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Fatal Frame / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Sleep tight.
General
- Simply invoking the Easter Egg won't keep you safe. Leaving any of the first three games idle for about 5 minutes results in "screensavers" appearing that are creepily Painting the Medium.
- The doll scares in all the games. The Manor of Sleep has a doll next to a regenerating Type-14 Film spot. Looking at the doll through the camera causes it to look back at you. Something similar occurs with a mannequin in Kageri's room in the fourth game. Except she quickly moves her head back, pretending she didn't do anything.
- It is disturbing that some of these sacrifices actually WANTED to be sacrificed. While some do out of their sense of duty, some of them are shown to be a little too enthusiastic to be sacrificed which usually entails a lot of pain and suffering.
## Entries with their own pages: | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FatalFrame |
Fatal Frame II / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Head here for the general
*Fatal Frame* Nightmare Fuel page.
- Near the beginning, Mio is seen in profile and a hand places itself on her shoulder. Thinking it's Mayu, she puts her own on it to comfort her. Then Mayu walks past her. But the hand is still there.
- Sae in her entirety! Her laughter is pure Paranoia Fuel, especially when you can hear her behind doors but can't
*see* her. And it gets worse in the seventh chapter, where she is chasing Mio through the Tachibana house, trying to kill her.
- There's a small cutscene when Mio enters the Great Hall with Mayu partway through the game. Go ahead, take a picture of Mayu after the scene. Unlike most pictures that mean nothing, hers remains as is for a bit. Then it gets darker and you can see dozens of bloody, cut-up arms circling the edge of the picture and all of them are grabbing towards Mayu. Completely optional. Completely terrifying.
- Peeking Child and Armless Woman. The first is in the Kiryu place and simply
*pops up* in the small window in front of you, when you were probably looking at that item beneath the window. The second because she comes after an almost inconspicuous dangling arm. Approaching the dangling arm will have her flop down from above, her cut-up face in your full view.
- After beating the Osaka house and heading into the dressing room for the save point, the save point stops working right after you use it. And that only happens when a ghost is nearby... By the time you realize what's going on, a woman's ghost is slowly crawling out of the box in the room and you cannot leave, until she is defeated. On her own, already pretty creepy, but when this game came out
*The Ring* was still fresh in one's mind.
- Late in the game, you finally gain access to the storage shed where Itsuki is being held. Upon entering, you see his lifeless body hanging from a noose. Inspecting the window from the inside of his cell, you'll see that it's rusted shut and
*not been used, nor even opened* in ages.
- In the Tachibana house, you can find what appears to be a figure wrapped in up in blankets and sitting upright. Mio wonders if it's the doll, but when you leave, you hear a distorted "Stay with me..."
- The Wii edition added something extra to it. There's an item to obtain at the thing's feet. Grab it, and the whole thing collapses. Not very loud, but startling all the same.
- The Kiryu twins. Particularly when you're looking for the family crests to escape the village and enter a hidden closet. One of them is in there. Just sitting there.
*Then* she moves and you can hear her neck and limbs snapping and popping.
- "WhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokill."
- Falling Woman. She was running from the Darkness seeping from the Abyss and ended up dying when she, in a moment of blinding terror, jumped off the top of the stairs in the Kiryu's Clock Hallway. She tends to appear by screaming and falling through the ceiling.
- Right after encountering the Falling Woman the first time, the game plays up your paranoia. Entering the next hallway, a piece of wood will fall to the ground. Sounds like nothing, but after having just encountered the woman, your nerves are on edge.
- The Tachibana house has a small storage closet on the second floor with an item inside. After going in and grabbing the item, you can hear a girl's voice saying "Help me." If you look through the camera, you find it written all over the walls. And the door locks if you try to leave. Eventually, the voice fades and the door opens and you can leave. It serves no purpose. It's a room that lures you in, just to freak you out.
- You can find pairs of disembodied legs walking through the village at certain points. Just strolling.
- Chitose's death, which also doubles as a Tear Jerker. Due to her vision problems, she accidentally trapped herself in a crawlspace of the Tachibana home and died there; either naturally or when the Darkness arrived. And she's maybe ten years old at most. And many of the locations she can be found hiding in have "Help" or "Big brother" scratched into the walls. Multiple times.
- The Kusabi. His appearance is utterly terrifying, he's surrounded by fog in which you can make out distorted skulls at times, and the haunting background music consists of him groaning in agony. And he has a One-Hit Kill.
*Then* you find out how he's created: an outsider is sacrificed through the means of the Cutting Ritual, which consists of slicing the person over and over and over, giving them a slow and agonizing death. Most people don't even survive *that* part. If they do, they are bound and thrown into the Abyss while still alive. Near the Abyss, you can find a crack to look into and see a failed Kusabi.
- Just looking at the Kusabi in Viewfinder mode shows you several ghastly faces screaming from behind it.
- Also, don't bother trying to photograph it; your Camera Obscura can't banish the Kusabi. Your only option is to run.
- The
*Frozen Butterfly* ending in the Wii remake. Just... *everything* about it. Mio is about to strangle Mayu like the ritual dictates, but she snaps out of it at the last second and breaks down, saying she could never hurt Mayu. Upon hearing this, Mayu says she always knew that Mio could never hurt her... then *breaks down into utterly psychotic laughter* in the same manner as Sae, as a horrified Mio falls to her knees and realizes this was also how Mayu acted when she broke her leg as a child. Mayu promptly corners her in an unsettling manner, saying that they'll always be together in the village, just the two of them, and the scene cuts to black before anything happens. However, the next scene shows Mio lying motionless onto Mayu's lap, implying *Mayu* strangled Mio to death instead. *And it gets worse.* After the credits play, a final scene is shown where Mayu plays in a room full of dolls, and applies makeup on Mayu proceeds to kiss Mio's head which, somehow, is able to **MIO'S SEVERED HEAD.** *shed a single tear*. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FatalFrameII |
Far Cry 2 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
A few tapes in particular stand out way above the rest:
Jackal: I spent a year in Black Beach once, in the dark. It's a hell-hole. Covered in raw sewage. Guards breaking some inmates' fingers with a hammer just out of pure fuckin' meanness. Men die of starvation there all the time. I saw a guy in the opposite cell catch a rat with his teeth, because they had him in handcuffs 24 hours a day for two months. He couldn't eat. Seeing someone do that... he was weeping while he crushed it to death in his mouth. Seeing his eyes, his face... it's madness. He was dead three days later. Oluwagembi: What killed him? Jackal:Realization of what he'd turned into.
Also, The Jackal himself may count as this, ||specially the first time you meet while you're lying in bed, suffering from malaria:||
|| The Jackal: "What your old clients don't seem to understand is that they can't kill me. Do you understand what I'm saying? Nobody kills me, NOBODY!" (Cue shoving a Machete near the player's head and then pulling a gun out) I'm the one who decides who lives and who dies!||
Speaking of malaria, suffering from the said disease as your screen starts flashing yellow (pictured above) and a deep, brooding noise playing in the background is pretty unsettling. Consider yourself lucky if you have any medication to treat the symptoms.
Removing a bullet wound on your arm with just your finger only to come out of the other side, with metal pliers or ripping it with your own teeth and then spitting it.
Pulling a nail between your fingers.
Cauterizing an open wound with a bunch of matchsticks.
Bending your elbow to push a bullet out of your arm.
Pulling a tooth out.
Ripping a twig out of your thigh.
Relocating disjointed fingers, an arm or a foot.
You become this to your very own enemies, specially at Reputation 5. Ever since the day you landed in Africa, you've proven yourself to be an unstoppable killing machine, rampaging across the UAC under the orders of whoever pays the highest. By the end of the game, you've been at least a week in Africa and every single day, you've killed many, many soldiers, some who were simply too terrified to even fight you. You become recognized as The Devil himself and one of the rumors spread about you is that you eat your victims for fun. Hell, it can be assumed you become more infamous than The Jackal himself!
By the end of the game, your Player Character starts showing signs of total psychopathy if you read the journal and pay attention to his actions. He's completely willing to betray two of his bosses just for the sake of pure fun, regardless of how much they paid him! And the fact that he slowly becomes guillible enough to listen to The Jackal and follow his philosophy may mean that, by the end of the game, your character just absolutely freaking snapped from all the fighting and the malaria. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FarCry2 |
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Head here for the general
*Fatal Frame* Nightmare Fuel page.
-
*Maiden of Black Water* ramped up the Body Horror and Gorn of the series. Most of the shrine maidens you meet have had their eyes slashed out, and one ghost has glass shards stuck in his back after he hung himself and crashed into the window below. Fuyuhi Himino was also forced to cut her own throat.
- During the first flashback of the Looming Man killing the shrine maidens, there's a lovely close-up of one of the shrine maidens, whose mouth was sliced open on one side and a large wound around her eye.
- Just the fact that, if you aren't careful on the mountain, the ghosts will force you to reenact their suicide.
- The box carriers, especially because of their rotting bodies and creepy masks.
- How about combining the "ghosts will force you to reenact their suicide" premise above with the Electromagnetic Ghosts theme that's been present throughout the series? One ghost came about precisely because of this: He was an ordinary man driving near a tunnel on the mountain, when a ghost dropped onto his car that caused it to crash. He crawled away, only for the car he left behind to become possessed and run
*him* over.
- After defeating Fuyuhi Himino, the player is treated to a flashback of her death. She tried to resist the spirit's influence, but was distracted for a second by what looked like her friend and slipped. All you see is blood pouring onto her shoes, but it's enough.
- Big Bad Ouse Kurosawa, who looks like a drowned woman, and the other many victims of the Yomi, who have the black water streaming from their eyes like tears.
- Tall Woman. A gigantic, freakishly thin woman with creepily elongated arms and a perpetual Slasher Smile. And there is
*no* information on how or why she came to the mountain or even what she actually is. She is based off of the Japanese creepypasta of the Eight-Feet-Tall Lady.
- Another scary characteristic of her is the things she says. Things like "You'd better get used to me." Meaning that, unlike the other ghosts who simply react to you, she is legitimately malevolent and is
*actively stalking you*.
- Finally, given her complete connection to the mountain, the only explanation is that
*she is the actual Eight-Feet-Tall Lady.*
- Watching Kazuya Sakaki body being distorted and twisted after being rejected for a potential groom by Ouse is very disturbing. It is basically the fate of all potential grooms that decide to reject their bride or the bride decides to reject them. Not only that the rejected grooms are buried in ummarked graves unmourned, basically becoming an Unperson.
- The final battle. In Phase 1, it has Ouze and dozens of sacrificed mikos in an eternal, from sunset dyed orange water setting.
*Everyone* is a potential enemy and if the player isn't careful, then they can be tackled from all sides. At one point it then switches to Phase 2 which is now above-water, with Ouse trying to pull Yuuri into her coffin, if the player gets hit and the mikos unexpectedly coming up from the water without warning.
- Hostile ghosts in this game invade
*your own residence* (in scripted cut-scenes and Drops, but still), and, unlike *Fatal Frame III* where their appearances only serve to spook you, they can either **kill** you outright should you fail to fend them off or take you back to the mountain to have you Killed Off for Real there, the latter of which is the fate befalling Haruka and that Yuri and Rui nearly suffer, as they are both spirited away from the house at one point, requiring Miu and Ren, respectively, to rescue them.
- Speaking of fighting hostile spirits, those with claustrophobia will LOVE the
**mandatory** battles against them in enclosed rooms. Trying to get out of the rooms in question is not guaranteed to work, either, as the doors out of the rooms may be forced shut while the battles are ongoing. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FatalFrameMaidenOfBlackWater |
Fatal Frame III / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The ghosts are only in your dreams... at first. Then they start to invade your home. There's an arm under the bed that drags itself away slowly instead of disappearing like most ghosts, and Needle Women in the mirror, waiting to attack Rei when she's showering.
In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, a pair of legs can be spotted in the space underneath the stairs one night.
The fate of the Tattooed Priestess. She is covered in tattoos to bear the pain of other people and is doomed to sleep, without any happy dreams, because their tattoos bear the pain. And then there are the priestesses that failed. They are skinned alive, their body sent to cross over and the tattooed skin is enshrined and prayed over to prevent the sorrow from spilling out. It gets even worse when a file reveals that the forgotten final step to the ritual requires the crossing over of both the priestess and the tattoos to complete the ritual, which means by keeping the tattoos in the shrine, they're shooting themselves in the foot.
Reika's is worse. Her last memory is seeing her lover being killed in front of her, and that's the only thing she has seen for however long it took for Rei to finally appease her.
If you think these games can't get any darker or depressing, just remember that the very first ghosts you get to fight after getting the Camera Obscura are a mother and her child, both dead from the Tattooed Curse.
The Needle Women. They love to sneak up on you in Viewfinder Mode, and all you can see before they attack you are their needle-filled arms about to wrap themselves around you from behind.
Kyouka Kuze, the Woman Brushing. Creepy on her own, but at one point, she's in the Kimono Room behind a screen. She's not attacking you, so you think, "OK... Guess I can take a picture, right?" The second you do, she'll fade away and reappear right in front of you!
Her appearance alone is disturbing. Anytime she gets too close to you, especially in Viewfinder Mode, you'll get a nice close-up of her pale white face and smeared eye shadow, making her look like a ghostly female version of the Joker.
You turn around your camera to continue the fight with her, trying your best to maintain the focus on your target... And promptly pause the game to recover as you see her making a mad dash for you, frantically flailing her arms. And then she vanishes mid-attack.
The Crawling Woman.
She attacks in a passage so small that only Miku can fit into it. And Rei encounters her later in the attic of Yuu's room. Very unpleasant for anyone with claustrophobia.
To say nothing of the face she pulls when attacking Miku as she crawls under the manor's floor. It can easily give a player nightmares for weeks, seeing her gaping mouth and wide-open eyes, shaking creepily left to right as she strangles you.
Kiriko Asanuma's story in itself is horrible to listen to, as well. She hid inside her closet as two robbers stormed into her home and killed her parents and brother. And then you realize one of her cries is her saying "Let me out!!" in desperation. How long did she got stuck in that closest until she was found?
Stroller Grandma. She's an entirely optional encounter in the main story (although you do receive the Measure Function for your trouble), comes right the hell out of nowhere, and she cannot be stunned by a charged shot. She only has one attack, ramming her stroller onto you as she charges through your body, but it can easily be a One-Hit Kill if you're not careful, even on the lower difficulties.
The story the Ghost List provides for her: she was unable to find peace after her grandchild's death, so she dug their body from the grave and put it in the stroller.
Look inside that thing when she attacks you. You'll see a cluster of human faces.
The story behind her being in that game also counts. Game director Makoto Shibata revealed during an interview the idea came from an incident in his childhood, where he was playing in the ruins of an old manor (the same manor that inspired him to create the Manor of Sleep) and noticed the figure of a woman pushing a stroller appear out of nowhere.
After finally subduing Yoshino, Rei wakes up and Yoshino's ghost is right there and grabbing her arm!
When Kei enters the Chamber of Thorns, ready to properly stake Reika once and for all, he comes into the chamber to see COUNTLESS bodies of priestesses before Reika, and he sees that she had been staked the whole time. And the stakes begin to pull themselves out of Reika's body...
Seeing the countless bodies of the priestesses becomes even worse when you obtain a file that reveals that there was a final part of the ritual that needed to be performed but was forgotten to time, namely, the crossing of the priestess and the grief-filled tattoos to the other side in order to keep the Rift closed. They've been doing the ritualwrongthe whole time. Just how much of the built up sorrow has been festering in the Kuze shrine?!
Not to mention the creepy and unnatural way Reika gets up when Rei confronts her.
The fact that the majority of the third game takes place in a dream. Imagine going through the death of a loved one and feeling guilty, then having dreams of a snow-covered, haunted mansion that traps you within it if you follow your loved ones further in.
The fact that Yoshino was surrounded by the corpses of her loved ones for several days, unable to move, before she was found and rescued.
The descriptions of the house ghosts back in the waking world.
Have you looked under your desk recently? Maybe you should check more often.
There's a closet you can walk into for an item, but when you turn around, the exit locks and faces and hand prints appear on the walls. Disturbing, horrible moaning starts up... then suddenly stops and you can leave again. Just like the small storage closet in the previous game, it's simply there to freak you out.
The concept of the Handmaidens. They are the ones who are supposed to impale her with stakes. And all of them are prepubescent. If that isn't creepy enough, one of the maiden's diaries has her talk about her duty and look fowardto it.
in the Manor of Dreams, sometimes you can find human-shaped stains. One of the articles Miku gives to Rei talks about the human-shaped stains in the Kukai Temple, which were revealed to be from mummies sealed in the walls. While the Kukai Temple insisted they were the bodies of saints, other people claimed they were killed for sacrifices. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FatalFrameIIITheTormented |
Eyewitness / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Don't look under the bed...In addition to horror movie clips, the series has plenty of examples of these that are original.
- Season 1, Episode 1,
*Amphibian*, discusses the association of toads with witches. It starts with a beautiful princess kissing a toad (like in the fairy tale of *The Frog Prince*), but after she does that she turns into an ugly, cackling witch.
- Season 1, Episode 2,
*Bird*, contains a mildly creepy sequence of a swan in its natural habitat surrounded by images of dancing ballerinas from *Swan Lake*, accompanied by eerie, solemn music. During it, the narrator talks about pure white birds traditionally being considered omens of death and the mournful cry of the swan giving rise to the belief that a swan only sings as it dies.
- Season 1, Episode 4,
*Dinosaur*, has a particularly frightening Jump Scare moment where the spiked tail of a *Stegosaurus* punctures through a metal sheet towards the camera. The lighting, sound design and camera angle make it play out like a scene from a horror movie.
