old", we see the Floor Show, and Lemongrab's treatment of the children in general compared to Lemongrab 2's. "Jake Suit" - The fact that Jake can control Finn's nervous system seems a bit unnerving. - The last part of the episode, where Jake tries to make Finn empathize with him by exposing him to the Fire Kingdom's intense heat without protection, with disastrous results. By the end, both are covered in bandages due to Finn's last stunt, in which he wore Jake once more and jumped into an active volcano. - Jake himself becomes terrified of Finn's extreme pain tolerance, as he realizes to his horror he'd probably get himself killed just to prove a point. "Be More" - The original title card for "Be More": [2]◊Geez, no wonder why they scrapped that... - BMO "glitching" and then throwing up is a very real fear- BMO is basically a child so watching Finn and Jake rush him to the Mo Factory was the equivalent of watching two parents taking their very sick kid to the hospital. - Moe's emaciated condition, and his sort of Uncanny Valley appearance, especially the way his mouth moves. Softened by the fact that he is an extremely gentle, kind person, though. Finn: You're human too?! Moe: My skin is! - Some of the robots in the factory - they were trying to KILL Finn, Jake, and BMO! "Sky Witch" - Some of Marceline's transformed faces in "Sky Witch" just SCREAM this trope. - Maja's face at the end as well as what she is saying while making said face. "Frost and Fire" - The fight between Flame Princess and Ice King goes into a dark place when we see the Ice Kingdom destroyed, its citizens fleeing for their lives, and Finn having to revive an unconscious Gunter and rescue the Ice King from the fire he himself caused. "You blew it", indeed. "Too Old""The Vault" - "The Vault" finally gives us a backstory for the Green Ghost Lady who first appeared back in "The Creeps": Shoko was a mercenary sent by the Bath Boy Gang to retrieve a powerful amulet from Princess Bubblegum back when the Candy Kingdom was first being built. When she finally managed to get her hand (she was an amputee) on it, she fell from the top of the still-under-construction Candy Castle... right into a river of radioactive slime, emerging later with her arm restored, but also mutated into the freakish worm-monster we see her as as a ghost. Also, when she died as said worm monster, her body was basically consumed by what is now Finn and Jake's tree-house, meaning her skeleton has been hidden in their kitchen floorboards for hundreds of years! - Shoko's weird radioactive worm is pretty nightmarish. Have a look.◊ "Dungeon Train" "Red Starved" - Pretty much everything about Marceline once she goes insane from hunger. her Nightmare Face... Especially Jake: You're sick! Marceline: Yeah... [3] - The light from the green jewel transformed anyone that crosses its path into sand, killing them in the process. - A starving Marceline sucking the pink out of Bubblegum and leaving PB grey and shriveled afterwards. Sure, she does recover, but that was still shocking to watch. "Play Date" - The Cliffhanger ending where Jake is taken to another dimension by Keeoth who had his blood returned to him by Finn breaking Joshua's sword. "James" - The zombies from "Simon and Marcy" return from the depths of Ooo to swarm PB's vessel. She sacrifices James to drive them off, but the ending shows James' zombie climbing out of the crater, leading the others out. "Root Beer Guy" - Not only the thought of Finn and Jake going bad, but also the idea of the guards being too stupid and incompetent to solve the case and having to have just a normal guy solve it. "Blade of Grass" - When Finn wakes up to find the sword wrapped around his arm, a la The Ruins. "Rattleballs" - Finn acting like a creeper to Bubblegum in the beginning. The similarities to Ice King's behavior at the start of "The Party's Over, Isla De Señorita" are too much not to be intentional. - "I will poke your eyes out, and whenever you try to see stuff, you will think of me." Not to mention that Finn egged Rattleballs on, spreading his eye open and everything. Body Horror, much? - The destruction of the Rattleballs. Princess Bubblegum rounds them up at their would-be execution point, speaks to them in a assuring tone, and then... Group 1 go in, STOMP, Banana Guards carry the "bodies" away for disposal before the next group enter. Only one Rattleball realizes what is to come and yet he cannot resist. Note that their crushing device is quick and quite efficient for mass extermination. Does This Remind You of Anything? "Betty" "Lemonhope Story I & II" - Nearly everything involving The Lich in Wake Up/Escape from the Citadel, including his incineration of Old Man Prismo; Billy's face melting away to reveal the Lich's final, fully skeletal form; and the visceral process of the undoing of this form by Guardian's blood. - Some of the criminals in Prismo's montage of Citadel prisoners can look worse than The Lich. - The above only serves to make the Lich even more terrifying. Not only is he able to escape the Citadel under his own power, but his mere presence destroys it. One gets the feeling the Lich wasn't imprisoned there because he wasn't as bad as the other inmates, but because he's so singleminded in his destruction of life that he simply never thought of committing a cosmic crime before. - The Lich makes a horrifying grin as he melts down the Citadel's Crystal Prisons. - The Lich's speech to Finn. The Lich: You are alone, child. There is only darkness for you, and only death for your people. These ancients are only the beginning. I will command a great and terrible army. We will sail to a billion worlds. We will sail until every light has been extinguished. You are strong, child. But I am beyond strength. I am the end. And I have come for you, Finn. - It's eerie in itself how closely Ron Perlman's performance resembles his old monologues as Slade. The similarity in voicing is haunting enough, not to mention the content. - Just the fact that after a whole season, the show's most terrifying antagonist is back. And he delivers everything we've come to expect. - The Lich casts off Billy's skin and reveals his true form, a skeletal humanoid with spikes down his spine and horns. His voice is clearer, less gravelly, and somehow that makes it even creepier than usual. In this form, he is able to black out the world and isolate Finn with a wave of his hand. He is also able to bring Finn down by speaking one word. The Lich: Fall. - The Lich's one commanding word that he utters in order to rob Finn and Jake of their power ties in well with the speech that follows The Lich's command. As powerful as The Lich has become as of that point, he truly has risen above strength; his power, his influence, and his reach has become absolute. Finn is no longer facing an enemy that he can fight in a straight battle, an enemy that he can damage or hope that through some amount of endurance he can defeat, even if only just barely. The Lich is beyond strength, all strength; he is death, and not even gods can defeat death. - The speech above is powerful and haunting in regards to what it makes The Lich symbolically, and arguably literally, become. Cast in the infinite shadows of the lonely cosmos the Lich represents himself as the embodiment of death itself, an all consuming darkness that will extinguish all light. In the face of such a horrifying enemy, even Finn's strength means nothing, and the way that a single commanding word robs Finn of all his strength shows how absolute his power has become. But God... the worst part is when he reaches out his skeletal hand about to strike at Finn, like he's the Grim Reaper come to collect Finn's soul; it's a very visceral, personal representation of how horrifying coming face to face with Death should be. - The Lich at the party becomes this when it's revealed he was aware the entire time, watching, waiting for his moment to strike. This guy has the patience to wait months, being humiliated constantly, just so he can kill the guy keeping him there and escape. That, combined with the fact it's simply impossible to kill him, and the Lich becomes a whole new level of terrifying. This undead engine of destruction who only desires to wipe all life from existence has enough patience to wait months for his chance to get you. You get the feeling his past defeats were little more than an annoyance to him and adds credence to his speech. - That one shot where he's in the background, right before he knocks Finn and Jake away from Old Man Prismo is nightmarish. He 's frozen in the same position he has been in the rest of the episode, but his facial expression is different, and it is pure hatred. - Hell, the Lich just sitting in the corner peacefully with a little smile on his face is unnerving in its own right. - At one point, a Guardian's laser fries off part of Martin's leg. Bone is visible. - When the sap is applied to the wound the regeneration process is graphically detailed. You see nerve endings, muscle tissue and fat all reform and then fuse together into a new leg. - And then they throw it on the Lich. Here's the process halfway through.◊ The Lich gasped and convulsed in horror as he was turned into Sweet P. - The Grass Sword forming a very twisted arm, Tetsuo-style, to grab onto an escaping crystal and then ripping off, taking everything below the elbow with it. - Just what does it take to get imprisoned in the Citadel, considering that the Lich has never been taken, and just what did Martin Mertens do to be imprisoned there in the first place? At the very least, Martin is up there with mass decapitations, killing a wishmaster & planetary destruction. - It's revealed that even Death is terrified of the Lich. Death! That, alone, is terrifying. - The fact should be brought up that the character Death is the personification of a natural death; of a soul moving from one world to the next. The Lich is the physical embodiment of not just death or extinction but anti-life. Let's just let that sink it... - To add to all of this, the music for much of both episodes is weird, chaotic, dissonant, and overall adds to the creepiness of the episodes in general. It sounds like a record player trying to play the usual Adventure Time background music, only to do so in a backwards and disjointed manner. Hell, the only music heard while the Lich is turning into a human are screeching violins. It's a bit jarring to hear the regular music at the end of the second part when the setting returns to Ooo. - Finn's Sanity Slippage in The Tower. - When an innocent, frightened baby deer gets mistakenly swept up onto the tower, Finn doesn't take notice and just idly grabs a rotten apple and grinds on it. - The song Finn sings repeatedly in the episode starts to sound like a Madness Mantra after a while. Finn: Baby's building a tower into space, Space is where he's gonna find his dad. Daddy's got an arm, and Baby's going to harm his arm By tearing it off his dad. - The song has a freakier part later in the episode. Finn: Baby's building a tower into space To tear off his Dad's arm... From like where that round on the arm bone Meets that weird flap on the top of the back Can pull that until it comes off... - Finn struggling to breathe after reaching the atmosphere. - In Sad Face, the Ringmaster keeping the Chipmunk captive, and the Chipmunk eating the crowd, even if it was only an act. - In Breezy, the LSP x Finn implied sex scene. It comes across as a semi-non-consensual affair, and it's shot in a really creepy atmosphere. - The episode Food Chain written, directed and animated by Masaaki Yuasa is full of unsettling things, situations and eerie musical numbers. The Magic Man subjects Finn and Jake to a chain of transformations into birds, bacteria, plants and caterpillars. During this Finn tries to eat Jake, then dies of hunger and turns into the bacteria eating his own dead body. The whole thing ends with Finn ascending to a higher form of existence and becoming a hybrid of all the things he had been turned into. - Jake in Furniture & Meat, after becoming power hungry. Breaking into peoples' homes? Creepy. Making them swap places and sleeping positions? Still rather odd, but benign. Forcing them to eat your money and equipment from their toolshed? Now you're crossing the line. Probably worse is that Jake is enjoying it. - It was pretty jarring and quite disturbing seeing the normally gentle and kind Wildberry Princess sentencing Finn and Jake to death via pouring molten gold down their throats. Quite a gruesome and painful execution coming from someone who is normally a sweet and timid Shrinking Violet. - In Something Big, that moment of Maja and Darren arguing about whether to kill Bubblegum or milk her emotional power. Luckily she gets out okay, but it was a nerve-wracking minute. - In "Joshua and Margaret Investigations" we learn that Jake is half-dog, half-shape shifting alien. - In The Pajama Wars Its a bit unsettling how quickly the Candy People devolve into a dictatorship, then a death cult, when they think Princess Bumblegum is dead. - In Nemesis, we learn that the entire Candy Kingdom is under constant video surveillance from Princess Bubblegum. No citizen has a single moment of privacy, and most of them are unaware of the myriad cameras spying upon their every move. - We also see Peppermint Butler forcing Peace Master to surrender the duel by holding his children hostage and threatening to turn them into monsters. Even worse, he DOES follow through on these threats, and poor Peace Master is left with two of his kids turned into demons. Although the kids don't mind their new forms, it's still quite disturbing seeing him using the safety of children as a bargaining token. - Ghost Fly. the 2014 Halloween Special. It starts rather peaceful, but why the titular Ghost Fly appears, shit gets real. The most unsettling moment is when the fly possesses Finn. - At the end of Is That You? Prismo comes back to life with a plan he made in case he ever died. Sounds nice, but this involves two things; Finn encounters himself from earlier in the episode, causing past Finn to become the Finn Sword. This prevents past Jake from being woken up from his sleep, turning him into the new "host" for Prismo for the rest of time. - Although, on the plus side, Jake seemed quite happy with his fate. After all, getting to sleep in the multiverse's comfiest bed for eternity can't be that bad. - The Cooler, we see how far Princess Bubblegum would go to protect her kingdom... She had the Ice King cool the Fire Kingdom's magma core so that she could get access to and destroy their WMDs. However, the process of cooling their core was tantamount to starving the Fire Kingdom. PB was shown not just to have Sinister Surveillance, but if push came to shove, she'd be willing to risk committing genocide. - We actually get to see an innocent civilian DIE because of the cooling core. Nice going, PB. - The Ice King's crown is now more dangerous than before. How? Well, in Evergreen, the original wearer was named Gunter, the same name as the Ice King's penguins, and what Simon calls Marceline when his transformation is complete. Which means that everything the Ice King does that is adorable with the penguins (and even his affinity for the drums) is not Simon's personality showing through, it's the insane fixation of the Crown on its original owner. And also, the Crown is either unaware that time has passed, or is in denial about the original Ice Wizard's death. Simon may just be a Replacement Goldfish and only his willpower keeps his body from fully freezing the world and muttering Gunter to itself forever. - And Gunter strongly resembles Finn, and is implied to be his past life. What does the Ice King's Friendly Enemy status mean? - There's also something really disturbing about Gunter's insane chanting of "Gunter, No!" that only gets louder and louder as he and his entire world all die seconds later. - The entire episode jumps between Tearjerker and Nightmare Fuel very often. The fact that the old ice wizard neglects Gunter, later revealed to be his adopted son, and just how much Gunter wants to be like his dad are tearjerker moments, but the episode adds nightmare fuel since the old ice wizard is directly shown to have been involved in the end of the dinosaurs just because he neglected Gunter. An Aesop for neglectful parents? - The Crown's fixation on Gunter is revealed early on in the show. Evergreen says the crown would attach to its original owner, but also that the deepest wish of the wearer of the Crown would be granted. And the Crown clearly became more proficient at keeping its wearer alive and performing ice magic. In "Frost and Fire", The Ice King first says "Save Gunter", meaning the devotion is so strong, it overrides self-preservation. How many people and deepest wishes did it accumulate on its mad search for Gunter before Simon (whose deepest wish was to impress his "princess") found it? - To say nothing about the implication that the comet that killed the dinosaurs is a much earlier form of The Lich. In one form or another, he has been around a LOT longer than anyone had suspected. - Gold Stars confirms The Lich is still dormant somewhere inside Sweet P. Demonstrated when he full out Mind Rapes King of Ooo and Toronto with visions of primordial beasts in a featureless hellscape. Lich!Sweet P: Stop . I have learned much... from you. Thank you... my teachers. And now, for your... education. Before there was time ... before there was anything... there was nothing. And before there was nothing... there were monsters . Here's your gold star! (hisses black smoke over King of Ooo and Toronto) - Speaking of which, the King of Ooo and Toronto did not seem at all hesitant in "taking care" of Sweet P. - At first, Sweet P and Lich speech together in a Voice of the Legion sort of way, which is creepy in a dissonant manner, combining the Lich's sinister voice with Sweet P's gentle and childish one. Then he goes full Lich. - This is without debate the darkest, most overlooked episode marking the show's background. We now see a setting similar to Stephen King's Dark Tower series: The beginning of the world was not any nicer than it is now. There was seemingly no beginning. Before time began, existence was nothing other than an incomprehensible realm of chaotic oblivion indwelling screaming Eldritch Abominations. Worse, either the Lich had to have out lived them, killed them all, or be one himself. Like the Crimson King, the Lich means to destroy all of creation, or at least the living factors. Oh, and it gets better. If you pay close attention, you can see Hunson, Orgalorg and Coconteppi among the horde of writhing monsters. Yep. Marceline's dad and Gunter have been around for millennia! - After receiving the aforementioned visions, the King of Ooo and Toronto start rubbing dirt in their eyes before running off in terror. Sweet P's innocent response to the entire situation is unsettling as well. Sweet P: ( Stares at his hands)Just a dream... - Dark Purple has a scene where a group of horribly mutated factory workers sing an old commercial jungle in a matter similar to a medieval choral music, almost akin to a Madness Mantra doubly scary because we hear Marceline sing a (much more cheerful version) of the jingle earlier. - In Walnuts and Rain, exactly how long was "7718" trapped floating in that ventilation hood? He lived on nothing but rainwater and falling walnuts, causing him to become visibly malnurished. Even worse: his mind has faded to the point where he forgot his own name, he believed his name to be "7718" because he was reading "BILL" from the wrong angle, and he forgot that card games exist despite being a playing card salesman. Given how calm and rational he is when convincing Jake to stay, it's pretty jarring that he's obviously going insane. Imagine being stuck in a black, seemingly endless void for an eternity, barely clinging to life. - In "Friends Forever" the Ice King uses the help of another wizard to bring his furniture to life. After the furniture is brought to life the episode gets very dark, with Ice King's furniture purposefully trying to get him to cry and Ice King killing his furniture. Ice King was even willing to kill his own lamp until the other wizard removes life from the lamp. Heck, the fact that the guy whose touch brings life is also able to kill ANYTHING is terrifying in and of itself. - Jermaine losing his temper at Finn and Jake because he resents their carefree lifestyle can be a little unnerving to watch, if only because of how physical he gets. As in, not only does he start throwing things at them, but he starts repeatedly punching and biting Jake (again, his BROTHER). Jake: Come on, Dad didn't have a favorite! He just liked my fart jokes. Jermaine: I'M THE FART JOKE! (throws a vase at Jake's head) - In "Graybles 1000+", we see Earth as almost entirely devoid of animal life, with two exceptions. We see Marceline's house, looking only a little worse for wear - and there is a light on. While it is never revealed on-screen if Marceline is alive, who else could keep the house so well, despite the age? Then, towards the end, we see a giant white thing chasing after Cuber's ship over the much-crazier Ice Mountains, which then turns and shows itself as the Ice King, with his beard so long it covers his entire body, with the three red gems of the Crown, enlarged, on his forehead. He moves by flapping his beard-wings, as seen in "What Have You Done?". His beard over his own face also forms the face, not of the Ice King, but of Evergreen the Ice Wizard! And judging by his insane cackling, he's finally lost his mind completely. The only people left on this desolate planet are Marceline and this... mad shell of Simon Petrikoff, for whom all hope of regaining his sanity are now lost. - Although on a more positive note, it's not made clear WHAT exactly the "Ice Thing" is, so it's possible that it may not be Simon after being fully corrupted by the crown, but rather what's left of the crown after he is cured. It still looks freaky as hell though. \|\|"Come Along with Me" fortunately reveals the Ice Thing's actually Gunter, who fused with the Ice Crown. Unfortunately, the Ice Thing apparently went mad after Jake's grandson Gibbon stole one of its jewel eyes to empower himself. It also reveals Marceline's house is now home to Shermy and Beth.