- Season 1, Episode 5,
*Dog*, shows the transformation of a man into a werewolf and a very detailed dog skeleton that literally falls apart.
- Season 1, Episode 11,
*Reptile*, shows a python stalking a lizard, and it looks like the snake ate it, but only its tail. The lizard managed to escape.
- Season 1, Episode 13,
*Skeleton*, is full of accidental nightmare fuel. The episode focuses on the CGI skeleton "hero", first unhooking himself from his perch in a study, shakily walking around and staring directly into the camera on several occasions.
- In Season 3, Episode 3,
*Human Machine*, the mime is freaked out by possibly the same skeleton.
- Season 2, Episode 1,
*Ape*, isn't really that scary except when it talks about the myths about monster primates. For example, there's the Batutut of Borneo, a long-legged ape who cuts off people's heads while they rest. Then there's the Pongo of Zaire, capable of taking down an elephant with a single blow. And of course, there's Yeti of Nepal.
- Another scary moment is when it talks about the Yara-ma-yha-who and how the tarsier may have been the inspiration for it.
- Season 2, Episode 2,
*Arctic and Antarctic*, isn't traditionally scary, but has very haunting music playing over its shots of melting icicles and the bare polar wastes, really driving home just *how* harsh, desolate and otherworldly the polar regions are for young viewers.
- Season 2, Episode 7,
*Prehistoric Life*, has a jump scare when it describes *Hallucigenia*, a worm thought to have had stilt-like legs and tentacles on its back only for scientists to later find out they were looking at it upside-down. The stilts were actually a spiky back and the tentacles were legs. The narrator says, "Fossils don't come marked this way up." and an Up sign appears out of nowhere with a loud slam.
- The scenes involving the cockroaches if you're afraid of those disgusting creepy-crawlies.
- Season 3, Episode 3,
*Bear*'s Cold Opening features lullaby music playing as the camera zooms into a toy-box with toys around it. As it zooms into a teddy-bear, however, the music seems to go disorderly, and a shadow appears above the toys on the ground. The camera zooms up to the top of the box to reveal a real-life Brown Bear on top of the toy box. Even when the bear is on-screen, the lullaby music seems to continue.
- Season 3, Episode 6,
*Monster*, has perhaps the most nightmare fuel, as its title implies.
- When it discusses monsters from Greek mythology, it shows Medusa as one of them. At first her eyes are closed but then she opens them, turning an unfortunate woman into stone.
- Later, a hyena chases a bearded dragon into a crack in the wall, after which darkness surrounds the hyena and its eyes glow.
- When the episode explains that dinosaurs inspired dragons, a
*Tyrannosaurus rex* breathes fire, causing that same bearded dragon to run away.
- Perhaps the scariest scene in the episode is when it talks about how a researcher who studied children's fear of monsters found that in virtually every culture, girls are afraid there's a beast under the bed, but boys are convinced the monster is at the window. The difference may be an evolutionary hangover; the theory suggests that primitive females roosted in trees to avoid dangers from below while males forced to sleep on the ground worried about sneak attacks from the side. But that's
*not* the scary part. During the narration, a hideous lizard-like creature with glowing yellow eyes appears with green fog under a little girls bed! Then lightning flashes and the boy sleeping in the bed next to his sisters sees the same green fog and the clawed hand of the monster appear outside the window! Both kids hide under the covers.
- The ending itself. The central room of the museum crawls with frightening and creepy animals such as snakes, lizards, crocodiles, octopodes, spiders, scorpions, and a hyena. The narrator explains that while the evolutionary arms race would produce creatures that certainly need to have things we would consider frightening, there will also be a stream of new fanciful monsters created by the human mind. Zoom into a model of a human head, where a terrifying darkened Black Bug Room caricature of the same chamber is shown. A lightbulb, possibly representing the imagination, sways ominously, followed by a colorful trail, before it is unceremoniously switched off by a clawed hand. Truly the home of the Ultimate Monster.
- Season 3, Episode 8,
*Natural Disasters*, comes close to rivaling the Monster episode.
- There's a brief scene of some Ancient Greek boys being crushed to death in an earthquake.
- To help the audience visualize the amount of ash emitted during the 1815 Tambora eruption, they show ash piling on New York City, burying all the skyscrapers.
- Season 3, Episode 10,
*Planets*, shows a werewolf and a witch since they are both associated with the moon. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Eyewitness |
Far Cry 4 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- The Durgesh Prison level. Combining the terrifying heights of the Game of Thrones sky cells with the insanity of a mental asylum, Ajay has to evade a homicidal demon who is stalking him through the narrow passages and has no way of fighting back. Said demon is also fast and is near impossible to evade when it detects you.
- The moment when you get to see how far either Amita or Sabal has slipped into insanity after the credits.
- Some enemies use Molotov Cocktails as weapons. When you shoot these enemies, they burn to death, and will run towards you. You can run, but they will still chase you. Basically, you have to keep shooting. It's even worse if you set a honey badger on fire.
- THE RAKSHASA. Just look at it and hear its roar...
- The yetis. They look hideous, can take horrific damage and pound the player into the ground if necessary and if you're not fast enough when trying to flee, can easily keep up with a snowmobile.
- The Valley of the Yetis DLC in general. To start, that absolutely lovely orange Body Horror on the yetis? It's also on the cultist's faces and and a hint about what the yeti actually are. Once you've gotten used to that, the final mission of the DLC is to destroy the "Relic" that causes the mutations... and it's not an object so much as an alien plant thing that has been "speaking" to you since you found the first cave filled with its spawn and just when you think you've killed it, Ajay apparently turns into a yeti himself. Maybe....
- The good news about the move to a landlocked setting? There are no sharks to worry about this time around. The bad news? Instead, the rivers and lakes of Kyrat are home to Goliath Tigerfish, or Demon Fish as they're aptly called here. They look like terrifying hellspawn, they're huge, and they're just as deadly as sharks are.
- What about crocodiles? Crocs aren't exactly common in colder mountainous regions, so you'd be forgiven for thinking they wouldn't be in the game. You'd be wrong. They may not be as common as in
*Far Cry 3*, but they're still here, and their unexpected nature and rarity makes it even scarier when you're minding your business at a riverbank and one of them gets you.
- Also, black eagles. They can fly down and subject the player to a brutal pecking and scratching within split seconds. No wonder King Min's Kyrat portrays them as attacking enemies of Pagan Min.
- Any time Pagan Min drops his affable demeanor, it's
*not* gonna be pretty. Case in point, after chastising one of his soldiers in the game's opening for *shooting* the bus with Ajay Ghale instead of just *stopping* it, Pagan viciously stabs the man to death with a pen in a fit of rage.
- Even with the various Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane moments and occasional Weird Science we've come to expect from the series, it's still telling that Humans Are Still The Real Monsters and fact that they can love someone completely selflessly (like Mohan Gale's commitment to creating a Kyrat where Ajay can live in peace or Min's devotion to Ishwari and their daughter) does
*not* prevent them committing the worst atrocities possible (and sometimes even *encourages* them to) like Mohan murdering *an infant girl* and Min playing the part of the Card-Carrying Villain because he *likes* destroying people's lives for the rush it gives him, even admitting that his Freudian Excuse is just that: an excuse. Sure, mutants and yetis are fun to shoot, but Far Cry doesn't need to resort to inhuman monsters to fill your gun sights-we're already here. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FarCry4 |
Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
*Mask of the Lunar Eclipse* is widely considered to be the most terrifying game in the series, and for *very* good reason.
Head here for the general
*Fatal Frame* Nightmare Fuel page.
- The ghosts in general are significantly scarier than the previous games, combining a Nightmare Face alongside much more aggressive attack patterns.
- The song that plays in the infirmary is highly unpleasant to listen to, being a very loud, blaring, and almost cacophonic melody, and the characters actively note how awful it sounds.
- Madoka's death and transformation into a hostile spirit. After being ditched by Misaki, Madoka desperately tries to find her, and picks up the Camera Obscura to fight off a ghost. After she defeats the ghost however, she's suddenly locked in the room with
*more* ghosts surrounding her. All Madoka can do is cower in sheer terror, and the screen cuts to black before anything happens. Once Ruka finds Madoka, she's become a malevolent ghost who immediately attacks Ruka.
- Almost EVERYTHING about Ayako.
- Possibly driven insane by the Moonlight Syndrome, she is a cruel and psychopathic brat who does all sorts of evil, including but not limited to pushing people down the stairs, cutting the nurses with scissors, dragging one of them by the hair, and cutting off the head of a canary.
- Her room has an eerie yellow glow to it, doll parts hanging from the ceiling and getting in your way, with eerie whispering and laughing in the background. She makes her presence known by dropping down on Misaki and attacking her, and later does the same thing to Ruka and Choushiro when they enter her room.
- The worst part is that due to being closely connected to the Haibaras, being the daughter of Yo and Sakuya Haibara, the staff can't actively raise a hand to stop her, and as shown in his notes, Yo actively
*enables* her behavior and muses on how she likes to play with beautiful things.
- The Moonlight Syndrome in general, a debilitating mental disease native to Rogetsu Isle. Among the many symptoms include memory loss, sleepwalking, and the worst symptom being Blossoming: no longer recognizing one's own face or seeing it as blurry and distorted. And if a patient sees the face of another patient's Blossomed face, their own condition outright worsens and Blossoms on the spot.
- Even after death from the Moonlight Syndrome, the victim's corpse continues to Blossom and serve as a vector of transmission, which must be stopped by
*cutting their face off.* A hidden ghost picture you can take actively *shows* you a corpse's face being cut off, in all of its gruesome detail.
- While searching for Director Haibara's assistant, Choushiro ends up being startled by Dr. Katagiri himself, popping up on the screen completely out of nowhere.
- When Choushiro enters Yuko Magaki's room, he trips over something in the rather messy room. Turns out that it's Magaki's ghost himself, crawling on the floor and grabbing Choushiro's leg.
- Some of the experimental treatments performed by Director Haibara in an attempt to cure Moonlight Syndrome are downright
*ghastly*.
- Asagi Hizuki, a
*6 year-old girl,* was repeatedly operated on despite her protests, which only served to worsen her condition in a very awful way, causing her hair to fall out, making her cry Tears of Blood and see nothing but red, and rapidly deteriorating her sanity until she died.
- Himiko Kiriya and Yuuzo Takemura had a straight up
*medieval* iron apparatus forced onto their heads, which ultimately did nothing but speed up their Blossoming and kill them quickly. Yuuzo suffers even more past his death, where his corpse was cut up into pieces in another futile attempt to study the Syndrome.
- Kyoko Kitazume was hanged upside down in a torture room and ended up Blossoming to death during the Day of Tranquility while still hanging upside down.
- Part of the process of preparing the titular Mask of the Lunar Eclipse requires that a face removed from a non-infected deceased be placed inside of it and have moonlight shine upon it all night, before peeling it off and letting the mask tan.
*Gross!*
- Some of the music in the game is just plain creepy. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FatalFrameIV |
Far Cry 3 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Don't let the colourful, beautiful and vivid nature of Rook Islands fool you. The environment can be quite nightmarish at times.
- The Rook Islands themselves are complete Nightmare Fuel. While they do look beautiful and just like your typical tropical paradise, they are actually a lawless and violent area, ruled by a group of Ruthless Modern Pirates and a Ax-Crazy maniac. For decades the island has driven many outsiders to insanity and its flora has been used by
*other* drug lords to create extremely powerful and dangerous drugs. It is also inhabited by a tribe who, thanks to their nature, don't really seem to be a much better alternative to all the outsider psychos. Some of the local people are clearly out of their minds as well, and often barely seem to care about all the violence and brutality that goes around them. And this is all without mentioning the extremely dangerous wildlife which do not only attack YOU, but can be seen mauling and devouring any random person that walks too close to them. Even if you ignore all the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane things that happen in the game, there is always the feeling that *something* is very, *very* wrong with this place.
- Decades? Make that
*millennia*. Most of Buck's quest chain revolves around a rogue general from Ancient China that set up shop on the Rook Islands at least 3,000 years before the events of the game, and even though there's no mention of what else went down there in the interim, chances are it's best we don't know.
- The Bad Ending of the game in which you ||slit Liza's throat and then have sexual intercourse with Citra, who during the session, plunges a knife into your chest, killing you.||
- What makes this situation worse is that ||as you are dying, it is very heavily implied that you may have impregnated her and that she will be using and training your child to be the leader of her group. Problem is, she's not exactly sane now, is she?||
- The beginning of the game. As if Vaas kidnapping and telling Jason that he's hit the ground isn't bad enough, we see Vaas killing Grant and sending his pirates to hunt down Jason in the middle of a dark, hostile jungle. It has to be one of the most intense and horrifying openings in any video game released in The Seventh Generation.
**Vaas:**
I'm gonna give you thirty seconds. And if the jungle doesn't eat you up alive, I will. Are you
*FUCKING DEAF?!* **I SAID GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, YOU CHICKEN FUCK! RUN, FORREST! RUN!**
- What the pirates do to the hostages.
*Sweet Jesus.*
- Also, Vaas' "The Reason You Suck" Speech as he sets the room you are in on fire during the E3 2012 demo.
- And lest we forget, the Ransom ad ||which features Vaas trying to manipulate Liza for his ransom video.||
- So there are a ton of pirates and devious folk spread throughout the island. That's not too bad, right? Well, as it turns out, there's all kind of animal life on the island too. Not just wild boar or hunting game animals, but tigers, bears, crocodiles, sharks, Komodo dragons and so on and so forth. They can very much sneak attack you and can kill you very quickly if you don't fight back.
- And this can also be Nightmare Fuel for the AI enemies. They quite often have caged animals in the vicinity. They're minding their own business, standing guard, when they might hear a wisp of something in the air (your sniping bullet). They don't know what it is, until suddenly the caged animal (bears, tigers, etc) isn't locked up anymore and is set loose and the AI find themselves being mauled.
- You can also often see the animals eat the people they kill.
- Adding these animals in was likely in response to a complaint the fans had about
*Far Cry 2* that there were no predatory animals in the game. Well, fans. Are you happy now?
- When animals hunt you, they don't just run up and attack either. They
*stalk*. It's one thing to face down a raging feral dog, but it's another thing to think you hear a bit of movement and turn around to see an entire pack of rabid hounds slinking through the grass toward you. It triggers a primal, instinctive terror to realize that *you* are being hunted. It's made much worse when you're exploring the islands at night.
- The crocodiles are living Jump Scares. One second your walking along a seemingly safe river or standing in a BOAT. The next, you underwater as the croc has you in its jaws and in a 'death roll'.
- Crocodiles don't only try and feast on the player character. You can come across an NPC strolling along the river, the entire scene serene and peaceful, when suddenly a crocodile shoots up, wraps its jaws around the screaming NPC, and drags them underwater. This happens so fast, you can't do a thing but watch.
- One sidequest has you heading into a partially flooded cave to investigate the whereabouts of some missing villagers. On your way out, you find out
*why* they went missing.
- How about the fucking
*sharks*?? No other animal can sneak up as well as these guys because 1) they make no sound, 2) *you can't fucking hear them underwater*. At least the other animals grunt and growl if they get close enough. Oh, and there are several relics that are deep underwater in shark-infested waters. Try not to panic when you're in danger of running out of breath *and* being torn apart by sharks.
- Through the Lost Letters, you eventually learn ||that the animals of Rook Island are not normal, having been altered in some way by a Japanese WWII experiment to weaponize them called Project Kyouken. Or, in English? Project Mad Dog.||
- In the Lost Letters collection task, we find a series of letters, out of order, from Japanese soldiers who occupied Rook Islands in WWII. Ultimately, we discover that the platoon's radio operator heard the news of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and was so horrified, he promptly
*destroyed the radios* to prevent his squad mates from the horrible news. This ends up pissing off his increasingly paranoid troop leader, who eventually kills him *and most of the rest of the squad* before being put down himself by the surviving soldiers... all but one who subsequently die from disease, and the last one commits *seppuku.*
- When we finally reach the point in the game where the famous "Definition of Insanity" scene actually takes place things end up rather horrifically for Jason. ||Vaas shoots Jason and throws him into a pile of corpses. Jason wakes up buried alive under these corpses and has to claw his way out before he is completely smothered to death. When he finally emerges out from under the pile he backs up from the pile of corpses suitably horrified. The thing that saved him from the gunshot? A lighter in his pocket stopped the bullet.|| Yeah, Jason probably is gonna have nightmares about that one of these days.
- One of the rare animals featured in the game, the Undying Bear. In its side mission you have to go through a dark cave to find it and once you do lay eyes on it, it's a horribly disfigured, rabid-looking animal with chucks ripped out of it, claw marks over its body, and its brain exposed as well as being slightly larger than the other bears you encounter. Oh yeah, and there are some mauled bodies around the area.
- There is the ||gargantuan demon you'll have to face|| midway through the game. Granted, the boss fight is ||part of a drug induced fevered dream||, but every time you shoot it in the mask with the explosive arrows, you get to see more and more of its horrid, skeletal face.
- The really scary part? All of the weird, Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane stuff you encounter in the game may mean that ||the demon
*was real*.||
- Hell, all of the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane stuff. The game starts off firmly set in the real world, but things get more fantastic as you go on. Is it all the hallucinogenics Jason has been taking permanently altering his sense of reality? Is there really some otherworldly magic going on? Or is he simply, slowly slipping into complete insanity? The game leaves you with no clear answer and all are equally horrifying.
- The fact that Vaas apparently slaughters an entire village just to ||celebrate his 'killing' of you||.
- The memory cards are disturbing for a host of other reasons. They're straightforward and matter of fact, discussing acquisition of resources, exploitation of markets, and so on - stuff you'd expect in any corporate boardroom. Except they're talking about manufacturing illegal drugs, with discussion on things like high addiction rates and mortality in a rational, businesslike manner. When you start finding the ones talking about using failed military drugs that cause fatal bleeding being seriously considered for distribution, or date-rape drugs being sent to areas where human trafficking is prevalent, things start getting deeply disturbing.
- Bambi "Buck" Hughes - a former Sociopathic Soldier turned Psycho for Hire for Hoyt Volker who forces you to find an ancient Chinese dagger for him while he's brutally raping your friend Keith. And Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male
*doesn't* apply here. Keith is visibly traumatised when you come to save him, and it's heavily implied that Buck wants to do the same to Jason. Additionally, right before you face Buck in a knife fight in his sex dungeon, he coldly implies that he'll rape your corpse after he's killed you. Definitely *not* an Awesome Aussie. **Jason**
: You were bugging me, weren't you
?
**Buck**
: Well, you're my favourite pupil
. (
*He advances threateningly on Jason*
)
**Jason**
: (
*pushing him backwards*
)
*Stay away from me!* **Buck**
: Oh, you're calling the shots now, eh? Is that what you're doing
? (
*on the walkie-talkie*
) Hector
, apparently Jason's calling the shots now, so dismantle everything, and slit Keith open from stomach to chin
, will ya?
**Jason**
:
*Wait! You're in charge.* **Buck**
: Hector, there's been a change of plans. I'm in charge. Yeah. Don't gut Keith. Nah. (
*to Jason*
) So, any closer to finding me knife yet
?
- Speaking of Buck, he has this really creepy speech in one of the trailers that sums his character up perfectly.
- The fight with Hoyt: after ||you lose your finger you black out. When you come to, not only have you killed Hoyt, but you killed every guard in the room as well as another six or so guys who must have come in when they heard the commotion.|| It is hard to claim that Jason is going to fit well back into society after this point
- And then you've got to continue playing with this scary South African, who knows you and your friend were planning to kill him and has just deprived you of your friend's help. And as soon as you lose, he punishes you by having his men restrain you while he cuts off your finger.
- Speaking of Hoyt, that recording Agent Willis took of him chatting with Vaas. It starts out pretty casual, discussing the weather and so on, but when Vaas expresses indifference to tracking Jason down, since he's more concerned about Citra, Hoyt lets his Mask of Sanity slip.
**Hoyt**
:
**I DON'T GIVE A FOCK ABOUT YOUR FAMILY!**
It is by my
*grace*
that your head isn't impaled on the antenna of my car
! Therefore,
*I would like it if you gave a fock about Jason Brody*
!
**Vaas**
: Okay, Hoyt, okay, all right!
**Hoyt**
: Fantastic
! (Beat
) I am really loving this weather. What's the name of that place down the road? Beras Town? Bunch of native sympathizers. They stole a transportation manifest that's dear to my heart. I think I'll pay them a visit
. Nice talking to you, Vaas.
- What's more disturbing is how unusually quiet and deferential Vaas is when speaking to Hoyt. If Vaas,
*the* Ax-Crazy Ruthless Modern Pirate, is frightened of the less-imposing Hoyt, how much more vicious than him is Mr. Volker?
- Another Hoyt moment is that first espionage mission you go on for Willis. Remember those Beras Town villagers that Hoyt mentioned to Vaas? He's captured three of them, and he escorts them over to a rice field to Make an Example of Them, shouting all the while in that nightmarish raspy voice.
- He then drives the villagers across the rice field by letting off his machine gun into the air, and the first two villagers step on landmines and die instantaneously. The third man keeps running, until he's crossed the minefield and has now entered the half of the island patrolled by Hoyt's Privateers. Hoyt cheerfully tells his men to have fun hunting that villager afterwards. Cold, Hoyt. Stone cold.
- Meet Hoyt again when you're undercover as a privateer, and he makes a frightening speech to his men about the three company rules they have to follow.
- Even scarier is that we learn that man's locked in the furnace earlier, when he interrupts Hoyt's orientation speech by screaming. How long had Hoyt locked him in there?
- Keith and ||Riley's|| fate if you don't save them - sexual slavery. One at the hands of Buck and the other to someone in the Yemen who "likes them young".
- Sometimes, as you pass by the townspeople of Badtown, you can hear them talking in ways that make it clear you aren't the only one going crazy.
- The quest "Pinned to Earth" isn't exactly "scary", but still rather creepy. You start the quest by meeting an old lady in a shack, who hysterically reports that a plane crashed in a lagoon a few days ago. You head down there, and you find the wreckage... it's rusted and overgrown with flora. You head to what remains of the cockpit, and you find a man living there. He says that the plane crashed ten years ago, and that it crushed a house and killed the family living in there. When you bring up the old lady, he looks dumbfounded and says that the shack is deserted and no-one lives there. The quest ends, and if you return to the shack, you find it empty, true to the man's word. Just what the hell is going on? Confused old granny, sick prank, or is there something else at work here?
- The very end of the fight with ||Vaas. After stabbing him repeatedly like a crazed serial killer, you fall down next to his dead body, as you see his now dead eyes stare blankly to his left...
**THEN THEY MOVE. LOOKING. RIGHT. AT.** ||**YOU.**
- ||You also never see him dead outside of the hallucination, unlike Hoyt. The only confirmation of his death is what other characters tell you. So for all you know, that nutcase might still be alive.||
- The factbook is almost almost entirely full of humorous entries. But one entry can put some serious Mood Whiplash on that. When on the subject of Patrol Boats, the writer, Agent Willis says nothing helpful or funny about it at all, instead leaving just a sentence about how he sent a patrol out on a boat and none of them returned alive. Its in stark contrast to the rest of the entries.
- The one on Seagulls isn't much better, with him ranting about them watching him and suddenly shifting into a flashback of some traumatic event in the jungle.
- On the final mission after ||freeing yourself from your bonds the dragon dagger appears in your hand and you have to make your way across a fiery walkway lined with shadowy warriors with bright yellow eyes. One of them is a shadowy outline of Liza and it steps out and starts to question you in Liza's voice and then dissolves. Not so scary. Then another of the warriors steps out and again in Liza's voice begins to question your actions. That one too dissipates too but then
*only to pop up at you from the bottom of the screen.* Then there's Liza and Daisy standing as tall as giants before a flash of light reveals them to be wearing the mask that the giant you fought earlier was wearing. And they're both staring RIGHT at you.||
- The red drugs in the basket found in the cave with the "EAT ME" sign. Eating them will give you flashbacks to a nightclub before you got captured. The questions are who put them there, how did they get there and why are they there?
- It's pretty obvious that the good Doctor living above the cave put them there - they may even be part of his private stash, but then you have to wonder what
*he* flashes back to.
- There's a small house on the southern island which is completely unremarkable on the outside but which contains a bunch of creepy dolls on shelves and hung from clotheslines. Most notably is a dismembered doll on a table, the floor around which is covered in lots and lots of footprints which may or may not consist of dried blood. The house is never mentioned in any quests or by any characters, and no explanation can be found for the house's existence.
- There are several rivers and ponds, where if you dive deep enough ||you can find dead bodies with bricks tied to their ankles, just like what Vaas did to you.||
- One of the achievements for the game requires you to dive 60 meters under the water, far too much to perform in one of the rivers or ponds scattered about the island. So how do you do it? Your best bet is to take a boat out over one of the deeper ocean trenches far from the shore of the main islands. Not only are these waters infested with sharks, but there is very little light near the bottom... which can be very disorienting. The achievement's name being "Brave Or Stupid" even seems to lampshade the nightmare potential of drowning in the middle of nowhere without any hope of rescue. Hope you packed some Deep Dive syringes...
- Actually on the Southeast end of the northern island there is a place that almost seems deigned to allow you to complete this achievement. A perfect circle about 80 meters deep just a couple meters off shore. Of course it's still really dark and disorienting down there, and the sharks will sometimes pay you a visit, but hey, at least you get a relic out of the ordeal.
- When you have to ||torture your little brother in order to maintain your cover, only to find out that Hoyt knew who you were all along.|| | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FarCry3 |
Fate/EXTRA / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The entire Prologue and what happens to the Decoy Protagonist. Those familiar with the tropes presented early on may get an unpleasant shock when they realize that this is what it's like to be an NPC. And for people used to being some variant of The Protagonist it is terrifying.
Two of the optional scenes you can find on the fourth day stand out. There's your potential first encounter with Rani VIII, who very casually tries to destroy the school, then comments on how sturdy it is to you. Then there's the scene on the first floor with Shinji realizing something's wrong while Sakura starts speaking very oddly...
The latter may be even worse when you consider that Shinji is really just eight years old: Specifically, his line about "always wanting a little sister, but..."
The latter might be a sign of things in Fate/Extra CCC.
The creeping horror of seeing the hallways slowly empty of both rude and friendly NPCs alike. If the diminishing numbers at the end of the week doesn't make it clear just how many people are killing and being killed, the increasingly deserted school-grounds will.
The gushing couple on the first floor who decided to participate together. The guy eventually begins to realize that there's no way they can both win, even asking you to 'keep his honey company' if he dies, but the girl remains oblivious and optimistic until they're forced to fight each other and she kills him.
Possible Fridge Horror when you consider that the Moon Cell/Holy Grail's purpose is to observe humanity, and Archer's comment that it may have chosen a high school setting to observe Masters in non-combat situations. The Moon Cell is creator and arbiter of everything within the confines of its Reality Marble and could easily have arranged "interesting" circumstances to observe the results.
That week also focuses on the Master's willpower being necessary for a win: A Master with doubts or conflicting goals will lose. Since they mention the guy's Servant being exceptionally powerful - he was able to brute-strength his prior matches without info or True Names - it's implied that his unwillingness to kill his girlfriend was his downfall.
Li'l Ronnie eating people, including her parents and her young child.
"This clown isn't happy. Not at all."
Her voice will send shivers down your spine.
Possible Fridge Horror: Julius' second 'vision' implies his "failure" status - as a result of the surgery, possibly? - means he ages at twice the normal rate, and he'll probably live 'til twenty-five tops. Given how old he appears to be in-world, is he actually Younger Than He Looks?
This is confirmed by Leo in CCC and interviews. And it's actually worse, as according to the manual, the real-life Julius is already in such a critical state that machines are the only thing keeping him alive and Julius himself doesn't even expect to return to the real world alive. No wonder he's the way he is!
Those random fragments of stone pillars in the final area, including the pile Twice is sitting on, aren't pillars. They're sarcophagi, housing the representations - or possibly even the literal bodies, depending on how you look at it - of everyone who died in the prior Moon Cell wars, hence why the screen pans across them when he mentions how "this world was buried in a mountain of corpses" before he won. And he's sitting on a pile of them like it's a stack of logs. Plus, note how they're stacked up towards the Moon Cell: Could they be the coffins of those you've defeated? Is the topmost one, for example, Leo's?
On the first day of the third week, you have your first encounter with Assassin, he seems friendly enough, but only the interference of your Servant saves your life. Once you get out, you see Kuzuki (or rather, Julius) watching you. He's surprised that you managed to survive, and decides that you need to be "dispatched". As he moves toward you, you note that "he's looking at my neck". Thank God Rin chooses that moment to make herself known.
Then there's Meltryllis who is aware of her robotic body (although her legs are removable) but whose skills turn her into a Sense Freak who can't even move her fingers and can only be satisfied by fighting. Unlike Passionlip who at least tries to engage into friendly conversation with Hakuno, she doesn't even care about what Hakuno likes or wants because in the end they will be her. And she's such a Sadist that she even went out of her way into following and killing random Hakuno decoys, even after knowing that they were decoys, because she was enjoying their screams and blood so much (the ecstasy on her voice as she tells you this is almost tangible). Even BB herself finds her a threat. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateExtra |
Fargo: Season One / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Gus stops Malvo after running a stop sign. Malvo calmly and creepily intimidates Gus into leaving him alone, and due to Billy Bob Thornton's utterly skin-crawling performance, it's nigh-impossible not to sympathize with Gus. Malvo gives the impression of being a black hole of evil who won't be stopped by a lone cop.
Malvo ties Don Chumph up with an unloaded gun taped to his hands, gags him and then attracts the attention of the police. He then shoots from a safe spot, causing the cops to open fire on a helpless Don who can only desperately and vainly scream through his gag as he's cut down. It's a horrific, prolonged death.
After the Time Skip in "The Heap", we see that Lester has gotten his life back together, has a loving new wife, and just got named "Insurance Salesman of the Year". Yessiree, everything seems to be goin' gangbusters for ol' Lester... and then he runs into Lorne Malvo. Awwjeez...
"Is this what you want, Lester?"
How Linda is sent to her death by her own husband.
In the closing act of the finale where Malvo is trying to fix his fractured leg (courtesy of a bear trap laid by Lester), we get to see the flesh and bone sticking out as he applies the brace. Jeez.
Also when Gus shows Malvo's collection of tape recordings to Molly, indicating that Lester was just one of many people that Malvo corrupted into becoming as much of a monster as he was.
Wordof God (i.e. Billy Bob Thornton) says that the thoughts going through Lorne Malvo's head in his final moments were: | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FargoSeasonOne |
Fatal Frame II / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Head here for the general
*Fatal Frame* Nightmare Fuel page.
- Near the beginning, Mio is seen in profile and a hand places itself on her shoulder. Thinking it's Mayu, she puts her own on it to comfort her. Then Mayu walks past her. But the hand is still there.
- Sae in her entirety! Her laughter is pure Paranoia Fuel, especially when you can hear her behind doors but can't
*see* her. And it gets worse in the seventh chapter, where she is chasing Mio through the Tachibana house, trying to kill her.
- There's a small cutscene when Mio enters the Great Hall with Mayu partway through the game. Go ahead, take a picture of Mayu after the scene. Unlike most pictures that mean nothing, hers remains as is for a bit. Then it gets darker and you can see dozens of bloody, cut-up arms circling the edge of the picture and all of them are grabbing towards Mayu. Completely optional. Completely terrifying.
- Peeking Child and Armless Woman. The first is in the Kiryu place and simply
*pops up* in the small window in front of you, when you were probably looking at that item beneath the window. The second because she comes after an almost inconspicuous dangling arm. Approaching the dangling arm will have her flop down from above, her cut-up face in your full view.
- After beating the Osaka house and heading into the dressing room for the save point, the save point stops working right after you use it. And that only happens when a ghost is nearby... By the time you realize what's going on, a woman's ghost is slowly crawling out of the box in the room and you cannot leave, until she is defeated. On her own, already pretty creepy, but when this game came out
*The Ring* was still fresh in one's mind.
- Late in the game, you finally gain access to the storage shed where Itsuki is being held. Upon entering, you see his lifeless body hanging from a noose. Inspecting the window from the inside of his cell, you'll see that it's rusted shut and
*not been used, nor even opened* in ages.
- In the Tachibana house, you can find what appears to be a figure wrapped in up in blankets and sitting upright. Mio wonders if it's the doll, but when you leave, you hear a distorted "Stay with me..."
- The Wii edition added something extra to it. There's an item to obtain at the thing's feet. Grab it, and the whole thing collapses. Not very loud, but startling all the same.
- The Kiryu twins. Particularly when you're looking for the family crests to escape the village and enter a hidden closet. One of them is in there. Just sitting there.
*Then* she moves and you can hear her neck and limbs snapping and popping.
- "WhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokillWhydoIhavetokill."
- Falling Woman. She was running from the Darkness seeping from the Abyss and ended up dying when she, in a moment of blinding terror, jumped off the top of the stairs in the Kiryu's Clock Hallway. She tends to appear by screaming and falling through the ceiling.
- Right after encountering the Falling Woman the first time, the game plays up your paranoia. Entering the next hallway, a piece of wood will fall to the ground. Sounds like nothing, but after having just encountered the woman, your nerves are on edge.
- The Tachibana house has a small storage closet on the second floor with an item inside. After going in and grabbing the item, you can hear a girl's voice saying "Help me." If you look through the camera, you find it written all over the walls. And the door locks if you try to leave. Eventually, the voice fades and the door opens and you can leave. It serves no purpose. It's a room that lures you in, just to freak you out.
- You can find pairs of disembodied legs walking through the village at certain points. Just strolling.
- Chitose's death, which also doubles as a Tear Jerker. Due to her vision problems, she accidentally trapped herself in a crawlspace of the Tachibana home and died there; either naturally or when the Darkness arrived. And she's maybe ten years old at most. And many of the locations she can be found hiding in have "Help" or "Big brother" scratched into the walls. Multiple times.
- The Kusabi. His appearance is utterly terrifying, he's surrounded by fog in which you can make out distorted skulls at times, and the haunting background music consists of him groaning in agony. And he has a One-Hit Kill.
*Then* you find out how he's created: an outsider is sacrificed through the means of the Cutting Ritual, which consists of slicing the person over and over and over, giving them a slow and agonizing death. Most people don't even survive *that* part. If they do, they are bound and thrown into the Abyss while still alive. Near the Abyss, you can find a crack to look into and see a failed Kusabi.
- Just looking at the Kusabi in Viewfinder mode shows you several ghastly faces screaming from behind it.
- Also, don't bother trying to photograph it; your Camera Obscura can't banish the Kusabi. Your only option is to run.