\|\| - Cuber spends a large chunk of the episode fleeing from aliens that are trying to kill him for crashing a wedding and accidentally killing the bride, exposing her to the vacuum of space. \|\|"Come Along With Me" reveals those aliens are actually King Gibbon's minions and possible descendants of Jake, which means now Cuber is in Gibbon's sights.\|\| - Gunter breaking the Ice King's leg with a brick while he was sleeping was a little disturbing too. Cuber also suffered the same injury while fleeing from the aliens\|\|/Pups\|\|, and is forced to set his leg back in place the exact same way Simon did. - In his attempt to get rid of the tracking device PB placed in his tooth, Starchy shoved it in a creature's blowhole, seemingly killing it. Cuber later finds the same creature and discovers it's still alive and starved. That thing was stuck for an entire millenium in the same place it fell, unable to breathe or move. After Cuber helps it, the creature thanks him, showing it's also sentient. And I Must Scream in its purest form. - The Prizeball Guardian that comes to Starchy's rescue makes Cuber scream in horror and try to flee from it before the aliens send him flying in the air. Two of the aliens\|\|/Pups\|\| enter it and shoot Cuber's Graybles bag, destroying the Guardian's head \|\|and exposing its candy people (including Crunchy) to the threat of their enemies, the Pup Kingdom.\|\| - In the episode, "Hoots," Finn's dream is this 100%. We see Finn taking a picture with his dad and Sweet P but they face backwards and Jake's face is upside down. When Jake goes to take a second picture, it's just gibberish, but if you reverse it, he says, "Say goodbye." - Princess Bubblegum's nightmare is even worse, with her onw candy people booing her and throwing fruit, then seconds later, melting into some strange yellow substance, the Bubblegum herself falls in it and dies. - "You Forgot Your Floaties" had a few moments. - Magic Man turning Finn and Jake into an egg and a bowl of soup respectively is pretty unsettling. - The reveal that GOLB did... something to Magic Man's wife, Margles, that apparently erased her from existence. Magic Man said that he literally searched every dimension in the multiverse for her, and not even Prismo could bring her back. This means that GOLB is likely the most powerful entity in the series, and he's malevolent. - The shot of GOLB sitting alone in the void, staring right at the camera. - Betty gaining Magic Man's powers and apparently going insane. - In "Orgalorg", Gunter spends much of the episode with his brains exposed. Oh, and he's revealed to be a horrifying Eldritch Abomination who will soon reawaken. And Glob, the only being strong enough to stop him, died a few episodes back. - Unless Grob Gob Glob Grod's memories were resurrected within Betty when she donned his (their?) helmet during her and Magic Man's experiments, which means if she can hold it together long enough to focus, there's a chance of defeating the monster. - Narm aside; there's something chilling about how Orgalorg in a down to earth casual tone, tells Finn and Jake that they're not going to stop him. - Remember how Finn began to lose himself to Davey? Well, in "Football," BMO performs a kind of "Freaky Friday" Flip with his alter-ego, only for it to decide that it doesn't want to go back, leaving BMO trapped in the mirror world. It gets worse when "Football"'s conscience begins to weigh in and she starts seeing BMO in anything reflective. - Marceline getting turned into a vampire. The Vampire King is on top of her holding her down, and she screams and her eyes turns red. The way he's pinning her down as she screams at him to stop could very easily be likened to a rape scene. - Many of the Vamps offer some chilling moments. Of particular note are The Moon and the Hierophant. Also the dark essence of the Vampire King. - The Moon in particular is the epitome of Nothing Is Scarier. Everything about her is bizarre and unexplained in the most unsettling way possible. She acts like she and the actual moon are one and the same, she has a morbid fascination with pigs and every line she utters in her demonic voice is pure Nightmare Fuel. Finn and Jake are scared shitless by her. The Moon: How can you lead me when I am your guide? Finn: Are you being literal or allegorical? Finn: ME NO LIKE!! RUN, JAKE, RUN!!! Jake: But she said that I'm running in her light!! Finn: WHO GIVES A DOUGH?! JUST GO!! - "DIE LIKE PIGS" - In the climax of her episode, The Moon enters the room and begins making her way towards Marceline very slowly. When Finn and Jake try to fight her, they inexplicably lose control of their bodies and drop to the floor. The Banana Guards' helmets melt in her presence and when she's stopped by a lock, she somehow manages to unlock it by chanting for it to open. The Moon: "OPEN PIGS. OPEN PIGS. PIGS! PIGS! PIGS!" Princess Bubblegum: (in disbelief) Did you just yell "pigs" until it opened? - The Vagina Dentata at Marceline's heart as she begins to suck in the VK's essence. Just a friendly reminder from the writers that Marceline is still half-demon. - The title card for 'May I Come In'. - The Blank-Eyed Girl from "Blank-Eyed Girl". She's creepy enough to freak Finn and Jake out by just standing there, and the only one who has an inkling of an idea as to what to do is wrong at every turn. Any attempt to ward her off doesn't work, or even causes more of her to appear. And by the episode's end, we still have no idea what her deal is. - What's most startling is when the girls start taking off their costumes. At first they remove their contact lenses and wigs, which makes it seem like they were just humanoids playing a prank and Jake prepares to call the police on them. Then the girls' heads spin around and come off, leaving what initially look like stumps underneath. The luminescent Starfish Alien form when they're done undressing is actually less scary than that moment. - The fact that the Blank-Eyed Girls are based on the very real lore surrounding Black Eyed Kids. - AMO essentially murdering all the other Mos in The Moe you Moe the More You Know. - Not to mention his knocking NEPTR, Finn and Jake unconscious. - BMO narrowly avoids getting crushed by a series of large machines. - From "Crossover": Despite the episode's happy ending, there is now a piece of this new Lich, EVERYWHERE! - We also get this lovely bit of dialogue between the Farmworld Lich and his unwitting pawn. Farmworld!Finn: That's great! Then we can live everywhere! Farmworld!Lich: Everywhere you will die. Farmworld!Finn: nervous laughter What? Farmworld!Lich: You. Your family. Everyone will die. Over and over. Mountains of broken bodies beneath the wheel. - Nearly the entirety of "The Hall of Egress." Finn being essentially forced to stay blind is pretty bad, but in fairness he's adaptable (he managed pretty well without his arm, after all) and would likely rise to the challenge. What's worse is the fact that, since opening his eyes is all it takes to send him back to when he became trapped and Jake and Beemo seem intent on getting him to open them (with the best intentions), he exiles himself and is later confirmed to have spent years wandering blindly through the wilderness before escaping. And there's apparently some Year Inside, Hour Outside going on, too, as only a few minutes have actually passed between the start of the episode and the end, so that's an awful lot of suffering packed into a really small timeframe. - Unlike the entire other life he lived in an earlier episode, he remembers all of this one. - In "Don't Look", the incredibly disturbing implication that all the junk and rats in the hermit's yurt were once people. - The two-parter "Preboot" and "Reboot". Among other things, it's got animal hybrids, a cyborg who implies she's experimented on what's left of the human race, the near Unwilling Roboticization of Finn and Jake, the animal hybrids attacking the heroes as killer cyborgs against their will, Susan Strong's Seeker implants reactivating and overriding her mind with a single-minded purpose to capture Finn and return him to the Founders' Island, the rogue Susan engaging her Phase II mode, the Grass Sword acting against Finn's wishes, and the cliffhanger ending. The Grass Sword merges with the Finn Sword (taking part of Finn's arm again in the process) to make a being who appears to be made of grass. What a way to return from a hiatus! - In "Two Swords," we learn more about the Grass Guy. Apparently, Alternate!Finn (from S6 E19) was living in the Finn sword, and when it was pierced by the Grass Sword (in "I Am a Sword"), a cursed grass creature invaded and trapped alternate Finn in a cocoon, transforming him into the Grass Guy. - "Jellybeans Have Power" has Princess Bubblegum attempting to harness her new candy powers. However, in her attempts to defend her kingdom from the Crystal Entity, PB accidentally destroys buildings and injures multiple innocents, something she clearly feels guilty about. - The parasitic jellyfish in "Whipple The Happy Dragon". They attach to a host, causing them to see people from their past. Who does Jake see? His dead parents floating in the ocean pleading him for help. - Whipple himself is this when pissed off. He can create tornadoes and maelstorms to destroy ships when angry. Unfortunately for Finn and his friends, BMO pisses him off when he reveals the earplugs after being unable to stand Whipple's stories any longer. Whipple: Wait... Are you guys wearing earplugs? Finn: Uh... I mean, we were, but it was 'cause of the engine noise, not because of you! BMO: IT IS BECAUSE OF YOU! Finn: BMO! BMO: He needs to be told! NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR IDEAS! beat Whipple: I see... I thought you guys were my friends, but, you are all just a bunch of HAAATEEERS!! - The Colossus, later known as The Guardian. A giant, incredibly powerful robot that destroys anyone who tries to enter or leave the islands. No one has ever gotten past it. Well, except for Martin and Finn. - Alva's video tape, which documents what happened to the inhabitants of the mysterious island. Alva was part of a German research team who came to the island to presumably study it for colonization. Efforts to manipulate the weather with technology were successful... at first. Then the weather spiraled out of control creating freak tornadoes and massive hailstorms. Those who weren't killed by the weather were picked off by the giant animals on the island. Alva was the only survivor. - And has apparently been living there alone for decades, from the look of her between now and in the film. - The entire society of Founder's Island had a lot of Big Brother Is Watching undertones. Everyone was trained to fit in a specific position, and nobody was allowed to leave the island. As shown in "Hide and Seek," Kara aka Susan Strong was trained since childhood to be a Seeker; someone whose job was to track down Hiders (people who tried to leave the island) and have them sent off to re-education. When Kara tries to help her best friend, Frieda, leave the island, Dr. Gross activates the implant in Kara's head, forcing her to destroy Frieda's escape boat. - After a normal day at work, Minerva came home to find her living room ransacked, and her husband and infant son missing. Doubles as a Tear Jerker. - The description of what went on with the viral outbreak that led to Minerva needing to undergo Brain Uploading to survive. Over 60% fatality rate on the entire island, but with a 100% fatality rate amongst the Helpers. - All the more horrifying in 2020 due to this being prophetic, as doctors and other healthcare professionals are among the hardest hit by the virus. - After Finn is reunited with Minerva, she tries to convince him to go through the same Brain Uploading that she did so they can be together again. When that doesn't work, Minerva decides that she has no other choice but to upload the brains of everyone on the surrounding islands. Luckily, Finn manages to talk her down, but it's clear that being in a virtual reality for so long has messed with her head. - Just the initial shock of "Elements" right from the get go! Finn, Jake, and BMO return from their island adventure only to find their home and everyone they know and love have been corrupted and warped, with PB now a gigantic tower of gum, Flame Princess a raging fire dragon, and Slime Princess a blob that assimilates her subjects. Not only that, but just being in one of the four quarters has the risk of someone being corrupted by its respective element. - More than anyone, the entire "Elements" miniseries has to be terrifying for Sweet P. Because of his powers he's one of the only people not converted by the elementals, but his parents still are, and they want to "fix" him. Imagine the horror of being a toddler and your brainwashed parents trying to convert you into the same transformed creatures they've become. - Jake getting assimilated into Slime Princess in the New Slime Kingdom. He just melts into her happily, and Finn nearly does the same until LSP snaps him out of it. - The New Fire Kingdom during the "Elements" special. Unlike the other Elemental Cursed areas, where everything is more or less the same but shaded to the color or element of the kingdom (Pink for Candy, Green for Slime, and Blue for Ice), the fire area resembles the remains of a burned wasteland. The whole place has the color scheme of ashes and to top it off, the inhabitants of it become extreme Blood Knights. It's also the first elemental kingdom to corrupt Finn. - Finn becomes this once he enters the corrupted Fire Kingdom. His pent-up emotions over Jake being absorbed boil over in the worst way possible, quite literally setting him ablaze with fury. It all starts going downhill when Flambo, who was also corrupted attacks him and his friends. Finn gets pissed off and literally kills him by stomping on him. Finn's horror after calming down is understated, but quite visible. Finn: You can't run the saw? STAY OUT OF MY WOODSHED! GRAH!! - Once they enter Flame Princess' palace, they find the gruesome sight of Fire Kingdom citizens fighting and killing each other relentlessly, as a giant fiery dragon with horns flies above the fighting. When Finn tries to take FP's jewel from its teeth, he realizes to his horror that the dragon IS Phoebe, who's become so consumed by bloodlust and her element that she now wants nothing but to fight. Finn: I'mma tear you apart if you did anything to her- Wait... Flame Princess? Flame Princess: Return the jewel, worm. Finn: AH! It IS you! Listen, I need this to fix Ooo, cause Jake is slime and this place is a toxic aggro machoscape! Flame Princess: This place is great! [A Flame Person charges at FP and she quickly incinerates him.] Flame Princess: FIRE KINGDOM RULES! Finn: That was messed up and NOT who you really are! [FP shakes her head]AH! [FP throws him off her head.] Gah! Flame Princess: Stop talking to me like we're friends! The only friend I have is violence and the only thing we do when we hang is FIGHT! Finn Rrrgh! - Finn tries to flee with the jewel, but Flame Princess bites his arm and eats it, chuckling at him with an intense cruelty. Finally, seeing how callous Phoebe has become drives Finn over the edge, corrupting him into someone even more bloodthirsty than her. Flame Princess: GIVE IT! [roars and bites Finn's robot arm] Finn: NO! I have to save Jake! Phoebe! STOP! Flame Princess: gulp Hnhnhnhnhnhn... [Finn's eyes start glowing] Finn: Uuuurgh! RAGH!! Flame Princess: Gyah! [Finn is corrupted into Fire Finn] Fire Finn: I'm gonna ruin your universe! - Finn, who was already a Blood Knight, is turned into what LSP calls "a crazy, fiery bad boy", obsessed only with fighting others. He's so consumed by it that he becomes perfectly willing to kill PB. Princess Bubblegum: Finn! My little sugar plum. You've returned to accept your sweet fate! Fire Finn: I AIN'T SWEET!! I'm a pure warrior with guns, and I'll immolate you for FUNS!!! RAAAH!!!! - All throughout the "Elements" series, Betty's had a habit of randomly laughing only for it to come to a head when she betrays Finn and leaves him to be corrupted by the Candy Kingdom, laughing maniacally. Her plan is no better: trying to use the gems to open a portal in time back to before Simon became the Ice King and effectively annihilate Ooo and everyone in it. Prismo and the Cosmic Owl's Oh, Crap! reaction says it all. - The ending of "Hero Heart", when Candy Tower Bubblegum starts to slowly convert the citizens of Ooo into more of her brainwashed candy minions while cheerfully singing Bing Crosby's "Let Me Call You Sweetheart". Princess Bubblegum: This charade has run its course. In your hearts, you are all SWEET! Let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love with you... Let me hear you whisper, that you love me too... Keep the love light glowing, In your eyes so true... Let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love with you... - Bonnie's power is so immense it overwhelms Flame Princess', turning her into a Candy Person against her will. In her final moments before she ends up in PB's full control, she gives her jewel to Finn in the only way she's able to, by vomiting a geyser of red jelly beans that look like Blood from the Mouth. Phoebe: Aaaaaaah!... No... Finn: gasp Flame Princess! [Phoebe retches] Finn: Phoebe? - Betty's betrayal of Finn just as he gives her Phoebe's jewel. especially her reaction and Evil Laugh as she leaves on the flying carpet, abandoning Finn to his fate. Betty:Gimme them jewels, Finn! We're outta time. Gimme gimme gimme. Finn: Here. Betty: Hahahahahaha... Finn: Let's grab LSP and get the buns outta her- [Betty shoves him off with her finger] Whoa. [hits the ground] Huh? Betty: Hahahahaha! Hahahahahahaha! Ahahahahahaha! AAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHA!! Finn: I've been betrayed... I'VE BEEN BETTY-TRAYED!! [A corrupted bear comes out of the nearby bushes, staring at him] AH!! - The episode ends in a Bolivian Army Ending, with Finn surrounded by PB's army of corrupted Candy and Fire Peoples, and the corrupted wildlife, singing in unison as they approach him. Fortunately LSP rescues him before they can grab him. - The finale of the "Elements" Miniseries. Jake is freed from Slime Princess, only to have transform into a monstrous 5 eyed, blue skinned and much taller version of himself. It's then when you realize the form is similar to that of Warren, whom you recall is Jake's biological parent... - Patience St. Pim forced the other princesses into performing her ritual against their wills, caused their powers to get out of control, nearly caused an apocalypse throughout Ooo, and remained completely apathetic to the damage she caused, instead complaining that the other princesses didn't want to "play" with her. And the worst part? She gets away with it, receiving no comeuppance for what she did, instead encasing herself in ice when things started going From Bad to Worse, commenting that she'll just try again in the future. Not even the Lich got away with his actions completely unscathed. - Adding on to this, it's shown that the ritual totally skewed the personalities of the Princesses in relation to their elements. It's safe to assume the same was done to Patience herself, along with her looks changing as well. So her apathy and ambivalence could be seen more as an affect of her own element being taken to it's logical extremes and not how she would have actually reacted to the catastrophe. And in the end, she freezes herself. So, while everyone else was healed by LSP's work, Patience most likely was not..... - A few episodes later we have Ketchup, where BMO and Marceline share stories. Marceline talks about the events in "Elements" and Bubblegum's descent into pure sweetness. The real kicker comes in that once Marceline realizes she's gone, it's implied that Marceline surrendered into sweetdom (or in other words, * effective suicide) herself. - Being a Lich episode, "Whispers" was bound to have a few moments. - Farmwold!Lich tormenting Sweet P through his whispers in an attempt to get him to revert back into The Lich. - More of a black comedy example, but Fern's casually suggesting that he stop Sweet P by severing his tendons. - The Lich's spirit briefly reawakening inside of Sweet P and speaking in both of their voices again. Lich!Sweet P:* Quickly, while the boy is gone, we must seek out my Well of Power. - Farmworld!Lich referring to himself as the last scholar of GOLB. As if GOLB wasn't scary enough to begin with, he's apparently bad enough to have The Lich as a follower, and our heroes are going to have to deal with him come the finale. - Fern, sick of being always second best to Finn, deciding that he should become the only Finn, complete with miming crushing his head. - Fern straight up trying to kill Finn in "Three Buckets" once his plan to trap Finn fails. - Finn seemingly accepting that Fern was going to kill him. - And that's nothing compared to Finn accidentally having his robot arm reduce Fern to shreds of grass. We even see Fern's face contort as Finn's robot arm starts tearing him apart. - Gumbald's monster, Grumbo, kidnapping dozens of Banana Guards in "Wild Hunt". And while we see that a number of them are okay, with the amount of banana peels littered around the monster's hideout, it's very likely that it killed some of them. - The Green Knight revealing he's Fern to everyone in "Seventeen" during his arm wrestling match with Finn. He quickly curb-stomps him after that and would've killed him while he was down if Gumbald hadn't stopped him. Finn: Hrmm... [The Green Knight starts overpowering his robot arm] GAH?!! Green Knight: You can't tell from my face, but I am smiling triumphantly. Finn: Nooo! It's... my... BIRTHDAY!! Green Knight: I know... [reveals his true face] Fern: It's my birthday too. Finn: ...Fern? [Fern inflates his right arm and quickly overpowers Finn, lifting him upwards and slamming him on the table] - The Shapeshifter/Warren Ampersand revealing that he not only planned on killing Jake and absorbing his stretchy essence, but that he's done the same to hundreds of his children in "Jake the Starchild". - Worse, when Jake discovered the ruse and managed to regain his stretchy essence, he revealed he has many children to Ampersand who quickly attempts to go back to Ooo to take his grandchildren's essence and kill them as well. When Jake manages to stop him, he ends up killing Ampersand to save his children but ends up stranded in space on a completely barren planet since Ampersand had the only means of getting back to Ooo. - The close-up of GOLB as Betty tells King Man that she has a plan to get Simon back, as well as rescue Margles; leaving King Man visibly nervous. - The Grand Finale "Come Along With Me/The Ultimate Adventure": Gumball Guardian: Mom, help me. I'm turning nasty. "NO, I'M NOT! I'VE GOT A SWEATER ON!"	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AdventureTime