- The
*Frozen Butterfly* ending in the Wii remake. Just... *everything* about it. Mio is about to strangle Mayu like the ritual dictates, but she snaps out of it at the last second and breaks down, saying she could never hurt Mayu. Upon hearing this, Mayu says she always knew that Mio could never hurt her... then *breaks down into utterly psychotic laughter* in the same manner as Sae, as a horrified Mio falls to her knees and realizes this was also how Mayu acted when she broke her leg as a child. Mayu promptly corners her in an unsettling manner, saying that they'll always be together in the village, just the two of them, and the scene cuts to black before anything happens. However, the next scene shows Mio lying motionless onto Mayu's lap, implying *Mayu* strangled Mio to death instead. *And it gets worse.* After the credits play, a final scene is shown where Mayu plays in a room full of dolls, and applies makeup on Mayu proceeds to kiss Mio's head which, somehow, is able to **MIO'S SEVERED HEAD.** *shed a single tear*. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FatalFrameIICrimsonButterfly |
Evil Night / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Obscurity doesn't stop
*Evil Night* from bringing on the horror. **Be wary: per wiki policy, spoilers are off on Nightmare Fuel pages!**
- The faceless apparition on the game's official flyer◊.
- The Attract Mode sequence with the phrase:
*"We are watching you"*, accompanied by a large eye on the screen. For some, it may certainly feel that way.
- A huge, staring eye suddenly appearing on the Advancing Wall of Doom in "Course A" of the first stage. Shoot the eye, or get crushed.
- The zombies strung in balls and chains move despite having no arms or legs. When killed, they
*split in half* *like a peapod.* Complete with a lovely "ripping" sound effect. We never find out how the poor bastard wound up like this, too.
- When you defeat the snake (the first boss), one of the zombies bursts from its dead body. It makes you wonder what the hell the snake has been eating, and moreover if victims are still alive or undead, squirming around the giant reptile's digestive tract.
- Confirmed when you encounter the snake for the second time: it grabs one zombie in its mouth before retreating.
- Given that the chain seems to act on a mind of its own, (somehow "screaming in agony" upon the zombie's death), a fan theory is that it has been possessed by a malignant spirit, who is using the limbless corpse as its host.
- A blue version of the limbless zombie appears in the underpass stage. How likely is it that this man was chained, drowned, and possibly devoured by the reptilian creatures lurking below? We'll never know.
- In its second appearance, the snake boss is more bony and decayed.
- One of the zombies are rotting and Half the Man He Used to Be, appearing suddenly from within doors and other passageways. They can take up a lot of punishment before going down and can continue attacking the players
*even without their head.* Proof can be see here
- A few highlights in the soundtrack:
- The loading screen image for the final stage. Liv, the game's Damsel in Distress, is tied to a tombstone in the middle of a cemetery as a sacrifice, all while the realistic-looking moon hovers above in the night sky. As mentioned above, it doesn't help that the creepy loading music plays while this image is displayed.
- The revelation that Liv has been captured by an awakened ancient cult to be used as a Human Sacrifice and grant the final boss immortality. Not even
*The House of the Dead* was this dark.
- The "Bad" ending. The final boss comes back from the grave and transforms Liv's poor friends into zombies...right as they finally reunite with her. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/EvilNight |
Fate/stay night / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
She's clearly enjoying this. Ah,
note : The person in the picture is Dark Sakura, holding what's left of Zouken Matou. *Fate/stay night*. Kinoko Nasu comes close to H. P. Lovecraft in creating both Humanoid Abominations and Body Horror in his settings. The bad endings that you can get range from depressing and squicky to pure, undiluted Nightmare Fuel. Have fun sitting through *forty bad endings* to get 100% Completion...
- The first bad end you can get, "Forest of No Return", is a doozy: simply put, you're reduced to a head and torso by Illya's Servant Berserker, cursed by Illya so that you can't die or lose consciousness unless your head is destroyed, and then taken captive to be
*tortured by her for eternity*. And all because you chose not to be Saber's Master and fight in the Holy Grail War. Well, so much for free will. It *happens* because you don't have Saber to defend you, but as Illya cheerfully explains, she really just *felt like doing it*. The fact that poor Shirou is being reduced to a disembodied head doomed to eternal suffering for what is, essentially, Illya's vague whim just makes it a million times worse...
- A few scenes before after you make this choice, Kotomine assures you that no sane Master will attack you if you bow out of the Holy Grail War. But what he neglects to mention is that few Masters in this war are sane, and Illya is
*anything* but sane.
- According to the narrative, Shirou is only connected to his lower body
*by his half-snapped spine* after jumping in front of Berserker's attack.
- While doing this is very much an insane and suicidal move,
*not* doing this gets you Bad End 2, "Girl Rhapsody". In this Bad End, Shirou gets the hell away from Berserker, only to lose Rin to the rampaging beast, head to the church, and then get run down and severely wounded by Berserker, whereas Illya decides to torture him in place of his father Kiritsugu.
- Bad End 9 "Rafflesia Umbrella" involves Rider kicking Shirou out the window. If Shirou doesn't use a Command Spell to summon Saber to save himself, he lands on the ground and dies due to multiple swords bursting out from his body.
- The final confrontation with Illya on Day 11 starts off with her kidnapping Shirou, knocking him out with her Hypnotic Eyes. When he wakes up, he finds he's tied to a chair in Illya's castle and she tells Shirou to "be mine." While she is sitting on his lap enthusiastically, with the implication she's going to rape him, and in fact there was a sex scene planned that was thankfully dropped. The player has the option of saying no or giving an insincere "yes", while Shirou is scarred out of his wits, knowing that Illya is likely to kill him if she doesn't like his answer. Saying no continues the route, where Illya gets jealous and leaves to kill Rin and Saber. If Shirou says "yes" just to buy time to weasel his way out of danger, Illya's reaction is cute at first, until she realizes that Shirou was lying. Shirou learns the hard way that question was a magic where agreeing to Illya's request gave her control over him, and despite not meaning his answer, she got enough control over him to force him to agree to be hers and actually mean it. After this she has his soul taken from his body and is implied to have been used as either Illya's boytoy or a disposable pawn to win the Grail War with.
- Caster has three Bad Ends in this route alone, two of which involve the use of Rule Breaker. Rule Breaker acts to destroy and nullify any kind of Magecraft, and in particular allows Caster to sever the contract between Servant and Master, essentially allowing Caster to steal control of a Servant from said Master, which Caster uses to turn Saber against Shirou. The other Bad End involves Caster cutting off Shirou's arm for his Command Spells after transporting him into her clutches with a transference spell.
- Caster's death by Gilgamesh. The King of Heroes rains a storm of Noble Phantasms upon her, one of which is an axe lodged into her head, until she's a "mountain of red meat" as Shirou describes. Worse yet, she survives this. And Gilgamesh doesn't let up from there, firing more of his arsenal into her. Caster is in so much pain that she
*attempts* to beg for mercy and starts Laughing Mad until she finally dies. Even as sadistic as Caster can be, that is not a good way to go.
- Caster's screams and whimpering, along with the blood-red image of her being skewered by Gilgamesh's hail of swords.
- Day 15 Church Basement. Shirou finds the orphaned children from the fire ten years ago still alive, but having undergone severe Body Horror for the sake of providing Gilgamesh with mana.
- Which is worse when considering Shirou was also one of the orphaned children from the fire and should have been taken with the rest to be handled by the church except that Kiritsugu offered to adopt him. Had Kiritsugu not made the offer or had Shirou turned him down, he could very well have ended up as one of those poor souls in the basement. Which only serves to signify just how evil Kotomine Kirei truly is.
- The final episode of the anime starts off with a blue screen, then turns into a black screen with a red kanji for die with an inhuman screech leading to a red screen filled with distorted humans in horrifically Deranged Animation.
- Some soundtracks of the anime series are pretty chilling by themselves. Especially Yami Ugomeku sounds eerily serene.
- The worst in the 2006 soundtrack however is easily Mahjutsu. It has the sounds of what you would usually hear in a music box, combined with an eerie disturbing tone, which ramps the tension and suspension up even more so than Yami Ugomeku.
- Bad End 18, "Hypnos": A completely out of nowhere bad ending (caused by just asking too much about Caster) where Issei, under Caster's control, stabs Emiya and then slits his own throat.
- Bad End 19, "Killer": The humorless, High School teacher, Kuzuki Souichirou happens to be an assassin trained since he was a child who specializes in killing with his bare hands. He's supposed to be retired, but he kills Shirou and Rin in a swift and brutal manner, without the slightest hint of remorse.
- Bad End 20, "Hazy": Caster turns Shirou into a living wand for projection magic and Rin ends up mercy-killing him.
- The way Gilgamesh kills Illya after killing Berserker has him piercing her through her chest with his hand and gouging out her heart, and just before that he also slashes out the poor girl's eyes as well! And as if that's not scary enough, he seems to enjoy the sight of her blood as well.
- See below entry about Berserker? Gilgamesh pretty much effortlessly chains him up with Enkidu. What's the catch of that? See, Enkidu is a chain that gets stronger and stronger the higher the divinity stat of the person caught is. Now, Berserker is 1, the son of the top god of his mythology and 2, the great-grandson of said top god (it's... complicated), who 3, became a god himself after his death as reward for his extremely shitty life and as a second chance. Yeeeeeah. He had pretty much no way of winning that one.
- Most of the Nightmare Fuel in this series comes from the sheer amount of Body Horror inflicted on people. For example, we have Smug Snake Shinji Matou getting horribly transformed into a living mass of flesh that's barely conscious, eventually becoming a vessel for The Corruption...
- BERSERKER!!!! from the Unlimited Blade Works anime is horrifying. His power, speed and skill makes him seem invincible, and it doesn't help he's under the control of Illya.
- In episode 8 of the anime, Shirou and Rin find the body of Rider (killed by Caster) mangled and crushed into a wall. If this wasn't bad enough, the body falls forward slightly, and Rider's head rotates a full 360 degrees.
- To add an extra layer of horror, Rider's body fades away and the barrier she created disappears soon after this, implying she was still alive with her body in that state.
- In Episode 9 (through we get a brief glimpse in episode 8), we get to see at the very beginning Shirou's body exploding into blades. Yes there's a reason for this, but still. The way it's animated is absolutely horrifying.
- The Makiri parasitic worms. Don't think about how, if you've had the comparative good fortune to be born male, they'll simply kill and eat you as that is exactly what happened to Kariya at the end of Fate/Zero . And
*especially* don't think about how, if you're unlucky enough to be female, they'll eat you alive (ovaries first) while essentially raping you at the same time. Even more, don't think about how poor Sakura has had to spend practically every night for the last *eleven years* stuck in a room full of these horrible things.... And this is JUST the backstory! These worms are *PENISES with* *More Teeth than the Osmond Family*.
Once swarmed by these lust worms, men will have their spine crushed, brain sucked, and will be made into a cripple. The worms will transform when attacking a woman, so that they are only able to violate her nerves. They will spread their tentacles all over her body and devour her spirit. The lust worms will wet the woman's skin with their mucus, excite and destroy her central nerves of pleasure, and satisfy their hunger. It must be their instincts, as the worms seem to love the woman's womb. They do not eat female flesh, but seek the organs within them. They give the woman huge enough orgasms to fry her brain, and they go into her body to devour her placenta. Unwilling to eat human flesh, the worms have only one way to get what they desire. As a result, the woman's mind and body are completely violated and destroyed.
-
*Realta Nua*'s version of the worms are just as bad. While not looking like penises anymore, they now look like armored *Alien* chestbursters with a long thin horn on the tips of their heads.
- The most disgusting scene with Zouken is where he sends worms after the tipsy woman who has
*no* idea what is going on while they devour her alive, and all the while there are these *chewing* noises.
- Shirou's Dream Sequence. Initially it's probably the most attractive sex scene in the game featuring a Loveable Sex Maniac'd Rin, until the end of the dream where she opens her eyes, and her eyes are entirely grey with a square pupil and she's talking about devouring Shirou. The eyes turn out to be a Foreshadowing of Rider.
- The fact that 16 of the 40 possible Bad Ends are in Heaven's Feel alone.
- Bad End 25 "Ocean Depths": On Day 7, if Shirou does not earn the required affection points for Sakura, he gets captured by the shadow and absorbed by the mud.
- Bad End 26 "Battle of the Holy Grail": On Day 8, if Shirou does not earn the required affection points for Illya, his body gets destroyed inside the Emiya Residence by Illya and his consciousness kept inside a doll.
- Bad End 27 "Die Together": If Shirou tries to attack Zouken at the Ryuudou Temple, his weapon rots from Zouken, and he ends up stomping on the horrible worms and trying to escape to the lake, which turns out to be a really bad move as he suddenly falls over and discovers that trying to stomp on the worms has made them quite literally eat his feet to the point where he can no longer walk. He is then horrifically Eaten Alive by the worms.
- Bad End 30 "Stone Coffin": On Day 9, if Shirou decides to close his eyes and attack Rider, he gets petrified by looking at Rider's eyes in his imagination. His stone body falls and breaks into pieces.
- Bad End 31 "Superhero": It involves neither a gruesome Cruel and Unusual Death nor an And I Must Scream scenario. It's often referred to as the "Mind of Steel" ending, and you reach it by choosing to kill your Love Interest rather than fighting to protect her thus becoming Kiritsugu 2.0. The last words are: "There's no need to talk about the obvious outcome. Emiya Shirou will turn his mind to steel, and become a superhero." The implications are... unsettling.
- For extra Fridge Horror, the ending implies that Shirou has become an Implacable Man, much like Kiritsugu in his prime and that he now has no qualms about killing any master standing in his way of destroying the Holy Grail, least of all Rin and Illya. Years later, TYPE-MOON would build on this plot point in
*Fate/Grand Order*—claiming that this very same Shirou would a) become a particularly ruthless Counter-Guardian, b) conduct a massacre against a cult led by Kiara Sesshouin, and turn into EMIYA Alter, a version of him which makes the original Archer and even Kiritsugu himself look sunny by comparison.
- Even the implication that Shirou has to kill both Ilya and Rin makes this ending even worse, for both girls, but possibly more horrible for Rin:
- Illya is Kiritsugu Emiya's daughter, and therefore his sister, making his decision gut-wrenchingly
*brutal*. And unlike the Unlimited Blade Works route, this time *he knows this*.
- What makes this possibly even worse for Rin is that it's
*canon* in all three routes that Rin not only gives up on the Grail, but later goes on to take the Grail apart with Lord El-Melloi II later on to end the Grail Wars completely. With Ilya, there's at least the small hope that if Berserker is killed first, Ilya probably won't fight for the Grail anymore (implied in other routes). With the sad prospect of Sakura being killed in this ending however, Shirou now knows that *Rin will now endlessly try to win the Grail instead, to resurrect Sakura*. Meaning Shirou will ultimately *have* to kill her. Even though Rin isn't the love interest in this route, her attraction to both Shirou and love for her sister are later *revealed in this route*.
- Bad End 32 "Layered Curse of the Womb Realm Mandala": Choose to stay behind in the forest while Zouken and Assassin are fighting Berserker. The Shadow will eat you from behind and make it seem to Shirou that he has only been temporarily blinded by something as he is bumping into things.
- Bad End 33 "World Purge, Meltdown": On Day 10, if Shirou decides to bring back Rin, he runs over to her but is too late as the shadow explodes and devours Shirou, Illya, Rin and Archer.
- The final bad ending, Bad End 40 "Femme Fatale". If Shirou doesn't finish off Saber Alter, she escapes and helps Sakura defeat Rin. After Rin is absorbed by Sakura, she is subjected to
*everything* that Sakura went through at the hands of the Matous for eleven years... and when Shirou confronts Sakura, she describes to him how Rin is screaming "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." all over and over again... And even worse, Sakura gleefully inflicts the same fate on Shirou himself!
- The concept of The Shadow, in that it is a Living Shadow that looks vaguely human and violently devours anything it comes into contact with, including Servants or even spells. Even worse is that it is a manifestation of Angra Mainyu, a Servant trying to be reincarnated as an eldritch abomination.
- It's all the more scarier in the Nightmare interludes, with the interlude transition text is
*dyed * as a strong indication that they're no ordinary interlude, as Sakura gets a first-hand look at the Shadow attracting people before **blood red** *smashing and eating the unwary victims*.
- What is it like to be consumed by the Shadow? Well, it feels like being washed by a sea of boiling hot tar. And then you see the embryo of Angra Mainyu and the description of being sick and being forced to eat rotten rabbit's flesh, though thankfully it ends there for Shirou. In the "Ocean Depths" bad end (and presumably for everyone else), the Shadow's curse would've completely melted the victim's body, mind and soul before being absorbed into the Shadow as blackened flesh. The description was absent in the movie, being replaced with a rapid slideshow of pictures depicting the origin of Aŋra Mainiiu instead.
- The worst Body Horror? Shirou during
*Heaven's Feel*. Shirou, or rather Archer's reality marble, protects his body by creating blades in the place of bones and muscles. As a result of the issues that come with having Archer's arm grafted onto his body, Shirou's body is slowly invaded by Archer's reality marble until the blades start bursting out of his skin and making it difficult for him to even move. This◊ should give you an idea how bad it really is. "I am the bone of my sword" indeed.
- Years later, EMIYA Alter has
*weaponized* this horror in his "Unlimited Lost Works" Noble Phantasm in *Fate/Grand Order*, combining Unlimited Blade Works with his father's Origin Bullets, resulting in all those blades tearing apart whatever poor soul is on the receiving end from the *inside*. OUCH.
- Doubly so with the terrifying implication that EMIYA Alter is implied to be the Shirou of the "Mind of Steel" Bad Ending of this very route. A Shirou who, chillingly and coldly rationalized
*Sakura being murdered* to save people, ending up no better than his father. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateStayNight |
Fate/strange fake / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- The circumstances of True Archer's summoning. Upon declaring that he will refuse to kill children for his master, his master uses all three of his command spells to force him to relive his worst memories in gruesome detail and forcing him to "accept his human nature." Then the cursed mud of the Grail was inflicted upon him - corrupting every aspect of him completely. What remains of True Archer after all that can barely be called the same person as he was before.