After the Bomb / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Mutant abominations, genocidal human supremacists, thousands of giant crawling insects and a ruined planet filled with literal "dog eat dog" battles for supremacy? If you think a post-apocalyptic world will be tamer and softer just because most of the cast are various degrees of Funny Animals After The Bomb is here to prove you dead wrong. - The Empire of Humanity are incredibly blatant nazi fascists. They enslave and exterminate animals like they're just stomping on bugs and engage in some pretty horrifying experiments such as the "Purtyville Children" incident. In an effort to help humanity repopulate and take back control of the planet they had several "pure" children cloned and indoctrinated from the moment they were born to serve as a fresh "perfect" generation. Everything was going great... until the children turned 7 and revealed both incredible psychic powers and a homicidal disdain for anything that wasn't one of them. Long story short... all the clone children are implied to have been exterminated and humankind came within inches of being wiped out completely. - Way before the Fallout series graced the world with horrifically detailed 3D models of giant creepy crawlies like Cazadores and Bloodbugs ATB gave gamers access to dozens of nasty giant insects to use in its own post-apocalyptic setting. Many of said bugs are so big they can even be used as mounts or makeshift vehicles. The game also includes a note that the insects listed are only a small handful of those that can be commonly found in the world and that the GM should look up other species such as bugs that lay their eggs in living hosts or ones that suck blood. With a proper nature encyclopedia the possibilities for terrorizing players with a fear of insects are truly endless! - How humanity caused the apocalypse in the backstory deserves a mention for just how stupid and senseless it was. Basically, after a high school prank gone wrong various people began experimenting with genetics and created deadlier and deadlier diseases, completely confident that their advanced medical technology could handle anything they could dish out. For the most part, they were right... up until someone made something so potent that it wiped out most of the human race in days and caused animals to mutate into the forms that have in the current era. As if all that wasn't enough various world superpowers saw the deadly plague as a targeted biological attack and quickly launched their nukes in retaliation strikes. When the dust finally settled all that was left of the once powerful human race were a few isolated enclaves of fanatical fascists desperately trying to reclaim their lost glory in a world that has long since passed them by. The apocalypse came not due to a natural disaster or global war but simple human arrogance.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AfterTheBomb
A Frog in Arkham Asylum / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The Joker in chapter 2. The author seems to have a pretty good grasp of the character, which includes his unpredictability and often murderous disregard for others.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AFrogInArkhamAsylum
A Fistful of Dynamite / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes # As this is a Nightmare Fuel page, spoilers will be left unmarked. - The seemingly unkillable Reza. - The horrible, grisly sight of all the revolutionaries dead in the grotto, including Juan's six sons. The camera lingers on Chulo's dead eyes for a bit longer than it should.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AFistfulOfDynamite
A Heist with Markiplier / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Darkiplier: Same snake, different skin. Always spinning his yarns, his webs, his lies . I always thought you were trapped in his games, perpetually plunging down the rabbit hole of his stories. Helpless. Lost. I know the feeling. Perhaps I'm the crazy one. Perhaps we've met a hundred times already and you simply don't remember it. Perhaps you're tired of me repeating myself over, and over, and over, and over, and over, AND OVER AGAIN! Maybe you just miss my pretty face. It doesn't matter. People like you only want one thing... (a large red afterimage and a body double appear behind him, screaming) Darkiplier: ...and it's disgusting. You want answers. Well... games were always his forte. But allow me this one moment of self-indulgence. (cut to Darkiplier sitting at a table, pondering the Box) Darkiplier: So much trouble... all for something so small. Do you really want to know what's inside this Box? The truth? Not the lies he's told you, but the truth? Well... I know how much you love a good game, so throughout this heist, I've hidden codes , several codes. Find them all and you'll get your truth. But that's all I'm gonna give you.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AHeistWithMarkiplier
A Haunting / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Who would have thought that a show about demons and malicious hauntings would be terrifying? - Special mention goes to the episode "Where Evil Lurks." A child was paralyzed below the waist due to the machinations of the episode's Big Bad, the demon Seth. - Speaking of whom, he looks like Lord Voldemort's spectral, even creepier cousin, and at one point he casually dismisses a large number of angry ghosts, showing exactly who is really to blame for the activities in the house. Even removing him did not stop things, as another demon showed up to pick up where he left off. - "The Summerwind House" hits the middle of the road between Eldritch Location, Genius Loci and Haunted House and runs with it, for one of the most sinister episodes. Thank goodness the damn thing burned down. - The episode "Demon Child." Man. Just FREAKING MAN!! - Even worse, there's no guarantee that Man is truly gone: at the end of the episode, the mother states that they still occasionally hear ghostly whispers, and that she fears that Man is still out there, waiting for the chance to force its way back into their lives. - "The Possessed": Belial is a very, very different demon than previous ones. He's intelligent, powerful, and incredibly dangerous. - "Spellbound": Yes, the chair thing was goofy, but then we see the face of the creature haunting the house, and it looks like Freddy Krueger. And then there's the trippy occurrence at Sandra's last Wicca ceremony. - "Ghost Hunter": Jamie's personality changes and random mumblings, all the scratch marks showing up on his body, and then new ones cutting themselves in as his mother watches. When John Zaffis arrives, there are even more. And during the exorcism, Jamie experiences some nasty Body Horror. - "House of the Dead", starring a Soul Music Guitarist. What, you thought only Soul Eater characters could make faces like that? - "Monster In The Apartment": Joseph. What looks like a small boy is really a terrifying demon with simply astounding powers of More than Mind Control. How else would Bob suddenly appear from his job that fast? Its true appearance really sealed the deal, together with the fact it seemed only to target the vulnerable, if one thinks that the monster from the heroine's youth and Joseph were one and the same. - Thanks to a bigger budget, the new season is chock full of it. Special credit goes to "The Exorcism of Cindy Sauer." The villain of that episode is especially horrible, being responsible for one man committing suicide, and then trying to do the exact same thing to his wife, possessing her numerous times and conducting some of the nastiest More than Mind Control out there. - "The Uninvited" has one of the freakier series of events, including a demon thing that seems hell bent on randomly attacking people in an extremely petty and unambitious way that somehow ends up terrifying. - "The Nightmare Upstairs" is even scarier if you have kids, and even worse if you are a kid, as it shows the parents repeatedly dismissing the incidents. The monster of the episode is absolutely terrifying due to one particular fact about it: it's The Faceless. It literally lacks a face, and can sometimes be seen wearing the form of those close to you. And then it gets into bed with people, and one investigator even turns over while trying to sleep and seeing its blank, empty black hole of a face. It then torments one of the girls by directly manifesting and then seizing control over every door in the place in the last minutes. - There is also the way it attacks the girls, in a manner very reminiscent of Attempted Rape, forcing them down and pushing itself all over them, a stifling, malevolent force. Yeesh... - Season 7 has already shown two horrifying demons: one who pushes people down stairs, shows a twisted, pale face connected to shadows, and massacres animals just to show it can; the other is basically a Living Shadow who is shown multiple times to be The Corrupter and a master of More than Mind Control. It's even implied the so-called Supernatural-Proof Father is being influenced by it into being more abusive, including outright delivering the boys into its waiting jaws. What is worse, the latter demon is not even defeated fully: it's just shunted out of the house, and back into its woodland home. - The Fort from Episode 2 is also rather freakish looking, and makes you wonder if the Dad was influenced by the creature earlier than we knew.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AHaunting
Agent Ali / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes # As this is a Nightmare Fuel page, all spoilers will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned! Aahhh. . . the Super Agent is finally awake. Although the series is aimed for children and young teens, there are a lot of Darker and Edgier moments that lean towards the older audience to enjoy the series more. ## General - I.R.I.S OVERRIDE MODE. The OVERRIDE MODE is the mode in which the I.R.I.S. completely takes over the user's mind and body. The I.R.I.S. will control its user to fight its opponents until the user's energy wears off. This can only be activated when the user experiences overwhelming emotion. If this mode reaches 100% efficiency, then the user is in grave danger or even worse at risk of dying. Aliya, the creator and the first user of I.R.I.S is the first person who died when using OVERRIDE MODE to 100% to protect Cyberaya. Since the I.R.I.S. uses the brain's nerve impulses to gather data by sight and analyze them, it's possible that she died from brain damage caused by the I.R.I.S OVERRIDE MODE after reaching 100%. - It turns out that the original I.R.I.S can take over the mind from the user. Once the user is consumed by OVERRIDE MODE and unable to control it, they will become so unstoppable, and will attack anyone who gets in their way. The only way to stop the user is let them getting tired. YES! Fighting them until they exhaust themselves is the only way to stop an I.R.I.S user in OVERRIDE MODE. - Protocol Gegas is a Sadistic Choice of the M.A.T.A Agency in which the agents must sacrifice their comrade if they are unable to save their fellow agent in critical situations for the sake of protecting innocents of Cyberaya. - Jenny Woo's true personality after The Reveal that she is one of Uno's henchwomen. A sociopathic technologist who takes pleasure in mocking her enemies, willingly hurt both sides in order to finish her task, and she perfectly masked her real persona as a humble and sweet TEKNO agent who willingly helps the others. Just look how disturbing her gleeful and cold-hearted expression is when she is about kill Rizwan with the Microbugs or faced the other M.A.T.A agents. Jenny takes her master sadistic side very well. - Microbugs, the swarm of tiny multi-function nanobots. Given that Jenny and Uno able to control it from afar, once the Microbugs are implanted in your body, they can control you, or even kill you, in an absolutely painful way from the inside. - Dos shows that she also has a microbug inside her body which leaves a nasty bruise around her arm. It is implied that Uno is always tormenting Dos by putting microbugs inside her. ## Season 1 - In the mission to protect Azurium, Alicia is knocked out by Dos and almost killed by the machine of a trash compactor. If Ali chose to follow Rizwan's order to enact "Protocol Gegas" by sacrificing Alicia to get the Azurium, Alicia would have faced the most Cruel and Unusual Death in a Malaysian Cartoon. - When Aaron confessed his dislike over Dos and Trez, Uno punished Aaron by controlling Trez's body and threatened to crush him through Trez. - The revelation of Uno on the Numeros' first raid. He turned out to be Djin, the former INVISO Chief and Top Agent, who was declared death and hailed as hero because of his Heroic Sacrifice by M.A.T.A Agents. Rizwan and the other Agents are clearly shocked about this. Uno told Rizwan about the truth behind his so-called sacrifice, and claimed that the rest of the Chiefs intentionally left him behing and that their mission was part of the plot to kick him out from M.A.T.A with "Protocol: Gegas". When he and the other Numeros Agents attempted to find Ali, Rizwan tried hard to stop him. Unfortunately, because Rizwan was unable to fathom the revelation which made him unable to attack his former master, Uno took this opportunity to brutally injure Rizwan with his Azurium Sword. - Jenny's reveal to be The Mole from Numeros. Are you sure there is nothing scarier to know that a highly entrusted person for being very compassionate is the Hidden Evil villain all along? - Heck, even her reveal as the enemy is really chilling. While she brought Ali to M.A.T.A's secret underground chamber, the color gradient is still blue. Then, is slowly turns red (due to the emergency signal), representative of her true nature unravelling. This is even accompanied with a very sinister original soundtrack. ## Season 2 ## The Movie ## Season 3 - Kim's Keytar is revealed to also be a sword. Its blade looks scarily similar to Uno's Fumar, and Kim is much more intimidating now. - Champion: - Once Jenny temporarily succeeded in gaining access to the MATA Mainframe, electricity started causing malfunctions by Itself. Worse, Jenny used the Cyberaya Jet plane to kill the Young Agents, causing the massive destruction of Headquarters. The Young Agents (minus Ali, Alicia, Bulat, and Khai) suffer serious injuries, while the condition of the pilot and co-pilot of the jet plane are unknown. - As punishment for betraying her, Jenny attempts to gouge out Kim's eyes to destroy her Override Mode with Microbugs. Kim is visibly hurt and engages in bloodcurdling screams when Jenny forces dozens of Microbugs into her eyes. Although successfully saved by Ali, Kim's face suffers serious injury and she suffers partial blindness. - Jenny dies due to the Microbugs going out after gauntlet is destroyed by Ali. When Kim attempts to save her, the swarm of Microbug start mobbing her body too.After successfully being saved by the Young Agents, Kim is forced to see foster sister brutally mobbed and killed by a swarm of Microbugs. - Said Microbugs were seen to cause intense pain, burn and scar the body as seen with Sam and Kim. They got lucky because only a part of them was affected, Cinco on the other hand experienced this through her entire body.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AgentAli
AIEchidna's Five Nights at Freddy's / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes As AI Echidna's rewrite series is based off Five Nights at Freddy's, there is definitely gruesome moments to bout. - Evan's encounter with the Nightmare Animatronics are definitely creepier to start, as the robots have gained much more deadly and terrifying features, turning them into even more monstrous beasts. - Evan's death in Withered shows his head being crushed by Fredbear's jaws after Michael and his pals' turns awry. - The Missing Children's Incident still occurs in the series, but the difference being that the children possessed the Toys' bodies instead of the Withereds, and some fridge horror is soon realized that the children are scrapped in Withered's ending, presumably in a junkyard, then being forced to wait several years only to be manipulated by Nightmare into crushing Afton in the springlock suit. - Kyle's gruesome death is another one as Freddy had kept him tortured for a week, tore off his legs, and kept him until finally getting bored and killing him, becoming nothing more than a bloodied lump by the end of it, especially assuming Freddy's pent up rage at the end of Refurbished's Night 3. - Springtrap ends up being dragged to hell by Nightmare at the end of Springlocked, where his slowed down screams can be heard in Old Man Consequences' lake. While it's a fate most definitely deserved, his screams are still unnerving.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AIEchidnasFiveNightsAtFreddys
Ai no Kusabi / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes # Unmarked spoilers are ahead, per Spoilers Off rule. - Kiries ultimate fate. Yes he was a bastard who sold out his comrades, but being mind-raped and turned into a Pet against his will certainly qualify as a Fate Worse than Death. - The fate of Pets in general. They are created and trained specifically to service the Elites, but for all their training they are usually discarded by their masters after a couple of years. Then with their minimal skills the only jobs they can get are at brothels in Midas, and with each passing year they are discarded from one high class brothel to the next, until they are ultimately unemployable except in the lowest brothels or left to do hard manual labor, where everyone looks down upon them for their previous status. It says a lot that Riki has a Love Epiphany when he sees former Pets be mistreated in the warehouse, and Katze compares his situation to theirs. - Both Iason and Riki are mutilated in the end of the story.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AiNoKusabi
A Game of Vengeance and Justice / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Jasper's threat to the Dornish: "Aegon the Conqueror and Daeron the Young Dragon tried to occupy Dorne. If you refuse to obey me, I shall eradicate it. If you object to my laws on your principality, I shall send in my army that already occupies half your country. Your men may flee to the mountains as they did in ages past, but I shall kill their families, burn their villages, salt their fields and poison their wells. Then I shall tear down your castles and holdfasts and take their wealth and treasure for the crown. I shall ride a thousand horses over it till none remember that a castle ever stood there. Then I shall send in some of the many displaced peoples from across Westeros, as well as a man of proven loyalty, to raise a new castle and resettle the land - men, women and children who have no difficulty obeying my laws. Your armies have been destroyed in this war and the last one. Your ability to resist is at its last thread. Do not make me cut it." - One of the Dornish lords thinks he's bluffing. Jasper has him clapped in irons and forces him to watch as he proves that he isn't. The results of the massacre, called the Ruination of the Hellholt, are revealed in gruesome detail in the sequel. Here's the link.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AGameOfVengeanceAndJustice