- His Master, without batting an eyelid, reveals he has sacrificed twenty-four thousand nine hundred and seventy-six people to produce mana crystals to sustain True Archer.
- Despite the existence of Servants like Pale Rider and Alcides, it's probably True Assassin who takes the cake for the scariest Servant in this Holy Grail War. His Master initially has no idea that he's even summoned a Servant and he communicates with his Master by having him unconsciously write what Assassin is saying and when he's sent out to assassinate a target by his Master, people around the location of Assassin's target begin dropping like flies from "mysterious circumstances".
- Not that Pale Rider is any less terrifying. A literal embodiment of disease, its master is an innocent girl who doesn't grasp the vast powers of her Servant, merely asking it to bring her things and people into her dream. For its first act, she wishes for her parents to join her. Instants later, the couple begins breaking into sores as their vision fades and they drop dead. Moments later, their zombified bodies rise, oblivious as they continue to deteriorate. Rider's left to puppeteer their empty bodies as he takes their spirits into Tsubaki's dream... and it keeps on doing so as Tsubaki asks it to keep bringing animals. Soon, Snowfield's vet clinics are overwhelmed with hundreds of barely responsive animals. Sure, they seem to recover a short while later... but it looks like Rider's left its taint in them, turning most of Snowfield's pets into latent vectors for its return.
- For that matter, neither is Tsubaki herself. Her parents are completely uncaring of anything about her other than the prana she's generating. Her brain matter is saturated in black magic-infused bacteria, keeping her in a vegetative state - and the only thing either cares for is whether she'll still be able to bear children, children who will carry her powerful Magic Circuits - even in her coma. They're so detached from her the attending doctor mistakes their attitude for seriously poorly-channeled grief. Even as they collapse to Rider's attack, neither spares a thought for their daughter.
- And then, Tsubaki idly wishes nobody would leave Snowfield. Pale Rider just stares at her for a second and seems to agree. The scene changes to a group of mafiosi leaving Snowfield, scared off by the chaos of the Grail War. Just as they're about to leave the city limits, they're seized by convulsions and foam at their mouths. When they come back to themselves, they gleefully floor it back to the city, eager to get "good seats" for the carnage to come. To Faldeus' horror,
*every single person leaving Snowfield*, magus or civilian, immediately turns back. Meanwhile, back at his hotel, Flat feels Rider's Bounded Field engulf the entire city.
- Flat's version of Jack the Ripper is a formless, shapeshifting spirit capable of self-duplication. To put this into perspective, they are a perfect assassin and infiltrator, capable of worming their way past any security measures and murder anyone they please; choosing to avoid any solitary figures isn't going to help at all, and they fight with multiple bodies in a fight. They can read your memories and generate matching bodies, so there's nobody you can trust. Their Noble Phantasms make them even scarier - the first one generates different bodies to attack with. Flat's outstanding Magic Circuits allow them to summon up to
*520* bodies. Their second Noble Phantasm uses the ambient fear and terror to transform themselves into a *demon* and their surroundings into *Hell* - and both can be used *together*. Sure, the demon transformation's more costly than mere duplication, so they can only sustain around 200 demons... but in a crowded area like Snowfield, *each* demon body is able to match any of the knight classes.
- As a Berserker, Jack
*does* have Mad Enhancement. It's sealed at the moment, but the seal is *extremely* unstable, and they're keenly aware that their Tranquil Fury can boil over at any minute, to the point they make Flat promise to use a Command Seal to outright order them to kill themselves the instant they go insane, fully aware that the instant they slip their leash, they're going to leave a bloodbath behind.
- And, again, even as terrifying as Jack is, sometimes Flat unnerves them. They outright say Flat's the kind of person who would give a heartfelt apology for either seeing through a familiar's eyes or murdering someone.
- To make Jack's Noble Phantasm even worse, True Archer uses
*his* final Noble Phantasm to steal From Hell... after an earlier attempt to steal *EA*.
- Clan Calatin's fight against the Beautiful Assassin. She keeps spamming different flavors of Zabaniya, and the elite corps keeps trying to bog her down. It has the same effect as throwing meat into the grinder. And then Karture decides to drop by.
- Filia, AKA Ishtar without Rin's influence. There's a reason if Gilgamesh' proper response to her coming for a fight would be using
*EA*. And while the circumstances prevent her from having *that* kind of power, she still has Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven that took the full might of Gilgamesh and Enkidu to defeat, and no qualms about unleashing him... And she has *stolen it from her *Fate/Grand Order * counterpart*, meaning she could find a way to reacquire her full power.
- Remember that bit about Gilgamesh planning to use Ea to fight her in case he met on the battlefield? He
*can't*: Gil tossed away the key to the original Gate of Babylon that was used to summon him, and Filia used it to *turn off the Noble Phantasm Gate of Babylon*.
- True Rider manages to stab True Archer, but the Black Mud comes out of his wound instead of blood. Then the Black Mud comes to life and attacks her. Her Master rescues her with a Command Spell, but still, she was terrified.
- False Rider unleashes a wave of blackness that sends everyone it touches into Tsubaki's dream world. While True Archer escapes, the wave gets his Cerberus and three of the Mares of Diomedes. False Rider takes control of them and enlarges Cerberus from elephant-sized to bigger than a house.
- Flat gets sniped by a team sent by Faldeus.
*Something* crawls out of his corpse, mauls the sniper team that killed Flat, and starts lashing out. That something? Thia Escardos, an existence devised by Flat's ancestor on a theoretical "True Human"...and an attempt in recreating *Brunestrud aka Type-Moon.*
- Two of Thias acts immediately after his/its awakening demonstrate both his terrifying might and a frightening lack of concern for human lives, (though given some of his declarations Thia may very well hate humanity outright).
- First he attacks and brutally kills the mercenary team who sniped Flat. At least one of them had their thoughts forcibly accelerated by magecraft, turning the last few seconds of his life into a hellish nightmare. AFTER Thia mentions gouging his eyes out and ripping off one of his fingers.
- Second is his Noble Phantasm (or what it would be if he were a proper Servant), A Clockwork Abaddon. Thia draws in fragments of metal and other debris from space and launches them as meteorites. Even with Enkidu using Enuma Elish to try to block it, several fragments still make it through. The smallest hits near the Potomac and is mistaken for an earthquake with heavy rain. The next impacts in Yellowstone and gives the geologists a heart attack making them believe the calderas erupting. Another goes down near Japan and people cant decide if it was an underwater eruption, an alien invasion or a missile strike. Yet another lands in Russia being mistaken for an attack from a foreign power, setting the whole world on edge. The second largest straight up erases 12% of the Arctic ice shelf, and and the largest would have wiped Snowfield off the map. Though Enkidu knocked that one off course it still would have vaporized all of Los Angeles if Gugalanna hadnt stopped it.
- Because of all the craziness in Snowfield, the government decides to firebomb the city, not caring about the civilians. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateStrangeFake |
Farethere City / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- Anytime you enter the Problem Property, the chipper Background Music suddenly cuts to dead silence.
- The eerie quiet is bad enough during the day, but on some nights you can find Hiro standing there alone in the dark. He's just loitering, but it can be a bit of a start.
- Farethere City is made up of a bunch of cute and whimsical looking buildings, with one major exception. The Community Center is essientially just a single enormous, bloodshot eye. This choice of design is already unsettling enough, but for players who have played Segawa's other game and remember the meaning of the reoccurring eye motif, it becomes a huge warning flag.
- And then you notice some graffiti on it that you don't think was there before...
- Becoming friends with Karakoro is one the main requirements to getting the True End of the game, but it's also ||the only thing that keeps Karakoro in Farethere City||. If you don't, ||he's stolen away by Izanai, and in essence, becomes totally erased from Farethere City. His store suddenly becomes abandoned and dilapidated, his profile is replaced by a red X, the part of Docta's profile that mentions him by name is scribbled out, and worst of all, everyone in Farethere City totally and completely forgets about him- apart from Docta and Helpa's comments on the fifth day about feeling vaguely sad but not understanding why.||
- The Otherworld- to quote one of the Omens, it's basically ||Izanai||'s attempt at creating Hell. The worst part is that ||until you complete the Stamp Rally|| there's only one way to enter it- ||when you enter the blue mushroom, there's a totally random chance of you suddenly being spat into the Otherworld instead of the Grove Club Village.|| If you don't know about this beforehand, it can be EXTREMELY startling.
- One house in Deepsea City contains a rather odd-looking resident. Talk to him/her, and you'll be treated to some unsettling dialogue, then the resident starts moving around erratically as the background turns to laughter...
- The hospital vision, which you get from eating the Saotome fruit. It starts with Pigula walking down a corridor until he arrives at an electrocardiogram monitor, which ends up flatlining all of a sudden. Walking through the door opposite the monitor takes him to a hospital room in which a shadowy figure is hanging from a noose on the ceiling. This, on its own, is already pretty unsettling in terms of imagery, but the context, which you find out by reading the diary on the floor, makes it even more messed up: ||The figure is a ten-year-old child who was hanged by their own mother. And why did she do that? Because the child was terminally ill and/or severely disabled ("like a vegetable", as she puts it) and she was tired of taking care of them.|| To make matters worse, if you follow the correct path to the True Ending, you will eventually find out the exact identity of the figure. ||It's Karakoro.||
- Rorschach Hospital doesn't seem too bad... until you enter a certain room, and the entire place becomes insane.
- If you realize that you have Hit Points, but don't realize that ||nothing can hurt you||, certain things can be pretty scary to navigate, such as the shadowy figures in one of the dreams, and in the Otherworld.
- The inns on the Path of Rebirth. The one connected to ||Grove Club Village||, obviously, but the idea behind
*all* the inns is pretty scary. ||Pretending to be respites for weary travelers, they are really traps that lure those who have taken the journey into not completing it, as the longer you stay, the less likely you are to want to leave. Indeed, you can meet many travelers who are putting the rest of the journey off. There's even an inn without an entrance, its purpose being to wear out people looking for it.|| | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FarethereCity |
Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
*Heaven's Feel* is noteworthy for being the darkest route of *Fate/Stay Night* and one of the darkest parts of the *Fate* series as the whole. Remember the scary parts of the route? Some of them are now vividly animated. **Per wiki policy, all spoilers will be unmarked.** **Presage Flower**
- Shirou's flashback to the disaster of the Fourth War, with him as a child standing in the midst of fire staring at the Holy Grail itself. It suddenly appears just as he over hears Taiga and Sakura discuss dinner out. What's especially eerie about is how so...
*resigned* Shirou appears to it.
- Shirou's second dream of the disaster, this time with him watching his child self. And lllya is there, pulling at his self and urging him to summon his servant soon or else he dies. With a cheerful stare to
*help*.
- Once again, lllya and Berserker attacks Shirou, Rin, and Saber. The child also encourages Berserker to
*violate Saber after beheading her*. Also, Berserker striking Shirou then the latter tries Taking the Bullet for Saber. As Shirou rolls across the ground, you can see his *intestines* fall out.
- The birth of True Assassin... who bursts from the regular Assassin's chest while cackling like a madman.
- The start of it was creepy by itself. First Assassin drops his sword down the steps, then he starts bleeding from the mouth and just drops on his back before...
- True Assassin's initial mannerisms. He becomes more coherent later on, but early after his release/birth, he starts out with janky movement with the sound of cracking bones, incomplete speech stuttering, and was prone to growling and unhinged shrieking.
- Souichirou and Caster's deaths. After puzzling together that her Assassin fell, she finds True Assassin in the temple, atop a butchered-yet-still-alive Souichirou. He uses Souichirou as a hostage to make Caster release her control over him with Rule Breaker, then stabs her through the neck and finishes off Souichirou with a knife throw. It's disturbingly more realistic than most manners of death in the series.
- After True Assassin leaves,
*something* drags Caster's body out of the temple...
- Zabaniya, True Assassin's Noble Phantasm at work. His elongated arm, him crushing Lancer's heart, and then him ripping it out to drink its' blood and eat it while the Shadow has the rest of Lancer's body.
- For that matter, Lancer's death. Even aside from the manner of his death, his expression after Assassin crushes his heart remains unchanged. Even when blood drips from his mouth and the Shadow pulls him into the water to devour his body, the only hint of him still being alive are his last thoughts.
- Zouken appears before the heroes, revealed to be using Caster's corpse as a puppet Servant. And it hasn't been kept in good condition. Rule Breaker is still embedded in her chest, the gaping wound in her neck left by Assassin is still present, and you can see Zouken's worms popping from her mouth. As she casts a giant fireball, her left arm falls off and starts to rot.
**Lost Butterfly**
- The opening scene. Shirou's desperate search for Saber from the end of
*Presage Flower* is reimagined into a nightmare. Instead of meeting with Sakura, Shirou finds Saber in the distance within the mist... and a bunch of tendrils rising from the water, appearing to consume her. The mist blows away to reveal the Shadow, which suddenly appears in front of Shirou and starts to... *spasm*, flailing its tendrils around and popping out black arms before devouring Shirou, who can only shake in horror. Only an imprint of his body is left in the snow.
- The Shadows shrieking just before attacking Shirou. It's less of a typical animalistic sound or a distorted scream. Its closest to the sound of a handful of voices
**screaming in agony.**
- It's less terrifying than... everything else in the trilogy, but the casual way that lllya stating that she could kill Shirou in an instant without Saber around during their talk in the playground is notable.
- The seemingly whimsical and happy Disney Acid Sequence in
*Lost Butterfly*. Sakura falls bedridden and the film suddenly switches tone and artistic style to resemble a playful and whimsical "Alice In Wonderland" cartoon, with Sakura in a pretty white dress skipping through a magical town filled with dancing teddy bears and stuffed animals. Even the music is cheerful and heartwarming, which is quite *jarring* considering the bloody darkness that preceded the previous two films. Thing only start to go wrong when Sakura danced over a bridge, under which several of the stuffed toys floated down the town's river, as four angry pink bears dance around the happy girl; Sakura flicks them playfully across the head with her finger, causing them to literally explode in a cloud of confetti and candy. Sakura does so again, and again, and again to *every* animal friend she bumps into... until the town is literally raining with colorful candy. She picks one up, unwraps it and starts chewing... and the Camera suddenly smash-cuts to the realistic-style of the rest of the film in a dark alley, with Gilgamesh sneering "You should have died while we could still kill you" straight at the camera. Little did Sakura (also now in realistic style) know, the orange "candy" she was chewing on was a **human finger**. The ravenous Grail howling for life-energy in her uterus compelled her to go on a murderous rampage across Fuyuki, eating people alive. Sakura's heartwarming and whimsical fantasy of adorable animal friends was her mind's way of coping with, instead of reconciling with, the horrifying reality that she was *literally* tearing people into pieces (candy) and gobbling them down her throat, throwing remains too large to swallow into Fuyuki's river. Made *worse* by the fact that throughout this heartwarming dream-sequence, Sakura's voice actress narrated an adorable children's poem/song with lyrics that amounted to "My tummy was a rumbly~ I hit the bears and boomy~ and I gobbled up the candy~ then my tummy was not rumbly~" **Shiver.**
- The death of Gilgamesh immediately following this. Sakura seems taken over by the Shadow, glitching to her feet as Gil fires his treasures at her. However, hes surprised when the weapons simply pass through her aura and become corrupted. He momentarily bears an expression of dawning comprehension... and then it cuts to a close-up of Sakuras mouth, as she mimes taking a bite out of something. Theres a horrible sound as she keeps chewing, the camera pans out, and
*all thats left of the King of Heroes is half of his leg.*
- The Shadow's expanding influence, albeit brief, it is a terrifying sight to behold, as the black mud expands all across Shinto and consume everyone it come across, leaving a black puddle behind. It was shown to be able to phase through vehicles, causing the poor driver's vehicle to crash, then ate another pedestrian almost instantly right when his friend looked away. Even pets are not immune, as the Shadow also ate all the fishes in the aquarium as the Ominous Visual Glitch takes effect.
- The
*Lost Butterfly* drama CD reveals that Shinji's soul was absorbed by Dark Sakura after his death. He lost his mind completely, is tormented by his worst memories and fears forever and is deluding himself into thinking he won the war to cope. *"Aaah, shit. I cant remember too well. But...Im here, so that must mean I won, right? Haha, thats right. I cant lose, thats impossible! ....I guess the suns gone down. Its gotten dark in here. I cant see you anymore. Hey... would you mind turning on the lights? [...] Ah... You see......Its pitch black in here."*
- Every time the unborn Eldritch Abomination in the Greater Grail is shown, with its four bulging eyes glaring at what happens below it, betraying a sliver of emotion each time.
**Spring Song**
- The origin of Angra Mainyu aka The Shadow. He was once an ordinary person who was chosen by his fellow man to be the one to bear all the sins of the world, was tortured, and then killed. Despite being the weakest Servant, he still managed to taint the Grail for the Third, Fourth, and Fifth wars. The fact that humanity literally was able to create a man-made god of evil is enough to scare most.
- When Shirou Traces Heracles' Nine Lives, there is a quick slideshow of his Twelve Labours. The eleventh labour, the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, shows him facing off against Ladon, a gigantic wyrm with a head that tears opens to reveal a dark abyss with several glowing eyes◊. While the image is only on-screen for half a second, it really makes you wonder how monstrous the rest of the Greek monsters were.
- When Shirou traces the Jewel Sword, we get to see the moment when the Fuyuki Holy Grail Wars began, where each of the Three Founding Families cite their contributions to make the ritual for the Third Magic possible. The Tohsakas provide the land and leylines and are responsible for summoning the Servants. The Makiris, nowadays Matous, formed the Servant class system and Command Seals. The Einzberns meanwhile provided the alchemy to create it and prepared the vessel for the Grail. Sounds normal right? It is revealed in here that Justeaze, the Einzbern matriarch had to lie on the central altar and get
**brutally crushed flat** to spread her magic circuits over the surroundings in order to ensure that the Grail would enact her will for the Grail Wars. And that, was how the Greater Grail is made.
- Sakura tearing out the worm in her chest, which is revealed to be Zouken Matou's true body. Just how long did that girl have that worm inside of her?
- When Saber is defeated she melts into the shadow, unlike Berserker who disappeared in motes of light.
- When Shirou debates about having to project one last time to take down Angra Mainyu, he gets flashes of his body being skewered from the inside out by swords. One is even coming out of his eye in the final flash. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateStayNightHeavensFeel |
Fatal Attraction / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
**Alex:**
What are you doing here? Why are you here? He tried...to say goodbye to me last night. But he couldn't because..he and I feel the same way about each other. Do you know what it is when you meet somebody for the first time? And you get this instant attraction
. And don't you think I understand what you're doing? You're trying to move him into the country... and you're keeping him away from me. And you're playing happy family. Aren't you? You wouldn't understand that because you're so... so selfish. He told me about you. He told me about you. He was very honest. If you weren't so stupid, you'd know that. But you're so stupid. You're so stupid... you're a stupid, selfish bitch! | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FatalAttraction |
Fate/Grand Order / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Well, looks like Dr. Roman is about to give some good—
**OH MY GOODNESS!!!!**
Surprisingly for a Mobile Phone Game (but not for a Fate work....)
*Fate/Grand Order* has some incredibly dark parts. **Unmarked spoilers below.**
## General
- First off:
*The world is freaking gone*. Chaldea is the only place and time where any living beings remain. Anything outside of it has been burned to a crisp.
- Actually, let's correct that: it's not just everywhere, it's
**everywhen**, since the past has also been incinerated. Can you imagine that? *The entirety of Mankind dead, a literally uncountable number of people, since the very dawn of history, dead.*
- The Demon Pillars. Each of them looks like a giant black mass covered in eyes, and every time they attack, they make a horrific screech that appropriately seem to come straight from hell. And then Solomon, their master, is a creepy sorcerer with a horrific grin and the Voice of the Legion, who summons forth a multitude of them to fight you.
- According to Clock Tower 2015, Lev Lainur prevented the incineration of humanity by committing suicide before the demon god pillar could overwrite his personality and take over his body. He failed to do this in FGO, so who we're dealing with isn't even Lev anymore, it's the demon pillar using his body as a meatpuppet.
## "Singularity 7: Absolute Demonic Front, Babylonia"
Babylonia is arguably the darkest of the singularities, and for good reason. What initially seems to be just a rather simple plot about defeating the Goddess Alliance soon spirals wildly out of control once Tiamat arrives on the scene. When this happens, all chance of a "good ending" goes right out the window, and you are locked in a pitched battle for survival against a genuine Eldritch Abomination
for the rest of the singularity, desperately trying every possible avenue of victory in a hope of saving
*someone*
, let alone an entire city.
- The beginning of Babylonia, Mash's dream of Dr. Roman who's trying to sympathize with what's left of the human race. He preaches that life has no meaning and that humanity should stop struggling and live the rest of its life in peace. Mash mistakenly believes it's the real Roman at first, but he soon begins laughing with a horrific smile on his face provided with a picture above.
- The Lahmu in Babylonia take nightmare fuel demons to another level. Their enormous, sideways, humanoid mouths; the lack of eyes, the constant twitching while they wait for you to attack, and the disturbing ways some of their bodies contort... Not to mention the fact that they come in endless droves, and some of them are actually citizens of Uruk forcibly transformed into demons, some implied to be people you have met, who seem to still have human awareness and remember who you are.
- The progress of the Chaos Tide the further you advance into the story. By the time you managed to dunk Tiamat into the underworld, the entire map which is around the size of Iraq is a giant ocean of dark purple. Pretty much everyone that isn't you, Mash, Merlin, King Hassan and Ishtar is dead. Gilgamesh died Taking the Bullet for you from one of Tiamat's lasers and had to use his corpse as a catalyst to bring himself back as a Servant.
- Tiamat herself is incredibly terrifying. Not only is she borderline immortal, but her view of all of humanity as her "children" is highly disturbing since she can't understand us like we can't understand her. We're essentially aliens to her, and though we can't understand her speech, it's likely that she finds us just as disturbing as we find her.
- The way Tiamat and the Lahmu turn on Kingu deserves mention. While the party is fighting Lahmu who were forcing Eridu's survivors to fight each other to the death for their amusement, Kingu interrupts the fight and chastises the Lahmu for wasting valuable time on pointless cruelty. The Lahmu slowly begin to laugh at him, claiming that they are simply emulating the "old" humanity and claiming to find suffering and death "fun". Kingu's incredulous outrage is suddenly interrupted, when the Lahmu suddenly brutally attack him and forcibly tear the Grail from his body. The Lahmu laugh at Kingu's shock and agony, gleefully revealing that Tiamat never truly cared for him or saw him as her child and that his sole purpose to her was facilitating her resurrection, and now that that's done, he no longer has any use to them, and proceed to gleefully hunt him through Eridu's jungle like a wild animal. Were it not for Lahmu!Siduri's sacrifice to save him, Kingu would have died there, betrayed by the "mother" he gave everything to serve.
## "Singularity Subspecies : Deep Sea Cyberbrain Paradise SE.RA.PH."
- The SERAPH Chapter where the horrific experiments done by Chaldea to develop their technology is shown and where it was turned into a hell for the people there by Kiara.
- Even worse in the manga where we see flashbacks of the people as they lose their minds and go into anarchy. The faces shown and the sheer horrifying actions that they do of their own will with glee is haunting.
## "Pseudo-Singularity III: The Stage of Carnage, Shimousa"
- The premise of Shimousa is utter horror due to the enemy Servants. They're not actually Servants at
*all*, but rather the actual historical figures resurrected by Ashiya Doman and transformed into utterly deranged Omnicidal Maniac zombies who butcher countless innocents in horrifically bloody and violent ways. At one point, you end up fighting one of the enemy Servants on top of a literal mountain of freshly-butchered, mutilated *corpses*. To highlight just how utterly *inhuman* the zombified Servants are, their battle dialogue is completely replaced with feral, barely coherent roars and screaming, and instead of the simple fade into golden dust, their death animations are *much* more visceral.
- One of the most horrifying aspects is that, with the exception of Amakusa and Doman, all of the enemy Servants are
*completely aware* of themselves, but are utterly powerless to fight back against Doman's corruption that compels them to rampage. At various points, they will desperately *beg* you to kill them while crying Tears of Blood.
- Speaking of Amakusa, his portrayal in Shimosa
*also* deserves mention. He's not actually the "true" Amakusa that's a summonable Servant, but rather an alternate version of him that, after learning that the Shimabara uprising is doomed to fail in all realities, due to being under a Quantum Timelock, as well as the fact that history idolizes the Tokugawa as heroes, while he and his followers are demonized as terrorists and criminals who deserved to die, fell into madness and decided that if history has declared him a bloodthirsty murderer, then that is exactly what he will be. To punctuate just how fallen he is, Shimosa Amakusa is no longer a Ruler, but an *Avenger*, with all of the murderous hatred and insanity the class entails.
- The manga adaptation of the Singularity shows at the front the massacres of the Seven Swordmasters. Against the first Swordmaster alone, Hozoin slaughters a small village - men, women, children, and elderly are cut to small pieces as they run or cower in terror. Ritsuka tries to save them, but Musashi stops her because she's not strong enough from the disorienting unnatural rayshift, so they just hide inside a pile of hay hearing the villagers' dying scream around them. When Musashi finally fights Hozoin, she cuts his head off and it rolls to Ritsuka's feet, but his body is still fighting and he proceeds to regenerate his own head, one layer of flesh at a time.
- The game isn't quite as graphic — but Hozoin notices movement in the haystack, knows the group is hiding there, and
*leaves them there* to listen helplessly while he kills the villagers.
- Raikou's depiction in the manga isn't much better. While every other Swordsmaster shows a deranged Ax-Crazy personality while in combat, when Raikou is fighting Musashi, her expression is
*lifeless*.
- An elderly couple stumbles upon Archer of Inferno on the way back to their home after a village meeting. Danzo is all but sure that the homicidal Archer of Inferno would just slaughter them on the spot due to her Curse of Annihilation... but she just politely sends them on their way after greeting them, even telling them to be careful along the way, surprising Danzo enough to believe that the curse may not be working properly with Inferno. All seems strangely calm and good... until Inferno reconfirms with Danzo that the village the old folks had just come from is nearby
*and* is populated by a big number of people, by which Inferno then declares, with a smile on her face, that she will indiscriminately burn every living thing in it right down to the last man, woman, and child... proceeding to do so immediately after. By the time she was done, Inferno had so thoroughly razed the village down to the ground that not a single inhabitant barring the fortunate elderly couple from earlier survived the slaughter. Danzo later monologues that Inferno continued her rampage on many other villages after that with an army of black ghosts by her side spreading fire and death everywhere, a nightmarish scene literally straight from hell.
- Shuten captures the protagonist and starts to Cold-Blooded Torture them by sticking her hand into their guts. All the while making chit-chat and comments like "Lie Back and Think of Chaldea" giving it the aspect of a rape scene.
## "Pseudo-Singularity IV: Heretical Salem"
- In contrast to the visceral Bloody Horror of Shimousa, the horror of Salem is considerably more psychological due to how
*human* it is. There's no ulterior motive, no dark plan (at least until Raum appears). The entire conflict of the Pseudo-Singularity is a chillingly realistic tale of a humble hamlet descending into absolute anarchy and chaos purely due to the paranoia, intolerance and fanaticism of its denizens.
- According to Raum itself, the Lovecraftian entities that would empower the Foreigners didn't
*originally* exist in the universe of F:GO, but because the Demon Pillar was past caring at that point, so he wandered realities and found the link to them thanks to "the dreams of a madman" (alluded to be Lovecraft himself). As a result, he found a reality where they were real and... *they started their attentions on the FGO world*. Congratulations! Eldritch horrors from beyond reality now have their eyes on the setting.
- And the horror doesn't even stop once Raum is dead! Despite the Demon Pillar's demise, Abigail's already crossed the Despair Event Horizon and succumbs to the Outer God inside of her, which proceeds to state it's going to bring "salvation" through endless suffering and punishment to every living being on the planet.
## "Lostbelt No.1: Permafrost Empire, Anastasia"
- In the first Lostbelt, we are given a flashback of Anastasia's last moments in her life, it shows that she was conscious even after she was burned and buried. During this time, she was able to make a contract with Viy, which she utilized to make sure that none of the soldiers who killed her would never have a moment of peace. Cue a blood-coloured "I Am Watching" message appearing in the background, followed up with the screen being filled with word "Watching" and eyes.
*Death is too good for you. No, you're going to live in fear for the rest of you lives. I, Viy, will always be watching you.* *I will forever pass judgement on your sins. I will forever see to your punishment. I will always, always be watching
until the day you die.* *Always, always, always!!!*
## "Lostbelt No.3: The Synchronized Intellect Nation, SIN"
- At first, seeing Koyanskaya locked away in a cell, stripped of her powers, may give one a bit of satisfaction considering how much trouble she's caused you. But then Qin Shi Huang, the Lostbelt 3 king, summons mechanical dolls... and orders them to drill non-lethal holes in her body until she can be sealed away. You are rewarded with reading Koyanskaya screaming in agony and the slight of blood. What really makes this scene extra horrifying is the sound of a loud, screeching drill in the background while this is all happening.
## "Lostbelt No.4: Saṃsāra of Genesis and Terminus, Yugakshetra"
- The very premise of God Arjuna's interpretation of the Yuga Cycle seen throughout the Fourth Lostbelt makes it not out of place in the Cosmic Horror Story genre were it not for Chaldea's intervention. Even then, Chaldea have to live through them for a good while.
- The first seven days is essentially a paradise, barring the occasional plague or Kali, but in exchange, for the last three days, buildings start to fall apart, the soil becomes arid and Kalis begin swarming and attacking the villages, all while the human population retreats into their homes, desperately praying towards Arjuna for their survival.
- What's worse is that there seems to be a mental effect of the Cycle on the Humans, during the seven days of peace, they're generous and kind, but by the time of the three last days, most of them become more cold and selfish even towards people that they showed kindness towards even just a day previously.
- But that's not the worst of it, by the end of the three days, God Arjuna destroys the entire Lostbelt, breaks everyone down into data, and removes all that he regards as "Evil". Anything he considers to be flawed — for example a dog whose leg was broken meaning it can no longer run, thus in his eyes no longer having any worth — will be regarded as "Evil", disregarding any emotional attachment its owner has to it. It gets worse, anything he removes in this way is forgotten by the other inhabitants, even if they were extremely close to the removed entity and worse, the removal leaves logical holes in people's memories, so if a parent was removed, their child would at least know that they should have a mother, but not understand why they don't.
## "Lostbelt No.5: Ancident Ocean of the Dreadnought Gods, Atlantis"
- During the intro to Lostbelt 5 Atlantis, we are introduced to Subject E. An alien lifeform that crash landed onto Earth, specifically in Area 51. The nightmare fuel isn't from the subject itself - but rather the sheer hell it went through. At first, the Air Force preserved Subject E as it was critically injured and close to dying. But over time, as the narrator says, "...it didn't take long for the surgical procedures meant to resuscitate the subject to morph into brutally exploitative experiments." Some of these wonderful "procedures" ranged from trying to burn/melt/freeze Subject E to stirring its intestines around and cutting off parts of its body. All while the Subject E was still living and conscious. The narrator wasn't kidding when they said all of the information about Subject E could be summarized by the word "gruesome."
## "Lostbelt No.5: Interstellar Mountainous City, Olympus"
- The reveal that Konyanskaya - the devious troll causing mischief & mayhem across multiple Lostbelts - is one of the Seven Beasts. Though we don't see her full form, her unnaturally long mouth with rows of teeth and multiple eyes all over her body are enough to paint a terrifying picture. Not to mention that those eyes, mouth, and teeth are blood red.
- Chaos. To put it simply, it cracks open reality, and all we can see of its true form is a giant eye before it effortlessly destroys Ares and requires the Grand Lancer to sacrifice himself to get us close and Musashi becoming Deader than Dead just to seal it away.
## "Lostbelt No.6: Fae Round Table Domain, Avalon le Fae"
- It's mentioned that Beryl's Lostbelt became so twisted that he ultimately tricked the inhabitants into cutting down the Tree of Emptiness...except
*something* is keeping it sustained. Even worse, after clearing Olympus, the button for Lostbelt 6 is visibly glitched until the completion of 5.5. Whatever is going on there, it's clearly *bad.*
- The Alien God wasn't able to awaken properly due to Wodime messing with the Tree of Emptiness intended to serve as a vessel, so a stronger Saint Graph is required. The problem, of course, is that no Saint Graph from Earth would be enough... which is why Rasputin intends to pay a visit to the Ultimate One slumbering in the South American Lostbelt. Or in other words, the single most powerful entity in the Solar System in terms of raw might -
**Type-Mercury: O.R.T.**
- Lostbelt 6 introduces new Camelot servants who are darker and more terrifying than their Camelot counterparts when they reach their 3rd ascension. The most notable servants are Fairy Knight Tristan, who looks like another Elizabeth Bathory clone, and Fairy Knight Gawain, who's a genderbent version of Gawain. Reaching their 3rd ascension will change their appearances into darker and more nightmarish states similar to Atalante's Alter form. Their Noble Phantasms are terrifying enough to make Emiya Alter proud. They are also not actually genderbent Servants, but fairies who embedded with the saint graphs of the original knights they were based on.
- Then there is Fairy Knight Tristan reaching her third stage, which causes her to suffer Sanity Slippage. The arrogant Alpha Bitch with a murderous nature is replaced with a somber, very disturbing and just as bloodthirsty personality who seems to be suffering and switches between wanting to kill everyone and wanting them to actually love her. The worst part is that she seems fully aware of it, hoping to just have enough willpower to do things like giving her Master a birthday gift on time.
- Her backstory actually explains why she's like that and it makes it even worse. She was once a kind hearted fairy who just wanted to help everyone, yet the other fairies would just use her before throwing her away with her limbs ripped off and leaving her to die alone in a ditch. One cycle Morgan found her and Tristan thanked her for everything she was trying to do. Morgan met her in a couple of more cycles and eventually adopted her. Unfortunately, Morgan discovered that Tristan would no longer be able to reincarnate so she taught her cruelty so she would no longer be used and thrown away by others. Her third ascension is her returning to the kind hearted fairy she use to be because of everyone's kindness in Chaldea, yet because of all the trauma she went through, she is also filled with complete hate towards everyone else.
- On a general level, the Sixth Lostbelt is an Crapsaccharine World par excellence.
- Out of context, it seems like the most innocent looking of the lot, and resembles a generic fantasy setting more than something out of the Nasuverse, with dwarves, elves, beastmen, and faeries walking around in the modern-day as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Oh? Where are the humans, you ask? Simple, they're the
*food supply* for the other races. The protagonist and Tristan wander into a village after losing their memories (thanks to getting lost in a cursed forest) and the villagers happily offer them a meal and shelter...Only for one of them to give the game away because he's salivating so hard at the thought of "wild game" that he tries to dismember them on the spot. Nobody else except for an outcast fairy sees anything remotely wrong with this.