Agent Carter / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes # Season One - \|\|Dottie killing Mr. Mink\|\|, particularly \|\|her dead-eyed stare when telling him she wants his gun before abruptly snapping his neck before he can retaliate.\|\| Ratcheted up by the shot near the end of the episode of \|\|his corpse stashed under her bed while she plays with her new pistol in front of her vanity mirror.\|\| - The Soviet Tyke Bomb project includes shackling the trainees to their beds at night. This goes on for so long that some adult graduates of the program, like \|\|Dottie\|\|, can't sleep unless they handcuff themselves to their bed. - \|\|Dottie\|\| barely hesitates before snapping the neck of her friend after she beats her in a sparring match. - \|\|Dottie\|\| murders a dentist with his own drill. Through his eye. And we even see his dead bloodied face. At least he deserved it... - Even though \|\|it turns out they're allies, not enemies\|\|, the scene where \|\|Dottie appears to be about to snipe Dr. Ivchenko\|\| is a really tense moment. He's just casually talking to Dooley and admiring the city, while the audience is bracing themselves for when his head is going to explode. - The reveal of Ivchenko as not just a mere psychiatrist, but \|\|a talented hypnotist who's in cahoots with Leviathan. With just several minutes of undisturbed time, he's able to turn Yauch, an SSR agent initially frosty towards him, into his loyal puppet just by identifying what he wants the most through a simple interrogation. Then when he has no more use for him, Ivchenko orders Yauch to act perfectly casual, buy himself a drink, and then walk into traffic.\|\| - The fact that \|\|Dottie\|\| came this close to killing Peggy. - Dr. Ivchenko's hypnotism. Apart from a few instances of \|\|Dooley noticing the slightest flaws for a moment or two\|\|, it works perfectly, to the point that \|\|Ivchenko nearly destroys the SSR outright by forcing Dooley to put on a failed heating vest prototype of Stark's invention, thus setting it to explode in the midst of the SSR's offices before Dooley pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to narrowly avert mass catastrophe\|\|. - We are shown that the dentist \|\|Dottie\|\| killed in the last episode was left to rot at his own office. Seeing Sousa walk into the fly-ridden corpse covered by a sheet (you can only imagine how it smells) is one thing. Remembering \|\|Dottie\|\| was communicating with Ivchenko in the same room in a previous scene only adds up to it. - "Dottie" and Dr. Ivchenko, having successfully and easily stolen Item 017 from the SSR's lab, take it (or a sample thereof) into a crowded movie theatre, release it, and then leave and bar the doors. The people nearby start to cough from the gas, whereupon \|\| everyone in the theatre rapidly descends into madness and gleefully mauls each other to death\|\|. - Doubles as Paranoia Fuel, but how exactly does Leviathan know so much about Stark's inventions? Ivchenko seemed to perfectly know how the vest works, a fact only known to both Jarvis and Stark himself. They also know about Item 017, and even Jarvis doesn't know anything about it. - Turns out there's a very good reason why Fennhoff knew about Item 017. \|\|He was there when it was first used during the Battle of Finow.\|\| - The final scene. Fennhoff with his mouth gagged with an metal mask (i.e. Hannibal Lecter-style) is escorted into his cell and \|\| Arnim Zola is his cellmate, and he's more than eager to propose a partnership. After all, "America is a land of opportunities".\|\| - Even worse when you consider that \|\|Zola recruiting Fennhoff, a man with the ability to control minds, essentially marks the beginning of HYDRA's Winter Soldier program.\|\| # Season Two - The serial killer is not found at the episodes end. Meaning he (or she) is still on the loose, and still able to strike at any time. And because of what happened with the lead detective on the case, who knows if they will ever find the killer. - The real killer was actually the \|\|Zero Matter - the lady of the lake killer wasn't actually involved in the murder kicking the episode off.\|\| The real nightmare fuel was in the \|\|Zero Matter-induced deaths.\|\| It starts with its victims freezing objects around themselves, then icing over slowly until they die - or are brittle enough to be smashed into crystalline shards when tapped. - My apologies on being unclear. I meant the serial killer from a few years ago was still out there, still lurking, not captured, no clues, and with the actual death being something different (and what happened to the lead detective), there is no one looking into what actually happened all those years ago. - We're introduced to Zero Matter, a possibly extraterrestrial or extradimensional substance that sucked a bunch of people and trucks into nothing upon its arrival, and which is set loose at episode's end. Whitney Frost, who's spent the entire first two episodes being completely smug and unflappable, is absolutely horrified when she \|\|discovers she's been infected by it.\|\| - Zero Matter gets even scarier when \|\|Whitney accidentally kills a director who's getting fresh with her, with his body turning to black liquid which is then sucked inside her, causing the infection mark to grow larger. And the whole time she's completely panicked about what's happening to her, like someone from a David Cronenberg Body Horror film.\|\| - Whitney Frost wants to steal an atomic bomb to recreate the Zero Matter experiment. What couldn't go wrong with that situation? - Another step for Ms. Frost: \|\|she didn't even have to touch those five guys from the Council to devour them\|\|. - After her front row seat to Whitney's powers in the council room, Dottie discovers she's been captured by her. For once, the eternally smug and unflappable Black Widow has no quips, and no confidence, and just stares in horror. - Whitney again: \|\|her use of Zero Matter as a form of Cold-Blooded Torture to break ''Dottie'' is alarming on every level\|\|. - \|\|Really, the fact that it took her minutes says a lot about how monstrous she is. Here is a Russian spy - not just any Russian spy, but a Black Widow - who has been subjected and hardened to all forms of torture since she was a little girl. Here is a woman who is a cold-blooded sociopath who has been nothing but poised and confident, even when chained up and surrounded by enemies. And she not only gets broken, she is terrified to the point of tears when Whitney inflicts her powers on her just once.\|\| - There's also the fact that she's so casual about \|\|shooting Ana\|\|. Calling her a cold-hearted bitch is letting her off lightly now. - Adding onto Whitney's long list of Nightmare Fuel, she really gets in touch with her inner Mad Scientist in this episode \|\|when she hooks Jason up to a pump in an attempt to try and suck the Zero Matter out of him; Jason's screams and the fact this is being done in a rather creepy waste treatment plant doesn't help.\|\| - \|\|Jason's body literally cracking and splintering as the zero matter in him finally erupts.\|\| - Jason Wilkes reveals what he saw on the other side of the rift: \|\|Zero Matter has utterly consumed everything in its home dimension. Zero Matter is alive, and it wants to get into Earth's dimension so that it can consume everything there.\|\|	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AgentCarter
Aggretsuko / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes Retsuko vomiting in her death metal voice. To those unfamiliar with death metal, it sounds like she's having her guts ripped out. When Fenneko shows images from social media to Haida, he gets really creeped out by her behavior and how often she uses it to check on everything. Fenneko then tells him if he thought that was bad, then he should stay off of social media since he isn't as familiar with it as she is. It doesn't help that the way she said that made it sound threatening. After Retsuko starts eating cheap lunches alone in the archive room after giving a very expensive wedding gift, Haida mentions his concern for Retsuko's absence to Fenneko, to which Fenneko tactfully suggests that Retsuko may have killed herself. Fenneko: Day after day she takes a ration of crap from those above her on the food chain. Until one day when she's had enough...and jumps off the roof. As if Fenneko's cold delivery wasn't enough, it gets even worse when you realize that in real life, Japan has a disproportionately high suicide rate for office workers due to extreme financial and social pressure. The absolutely chilling Mood Whiplash of Retsuko, after coming home from a night out with her friends looking cheerful, about to open the door to her apartment... only to see it's already been unlocked. She peers inside to see a light coming from her bedroom door and a shadowed figure moving from behind it. And unlike some other scary moments in the show, it's not exaggerated in the slightest, just the pure, gut-wrenching paranoia of feeling unsafe in your own home, and all Retsuko can do is run across the street and call the police, sweating and crying "I'm scared." For added tension, there's also no music for several seconds. Even when the comedy does come back, with Retsuko trying to find something to defend herself with from a nearby construction site, she's still trembling and crying the whole time. Before that, she's so on edge that a passing cyclist makes her jump. Once you get past the hilariously sadistic punchline that it's just Retsuko's nosey mother, there's still the matter of how she made a copy of her daughter's house key without her consent, all so she could take an iron grip on her personal lifewhenever she feels like it. And she will not take no for an answer! Anai and his complete inability to take criticism. This is a man (or badger) who is so volatile, irrational and hypersensitive that many fans have compared him to a workplace shooter. At first, he just comes off as childishly innocent... but the second someone, anyone (from Retsuko to Ton, the head of the department) corrects him, he becomes a completely different person, sending them hostile emails with the intention of using anything they say as leverage against them! He eventually goes so far as to goad Retsuko into saying something potentially incriminating as a threat. After Haida fails to get through to him, we see Anai sitting on the floor of his apartment, hiding under a blanket and frantically typing another Strongly Worded Letter, muttering "Don't mess with me!" over and over through gnashed teeth like he's on the verge of Going Postal. And that's how the episode ends! The absolute fear in Haida's voice, at least in the English Dub, after he and Retsuko read Anai's email to him, and he realizes exactly what she has had to deal with. Haida:(voice cracking) AUUUGHHH, WHY COULDN'T WE JUST DO IT FACE TO FACE?! Retsuko: You get it now?! This is what my life has become! Haida: Oh my God that kid is nuts. How the hell do we chill him out? Before that, he follows Retsuko into the archive room and corners her, holding up his phone to record her response to him. His alternating between malicious whispering and screaming at the top of his lungs as he confronts her scares Retsuko so badly that she is reduced to tears. You wouldn't be blamed for assuming he had much darker intentions. The way his eyes roll back into his head (complete with a Sickening "Crunch!") any time he gets defensive, as if something is possessing him to behave this way, just to illustrate how immediate and profound the switch is between both personalities. There's also his bloodshot-eyed Nightmare Face, which some fans have compared to Smile Dog, as he's backing Retsuko into an emotional corner. It's not helped by the fact that even though he's acting crazy, he still knows how to send emails and such in a way that while it's creepy, he can't lose his job! If Kabae hadn't stepped in and treated him like a child still learning, he very well could've drove people into quitting. Retsuko seeing a graphic photo of the aftermath of a car crash/accident while in her driving safety class, complete with a dead driver and a bloody cracked windshield. She admits that it makes her queasy. Retsuko's stalker. It's not hyperbole to say that absolutely nothing in the series is even close to as scary as the episodes he's in, especially because nothing about him is exaggerated at all. He's as genuine a lunatic as can be depicted in a show like this and not even that much of an exaggeration from real people who are willing to verbally assault, harass, stalk, and even kill their favorite celebrities in some twisted form of dedication (he's been unfavorably compared to the man who killed Christina Grimmie). His first appearance wastes no time showing just how far he's willing to go to hurt Retsuko: when the band sells tickets with their CDs which allows fans to shake their hands for three seconds, the stalker shows up, throws down 100tickets, then forcibly grabs Retsuko's hands, physically restraining her as he verbally assaults her with viciously sexist insults, much to the horror of everyone present. When he's done, he simply walks away, fading into the crowd and leaving poor Retsuko feeling violated. From there, he only gets worse, stalking her and posting photos of her apartment and her address online. It understandably puts everyone on edge... except Retsuko, who tries to brush the whole thing off as some lunatic seeking attention, unknowingly leaving herself vulnerable for when he proves just how far he's willing to take this, let alone what he's capable of. Retsuko coming dangerously close to getting stabbed to death by her stalker right outside her work, making this one of the only Sanrio works to imply murder. Despite Haida saving her life in the nick of time, the stalker still gets close enough to visibly draw blood, cutting Haida's hand when Haida instinctively uses it to block the stalker's blade from slashing Retsuko's throat. Another split-second and she would have been killed then and there. After her assailant is tackled and restrained, Haida is convinced that Retsuko died on the spot and cries out in despair while the stalker CACKLES at him and Retsuko! That bitch had it coming! The Nightmare Sequence when Retsuko is unconscious. We see Manaka, Miggy, and Hidarin shaking hands for fans of OTM Girls, followed by the trio sitting on chairs while wearing straitjackets while still thanking their fans, ending with Retsuko onstage as the audience's heads all transform into that of her attempted murderer while laughing at and verbally abusing her. While Season 4 is notably light on nightmarish situations similar to Season 1, the beginning of Episode 2 is notably chilling since it ends with Haida witnesses Shachou collapsing in the middle of an evening jog. Haida panics and immediately calls an emergency service to take him to the hospital. Retsuko finds two people accosting her. She brings out the nunchucks. The second person confiscates them. She becomes terrified and flashes back to her stalker. Fortunately, it turns out they were Ton's daughters, and had come to the same conclusion that she had: Ton had lied about taking up employment at a convenience store. They ask her for help since they know she cares about "Daddy". Himuro casually blackmailing Haida into fixing the account ledgers. They're having a workout after hours, after Himuro overheard the board cackling because his methods would not bring the company up to par. Himuro said he needs a favor while driving Haida. Haida couldn't refuse because Himuro threatened to fire people in his department, including Retsuko. The soul crushing reality of homelessness. Haida has to live in a crowded, uncomfortable den with no natural light, filled with people who have given up on life themselves and have no sympathies. If he wants to be able to afford his way out of homelessness, he has to endure back-breaking labor for hours, only to cough up more money to be able to clean himself up enough to be presentable for job interviews. And to add insult to injury: After taking a graveyard shift in a desperate attempt to scrounge up an imperceivable amount of money, he comes back to find that all of the booths are taken due to a gaming event that day. He's forced to either go back out onto the street or take an open booth, sleeping with his valuables out in the open. Cutting back to Retsuko and her hijinks, with Haida's old friends calling him a loser and making up stories about him cheating on her, its hard not to find their cruelty disturbing. Of course they have no way of knowing what has become of him, but if not for Retsuko's meddling he might have very well disappeared from their lives forever, and they would have thought he was just the jerk that stopped texting back. When Haida thinks he has his internet cafe life sorted out for now while successfully lying low from Retsuko, he lies back down on his improvised bed and proceeds to see Retsuko looking over the cabinet wall with one of the most terrifying expressions ever seen. His thoughts practically screams: "I'm F***KED!!" While unconfirmed, it's heavily implied that someone, likely Haida's father, ordered a truck to try and hit Retsuko's campaign office. That truck hit Haida instead and could have killed him. His own father nearly killed him to try and protect his political legacy!	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AggressiveRetsuko
Air Combat / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes - The Sky Fortress. It may not sound scary since superweapon airships have become the staple of the series, but in the first game, the Sky Fortress comes from completely out of nowhere, with no information on who built it and why. The lack of information on the Sky Fortress is what makes it truly frightening. - Crashing/getting shot down in this game can be quite scary, as the camera pans to the smoking wreck and the crash noise is VERY loud and brutal, not to mention any planes destroyed are removed from your arsenal. - Carrying on from this, the surprise that's waiting for you if you try to avoid the ravines, getting insta-killed by unavoidable SAM sites. - "You have no effective countermeasures to this model of SAM; exit the ravine and you are toast."	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AirCombat
A Hat in Time / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes The R. King. - Hidden on Hat Kid's spaceship are several notes, only visible upon manipulating the camera using the camera badge in very select, inconspicuous locations. Each note is signed by the enigmatic R. King, assumed to mean Roach King, and gives a hint to the location of the next note. They seem to be mostly impish notions about him freeloading and leaving IOUs, but the second-to-last note in the chain invites you to his castle. The scavenger hunt concludes with two mysterious, final notes in the castle in the attic, and a solid gold duplicate of all the things the King had borrowed... And a "statue" of the king himself. "I had all the gold in the roach world, and yet I was unhappy. I learned that gold tarnishes and turns dull, but a mind filled with gold is safe from tarnish, and can hild limitless wealth. You have a heart of gold, Hat Kid I have evolved. Sorry we didn't get to meet - R. King - The question, then, is what did he mean when wrote that he "evolved"...?	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AHatInTime
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes WARNING: Moments pages are Spoilers Off. ## Season 1 - In the climax of this episode, Coulson is forced to send Franklin Hall falling into the gravity machine in order to stop it. Later on, we see S.H.I.E.L.D. agents locking up the mass of Gravitonium that had powered the machine...only to see an arm reaching out from the mass. - Akela Amador's situation. Forced to watch her team die, kept in a cell at the bottom of a mine shaft for four years before being rescued. Only for her "rescuers" to implant a cybernetic eye into her head which they use to send her missions and control her with the threat of a kill-switch in the eye. - People with eye issues should stay far, far away from this episode, particularly the scene involving Akela's surgery. Even with network TV limits, the Eye Scream is horrific. - The poor ex-MI6 agent who was also being controlled by the mysterious villain(s) behind the bionic eyes. His frightened "Oh God!" as Coulson flashes his badge will stick with you for a while. - His own Eye Scream of the kill switch being flipped, his cybernetic eye turning around inside his socket before the Gory Discretion Shot censors the rest. - When Chan attempts to use his fire powers without the use of his blood platelets, he scorches himself. His reaction upon first discovering this says it all. - The Cruel and Unusual Death of the Centipede scientist by way of Chan roasting her with his fire powers. It has to be seen to be believed◊. A subtle touch: Her scream doesn't fade away. It just stops when her lungs and throat disintegrate. - The second-to-last scene of the episode is our first glimpse of Agent Coulson as anything but his usual straight, calm, collected demeanor, and it's nothing short of pure fury. It's more than a little jarring, coming from him. - Coulson's scar. Saying he simply got shanked is a vast, vast understatement: it's obvious Loki's scepter tore half his chest apart. In "T.A.H.I.T.I." he confirms his heart was torn in half. - The entire idea of the episode. There's an alien virus that can somehow infect humans and kill them with lightning from the inside. Simmons gets it, which nobody realizes until the Bus is in the air. Simmons has a couple of hours to cure herself of a virus that isn't even terrestrial in origin, or the resulting lightning will destroy the plane and kill everyone on-board. - Blake's order to Coulson and Ward that they jettison their "infected cargo" (Simmons) into the ocean. - A good majority of the episode. From The Bus losing power and almost crashing, to Tobias stalking and imprisoning/incapacitating each member of the team in near-total darkness using his incorporeal state, nearly the entire episode is a seat-gripper. - A particular standout moment: the lights are mostly out, and the emergency lights are blinking on and off. The camera is focused on May in the foreground; when the light blinks on, she's alone. When it blinks out and on again, the threatening silhouette of a man looms in the background. The next time the light blinks out and back on again, the figure is gone. - Mike Peterson calls his son, who happily tells him that his friend is watching him. When Mike asks Ace to put her on the phone, it turns out to be Raina. His son was being watched by his aunt. - The way Raina reacts to information about the Clairvoyant. She otherwise seems to be the very image of an emotionless manipulator, yet she begs Po for any information about the Clairvoyant and seems to be overwhelmed with childlike joy when he tells her that the Clairvoyant knows of her and thinks well of what she's done. - The sheer number of implants one of Centipede's soldiers has. One on each forearm, one on each shoulder, and multiple smaller ones on the back. - The pocket-sized cryogenic gadget that can completely freeze a whole pool in a matter of seconds. And it does exactly the same to Donnie in the middle of his University lecture hall. And to top it all off, the larger version of said device that can spontaneously create a small hurricane-sized super storm with hail chunks the size of lunch boxes, and it ends up killing Seth. This episode really drives home how terrifying Super Tech can be when used irresponsibly. Reed Richards might not be so wrong about keeping this stuff locked away. - As he is led away to the Sandbox for containment, Donnie drags his index finger along the car window, creating ice in the process. And he smiles from his newfound power. - When Skye goes into the basement of Quinn's manor. It's dark, and appears empty at first, but she soon finds a hyperbaric chamber that contains...Mike Peterson. Quinn and a bodyguard soon arrive, guns in hand, and we soon see that Mike is Not Himself.... And then later Skye gets shot twice by Quinn. She struggles to move and weakly say the word "Help" before finally collapsing into a pool of her own blood. Mike's new leg attaching and extending itself is also clearly extremely painful. - Not to mention Quinn's deeply disturbing/creepy behaviour in this scene - after he shoots Skye the first time, he embraces and shushes her, before firing again. - After being told Skye is going to die, Team Coulson all go into individual BSODs. Except for May, who proceeds to go to Quinn's interrogation room... and begins beating him senseless. There's little doubt that if Coulson and Ward hadn't walked in and stopped her, May would have beaten Quinn to death with her bare hands. - The blue humanoid concealed in the tank that is not only revealed to be the source of the GH-325 serum that was injected into Coulson (and later, Skye), but is also horrifically ripped in half and looks to be decomposing. Coulson's thousand yard stare says it all.◊ - The fact that even Nick Fury himself has gone off the grid just about the same time as Dr. Streiten. - One of Lorelei's slaves strangles his own wife to death because she was making too much noise. And the newlywed man she'd taken earlier (stranding his pregnant wife in the process) ended up backhanded into his car. - Rewatch Bonus. Ward tries to shoot May even after Lorelei is contained. - Deathlok nearly choking Agent Blake to death. - Upon the agents finding Thomas Nash, the Clairvoyant taunts them through a computer (in a Machine Monotone, no less), and tells Coulson that Skye will be endangered again in the near future, and he won't be able to save her this time. - Poor Fitz, discovering that a friend and colleague is a Double Agent, and then being hunted down on an airplane where there's no escape. On a related note, seeing May go Terminator-mode against him is equal parts this and awesome. - The Bus can be operated remotely. - Simmons and Triplett are at S.H.I.E.L.D. during the events of CA:TWS, though mercifully they aren't at the Triskelion. - The slow reveal: "Out of the shadows, into the light", followed by "HYDRA" and the dawning realization that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been infiltrated by an organization that itself is the stuff of nightmares. - That heart-stopping instant where it looks like Triplett is a HYDRA agent, locking himself in a room with Simmons and pulling a knife out. - Victoria Hand rounding up S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at The Hub to determine who's with HYDRA and who isn't. Fortunately it's because she's trying to stop HYDRA, despite what it seems like the episode has been leading up to. - The Reveal of Ward as a HYDRA operative, calmly shooting the agents guarding Garrett (the Clairvoyant), shortly followed by Victoria Hand. - There was something extremely unsettling about the S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem on the closing title card being replaced with the HYDRA emblem. - It's implied that instead of killing Fitz, HYDRA was going to somehow force him to work for them against his will. After Garrett would have him shot in the kneecaps for threatening him. - Coulson learning that he was manipulated into choosing all the other members of Team Coulson by May so that they would be capable of killing him if it turned out that he Came Back Wrong. - Garrett's call of "Hail HYDRA!" and its answering echo from the off-screen firing squad facing down Coulson, May and Fitz. - After Ward kills the guards and Victoria Hand in cold blood, Garrett looks up at Ward and a Slasher Smile that can only be described as "hellish" spreads across his face... all the traces of Affably Evil are gone in that devilish shot. - Garrett casually thanks Ward for "the tip-off about the Cellist". It seems that Coulson's reunion with his long-lost Love Interest in the next episode might not be under the happiest circumstances... - Any scene where Ward switches between his HYDRA persona and his S.H.I.E.L.D. persona is unbearably creepy. - Him calmly listing everything he did to get the team to trust him: acting like someone Coulson would want to mentor, becoming Skye's SO, saving Simmons's life (also gaining Fitz's gratitude in the process), and seducing May. - Garrett's method for getting Ward back into character? Beating the crap out of him until he believes his performance. It helps that Ward is still half-smiling (though it's more like grimacing) through a mouthful of bloody teeth for much of the beating. - Every scene where Skye is unknowingly feeding HYDRA information through Ward, up to and including his arrival at Providence, since the plan from there is to find out as much as he can, kidnap Skye for her password, and kill the rest of The Team. - Poor Audrey, having a mentally-unhinged stalker with superpowers. It also goes the other way too, since from what is described, said stalker is in constant excruciating agony and the only form of relief he can find is in the music of a woman who is threatened by his very presence. It almost makes his death feel like a Mercy Kill. - Blackout in general is pretty creepy, what with the way the lights go out when he passes by them and his Unflinching Walk. - Skye finding Koenig's body and discovering that Ward is a HYDRA infiltrator. Her reaction says it all. - That entire scene is nightmare fuel that feels like something out of a slasher movie. We have Ward looking around for her, calling out her name, all the while she is clearly putting everything together. We know that if they find her, she'll be killed, or at the very least captured and forced to activate the drive. The fact that after they find her, said character is suddenly very convincingly friendly, and makes up believable excuse for why Skye can't contact the team or Koenig, only makes things creepier. - Ward's revelation which from the flashback to his childhood in earlier episodes, might be the only truth he tells Skye in the whole episode that not only did his older brother force him to torture his younger brother, but his parents were even worse. In the flashback we see, Ward's older brother threw the younger sibling into a well and then made Ward watch the little boy desperately tread water and scream for help as he fought to keep from drowning. The above implies Ward did not try to sneak a rescue, HE was made to throw him in there, possibly to his death How the hell were Ward's parents even worse? - Considering that he considered Garrett, and being stranded in the woods alone for six months, the better option... A lot worse. - May digs up a flash drive containing details on the T.A.H.I.T.I. project and at the end of the episode shows it to Coulson. The drive contains one video. It's Coulson himself, revealed to be the director of the project. He advises Director Fury to terminate the T.A.H.I.T.I. project and threatens resignation over it. What's more, Coulson reveals that there were test subjects for the project, all of whom quickly deteriorated after the treatment, and while memory replacement staved off the meltdown, it did so inconsistently. And now this treatment has been given to both Coulson and (incompletely) Skye. - The device Deathlok uses on Ward, stopping his heart until Skye caved and spilled the drive's encryption. Just the idea of such a thing is bad enough! - When it's revealed how Ward killed Koenig; strangled him with a garrote with enough force to not only lift the latter's body off the floor, but slice into his neck and obliterate his trachea. - Skye floating out of the freefalling Lola after not having enough time to put on her seatbelt. And then the malfunctioning thrusters flip them upside down. - The whole team is facing jail time if they're caught again for their continued affiliation with S.H.I.E.L.D. and refusal to turn themselves in. - When Ward finally snaps at Skye on The Bus, it's genuinely frightening, as we get a glimpse of just how psychotic he truly is. - Garrett's condition: - The Reveal of how far back it goes and, consequently, how long the Centipede project has likely been in the works. - The experience of having the cybernetics in one's body (a large chunk of his torso) shocked by an EMP. - The immediate physical reaction to Raina's makeshift attempt to replicate GH-325 being injected into his cybernetics. - Fitz and Simmons getting jettisoned from the bus . This is further amplified by them being conspicuously absent from the next episode previews, while the more obvious survival of the rest of the team is spoiled right then and there. into the ocean - Coulson and the others in Cuba get ambushed by Kaminsky and other HYDRA agents in the dark. - We finally get more information about Skye's past. The village she was found in was destroyed, the whole population massacred, by a pair of monsters who were trying to get to her as a baby. Those monsters were Skye's parents. - Garrett punching through a US Marine Corps general, pulling out one of his ribs, and stabbing him with it. - Ward and May's climactic fight is one of the nastiest brawls in the entire MCU so far. It involves multiple uses of power tools. She nails his foot to the floor, several times. Ward may have had it coming, but OW. - Unlike with Skye (who Ward genuinely cared for in his own dysfunctional way), and Fitz and Simmons (who Ward felt conflicted about killing), Ward seems to enjoy hurting May. His taunts are incredibly creepy. - Against all odds, you and your best friend survive being dumped into the ocean from a plane, but the airtight, bulletproof, space-worthy box the two of you were dumped in has sunk to the ocean floor. Just when you've resigned yourself to starvation, or more likely, suffocation, against all odds, the both of you hit on a plan to break out of the box and get to the surface, But, just before the plan is put into motion, when it's too late to back out, your best friend reveals that the plan was only ever going to be for one person, and that that person is you, and they're going to stay behind so as to not hamper your escape attempt. And you helped them put that plan together, and you never even twigged once. No wonder all Simmons can say is 'No' when Fitz breaks it to her. - And then you somehow manage to take your friend up to the surface with you and miraculously snag a rescue, but they sustain brain damage from lack of oxygen, and the best that can be said of them is that they're alive. - Cybertek's "Incentives Program" basically consists of holding loved ones hostage in order to compel individuals to work as handlers of the Centipede soldiers. And the construction zone Ward and May fight through makes it clear Cybertek was planning to expand it significantly. - Coulson getting up in the middle of the night, and scrawling the same alien language that drove Garrett insane all over the wall. Somehow, his tranquil demeanor while doing this makes it even creepier. This is especially the case if you realize that the writing is the same as the one found on the chalkboard by Ward in "Eye Spy". Gets worse when you listen to the creepy music played in the epilogue. - When Raina tracks down Skye's father, his hand is dripping with...something. What was he doing before she came in? - Coulson and May confronting Ward as he's being taken into custody by the military. On the surface, this seems like a major victory for Team Coulson complete with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, however the expression on Ward's face is very unsettling, implying he may escape and seek revenge in the future. - Because Garrett has both the GH-325 and the Centipede serum in his system, he can take quite a lot of punishment before finally going down, but his appearance grows progressively more disturbing with each injury. After being shot several times by Nick Fury, his mouth becomes bloodied. His face then becomes covered in blood after Mike blasts him with a missile, and is made even worse when Mike stomps on him. Finally, after thought to be dead, he goes through a Painful Transformation into a cyborg à la Darth Vader, at which point he's instantly vaporized by Coulson. - Garrett himself throughout the entire episode. He grows very erratic in a short amount of time, to the point where even Ward, Raina and Quinn are frightened of him. He wasn't a paragon of sanity before, but he starts to kill on a whim, rants about seeing the universe and generally gives off the impression of being unstoppable all while wearing a big Slasher Smile. Bill Paxton does a good job of being both entertaining and terrifying at the same time. ## Season 2 - Fitz is alive, walking around, and apparently getting better...yay! Except he's actually getting worse and he's begun hallucinating Simmons, who left because she thought it would help Fitz get better. - In a moment that's particularly dark in hindsight, Fitz is afraid he's hallucinating and asks Simmons if she's seeing the same thing he is, to which she promptly responds that she is, and that he needn't worry. On this occasion it really is happening (confirmed by May, who sees it too), but Fitz being reassured that he's not hallucinating by his own hallucination speaks volumes about his grip on reality. As Coulson hints at the end of the episode, he doesn't even realise he's suffering a slow decline either, instead believing he's getting better with Simmons's help. - Hartley, after being ambushed by Creel, grabs the Obelisk in an attempt to use it against him. It ends up attaching itself to her hand and starts slowly killing her to the point that Hunter ultimately has to slice her forearm off with a knife. - Ward hasn't been doing well since the end of season 1, to say the least. - Since the revelation in the premiere that she's just Fitz's hallucination, every scene with Simmons is more than a little eerie. - The waitress who was serving Creel's table at the diner turning to stone after accidentally touching Creel, who had absorbed the Obelisk. - Coulson's hypergraphia attacks occur regularly, May knows about it, she helps him cover him up, and she keeps a gun nearby if she needs to kill him. Edges into slight tearjerker territory when Coulson is being stubborn about the dates and admitting how tired he is with holding the attacks off. - HYDRA's methods of brainwashing high-value targets, such as Agent 33, which looks a lot like something from A Clockwork Orange. All the while, Whitehall calmly delivers a chilling monologue. - Fitz decreasing the oxygen in Ward's prison so he can experience for himself what happened to Fitz's brain. - Donnie freezing a HYDRA agent, then shoving said agent to the floor on the way out, causing him to shatter rather gruesomely. - The ending scene, with Whitehall and Bakshi discussing Simmons, especially with the line "We'll make her comply" played as a voiceover over a shot of Simmons standing in the elevator with an unsettlingly blank look on her face. - Simmons' bright and cheerful morning routine doesn't seem to be this, until she goes into the building and you see the HYDRA logo on the wall. - The fact that HYDRA has developed technology that lets their agents impersonate whoever they want, and all they need is some DNA and a voice sample. Which begs the question of how they managed to get General Talbot's DNA, with the implication that the United States Army isn't as HYDRA-proof as they claim to be... - Dr. Whitehall corners Raina and implants a device on her that lets him torture her at will until she hands over the Obelisk. The fact that this is the first time we've actually seen Raina show genuine fear says a lot about Whitehall. - The fact that there's someone else in the world who may have been injected with GH-325, carving alien messages into random objects. - The revelation of how fragile the New S.H.I.E.L.D. can be struck home here. May gets knocked out long enough for a blood sample to be taken, thus allowing Agent 33 to impersonate her. This almost led to Director Coulson being captured and the Bus blowing up with his inner circle inside it. Without them, S.H.I.E.L.D. would've collapsed and HYDRA would've had one less thorn in its side. - The Doctor is revealed to have a Hair-Trigger Temper on par with the Hulk's, which even he is similarly terrified of. - Simmons being revealed as a mole within HYDRA, and her walking into the lab to find everyone in the room staring at her. - Raina, of all people, freaking out and in tears for many of her scenes, considering that for the whole of Season 1 she was barely ruffled at any point, even when she was beating beaten and arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D. It really underscores how scary Whitehall and The Doctor are, and how terrifying it must be to be caught between them. - HYDRA has managed to manufacture flying discs which replicates the effects of the Obelisk/Diviner that would quickly reduce their enemies to dust. Chew on that for a while. - Ward revealing to Skye the reason why her father slaughtered everyone in that town when she was an infant: They were all HYDRA agents who had killed his wife. - Ward and his Senator brother about their family. Who's telling the real truth? - "So it's a well now." Tim DeKay's calm delivery of the line is blood chilling. - Whatever the Ward family history may be, the idea of being handed back over to Christian clearly serves as some high quality Nightmare Fuel for Grant. - Grant Ward, one of HYDRA's agents within S.H.I.E.L.D., escapes during the transfer to the US Government Custody and the last shot we saw of him was killing the soldiers who were watching him. - The last shot we have of the episode shows a never-before-seen man going to a tattoo parlor for some ink. What does he want? A new addition to the alien writing sprawling across his torso identical to the stuff Garrett and Coulson had been carving. - The carvings are becoming more and more frequent for Coulson, to the point that rather than being twice a month he carves every night. And it looks like it's a very demanding and unpleasant experience for him. He's drenched in sweat and looks desperate. - This whole episode has Coulson acting like a drug addict, needing to carve more and more to satisfy himself, physically lashing out whenever hindered, and even locking Skye in Ward's prison in order to get answers about the carvings from Thompson. - The guy from the Wham Shot from last episode? Turns out he's Sebastian Derek, an early T.A.H.I.T.I. patient treated with the same GH-325 serum as Skye, Coulson, and Garrett. Oh yeah, and he used to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. black ops assassin. Fun. - Coulson experiencing flashbacks of Project T.A.H.I.T.I. and other participants' GH-235-induced Sanity Slippage while hooked up to Raina's memory machine. He watches them shift from happy and peaceful to deranged and tormented. The only way to help them at that point was to torture them even more to rewrite their memories. At the end, Coulson sees himself superimposed on one of them. - We know that Coulson ended up needing memory replacement too — what's the chance that Coulson didn't go insane before that? He probably was once one of those screaming, deranged " things", as Dr. Streiten referred to him in The Magical Place, being hauled away to be operated on. - The entire premise of the episode is that there's a killer who carved alien symbol onto his victim's bodies until they died out of pain. How this got a PG-rating is a wonder to critics as well as audiences. - Mack having one of the Kree symbols painfully embedded on his hand by the temple's defenses, then being revealed to have undergone some sort of Demonic Possession and attacking the team. He even manages to briefly overpower Bobbi and shrug