- Then there is the reason why the Difference Depth is EX... Mainly because
*the world was already destroyed before human civilization was fully established.* This is a world where Sefar succeeded in destroying the world before she self destructed. The "British Isle"? It's actually the corpses of Albion and the Celtic god Cernunnos that housed the last of the Fae and humans on it. In fact, when Beryl first came to the Lostbelt, *it was already barren with no life except for the Tree of Emptiness* because the Fairies destroyed themselves and the humans with their constant wars. The only reason the Lostbelt even *exists* in its current state is because Beryl summoned Morgan le Fay, who subverted her Master's will and Rayshifted her memories back in time to Lostbelt Morgan in an attempt to save this dead Britain, but her efforts were futile because the faeries would inevitably betray Morgan and go back to killing each other. It's telling how nightmarish this Lostbelt is, when Morgan forcing the whole island under her despotic rule is an *improvement*.
- Then there's Morgan's ultimate defeat. Aurora tricks Woodwose, Morgan's right hand man, into thinking that she has betrayed him, causing an uprising of the fae against her. Then Spriggan forces Morgan to surrender by revealing he has her daughter, Baobhan Sith/Fae Knight Tristan hostage, which leaves her open to an
*absolutely horrific and brutal* beating from the fae. Poor Morgan can only weakly beg to return her throne to her as she's savagely beaten to death. And Baobhan Sith herself? She wasn't a hostage, she was *already nearly dead*; the traitors were carrying her barely alive body with her limbs torn off *and* completely destroyed and made her watch them kill her adoptive mother before throwing her into The Great Pit like trash, so Morgan let herself be killed for nothing.
- Want to know what's worse? This isn't even the first or the
*worst* time the fairies have brutally backstabbed Morgan. As noted above, her past(s) as Tonelico the Savior are the story of her many failures to save Britain because of the fairies' treachery, each of them on the same general level of cruelty, and this was when she was being *nice* to them. The worst example is when Tonelico had nearly succeeded in unifying all of Faerie Britain under one king, only for the fairies to fatally poison him and his Round Table *on his coronation day*. Morgan's nosedive into tyranny wasn't even her fault, the fae are just *completely horrible pieces of garbage* that can't stand being told what to do, even when that lack of direction means they'll drive themselves to extinction.
- Act 3 of Avalon Le Fae as a whole, ALL HELL HAS BROKEN LOOSE!
- The eventual fates of the Three Fae knights: Two lose their humanoid forms and become the dreaded Calamities meant to destroy Fairy Britain while the final one is thrown into the bottomless pit, absorbed by the corpse of Cernunnos and inadvertently waking it from its slumber.
- The narration of the apocalypse in Chapter 26 is chillingly described, after the Storm Border manages to barely escape Cernunnos' curses:
"The ship made a narrow escape from the heart of Britain. Barghest, the Beast Calamity, who transformed into a titanic 'thing' laid waste to cities in her wake. Curses continued to overflow from Cernunnos as it crawled out of the Great Pit.
The fairy villages scattered about burned as the earth cracked and collapsed, having reached its limit. Two hours had passed since the Storm Border took off, determined to 'save Britain'. Yet there was nothing left to to be saved.
The residents of Norwich were fighting over two ships, and had begun killing each other, divided between humans and fairies. In a barbershop, a human boy comforted a frightened fairy girl.
Residents who had moved to Oxford in the hopes of becoming new nobility, were annihilated without the means to defend themselves from the Mors. Without the Fang Clan, they were helpless."
Salisbury, despite having shut its gates in an act of self-defense, met an end far ghastlier than any other city."
Londinium silently burned to ashes. The few survivors of the Round Table Army welcomed the fleeing fairies and repelled the Mors. In truth, the soldiers of the Round Table consisted mostly of the wounded, and the huddled fairies steeled themselves and protected them to the bitter end."
In contrast, the denizens of Gloucester painlessly disappeared one after another. A girl who, a while back, was liberated from the western ranch, made her way back to Gloucester after much hardship. To save the downtrodden fairy, her master, who had needed her. Stepping into the burning city, reuniting, hand in hand, they disappeared into the cracks of the earth..."
- An even
*grimmer* end is described in Section 30 once the planet's collapse begins, as the Insect of the Abyss starts sucking EVERYTHING into its great maw, a conceptual Bottomless Pit that is essentially a black hole:
"Britain is collapsing. Buildings made in imitation of human civilization. Corpses from the distant past. Corpses that lost their lives to the calamity currently present. With each passing moment, they ascend and are devoured by the insect. The land in the north melts like snow. The land in the south is swept away like ashes. Those who barely managed to survive held hands as they fell. As though it had all been a fleeting dream from the beginning..."
- The Manchester Fae causing the death of their human servants and neighbors, a village protected by Fairy Knight Gawain, who is one of the FEW
*good* Fae to exist and fight against her evil nature as the Calamity of the Beast, Barghest. After a long day of dealing with uprisings and the death of her ruler, Morgan, she returns to her village...only to find her fellow Fae *gleefully murdering and eating the humans*, with them citing that they were only following Gawain's example of how she eats her lovers, wondering if they would enjoy committing the same acts, not bothering to empathize that Gawain never wanted such a thing in the first place. This pushes her to the brink, since these were Faeries she was hoping Chaldea could take over to Proper Human History, and she loses herself to her inner demon, her last rational thought process voicing out a new desire: take as many of the Fae to the grave as she can before she is taken down by Chaldea.
- The nightmare only gets worse when its implied that this isn't the first time the Manchester Fae have committed such actions; killing and tearing apart humans in secret to "replicate" what Fairy Gawain does to her lovers behind closed doors in her own house. They just decided to throw caution to the winds and murder them in the open, now that the Lostbelt is falling apart. They voice out loud that they were hoping to "clean up the mess" before Gawain got home since she would
*nag at them otherwise*, demonstrating a complete lack of remorse for their actions. They then go on to say that they're hoping Gawain takes them to Pan Human History, *intending to have fun with the humans there...*
- Let this image of the Manchester Fae slaughtering the humans chill you to the bone. Their insane smiles add to the horror.
**Manchester Fae**: "It's so much fun killing humans! The first scream is heavenly whilst the ones afterwards are dull. You can pull the limbs, twist the innards, flail their skin and they are still alive! This is so much fun! Let's kill them all! We don't need old toys anyways, as we'll be getting new ones outside with Lord Barghest!"
- Cernunnos is probably one giant horror show that is the icing of the Fae Lostbelt. Originally sent to punish the Six Fae for their laziness and their causing humanity's downfall, he instead showed them mercy and kindness by not only sparing them punishment but also by letting them live on his body. When Cernunnos revealed that he simply couldn't make new land, in addition to his priestess telling the Fae to repent for their sins, what did the Fae do to repay their kindness? They poisoned him, causing his death, and then went on to rip apart his human priestess into pieces. They used Cernunnos' corpse to build the rest of Fae Britain and turned the pieces of the human priestess into templates for their version of humanity.
*All while smiling and patting themselves on the back.* This is the reason why there are Six Calamities, they represent the original sin of the six original Fae who betrayed Cernunnos.
- One of the calamities is revealed to be Cernunnos himself, except it's not Cernunnos but his moving corpse powered by centuries of accumulating curses. What's worse is that you can see his mouth and eyes, except they're blood red and he looks like he's sleeping. Cernunnos is only moving because of how awful the Fae of the Lostbelt were, their accumulation of curses causing him to be twisted into what is essentially a zombie.
- Oh, and that Priestess who got ripped to pieces? Well, the Fae ripped her apart for two reasons. One is that they were tired of her telling them to repent for their laziness. The other is that they needed some way to make new humans to sustain themselves and to work as livestock for them. Emphasis on "ripped her apart", as they didn't kill her. No,
*they used their magic to make sure she would still remain alive even when cut into six pieces*, and those pieces are from where humans are born from in the Lostbelt! And I Must Scream doesn't begin to explain her situation!
- Here is the story told by Merlin. In-game, the tale is told normally until it reaches the twist. The game then adopts a creepy atmosphere with unsettling music and a red filter, all while showing images of the Six Fairies with huge smiles on their faces. By the end of it, the Protagonist and party are left standing in horror at the actual truth of the land's origins:
In the end was an ocean. In the beginning was an ocean.
After the falling star passed
note : Sefar invades and wipes out the planet, with no Excalibur to stop its rampage , all the Earth became an ocean.
That is a story from long, long ago.
When the the Six Fairies went outside, they found that the whole world had turned into an ocean.
"I'm sorry you had to face this, and I'm sorry things are this way".
A tremendous shadow arose from the ocean. It was a huge body covered in fluffy, bushy hair.
On its shoulder sat an animal that should have no longer existed.
The Six Fairies befriended the God.
The empty ocean was not that interesting and it was difficult to live in, but the God held back the waves, so the Fairies could live in comfort.
"An ocean without waves is nice, but we really miss the land!"
The Six Fairies gave their joy to the God.
The Six Fairies gave their pleas to the God.
The Six Fairies offered to the God.
Their wish was granted, the festival came to an end.
The Six Fairies obtained the God's corpse.
It became new lands where there previously was none.
Because there was only one human. Because only one human wasn't enough.
That was the genesis of Britain. That is how this mistake originated.
Let the original Six be saved.
Let the original Six be cursed.
- After the defeat of the Lostbelt King Morgan, Oberon finally revealed his true nature to the players: He destroyed Fae Britain? Before you cheer that he just destroyed that land of shit... he just declared that he found a way to Proper Human History and will do the same destruction to it. At that point, you're horrified not because the Lostbelt is in utter shambles... but because it can happen to
*your* human history if you don't stop Oberon.
- It doesn't help that the battle intro's, the class card morphing into Pretender class in a darker fashion and the music tones are pretty disturbing.
- His entire appearence went from friendly fairy into a dark prince with insect parts from his body and limbs. And if that wasn't creepy enough, his cape is made of butterfly wings... but it might as well be dead fairy wings, considering his mindset.
- And of course lets not forget his second body, the "Insect of the Abyss". A gigantic, hollow, translucent wormlike dragon that devours the entirety of Britain. Its ability to devour anything is described as being like "water draining down a plughole", with space itself falling towards its maw, making it impossible to escape its hunger forever. And just when you think it couldn't get any worse, there's the fate that awaits anyone who gets eaten by it: falling through the infinite abyss inside its body for all eternity.
- There's a flashback in Chapter 30 where we see how Oberon was summoned into the British Lostbelt. The first time we see it, he's sleeping soundly in the sunlight◊ as the insect fairies marvel over him. So how is this Nightmare Fuel? When the same flashback is visited later, his body is incredibly sickly and thin, with pale skin and a visible ribcage◊. He couldn't even close his eyes and for several months, was unable to do nothing but lie down and stare at the numerous insects crawling around him while constantly having thoughts of hatred until the insect fairies (unknowingly) stabilized his Saint Graph.
*Definitely* not for entomophobics. And to add to this train of thought, these scenes were BOTH drawn by his character designer, who has entomophobia herself. Talk about facing your fears.
- This chapter reveals what exactly happened back in Chaldea when Beryl was part of Team A. He broke into Mashs treatment room and BROKE HER FINGERS, out of a truly SICKENING desire to see her emote, and has harbored an extremely twisted infatuation with her ever since. His last words are a fucked up declaration of his disturbing love for her, and no one can blame her for being repulsed.
- Luckily, you can now summon the Fairy Knights! Unfortunately due to how the FATE system's Ascension system works by bringing the Servant closer to the apex of their prime, this results in their third and fourth Ascensions being based
*just before their horrible deaths.* Barghest's Fourth Ascension line has her screaming for someone to kill her before she loses control, Baobhan's above-mentioned Sanity Slippage and being unable to feel anything due to her having her limbs torn off of her and being thrown into Cernunnos' pit cursing the fairies, and Melusine as close as she can be to her original form as Albion. The only solace is that Barghest gets a line update upon completing the Lostbelt, upon which she vows to defy her fate and reaffirms her loyalty to you, and Melusine remains fully in control while proclaiming she is Devoted to You.
## "Lostbelt No.7: Golden Sea of Trees, Nahui Mictlān"
- The preview has Nemo telling the members of Chaldea that they will be performing a belly landing on the empty ground and tells everyone to brace themself. Whatever knocked the
*Storm Border* from the sky, the captain has to use all of his remaining mana just to keep everyone alive.
- The scene is accompanied by an animation of an intense thunderstorm, followed by a view of the storm
*from the torn open walls of the Border's hallway*.
- The first thing we see when we enter the Lostbelt: volcanoes, thunderstorms, and hellish destruction as far as the eye can see. With the revelation that this is the theorized super-continent Pangaea, this is the
*entire world* caught up in an apocalyptic maelstrom. There is nothing on this surface capable of supporting life. Fortunately, the actual Lostbelt turns out to be underground.
- After years of hype and some extra foreshadowing in
*Grand Order*, it's finally happened: **we've come face-to-face with O.R.T.**.
- While this encounter is heavily implied to be some manner of vision or time-space meddling from Tezcatlipoca, it does absolutely nothing to diminish the impact of fighting what Kinoko Nasu described as the Nasuverse's "unbeatable secret boss that humanity could not hope to defeat alone". Finally seeing it in the "flesh" doesn't do this alien machine-lifeform justice. It's easily as big as Cernunnos; one of its legs could cleave a modern city in half. Just by its arrival, the landscape — and the arena used for its fight — is reduced to a burning wasteland where rubble floats upwards, not as bad as the hellscape that is the Lostbelt's surface, but damned close. And Tez confirms that this scene will play out in only
*10 days*.
- The fight itself. "Hopeless" doesn't even begin to describe it, and it does a pretty good job of impressing this on the player. 1 million HP out of the gate doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary compared to what we've faced so far, but what's this little cluster icon under O.R.T.'s HP bar? Deplete the 1 million HP, and you'll see that it's a new icon for a Break Bar that obscures another
*nine* — this thing has **ten break bars**, and the one you just broke fills O.R.T.'s HP up to *10* million. note : For the record, getting through the 10 million has been done, only for O.R.T.'s next bar to be **100** million. Even U-Olga Marie, who you *thought* was going to be the ultimate enemy of the story that can create black holes on a whim, takes a swing at O.R.T. to no avail.
- Every battle in the game has a "Recommended level", the minimal level that developers think your Servants should be at to tackle the enemy. The hardest bosses have this level at 90+ or 90++. This is the only battle outside of Challenge Quests to have an recommended level simply state "EX".
- When O.R.T. defeats a Servant, it does something special to them: it converts them into green crystal that it then consumes (though Mash retreats). For now we have no idea why, but your Servants don't even get to say their defeat lines before being absorbed into O.R.T.. Now try imagining being there as your Servant (especially your favourite) meets a horrific Fate Worse than Death, especially if you're going in blind. Can you hear them screaming for you?
- O.R.T. is only Lv.1. This might seem funny at a glance, until you realize that most of the victories Chaldea has had against godlike and/or eldritch entities involved finding a way to
*weaken* them... but again, O.R.T. is Lv.1. It can't *be* any weaker and it's still treating the memetically-godslaying Chaldea like little more than an annoying fly to be swatted.
-
*The music.* It perfectly encapsulates the despair and folly of facing this outer-dimensional monster.
- And the worst part of all? It's later revealed that ORT
*ate the Tree of Emptiness* for use as a power source, which means **it** is the Cosmic Keystone now. If Chaldea still means to finish its mission of destroying the Lostbelts, the confrontation with ORT is inevitable.
- And then there's the
*actual* fight with ORT. Though it might be more accurate to call it a large scale war, because that's what it took to stand a ghost of a chance, and ORT *loves* showering us with Hope Spots.
- Daybit's backstory is itself rather disturbing. The Destructive Teleportation accident that made Daybit who he is now leans into the fact that he is practically not the original person anymore, that the original 10-year old boy is now someone else... forever existing and still alive along with his father as burn shadows on the floor of their lab until the heat death of the universe. Worse, only Daybit himself was reconstituted. There's no new version of his father, and since all memory and records of them were wiped before this incident, unlike his son, he's effectively been Ret-Gone-d other than his shadow containing his consciousness.
## "Ordeal Call 1: Inner World of the Imaginary Number Compass, Paper Moon"
- The OVA gives us the glorious image of Olga Marie being thrown into Chaldeas, screaming and begging for someone to save her with tears in her eyes.
- Unlimited Lost Works, the Noble Phantasm of EMIYA (Alter). It's basically Unlimited Blade Works combined with the Origin Bullet. The result is the enemy getting
*ripped apart from the inside by swords*.
- Frankenstein's Interludes.
*Fate/Apocrypha* showed Victor Frankenstein wasn't a particularly good father to Fran, but here it's shown he has no qualms about slaughtering entire towns to begin his experiments anew. Fran's new little sister, Eve, is slavishly devoted to their father and doesn't hesitate to brutally murder everyone he points at her. Still, not even she deserved to be used by her father as a new body, especially since she's advanced enough to realize what Victor's doing and vainly tries to resist as his consciousness overwrites hers.
- Summer BB, despite being fused with what is generally agreed to be the most evil, sadistic entity in the entire Cthulhu Mythos, doesn't really act any way different from usual aside from a slight obsession with pigs, which might make you wonder if this isn't another case of "Character Alignment in Fate makes no sense"... until you read the description in her Max Level Craft Essence, in which the Protagonist is trapped in the moon by BB, rendered completely insane from looking at Nyarlathotep's true form, all while humanity has been completely annihilated by the Alien God. The clock shows it is 11:59,
*forever*.
- Most Valentine Scenes tend to be either heartwarming, funny, or heartwarmingly funny, but Summer BB's scene is like it came from H. P. Lovecraft himself. Basically, the protagonist is trapped into a Lotus-Eater Machine in the form of a Luluhawa Island chocolate, a product of her powers granted by Nyarlatothep, causing you to forget everything and basically go insane due to BB being now an Eldritch Abomination. The last thing you hear before going completely insane is her laugh.
- Nagao Kagetora never stops smiling.