off four I.C.E.R. shots from Coulson. - The fact that that entire fight takes place around a thousand foot deep pit is enough to give you the screaming willies. - There is a second Obelisk. It begins reacting after the Obelisk in the city activates and it intrigues a man with literally no eyes. He doesn't even have eye sockets, just skin where his eyes should be! - Remember how a few episodes ago a HYDRA goon was killed after he was frozen by Donnie Gill and then shattered? Essentially the same thing now happens to Trip after being hit with the Terrigen crystal shards. - While they were later revealed to be okay, Raina and Skye's Terrigenesis at first appeared to be both of them undergoing petrification. Chloe Bennett's very convincing and equally disturbing scream of fear that accompanies it DOESN'T HELP. - Imagine suddenly losing your sight and then randomly teleporting through a room and into its walls. Then imagine doing that for fourteen hours. Poor Gordon must have been out of his mind with terror. - The horrifying way transformed Raina kills a S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist. And not to mention we get several shots of her transformed state. Did we mention she's in pain all the time? - Skye discovers that she's a Gifted while she's in quarantine (i.e. a glass cage) and listening to her friends develop Fantastic Racism. All she can do is wait for them to find out, and when they do, she won't be able to do anything about it. Suddenly Cal's concerns about her safety on Team Coulson are not so unreasonable. - Near the end of the episode, we see a device hidden within Coulson's office (on a model of Lola, no less) scanning for something...until it was revealed to be Fury's Toolbox. Then we see Bobbi and Mack revealed to be the ones looking for the Toolbox. Bobbi says she will be "making contact" soon. - There are four more Diviners out there somewhere, and we don't know if HYDRA has them or where they're at. - Bobbi and Mack aren't working for HYDRA. But if not HYDRA, then just what the hell are they planning? - Mack chokes Lance to the point of unconsciousness when he asks one too many questions about the above. - The reveal that Skye's attempts at controlling her powers just caused them to go inward, nearly shattering her bones. - Angar the Screamer. When we first see him, he's wearing a creepy, Hannibal Lector-esque mask. He gets even scarier when the mask comes off. In a subtle but terrifying bit of CGI, he unhinges his jaw like a snake before letting out a bloodcurdling scream that drops everyone like flies...and then the birds start falling. - Agent 33's real face is heavily burned, worse so than the mask was. Without it, she looks almost like Two-Face - It's disturbing to see how casually Ward and Agent 33 talked about how Ward killed the doctor who fixed Agent 33's nanomask because he knows too much. - For all their talk of transparency and openess, the "Real SHIELD" is just as paranoid and full of Fantastic Racism as HYDRA has been shown to be. Gonzalez insistently refers to Skye "it" or "something" and ignores Bobbi's points that Skye was acting in self-defense. They also immediately conclude that Coulson was building an army of super-humans on Fury's orders, on the basis of him having Skye on the team. These are supposed to be the good guys. - Lai Xi is pretty cultish: communal lifestyle, social isolation, members who join for the promise of ascension but only a few can be chosen, cryptically named leadership and a Big Brother Is Watching omnipresent character along with a prison with no windows where a guy can smash things and scream his lungs out for days and nobody will notice a thing. - Eva Belyakov's daughter, Katya, who's essentially a Humanoid Abomination in the form of a little girl. Ava Acres's nightmarish performance just sells it. - Jiaying implies that she was alive and conscious when her husband found her vivisected body in the woods and while he stitched her body back together again. - Simmons' completely nonchalant attitude in her plan to hit Ward with one of the splinter bombs. She's going down a bad road... - Even worse, when she kills Bakshi instead and is afterwards asked where he is, she just smiles and tells he didn't make it. - We also get to see the downside of Raina's gift. Imagine being able to see exactly what Ultron will do to the world and being completely helpless to stop it. - The SHIELD break-in, at least from HYDRA's perspective. They knew SHIELD had highly-skilled operatives when they signed up to fight SHIELD. But they didn't know SHIELD had an Enhanced; imagine what it would have been like when Skye got there. She cleared out a room in a second with her powers. And that was one of the tamer uses of her powers. And then she easily massacred a room full of Hydra agents without even use her powers. - We briefly see when a HYDRA surgeon casually cuts Lincoln's unconscious body with a scalpel as if he was a lamb. - It's implied that while being butchered by Whitehall, Jiaying was conscious enough to know that her organs were put in jars. Let that sink in for a moment. - Ward and Kara being able to take out Bobbi and planning to kill her. The borderline-Slasher Smile they share at the end really sells it. - There's something extremely unsettling about the Kree Monolith. A simple stone pillar with seemingly random holes in the surface changing into a liquid form and back again is somehow very eerie in its unnaturalness. It almost seems as if it as alive somehow. - Skye's mother's inhuman ability is sucking the life out of her hosts. The audience sees it SEVERAL times throughout the finale episode. - Consider how old Jiaying is. She has possibly been doing this for centuries. Cal said in the past one of the elders would sacrifice themselves every few decades so they could continue to have her guidance. - What's worse? She even uses her draining powers on her own daughter, complete with Skye/Daisy begging her mother to stop as her skin and eyes begin to pale. Jiaying: [as she is draining Skye/Daisy's life essence] I always believed the reason I endured all that torture and pain was for you. That you were my true gift. But you're not, this is. Skye/Daisy: [with what little of her voice is left] Don't....do this.... Jiaying: You've made your choice. I'm sorry. - Jiaying killing Raina. Even worse? Skye/Daisy witnessed the whole thing happen right in front of her. - There's the lovely closeup of Ward shoving the needles under Bobbi's nails. - Bobbi's entire ordeal is just pure Nightmare Fuel. The torture itself she's trained to overcome, and she's even alright when they're seconds away from killing her. Except they catch on to that, and so they decide to lure Hunter there and kill him in front of her. Bobbi then has to stew in that for hours, set up in a terrifyingly simple trap that will give her a fully uninhibited view of Hunter getting shot and killed just a few feet away. Her clearly visible panic as she hears his coming closer is one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the entire goddamned series. - Cal's completed transformation. Mister Hyde is terrifying. - The Inhumans invading the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft carrier, killing innocent agents and to take the Kree Weapon. The whole scene was a stuff of nightmares, since we know the variety of abilities the Inhumans could do. - Coulson, Mack and Fitz fighting Gordon who can teleport anywhere he likes. How it did end? Gordon gets a steel pipe stuck in his stomach. - After catching a dropped Terrigen crystal to save everyone on the Iliad, Coulson begins to turn to stone. We are then treated to the very horrifying visual of Mack cutting off Coulson's left hand with an ax to save his life. Coulson's scream of pain is the stuff of nightmares. - How does Cal kill his wife Jiaying? He gives her a neck snap, followed by a crushing bear hug which probably crushed her insides to pulp. - The epilogue has its own horrors. - Ward has gathered up the remnants of HYDRA and is intent on forming his own team of HYDRA agents to oppose S.H.I.E.L.D. - The box of Terrigen crystals Skye has pushed into the ocean with her own powers had broken open, infecting the wildlife in the sea, mainly fishes. The fishes were then caught and processed into fish oil, which is then sold in supermarkets and other shops in the world. What happens when those Terrigen crystals-infected fish oil were consumed by humans...? How many people are either going to develop superpowers, or be petrified into stone. - Remember the Kree weapon which was sealed within the S.H.I.E.L.D. Aircraft Carrier? After Fitz accidentally unlocked the weapon's containment box and left, the Kree weapon turned into its liquid form, swallowed Simmons WHOLE (while she was still screaming), and went back to its original form in a matter of seconds. This leaves Simmons's fate in doubt until the next season. ## Season 3 - Poor Joey has not had a good first day as an Inhuman. He takes a completely innocuous fish oil pill, and suddenly everything around him melts, and now there are people who are authorized to use lethal force on him, and yeah, he gets rescued, but now he can't go home again. - Coulson watching a projection of the spread of fish-oil Terrigen that looks to be based on a combination of water currents and shipping schedules. The simulation predicts global saturation in seventeen months, twenty-two days. Now look back at the chaos of the opening sequence and ponder the fact that it was caused by one frightened and confused Inhuman. - Again, the monolith. - The monolith is a wormhole created by the Kree. When inactive it is a solid block of stone, but when active it is an undulating mass capable of capturing life forms and transporting them elsewhere in space. - Fitz calmly grabbing a shotgun, heading into the Monolith room, shooting out the lock, and entering the containment unit all screams of a potential suicide by monolith. Then he completely and utterly loses his shit when it fails to do anything. Imagine heading into the den of the monster that killed your best friend, expecting it to do the same to you, and it doesn't. That hurts so much more than mere death. - Jemma Simmons after being swallowed by the Monolith. - Alone. Hurt. Hunted. On the other side of the universe and seemingly for weeks or months. What has she had to do to survive for so long? - If the Monolith's portal abilities are triggered by the Inhuman gene, then that makes Simmons' Inhumanity very likely. Going on her dim view of Inhumans from the second half of season 2, this idea alone would probably be in-universe Nightmare Fuel for Simmons. - The ending does not help in the slightest. Instead of the rousing and badass S.H.I.E.L.D. theme over the credits, there's just the mournful wind of an alien planet, moaning endlessly. - The alien, Lash, that's been hunting Inhumans and killing them. Skye and Lincoln barely faze the guy, Mack empties his gun into his gut and it doesn't slow him down. He has a nasty way of killing. - The history of the Monolith. A flashback at the start of the episode shows a person being randomly selected to be swallowed up by the Monolith. It's implied that this happened to multiple people. - Ward's new vision for Hydra is already proving to be effective. In his first appearance, we see him speeding around a parking garage in a sports car, spouting a Social Darwinist lecture to his second in command. He believes that Hydra's leadership had grown too complacent and reliant on their money and privilege, and that to be a true member, one has to 'earn' it. So what do his followers do? They stand completely still at each of the pillars, fully ready to die for Ward if he crashes into them. Oh, and the guy he's talking about is clinging to the hood the entire time. - Likewise, his quick molding of Werner von Strucker (son of the man himself) into a potential Hydra leader. Ward successfully uses the same Sink or Swim Mentor tactics that Garrett used on him, and at the end of the episode, we get the Wham Shot of Werner getting close to Andrew Garner by enrolling in his class. - Simmons' Catapult Nightmare after her rescue from the Monolith. It's clear that she's going to have a lot of issues resulting from her stay on the alien planet. - The fact that she kept a weapon on her the entire time on the trip home, the move to the containment room, and falling to sleep. She's been so traumatized that even with the rest of Team Coulson around her—even with Fitz right next to her—she still didn't feel safe. - The shot of Lash's shadow shrinking to a more normal human shape. The unstoppable implacable serial killer who shows up out of nowhere and vanishes just as quickly can also hide as an ordinary human being with absolutely no one the wiser. Have fun sleeping. - The fact that the alien planet Simmons and Will were stranded on is apparently alive. It's that it's actively malevolent towards Jemma and Will. In their one attempt to actively escape, Jemma figures out that the next portal will open in the 'No Fly zone', over a canyon that Will has visited and charted to be 30 metres wide. After days of trekking, they get there and find that the canyon has increased to more than 100 metres wide with a dead drop in the middle. The conclusion they both reach? The planet doesn't want them to leave. Ever. The Reveal later that the planet was never alive can either make this easier to swallow or harder - on one hand, we now know what "It" is, and that takes the edge off of what would otherwise be a case of Nothing Is Scarier. On the other hand, the explanation for exactly how "It" does what it does is chilling, especially when you consider that Hive doesn't have the power to directly drive people insane - Will's Astronaut Friend came after him simply because he went mad from the isolation. - "It", the unknown, shapeshifting monster that roams the planet's surface, killing anyone unfortunate enough to cross its path. - The form it takes near the end of the episode — the corpse of one of the astronauts who died on Will's mission looks freaking terrifying. - Imagine living the way Will has, stranded for fourteen years with no hope of rescue. Barely seeing the sun. Knowing you're, in part, responsible for the deaths of three men, and that their corpses may rise out of the sands of the planet to kill you when you exit your home. Imagine facing the abandoned city with the corpses of explorers past alone, like the protagonist of a Lovecraft story. - Hunter's taken off the case to kill Ward. Though his desperation to do something is played for laughs It's becoming quickly apparent that his solution to all problems is violence and death. Making one wonder if this is the start of a decline. - The reveal of Andrew Garner as Lash, the Inhuman that's been killing every member of his species that he can get his hands on. May's tear-stricken, speechless, horrified reaction mirrors what the audience is going through, especially with the fact that he's in their base, with at least three Inhumans. note : Daisy, Joey, and Alisha within arm's reach - The flashback of Andrew transforming into Lash before going to town on Werner's goons. No wonder Werner himself was so terrified when he bolted out of the store. - The Mook Horror Show Lash pulls on damn near everyone in this episode. He rivals the Hulk on invulnerability, can smash you into a wall with a single blow, and even his human form can't be killed with mere guns. So how in the hell can you beat him? - Lash's reasoning behind killing Inhumans: he only kills the ones that would turn evil, and is killing them before it happens. Recall back to what Steve said in AoU regarding 'ending the fight before it starts'? It really does appear that 'Good becomes Great, Bad becomes Worse'. - Lash's intentions aside, look at the people he kills; he killed humans that got in the way, he killed newly turned Inhumans that had the potential for darkness (which amounts to all of them) and he has killed long-term Inhumans that could use their abilities for evil purposes. Now you are probably thinking he is a hypocrite for saying this, since he kills people under a 'just' cause, but look at Joey, he was happy about his newfound control over his powers, and he could just as easily tear down a building in a few minutes as well as build one in an hour. His excitement seems to be the trigger for Lash to kill him, but Andrew is hesitant as it is possible to talk him out of it. - The stinger: Rosalind seems to be taking her orders from HYDRA, and is trying to deliver Coulson to them; meanwhile she is developing a romance with him and trying to lower his guard, and her 'legitimate' work entails putting Inhumans in stasis for now unknown purposes (for HYDRA). - Gideon Malick becomes a source of this when it is finally revealed where his allegiances truly lie. He has at his fingertips the ATCU (which Rosalind was completely unaware of until this episode) and the Order of the Monolith, which was in reality an older incarnation of HYDRA. His mission is to bring to Earth an ancient master that the Order had been serving for centuries through sacrifices, and to have an army of Inhumans under Malick waiting on the other side. - And that master he serves? The thing on the planet that's been terrorizing Will for over fourteen years and nearly killed Simmons. An Inhuman so powerful and evil that it had to be banished to the other side of the galaxy to be stopped. And Gideon wants to bring it back here. - Ward, not to be outdone by Malick, has his share of horrifying moments in this episode. First, he engages in a bit of Cold-Blooded Torture on Malick's men, with implements such as a kitchen knife and a blowtorch. Then, on his way to Germany, he blows a hole in the side of a full airplane, after warning the passengers — much to their terror — that they're about to experience some turbulence and will likely freeze to death. Then, at the end of the episode, he starts torturing Andrew with mustard gas in the hopes of drawing out Lash. - "It"/Hive in Ward's body. Its movements and expressions are creepily stilted and lifeless as it speaks in a Creepy Monotone about its former glory and utters ominous vows of a return to power upon regaining its former strength. Brett Dalton's performance really sells the fact that the person this body used to be is gone. It really says something when you can make eating a chicken leg with a glassy, hollow stare look bone-chilling. It doesn't help that the chicken leg is raw, as is all the other food that HYDRA brings to it. - Ward's body is in a horrible state; it's emaciated, horribly pale, could easy pass as a zombie, and still has Coulson's hand print embedded in its chest. - The way It/Hive's hand starts to disintegrate as it promises to make a "believer" out of Giyera. Whatever that means, it can't be good. - Lucio, aka the "Medusa eyes" Inhuman. One glance, and Bobbi and Hunter both drop to the ground, petrified and helpless. The way their skin loses all color and their eyes are wide open makes it hard to tell at a glance if they're even still alive. And at the end of the episode, he's in the custody of HYDRA. - Hive finally manages to completely heal. How, you ask? By taking five living humans and stripping them to the bone so it can use their flesh to repair its borrowed body. All that's left are bloody, smoking skeletons while Hive is covered with and standing in a puddle of what used to be people. - The flashback to Maveth shows Ward's dying point of view after Coulson crushes his chest and leaves for the portal. The last thing Grant Ward ever saw is a thing slithering over his face. - It is a brief mention, but it was stated that there was staff at the ATCU building that gets imploded with nitramene. Considering how small the ball of rubble is compared to the original building, having fun thinking what the experience may have been for anyone inside. - The Watchdogs themselves are this: a hate group bent on the annihilation of everyone remotely 'alien' from the planet. And now that Gideon Malick/HYDRA is funding them, they've gone from being an online anti-alien group to full-blown domestic terrorists with enough weaponry to start a nuclear war. And because of the masks they wear, they could literally be anyone. - The look of barely concealed disgust that Giyera gives Blake. You know that once the Watchdogs have served their purpose, whatever Giyera plans for their leader is not going to be pretty. - Seeing Daisy briefly become The Unfettered is terrifying. More so if you don't know her, and even more so if you're on the receiving end. While the Watchdogs are clearly insane, they are partially right: the Inhumans (and others) are dangerous. There is a reason the Sokovia Accords are an important issue. - We get to see Hive devour people onscreen, and it's just as horrifying as you might imagine. - Malick crushes a man's head, again onscreen. - More mild than most examples, but the Terrigen has permeated the ecosystem enough that nascent Inhumans can undergo Terrigenesis just by being out in the rain. - This episode brings The Thing levels of Paranoia Fuel, thanks to Hive finally using his Mind Control ability on one of the Secret Warriors. The lack of trust and mounting tension throughout the entire episode makes Daisy being revealed as Brainwashed and Crazy even more terrifying. After getting an eyeful of Hive dust, her face momentarily seems to take on an expression of horror before the brainwashing sets in. - The final scene establishes that while the other Secret Warriors might be dangerous, Daisy is the one who really earns the title of Person of Mass Destruction. She brings down the entire hangar and does unknown amounts of damage to rest of the base in less than a minute. She didn't even seem to be putting any particular effort into it! - We also get to see how dangerous she is on a personal level. Remember Malick's vision of Hive inflicting his usual Body Horror on him? Nope. That was Daisy concentrating her earth-shattering powers so intensely that his flesh melted off. - Simmons' post-mortem examination of Lucio is shown in nauseatingly-graphic detail, including peeling back his skin and cutting the top off his skull to see his infected brain underneath. - Hive's influence over the Inhumans in its sway is very reminiscent of a cult. Both Daisy and Alisha talk about how wonderful it feels to be around Hive and how they want Lincoln to join them. Its influence even pushes them to do things they would otherwise never do (Alisha kills her own clones and Daisy threatens to kill Fitz). - According to Simmons research, Hive's infection is more akin to addiction than brainwashing; Hive's spores affect the dopamine levels of his victims' brains, essentially drugging them into absolute loyalty towards Hive. - The "test" of the eye-enhancement tech that Fitz-Simmons have to perform to get in to see Dr. Radcliffe: installing the eyes in a living specimen. Simmons goes so far as to put a needle of anaesthetic in the patient's pupil before exposing the test as a fake. The patient (Radcliffe himself) then gets up and casually takes the needle out of his own eye. - Hive taking on Will's persona while talking to Simmons. Exactly why it does this is unclear, but it's extremely disturbing. - Before that, there's the fact that Simmons is staring down the thing that spent six months hunting her. She's utterly terrified to the point of Tears of Fear, and who can blame her? - Hive's apparent master plan: replicate the Kree experiments that created the Inhumans to turn everyone on Earth into an Inhuman. - The results of the first Radcliffe's first experiment with Inhumans. The poor test subjects are liquefied, screaming in agony the whole time. All this takes place on screen. - The Kree Reapers that land in the town HYDRA controls. In their hunt for Inhumans, they slaughter multiple people, including Alisha, armed with nothing more than blades. In turn, they No-Sell every physical blow thrown at them. May can't tell if they're killing HYDRA agents, or everything they come across. No wonder Hive was terrified of these guys. - The artificial Inhumans that the Watchdogs are turned into using Daisy's blood are alien-looking Humanoid Abominations that cannot speak and rely on primitive instinct. While Dr. Radcliffe considers it a failure, Hive considers it good enough to subject the entire world to! - Hive has previously been shown to shrug off gunshots, a grenade and an RPG, and has been able to survive Lincoln's electrical blasts and even Lash's energy blast, with so much as a nick in his suit. Here, Daisy attacks him with her powers, stabs him repeatedly with a combat knife, and even breaks his spine and arms with her abilities, and he just regenerates. Nothing they do to him personally does more than mildly inconvenience him. Knowing all this, the humanity of Millenia ago had every right to be afraid of a being who was virtually immortal. - Hive's experience with the memory machine is essentially a schizophrenic freak out turned up to eleven. Imagine a normal person who has multiple personality disorder, and they lose track of which personality is the right one. Now imagine, instead of personalities, you had entire lives, and you are reincarnated with the memories of the previous lives still intact. For millennia... And imagine each and every one coming to the surface simultaneously, all believing that they are the current life. 100+ lives all interacting in your mind at once, with an eon of memories all pushed to the surface. It's more scary to think that Hive wasn't reduced to a huddled ball of insanity by this tactic. - Even worse when you think about exactly what must be in those memories. Every single one of his hosts, including his original body, must have had horrifying experiences and unpleasant deaths, and all crammed into his head. Imagine dying hundreds of times over, none in ways anyone would want to go. ## Season 4 - Ghost Rider himself is the stuff of nightmares. The way that the skin on Robbie's head slowly burns off to reveal the flaming skull is particularly unsettling. If his appearance isn't enough, his power certainly is; once he reveals his flaming skull, he absolutely curb-stomps Daisy, and was clearly more than capable of killing her if he hadn't decided that she didn't deserve it. - The ghost in the box, and what it does to the Chinese gangsters who find it; instant Hate Plague with zombie hallucinations. At the end of the episode, it's attached itself to May. - The episode opens like something out of Supernatural, with a little boy seeing the ghost from last time. He tells his dad, who at first doesn't believe him; until the ghost reappears and flies through his chest. He then begins seeing the same things as the Chinese gangsters and May. His son approaches and says, "Daddy, I'm scared". But his father hears it in a deep, echo-y voice while his son's eyes become blackened, dead things... - It turns out there are more spirits like the woman; they were apparently scientists researching an artifact called the Darkhold, and were killed by their experiment. We don't see how, but it must have been very violent because they appear to be covered in blood and fresh wounds. - That book, the Darkhold? It's a Doctor Strange artifact, and a very bad one. - In the previous episode. we saw May had been affected by the ghost woman. We'd expect her to turn herself in for testing or decontamination or something. She doesn't, but it's partially justified by the fact that she's seeing everyone's faces as being those of death. She doesn't think she can trust any of them, and ironically believes herself to be the Only Sane Man. Since she's normally The Stoic, calm, and in control, watching her freak out and believe that all of her fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have turned into monsters is deeply unsettling. - She goes to talk to the Chinese gang leader, believing he's sane as well. Except he starts rambling and then beating his head on the door until it . Arguably May has it worse than the viewer: we can see he's clearly insane by now, but May looks at him and sees that he's Driven to Suicide, past the Despair Event Horizon. And it's what awaits her if she doesn't find a way to stop everyone from turning into monsters. Oh, wait... bleeds - The Ghost Rider, of course. - Daisy makes the mistake of threatening his brother, so he lights up a wrench and goes for her head. He ends the fight pretty quickly, too, though it takes a second hit this time. And after, we're not sure what he's going to do with her. - And then he transforms again, and this time its a bit more horrific. The lighting is odder, and the effect is faster. And once he's transformed? He literally burns a person's soul. Guess the Aryan was right... - The blackouts cause a lot of this: - Daisy and Robbie talk about how looting and rioting typically take place during black outs because people feel emboldened. In other words, seven major cities with the lack of inhibition of the internet. - Robbie specifically talks about his fear that his wheel-chair bound little brother will be stuck in a bad part of town. - The new villain, Senator Nadeer, is looking like The Unfettered; seven major cities blacked out so the Watchdogs can zero in Inhumans while she fans the flames of Inhuman hatred. Imagining what she's going to do next is even scarier. - It's pretty disturbing (and depressing) how quickly Yo-yo's so-called friends at the party turn on her when they find out she's the Inhuman the Watchdogs are looking for. - Robbie's first transformation into Ghost Rider is lifted straight from the comics. His screaming mixed with the slow, obviously painful transformation is enough to give anyone shudders. - By the end of the episode, Eli has succeeded with his plan, and gained godlike powers. And Coulson, Fitz, and Robbie are nowhere to be seen. - Just the thought of being unharmed, only to find out you are now a ghost, and no one can hear or even see you. - Mace sends Simmons to a classified mission. The problem is that it is classified even to him, and upon trying to get Simmons back, the senator abruptly hangs up on him. Imagine being in Mace's shoes, realizing he just sent Simmons off with no backup and no idea where she is. - Even worse is Fitz overhears the whole thing, and is not only pissed, but terrified for Simmons' safety. - Nadeer's brother was conscious and aware of everything around him while he was stuck in Terrigenesis (He could hear and remember Simmons introducing herself). - Eli's powers, being able to create carbon from effectively air. Including the air inside the human body. - It turns out that the ghosts are being dragged into Hell slowly. Lucy and the others were stuck in limbo, too far up for Hell to affect them, while Coulson and co are too far down to affect their environment, and slowly sink into the depths with each passing moment. From what we hear from the Rider, Hell ain't pretty. - Mack getting taken over by the Ghost Rider- it fully suppresses his consciousness, leaving him unable to account for anything he does for hours. During that time, he runs away from SHIELD, attacks the Chinese gangsters, and even kills a few of them. The experience brings to light all of the darkness inside of him, and leaves him broken. And then there's the shot we get of the actual Spirit of Vengeance, outside of a host. - When Radcliffe opens the Darkhold, the camera is looking up at him. This is the perspective of the book; book is reading its reader. What is that famous phrase, "And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you". - We also see his reaction. At first it's confusion, followed by shock, then mounting horror. - Agent Nathanson finds something horrifying at Radcliffe's house and Aida sees it with him. She strokes his cheek while he is stunned with fear and says "I'm sorry. I know how this feels..." and she snaps his freakin' neck; no emotion or anything. Then we see what Nathanson found; a bloody and unconscious May. Ladies and Gentleman, this is why androids were banned! - The face Aida makes as she explains how the Darkhold showed her how to feel. You can see the madness in her eyes. The biggest kicker? It was all an act, as Radcliffe was corrupted by the Darkhold and is now seeking it for himself to achieve immortality. - How about some Paranoia Fuel for you? Life Model Decoys are so convincing that LMD!May doesn't know that she is an android. - While having trouble with interrogating the sniper who tried to kill Mace, Simmons comes up with an idea to make him talk. Claiming to have gotten quite a few skills at torturing people while with HYDRA, Simmons decides to show the guy what happened to the last person who refused to answer her questions: Aida's severed head in a cooler filled with ice, complete with some fake blood on the mouth to make it seem all the more real. The guy starts talking. - Toward the end of the episode, Fitz downloads Aida's data to investigate what made her turn on S.H.I.E.L.D. What truly makes the scene frightening is that Aida's head is partially activated, and talks to Fitz while he's doing this. - Let's take a look at Radcliffe and Aida's entire treatment of the real May. Locking her into a Lotus-Eater Machine, running her through simulation after simulation to try and keep her calm and contained. The capper is putting her back into the Bahrain Mission, allowing May to 'save' Katya this time around and all this is done with the idea that they are helping May. The treatment of May is less a Doctor working with a patient and more of a Researcher playing with a test animal. - After the Watchdogs start strong arming Radcliffe and Aida, Radcliffe gives Aida a nod, and she not only overpowers two Watchdogs, but also kills one by punching through his stomach. - Just before Mack is about to use his shotgun-axe on LMD Radcliffe, it asks why, if Mack doesn't consider it a living thing, he felt the need to turn him on before killing it. Mack's response? He wants to hear a robot scream! - Doubles as Paranoia Fuel, but after her brother was outed as an Inhuman, Nadeer was paranoid she was an Inhuman as well, or at least a carrier. When Shockley crushes the Terrigen, she panics as the mist passes around her, only to see Shockley become cocooned. - Shockley's powers: he can manipulate the kinetic energy of his cells at an atomic level, pushing them to the point his body becomes combustible and highly explosive. He then reforms From a Single Cell (albeit without any clothes) to do it again. As Mace points out, he is now "an undetectable suicide bomber who can walk away." - Worst part, the Anti-Inhuman cell SHIELD has on board the Zephyr cannot contain his powers. Something that was designed to contain the Hulk cannot contain Shockley. - After the explosion, we see Shockley reform. First it's a gas, then it forms into a skeleton (we're seeing that a lot lately), before it forms meat, muscle, tissue, and finally Shockley. It's like Hive stripping a body from last season in reverse. - The ending of the episode: Coulson, Daisy, Mack, and Mace have all been replaced by LMDs, and only Fitz and Simmons are aware of it. And then they make it five, as the Coulson LMD reactivates the May LMD. - The basic premise of the episode. The base is heavily infiltrated with android doubles of most of the team, leaving the remainder who are still human wondering who's left that they can trust. Worse, at the end of the last episode, everyone - viewers included - thought that Fitz and Simmons were the only two humans left of the main cast. Turns out that Fitz was an LMD too and Daisy was the other human remaining. Imagine that in the middle of a nightmare body double scenario, you discover that the one person you thought hadn't been replaced was a body double too. - Daisy and Simmons jump into their counterpart's identities in the Framework. But the Jemma Simmons of the Framework is already dead. So what happened to Jemma when she logged in? - If you could fix one regret in your life, what would it be, and who would you be if you did? Well, Coulson would be a teacher spreading fear of Inhumans, Fitz would be rich and dating someone else because Simmons died, and May would be working for HYDRA. - The fact that Ivanov's been reduced to a severed head in a glass container who's now controlling an LMD of himself, courtesy of Aida. - Even after the truth about Fitz is revealed, Simmons struggles with the possibility that she could also be an LMD programmed to think she's the real thing. - The sight of the LMDs of Team Coulson trying to kill the ones who are opposing them. The fact that they're LMDs does nothing to lessen the horror of watching this family trying to kill each other. Stand out points include: - LMD Coulson coldly pointing a gun at LMD May right before she could blow them both up was highly disturbing, especially considering how much their human counterparts care about each other, made worse by the fact that both have recently realized that they love each other. She may be more than capable of emotion but he certainly wasn't. - LMD Fitz brutally stabbing Jemma while switching between human and robot personalities, followed by Jemma repeatedly stabbing LMD Fitz. After seeing how far one of them will go for the other (Jemma dragging Fitz from the bottom of the ocean; Fitz jumping through a portal to find Jemma), it's incredibly horrifying to see them attacking each other. Jemma is left visibly traumatized by the event; when Daisy finds her, Jemma keeps saying "It wasn't him" in a way that it's clear she is trying to reassure herself of this fact. - The LMDs of Coulson and Mack shooting Daisy after she defeats LMD Mace. Daisy has spent her life searching for a family, and now people who look like the men she views as a father and a brother are trying to kill her. - For some reason, the LMDs are also trying to carry out the Watchdogs' mission of genocide against the Inhumans, now using the Inhumans' trust of S.H.I.E.L.D. to get close to them by sending multiple LMDs of Daisy to execute them simultaneously. For extra horror, it was LMD Mack that tried to lead Yo-Yo into the trap. - The Framework World, ALL OF IT, is pure Nightmare Fuel. Here's a highlight reel: - HYDRA is in control, and it is utterly normal. - Coulson being totally on board with the HYDRA party line and inhuman hate. PHIL. COULSON. - The Avengers and the Battle for New York aren't mentioned. Clearly, the Chitauri and Loki didn't win, but we don't know what did happen. Especially as Coulson was the one whose death saved the team. - Nothing about previous S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents or the Avengers are mentioned, leaving the fates of Fury, Hill, Hand, Bobbie, Clint, his family, Steve, Tony, Bruce, Natasha, and the Maximoff twins up in the air. The fate of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Science/Tech Academy does not bode well for them. - All of the anti-Inhuman hate and reference to Nazism. - May, trying to do a good thing, accidentally (if indirectly) causes the end of the world as we know it. - Fitz of all people is The Dreaded Mad Scientist who performs Cold-Blooded Torture on Inhumans. - Special mention to poor Simmons, who wakes up in the Framework in an unmarked mass grave. Her clothes are still stained with the blood of her counterpart's death and she looks into the hole she crawled out of to see another corpse rotted to bones. - In-Universe, Daisy is understandably scared when she realized that in the Framework, she and Ward remain a couple. She even cringes when he hugged her from behind. - If you thought the Framework world was horrible last week, just wait. - Mack lives in constant fear that Hydra will come after his daughter and himself; when you remember that Mack joined SHIELD before the Katya Incident occurred (2002 vs 2008), it's entirely possible he's hiding from the government because they know he's ex-SHIELD. - May appears to have lost her ability to empathize. She all but states that she Would Hurt a Child and believes no one is innocent. She attacks Mack in front of Hope so that he'll cooperate, then uses Mack to trick Daisy/Skye into revealing her true allegiance. And once she catches Skye, May allows her men to beat the shit out of her. - Fitz is the worst of all; he's cold, emotionless, a shell of his former self. A sadist who's almost as scary as Whitehall. The look in his eyes when he says, "I know exactly who I am..." and then shoots Agnes in cold blood. It's equal parts heartbreaking and terrifying. You can see that the kind and gentle man Jemma Simmons loved no longer exists. To top it off, at the end of the episode, he's just finished torturing Radcliffe and promises to do the same to Skye/Daisy. She tries to protest, the usual, "You don't want to do this" schtick. Fitz looks right at the camera and says, "Yeah. I do." - While she's the Big Bad and Obviously Evil, it's hard not to sympathize with Aid- sorry, Madame Hydra. She's a sentient being, and yet she was forced by her programming to be subservient to Radcliffe. He kept her locked in a closet and forced her to do menial tasks, he referred to her as less than human. Every part of her Motive Rant is true, and the thought of being in her position... ( shudder). - It's also terrifying just to hear the rage in her voice. There's a reason 'mad' is a synonym for 'insane'. - A bit less than the previous two episodes, but still, the Framework World delivers... - Remember that creepy scene in the Red Room? It was empty when Peggy and the Howling Commandos entered. Now we get to see it in its full glory upgraded with Bakshi's 'Compliance' training from Season 2 stocked full of children to make them comply with HYDRA's party line. Even MAY is horrified. - We have heard snippets of how bad a father Alistair Fitz was to Leopold, but we finally see first hand what he is like. The man embodies Tranquil Fury, and anyone who cannot do the same is seen as weak. Furthermore, it appears that in order to instill the personality into Leo he had to beat the poor guy, as evidenced when Leo snaps at him after he reports a failed raid on Daisy and May. - Worse is that Leo confided in Radcliffe about his father, whom the latter reveals to him while being interrogated. Radcliffe reveals to Alistair that in the 'other world' Alistair Fitz is a drunkard wife beater who disappeared from his son's life because he couldn't be bothered with him. He remarks that he was a failure there, and is still a failure now to his son as he can't catch a single escaped fugitive. The resulting No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Alistair just furthers the fact that this guy, the man who raised Leopold Fitz in the Framework, is one messed up son of a bitch. - The Framework has brought some terrifying things over the course of the season. But few of these can compare to the sight of Leopold Fitz threatening to murder Jemma Simmons after she killed his father. To add some extra horror, he actually did kneecap her just a few feet from the backdoor. Thank God Radcliffe intervened when he did. - For that matter, imagine being Leopold Fitz: S.H.I.E.L.D. Science Academy graduate, loving friend, a little skittish yet textbook Beware the Nice Ones, all-around Nice Guy. You grew up in a loving household and have a close group of friends who would die for you - and you for them. And now, imagine waking up with a lifetime's worth of memories of yourself being a ruthless, murderous psycopath, responsible for torturing, maiming, and/or killing dozens of people, either through experiments, or point-blank shooting them in the chest. Worse, the memories feel natural, as if you could really have done all of it. No wonder he can barely breathe. - Imagine being in Mack's shoes for a minute, having to choose between the Framework and Reality. On the one hand, the world is being ravaged by terrorists and is constantly at war, and you serve as a part of the group that protects the people, but you have your girlfriend by you; or the world is being controlled by a terrorist organization hunting anyone who speaks out against them, you have thrown your lot in with the freedom fighters and are now an enemy of the state, but you have your bright little girl along for the ride. Which is worse? - Aida's psychotic break after Fitz tells her he's in love with Jemma, not her. Aida feels intense emotions, and lacks any emotional maturity due to just recently gaining a human body, so she's become an unstable Yandere with an apocalyptic grudge against humanity. - Seeing Aida lose her temper in general is terrifying. Even as Madame Hydra in the Framework, her reaction to Radcliffe hitting her Berserk Button was restrained to Tranquil Fury, which makes her sudden screaming fit all more jarring. - At one point, it seems like Aida will sleep with one of the Ivanov bots. Aida mounts him, only to bash the back of his head into the floor several times. - Aida/Ophelia now has the overwhelming desire to control the world by force, and she has the means and powers to do so. An angry, vengeful being with near unlimited and wide ranging powers (Gordon's teleportation, Lincoln's electric powers, Eva Belyakov's strength, and Jiaying's Healing Factor, among others), access to a supernatural artifact that can reshape the world, and an ally who can produce multiple LMDs of himself are all ingredients for a terrifying foe, as demonstrated by her rampage in this episode. - Yo-Yo waking up without her powers and Strapped to an Operating Table inside a wrecked building in the Framework. That scream... - Ghost Rider emotes for the first time in the series when Aida escapes him... by giving a primal scream of rage! - The slow deletion of the Framework; while it might not seem important, seeing people, apparently living and breathing people disappear, while those that remain are left confused by their absence; and they can't exactly distract themselves with their stuff because that's disappearing, too. And it doesn't matter if you run. No matter where you go in the world, the world itself is fading. It culminates in Hope disappearing from Mack's arms, leaving him broken. - Deserved or not, watching Ghost Rider roast Aida alive is pretty horrifying. - For all the months of his disappearance, Robbie was in another dimension where the Rider was in full control of his body while he was stuck in an And I Must Scream situation. Daisy sums it up as "terrible, painful and lonely". He also says this is only one of several alternate dimensions in the MCU that could legitimately qualify as our concept of Hell. - Aida's Yandere side is... creepy◊. ## Season 5 - The first half-hour or so is like a Survival Horror movie, as Coulson, Daisy, May, Mack, Jemma, and Yo-Yo find themselves in the derelict portion of an old space station crawling with monsters. And then they reach "civilization", which turns out to be just as dangerous. - The fact that when May teleported in, she has a pipe THROUGH HER LEG, narrowly missing being a victim of Tele-Frag. - The team finally figures out where and when they are: Decades into a future in which the Earth has been destroyed and the surviving humans are all enslaved by the Kree. - Jemma's attempt to help a wounded man results in her being captured and enslaved by the Kree, who put something in her ear that allows them to disable her hearing on a whim. - The Renewal, full stop. - Way back in season 2, the Kree Vin-Tak warned that Daisy's powers could potentially grow to the point that she might be able to shatter continents. If Deke is to be believed, he was underselling it. Supposedly, Daisy shattered the planet. - Apparently any human who turns 18 goes through the Terrigenesis where they are basically sold into slavery and thats if they're lucky enough to have a useful power. If not, they are simply slaughtered in an exhibition match against the champion of the buyer. - Abbey the young girl Simmons helps mentor is at the beginning getting brutally Curb Stomped. Simmons is only able to watch as she watches this young girl fight for her life and can do nothing. The way she wins is almost as horrible. She phases her arm insubstantial and shoves it into her opponent's chest. Then she turns it solid again. Ouch. - We finally see what the punishment is for breaking the rules of the Kree: getting sent to the remains of Earth which is a hellhole devoid of any life but Roaches. - Little Robin Hinton, the daughter of Charles Hinton, has the power of precognition. While Raina had her physical beauty taken, and Charles could no longer touch people, Robin sees all of time at once. Given she was 4 or 5 when she underwent Terrigenesis, this has effectively made her nonverbal, and she instead communicates through her drawings. According to her mother, her mind is scattered through the past, present and future; confusing at best and scary at worst. Although this later gets subverted when she seems to grow up into a well-spoken old lady, and one of the leaders on the destroyed Earth. - General Hale is an authority figure who ignores basic human rights, plans to kidnap gifted children (at best!), and kills her subordinates in cold blood. Basically, she is the very thing Steve Rogers fears in CACW. - We finally see a Vrellnexian/ Roach in the flesh and it looks horrifying. It looks like the spawn of a Xenomorph with the body of a panther. Doesn't make it any less awesome though! - By now, about half of the named non SHIELD cast has been killed. All violently. At least one is stabbed in the back like Coulson... and gets a lingering shot and some blood on their chest/mouth. Apparently Coulson's death in Avengers was to have that, and was cut since it would have given the movie an R rating. - Kasius decides that he's been "too lenient" with the humans in the Lighthouse and decides to punish them after Team Coulson escapes in the trawler. How? By driving the Vrellnexians to the floor where the humans live. When Mack, Yo-Yo and Flint arrive, the floor is literally covered in bodies and we're treated to the sounds of people screaming as the Vrellnexians hunt them down. - Even in her dreams, Robin sees the past and future: people hurting, people dying, catastrophes. Her powers are literal nightmare fuel. - For several episodes now, it has been made clear that Kasius intends to destroy the Lighthouse when he leaves. This episode reveals how he intends to do that, in one of the most horrifying ways possible: the Kree have attached bombs to the O2 tanks within the Lighthouse. Not only would these cause massive explosions, but it would also set the entire Lighthouse's oxygen supply on fire, which in turn would burn everyone to death. - The effects of the Odium are truly terrifying. It is a drug used as a last resort by Kree warriors to allow them to "die with glory" by sending them into a berserker rage, making them incapable of feeling pain and greatly enhancing their strength. It is also strongly implied to eventually kill the user. Kasius force-feeds Odium to Tye, his Inhuman trainer, and then later ingests the rest of it himself during a final showdown with Mack. In both cases, ingesting the Odium causes black fluid to spill from the user's mouth and eyes, making Tye and Kasius look rather monstrous. - The fact that Future Elena has been killed and resurrected multiple times by the Kree over the course of several decades. They kill her when they don't need her and resurrect her when they do. And to top it all off, they've cut off both of her arms above the elbow, leaving her with useless stumps. - Team Coulson has finally returned to the past, but it looks like the future they're trying to prevent is already starting to come true: - When Noah reveals a light emanating from the sky, Fitz-Simmons take a closer look at it the light and learn it's a Kree beacon, similar to the one used by Hive to summon the Reapers in "Failed Experiments." Hale activated it to draw Team Coulson out. It's entirely possible that beacon is what alerted Kasius's father to Earth in the first place. So not only is Earth about to get a visit from Thanos, but there may be a confederacy of Kree warlords and their armies on their way as well. - During the fight at the lab, Ruby uses her blades to slice off both of Elena's arms at the elbows, where just like Future!Elena. After Mack's attempts to console her that they're going to change the future, they just experienced a huge portent that it's going to come true. - Also, the liberal amount of blood flow from Elena's elbows is truly horrifying. It makes all the previous severed limbs in the MCU look tame by comparison. - The Kree beacon was also a Plan B, but not to track Team Coulson to their base. It was a bomb intended to kill them. And it exploded right next to the White Monolith, showing how it was destroyed. - Pretty much everything about Ruby, daughter of General Hale: She's not some bratty teenage daughter who is skipping school and idolizes Daisy Johnson. She is a government-trained assassin who is obsessed with killing Quake and gladly mutilated Elena just to draw Daisy out. Also, while her room looks like a normal room in a house, it's actually in a secret military bunker, with a reinforced sealed door to keep her locked inside. What the hell is this girl? - The fact that Hale and her daughter just want to kill Coulson and his team. No arrest, no interrogation, no manipulation. They just want to outright kill them. - Blowing up the three monoliths in the previous episode caused a rift in space-time to form, with a Reality Bleed from what Fitz dubs a "fear dimension": A person's deepest fears can manifest into physical form and attack them. It's a dimension literally made from Nightmare Fuel. Given the appearances of a Kree Warrior, Lash, an LMD of Jemma, and Hive, these manifestations are fully physical and capable of killing anyone who gets too close. - The Reveal of just what the deal with Ghost Rider cost Coulson: It burned out all the GH-325 in his body, causing the fatal injuries Coulson suffered in The Avengers to decay. According to Jemma's analysis, Coulson's tissue didn't just turn necrotic; it has been necrotic for years. - The manifestation of Coulson's deepest fear: That he wasn't revived by TAHITI, but is still on the operating table after Loki stabbed him. - Framework!Fitz has returned as apparently a result of the fear dimension. Everyone, especially Fitz and Simmons, are incredibly unnerved by this. - His plan to capture Daisy and take out her chip so that she can use her powers to compress the gravitonium into the device needed to seal the rift is this as it involves his surgically removing it without even giving Daisy any proper anesthesia. - What makes it worse is The Reveal that Framework!Fitz was never there. It was all Fitz himself. Yes, kind, gentle Fitz, the love of Simmons' life, kidnapped and basically tortured one of his friends, simply because he felt it was the best option to close the tear. Even after the tear is closed and Fitz is imprisoned, he tells Jemma that, even after basically destroying his friendship with Daisy, he still feels all this was the right thing to do. - HYDRA has returned and General Hale is working for them. - And who is overseeing this revived HYDRA? None other than the Confederacy, the Kree alliance led by Kasius' father. Not only was this guy responsible for the dystopian conditions of the Lighthouse, it looks like he's responsible for the Alien Invasion that precipitated the destruction of Earth. It looks like we've found the Big Bad of Season 5. - What happened to Talbot in the six months he's been Hale's prisoner. Ruby has completely broken him, to the point that it's not sure what was a result of his brain damage or a result of Ruby's interrogation. - The result of Creel touching the Gravitonium. He learns that it's not just an element, it's alive. When Franklin Hall was absorbed by the Gravitonium, it took his memories and sentience. Creel says that he can hear two voices in there, and the end of the episode reveals who the other voice is: it's Ian Quinn, who was absorbed all those years ago after escaping, when Raina made some sort of deal with Hall. - Reality bites hard for Yo-Yo when she tries to use her powers for the first time since getting prosthetic arms... and learns the hard way that her prosthetics aren't built to be subjected to high speeds. - Glenn Talbot is revealed to be a sleeper agent for the Confederacy. - The Family-Unfriendly Death of Werner Von Strucker, with Ruby accidentally crushing his head like a beer can after getting infused with Gravitonium. You can see his blood splattering on the floor behind Ruby after his corpse falls. - Coulson tries to defuse the hostage situation with Talbot by using his own HYDRA Trigger Phrase on him. Granted, he was trying to save a little girl, but dropping another layer of Mind Rape on a man with an already seriously broken mental state? That is cold. - The Remorath are like something out of a Survival Horror movie, as they lope around the Lighthouse, slaughtering anyone who gets in their way. As an added bonus, their presence causes lights to go out and electronics to stop working. - The Mook Horror Show of Talbot, now pumped full of Gravitonium, killing every single Remorath. - Talbot's reunion with his family is unsettling to watch. They know something's not right, and it's clear that he's going to snap at any moment. And he does when his wife mentions that S.H.I.E.L.D. called. - Before they are interrupted, Talbot is talking about the only way he'd ever trust his wife again is if she joined him. The way he says it heavily implies that he's intending to absorb her the same way he did Creel, right in front of their son. - Talbot's final descent into madness. He threatens a young child's mother to make her tell him where he can get more Gravitonium, then he lands a massive spaceship on top of several buildings completely destroying the top few floors, and at the end he's fully willing to destroy the planet in his insane desire to become powerful enough to protect it from all threats. ## Season 6 - Sarge in general is an incredibly chilling villain, if only because of how unsettling it is to see a man who looks and sounds exactly like the Coulson we all know and love display the exact same kind of affable, yet sociopathic and ruthless personality as Ward. - This season has given us some new creative and terrifying ways to die, but this episode, showing what the alien parasite does to its victims, sets new records in Family-Unfriendly Death and takes us from sci-fi with a few scary moments to outright Horror. Poor Keller starts jutting black crystals from his body as his limbs are stretched apart. Skin can be seen clinging to the crystals that have overextended his limbs. We're not talking Reed Richards type limb stretching; the crystal expands beyond the bounds of its host and there's just not enough flesh to go around, showing agonizing and graphic ripping and tearing. See the final results here!◊ - Oh, it gets better, as we learn more over the next handful of episodes. When the crystals reach another surface, that surface grows more crystals. (You can see a little of it in that image, the new growths on the walls and floor.) And the crystals from there cause more. The blue dagger things that are kryptonite to the parasite were preventing it from fully growing; from two victims you can get enough rapidly-growing razor-sharp crystals to at least fill a plane. So far, touching the crystal isn't enough to have it grow from you like an infection victim... but it will go straight through your body like a hot knife through butter. If you don't stop it with a dagger early, as in "within the first five or so seconds," remaining anywhere near is certain death by impalement. Also, they gain the energy to do this by feeding on the life force of the victim. Planets have life force too, accessible by Ley Lines. Enough of the Shrike gather at the right places, and soon your whole planet is being torn to shreds, giant crystal growths ripping their way out as easily as they do with Redshirts. The best proof of their horrifying nature is that having seen them at work on too many planets, to the point that he'd do literally anything to stop their spread, is what has made Sarge ruthless enough to earn an entry on this page. - Fitz and Simmons are put into a virtual mind prison by the Chronicoms, which causes them to eventually confront their respective dark sides — not just Leopold aka the Doctor, but also a Nightmare Simmons created from all the negative emotions that Jemma has been suppressing her whole life. - They end up captured by each other's dark side, leading to horrific torture scenes as Leopold puts Jemma in a machine to drain her mind, and Nightmare Simmons cuts Fitz's heart out with a bone knife. - Nightmare Simmons in general proves to be every bit as scary as Leopold, if not more so. Things veer straight into horror movie territory whenever she appears, she looks like something that crawled out of a nightmare, and Elizabeth Henstridge's performance is nothing short of terrifying. - Enoch points out that keeping FitzSimmons in the mind prison may end up killing them. Atarah makes it clear that she doesn't care. - Sarge is willing to set off a nuke with a 200 mile blast radius, regardless of how many innocent civilians are caught in that area, if it means destroying Izel and the Shrike. He even leaves Snowflake, who'd been nothing but loyal to him, behind on the truck as it barrels towards the crystalline tower. - The fact that Izel, the woman who rescued FitzSimmons from certain death on Kitson, is actually the one responsible for unleashing the Shrike upon the galaxy. - Izel is capable of Body Surfing, which is not only a major case of Paranoia Fuel, but is also played for horror. She makes May shoot Sarge, makes Piper shoot herself in the hand, makes Mack start to strangle Deke, and ultimately makes Davis jump to his death. - And to make things worse, by the end of the episode she's now possessing Yo-Yo, and makes a point of mentioning how she can now kill people before they can blink. - Last episode seemed very triumphant, with Sarge promising to stop Izel and starting to unlock his powers. This episode makes it clear that those powers are not under his control. The alien being inside him- Pachakutiq- is a raging monster barely controlled by what remains of Coulson's personality. He's strong enough to bend steel and knock down walls, and he wants out. - Agent May and Sarge go into the ancient temple to confront Izel. At first, Sarge is able to curb-stomp her, but when it comes time to actually kill her, he can't bring himself to do it. May tries to talk to him, telling him that the pain holding him back is love, and it seems he might be coming around. And then he stabs Melinda May through the chest and tosses her through the portal like a piece of trash. He's not Coulson. He's not even Sarge anymore. He's Pachakutiq, the earth-shaker demon lord. - Izel may not be able to possess Yo-Yo anymore thanks to Fitz-Simmons and Deke, but that protection doesn't extend to her pets. One of the Shrike flies right into Yo-Yo's mouth at the end of the episode. - We finally get to see Pachakutiq's true form, and it's disgusting- a hulking insectoid with a face like a crustacean. He completely No Sells Daisy's powers, beating her and Mack into the ground. - May manages to take a look into the Fear Dimension - and she sees hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of beings like Izel and Pachakutiq, ready to invade reality! ## Season 7 - The Chronicoms using a device that literally removes the faces of people, leaving blank swathes of flesh in their place, in order to create new disguises for themselves. - The Chronicoms reveal that they are replacing SHIELD agents with Chronicom hunters, first by implanting their memories before stealing their faces. Once Coulson and May save Rick Stoner from the same fate, there's a shot of the bodies of 3 agents that the hunters replaced, all with blank faces and only in their underclothing. - Nathaniel goes about operating on Daisy the same way that Whitehall operated on Jiaying. Even if the relationship ended badly between her and her mother, she got a taste of the terror and pain Jiaying went through. - Mack's parents had already been killed and replaced by Chronicoms, and they don't hold back with the Evil Gloating. - The sheer amount of gruesome deaths inflicted by Sybil and her robots almost makes Ruby chopping off Elena's arms in Season 4 look tame by comparison. - Enoch's efficiency in taking down the team single-handedly, if you consider that he's a Chromicon anthropologist and the SHIELD agents have fought his species' hunters. - We finally get a good look at Daisy when she's not holding back her powers. It's almost reminiscent of a power-up scene from Dragon Ball Z, and it scares the hell out of Nathaniel despite him having a better degree of control than she does. - When Sybil's fleet reaches Earth, they waste no time annihilating nearly every SHIELD base on the planet via Orbital Bombardment.	https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/AgentsOfSHIELD