*Ever.* While it's stated that she's generally a cheerful and energetic lady who remains upbeat even during battle, some of her smiles can be downright psychotic.
- Salome is just a Stripperiffic Bronze Servant who just happens to carry a skull that she used as her lover and mystical weapon and conversing with a creepily seductive voice. And she doesn't mind taking your head either for her fetish since that's what she does to her lovers. She's basically a really creepy Yandere that might give other famous Yanderes in the Chaldea crew like Kiyohime a run for their money. Also, if you're wondering whose head that was? John the Baptist's, the guy that baptized Jesus Christ (and is considered a Saint/Prophet by Christians and Muslims). Seeing her toy around with a revered man's skull is pretty unnerving.
- Her Bond CE is very disturbing because, aside from John the Baptist's skull, the other skulls that she carries around belong to her former masters who had summoned her before. And her way of expressing her love to her masters is to chop their heads off and have them around. And yes, she's even interested in your head too!
- Tristan's Interlude. It starts off innocent enough, a story of Tristan lamenting his inability to know what love is as it appears to then shift to the master and him in his dreams like many other Interludes.
*It's anything but.* In truth, Tristan has been kidnapped by someone pretending to be the master (heavily implied to be Morgan), who then proceeds to torture Tristan with the things he did in Camelot, changing into the other Knights and people of the singularity as he can only scream for them to shut up. Soon, he's Laughing Mad and thoroughly convinced he's nothing more than a monster. When the master, Lancelot, Gawain, and Bedivere go to try and retrieve him, he's so far gone he tells them to Then Let Me Be Evil and threatens to *kill* the Master! It takes a version of Lancer Altria appearing to finally stop him.
- If you think that Riyo's April Fools Art wouldn't head towards this territory, Yang Guifei's eyes will make you think otherwise. It's supposed to be a parody of her flaming eyes in her Noble Phantasm but these simple pencilled-in scribbles that don't fully cover her eyes give the very unnerving effect of having two sets of eyes staring back at the player.
- At the end of the up until now completely silly Summer 2018 event, just as the party is about to break the time loop, BB drops the act completely and darkly declares that she is
*not* letting Guda leave. She proceeds to go on an absolutely *unhinged* rant about how much work she put into Luluwaii and how all of it was to spare Guda from a painful fate (the Lostbelts), and if they're going to spurn her genuine desire to help them, then she'll just *force* her to stay. She then reveals that the Divine entity bound to her isn't Pele, but *Nyarlathotep*, and engages you in a final battle amidst a pitch-black, distorted void where the only light is the pale green glow of the BB Channel TVs.
- This also paints a rather disturbing picture of the Lostbelt arc and what it holds, as whatever Guda goes through by the end of the arc is
*so* horrific that BB, a proudly self-proclaimed Card-Carrying Villain, was desperate to *save* them from it by any means necessary.
- Summer Kiara is just as, if not even
*more* terrifying than Summer BB. When you summon her, she *hijacks* the Moon Cancer class card, causing it to spark purple and *mutate* the card's artwork from BB to *Kiara* herself. This is notably one of two unique summoning animation in the game, making it much more jarring and startling.
- The Summer Camp 2020 event starts off on an
*incredibly* terrifying note. It starts out with a swirling black void, then suddenly jumps to static while *a very unnerving distorted voice can be heard in the background*, then it jumps to a screen that talks about over experiments, and eventually a Madness Mantra, and then, a very creepy mask pops up, all while the static continues to drone in the background. Yeesh. **125,000**
- The full thing is even worse! There's even
*more* creepy images that pop up, what with the ruined room, a screen full of twisted hands and eerie shadows, the distorted voice droning on in the background, and the mysterious shadowy figure (later revealed to be Xu Fu) that pops up. Illya and Murasaki are *very* visibly scared shitless after seeing the creepy tape, and can you blame them?! Not helping afterwards is that you're immediately attacked by evil spirits. Oh, and by the way, you *can't* skip this scene, unless you skipped the cutscene beforehand.
- Once again, the main plot of the event is revealed to have been orchestrated by a Servant with ties to an Elder God desperately trying to convince the Protagonist to give up their quest to destroy the Lostbelts. Just what the hell is waiting for Ritsuka at the end of their journey...?
- Despite his Joke Character nature, Nobukatsu's Noble Phantasm animation is extremely disturbing. He calmly and firmly raises his arms, either tells everyone to die, screams his sister's name or laughs crazily, and then he violently disintegrates. This is the only time Nobukatsu's Devoted to You relationship with Nobunaga is played for anything but laughs, and it demonstrates the sheer depths of his devotion quite effectively and paints his self sacrifice in a dark light.
- Van Gogh is by far,
*the* most terrifying (and also the most heartbreaking) of the playable Foreigners released so far. From the moment you meet her, she's already very mentally unstable, alternating between solemn sadness, painful depression, and unhinged fits of laughter without warning. And as she ascends, she just gets *worse.* Her Third Ascension in particular is easily the most inhuman-looking Ascension even among the other Lovecraftian-aligned Foreigners, with an overall appearance that just feels *very* wrong.
- In the Ooku Event, it starts out with all of your Servants and Chaldea personnel being oddly absent, save for yourself, Mash, Sion, and Kiara. You don't meet any of them as you continue through the place, and you see that Goredolf has been brainwashed. And yet when you finish the first floor, you learn what exactly happened to all the personnel:
*they've become part of the foundation of Ooku*. All the walls, floors and pillars are made from Chaldea's workforce and Servants! Which also gives the uncomfortable impression that all of Ooku is a Womb Level atop of that.
- The sheer scope of Kama's plan when they're finally revealed. Her entire plan revolved around luring the player into the Ooku and corrupting them with her "love", and she comes pretty damn close to doing it. Her Xanatos Gambit pretty much ensured that she'd win no matter what actions they took. Had it not for been for overlooking one specific detail, she would have won flat out. She's by far, the closest any antagonist has come to defeating Chaldea.
- When the Katsushika duo goes into their third ascension, Ou'i in particular gains a dress that looks more like a wearable alien, her lotus flower hair ornaments turn into these strange Eldritch Abomination pods with single eyes, and her father Hokusai (who takes the form of an octopus-like creature) docks with her and takes control of her body.
- Sen No Rikyu's third Ascension is chock full of this. For starters, it turns out said ascension is Komahime, a concubine sent for Toyotomi Hidetsugu who was killed despite not ever having met him. She certainly looks the part of a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl, and her attacks consist of choking her foes, playing her biwa which bloodies them, firing lasers from said hands fingertips and flicking them like it's nothing. And when she uses her Noble Phantasm, pay close attention to her sprite's neck:
*she's bleeding profusely from it* and uses the blood to set the stage for the rest of her attack which sometimes gives her Tears of Blood. Fortunately she's a very sweet person, but her animations and story makes her fighting style very nightmarish.
- With the reveal that O.R.T is not from Mercury, but the Oort Cloud, comes some frightening conclusions. First, there are more Types than previously thought. And two, what/who is the real Type Mercury, and more importantly, where is it?
- Sodom's Beast/Draco's summon animation actually puts Summer Kiara's unique summon animation to shame: she doesn't just hijack the summoning card, she hijacks
, shutting down all the power. Then, red power erupts from the summoning circle before a brand new **the entire summoning area** appears. What makes this even more frightening is that the Summoning System was created to oppose Beasts, so the fact that it shuts down **BEAST SUMMONING CARD** *before* Draco arrives at Chaldea just shows how much power she has. First-timers are going to remember this one for a *long time*.
- The companion manga From Lostbelt features a chapter titled A Stray Sheeps Gravestone. A good portion of this story focuses on Beryl, and its here where we actually SEE the infamous incident where Beryl broke into Mashs room, strutting in slowly just long enough for the reader to DREAD whats about to happen, then snaps the poor girls finger. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateGrandOrder |
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Dr. Gonzo with the knife on a bad acid trip. **Duke:** One of the things you learn from years of dealing with drug people is that you can turn your back on a person, but *never* turn your back on a drug—especially when it's waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eye. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas |
Fear (1996) / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
After being confronted by Nicole, Margo drives home, only to be chased by David. He then threatens her to convince Nicole to take her back or else he would hurt her. **David**: You fucking lying fucking whore. Get the fuck outta the car! You lying FUCKING WHORE! What did you say to her? What the FUCK did you say to her? **Margo**: (crying) Nothing. I swear, David. I didn't tell her. I don't know how she knows. **David**: But she knows. Let me tell you something. You better fix it. You better make it right again. Because if you don't, I'm gonna hurt you. (He kisses Margo.) Don't cry. You fucking liked it. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Fear1996 |
Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
In this dystopian world of Fear, Loathing, and Gumbo, there are scenarios that can send a shiver down a reader's spine.
-
**Everything** about the Lesser Mao, ||implied to Mao Yuanxin||:
- Even before he became leader, he was a sadist who watched people being tortured to death and reportedly was fascinated by the sounds of breaking bones. There was also a rumor that he once personally tortured a man to death by breaking all the bones in his body.
- The man was violently more oppressive than Mao Zedong ever was, purging millions in an attempt to root out political opponents. He takes savagery to a whole new level by beheading Hua Guofeng in front of the Great Hall. He also unleashes massive purges on the countryside just to keep sedentary populations in line.
- To maintain his political authority, he holds the increasingly senile and feeble Mao, his own uncle, captive and pumps him with drugs to make him more easily manipulated.
- Like Pol Pot, he murders people for any connection to the outside world, including knowing a foreign language or just for getting the chicken pox. He even makes literacy a crime punishable by death.
- Attempting to worm your way to power through kissing the Lesser Mao's ass could easily backfire, since once you reach the height of power, you could easily be denounced and purged. It gets to a point where mid-level officials make every effort to avoid being promoted, allowing idiots to be promoted in their place.
- The refugees produced by the Lesser Mao are empty shells without even a fear of death. Countless march toward the borders with the Soviet Union and Southeast Asia, despite being gunned down by border guards.
- The dropping of an atomic bomb on Kwangsi to put down a rebellion, which horrifies the entire world, and then parading captive US soldiers in front of TVs as scapegoats. And when George Wallace responds with a nuke on Lop Nur, he goes even crazier, massacring countless soldiers, feeding radioactive sand to imagined opponents, and leaving the poisoned people to rot in public.
- His final months in power, where his drug abuse reduces him to little more than "a screaming monkey", where by this point, being a minister could get you a death sentence.
- America under Rumsfeldia and later, under the Christian States of America.
- Rumsfeld not hesitate to lock up his political opponents in insane asylums where they are then sedated with addictive drugs. Almost half a million people end up there.
- Partly thanks to the Lesser Mao, the war on drugs becomes much more brutal. Governor John Rarick even makes heroin addiction a crime worthy of life imprisonment.
- The implication that Rumsfeld assassinated James Gavin, a former president.
- The Liberty Battalions that adopt the role of cruel paramilitaries, with book-burning, political repression, and murder as major policies. These fanatics even
*kill wounded soldiers* as a means of cutting costs.
- David Pryor being dragged off in the middle of a speech in the Senate against Rumsfeld's economic policies, with only a couple of Senators trying to stop it.
- Not even stalwart conservative Republicans are safe, as George H. W. Bush and Barry Goldwater find out.
- Rumsfeld not only repeals every single environmental regulation, but actively
*encourages* coal pollution, since he believes it will allow for new jobs to be created and that global warming will open up the arctic for colonization. All while people everywhere are dying of heart and lung disease.
- Just the idea that Rumsfeld actually tries to weaponize AIDS.
- The Christian States of America, probably the most oppressive regime in modern American history. They unleash nuclear and chemical weapons, obliterating areas of resistance, including Philadelphia. As of 1990, a second civil war has begun.
- Obliterating a resisting Congress with several missiles, and replacing American monuments with Christian symbols.
- Coe and the CV essentially re-enact all the worst parts of the Spanish Inquisition when persecuting so-called "enemies" of the state, which includes
*crucifixion.*
- Under the rule of people like Magnus Malan and Eugene Terre'Blanche, South Africa has taken its racism to new heights. The Apartheid system now not only discriminates against blacks but
*anyone* who isn't Afrikaner, including other white people. African natives endure massacres almost on the scale of genocide, refugees from the Rhodesian Bush war are placed into concentration camps, and, worst of all, the country frequently and unashamedly uses dirty bombs and chemical weapons against their neighboring enemies, turning huge areas of Southern Africa into irradiated wastelands. And they're protected by President Rumsfeld as "a bastion of freedom."
- It's also been stated in updates written from the perspective of future that this fascist state will eventually collapse, but not before Malan unleashes their
*entire nuclear arsenal* to turn the rest of Africa into glass.
- The Middle East is already a bigger mess than it ever was in our timeline, but the prime example has to go to Israel. As their neighbors destabilize all around them, they begin expanding from their territorial holdings and instate a policy of ethnic cleansing by deporting non-citizens to camps. By 1988, the population of Arabs within Israel's borders has dropped by 75%. Soviet leader Ryzhkov flat out calls it an "Arab Holocaust." And there are heavy implications that this policy will eventually extend to
*all* non-Jews. And they're also protected by Rumsfeld, who calls their fascistic actions "a move to spread democracy and order in an area of the world so often torn by chaos, strife and repression." | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FearLoathingAndGumboOnTheCampaignTrailSeventyTwo |
Fear Factory / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Fear Factory not only has one of their lyrics as the heading quote for the main Nightmare Fuel page, but it's also right in their name. Go ahead and listen to at least half of their catalog. Sweet dreams~!
- "Suffer Age". If the lyrics based upon the murders committed by John Wayne Gacy don't scare you, the ominous guitar riffing at the beginning will.
- "Christploitation" is a good five minutes of the band reminding you that God doesn't exist, the afterlife doesn't exist, and you will become nothing after death. Also, pianos are still
*creepy as all hell.*
- "Controlled Demolition" Takes you right back to 9/11 complete with a 911 call from inside one of the towers.
- The outtros to pretty much all of the closing tracks are pretty unnerving, especially "A Therapy for Pain" and "Final Exit".
- "Slave Labor". The song itself isn't really that scary, save for the synths in the main riff, but the subject matter is about self-immolation, which means burning yourself alive. The chorus actually has the line, "Help me pour this gas on me!". Interpreted by some to be about political activist and performance artist Kathy Change, who did commit suicide by public self-immolation about a decade earlier.
- "Byte Block" also has elements of this. The creepy bridge that leads into the loud scream near the end doesn't help either.
- The samples in "H-K (Hunter-Killer)", specifically the intro and outro: "A WAR AGAINST THE MACHINE-INE-INE-INE-INE-INE—".
- The bonus track "0-0 (Where Evil Dwells)", despite being a cover of the
*Wiseblood* song of the same name, is perhaps one of the most downright disturbing tracks the band has ever released. It takes all the creepiness from the original song and *amplifies it to 11.* Burton's vocals in the first verse start off very gravely and sinister, with his tone slowly increasing as the song progresses, to the point his familiar growling has completely taken over, all whilst bone-chilling synths have begun to creep in and accompany the track. This is followed up with Burton loudly screaming "STAAAAABBB!" at the top of his lungs before the chorus.
- It also doesn't help that during the chorus, Burton is repeatedly screaming "FLESH! FLESH! FLESH!" once again at the top of his lungs.
- The demos for their debut album songs (Concrete does not count) are no slouch either. Take the already creepy songs from that album, downgrade the audio quality heavily, add in some ambience, and the end result is absolutely chilling to listen to. This quote from a Youtuber states it best.
I feel that these old demos really give a coherent audio representation to the name "Fear Factory". So ominous, dark, suffocated, cold and detached, almost inhuman. you can really feel buried inside that early 90s nightmarish lo-fi kind of ambience. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FearFactory |
Fatal Frame III / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The ghosts are only in your dreams... at first. Then they start to invade your home. There's an arm under the bed that drags itself away slowly instead of disappearing like most ghosts, and Needle Women in the mirror, waiting to attack Rei when she's showering.
In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, a pair of legs can be spotted in the space underneath the stairs one night.
The fate of the Tattooed Priestess. She is covered in tattoos to bear the pain of other people and is doomed to sleep, without any happy dreams, because their tattoos bear the pain. And then there are the priestesses that failed. They are skinned alive, their body sent to cross over and the tattooed skin is enshrined and prayed over to prevent the sorrow from spilling out. It gets even worse when a file reveals that the forgotten final step to the ritual requires the crossing over of both the priestess and the tattoos to complete the ritual, which means by keeping the tattoos in the shrine, they're shooting themselves in the foot.
Reika's is worse. Her last memory is seeing her lover being killed in front of her, and that's the only thing she has seen for however long it took for Rei to finally appease her.
If you think these games can't get any darker or depressing, just remember that the very first ghosts you get to fight after getting the Camera Obscura are a mother and her child, both dead from the Tattooed Curse.
The Needle Women. They love to sneak up on you in Viewfinder Mode, and all you can see before they attack you are their needle-filled arms about to wrap themselves around you from behind.
Kyouka Kuze, the Woman Brushing. Creepy on her own, but at one point, she's in the Kimono Room behind a screen. She's not attacking you, so you think, "OK... Guess I can take a picture, right?" The second you do, she'll fade away and reappear right in front of you!
Her appearance alone is disturbing. Anytime she gets too close to you, especially in Viewfinder Mode, you'll get a nice close-up of her pale white face and smeared eye shadow, making her look like a ghostly female version of the Joker.
You turn around your camera to continue the fight with her, trying your best to maintain the focus on your target... And promptly pause the game to recover as you see her making a mad dash for you, frantically flailing her arms. And then she vanishes mid-attack.
The Crawling Woman.
She attacks in a passage so small that only Miku can fit into it. And Rei encounters her later in the attic of Yuu's room. Very unpleasant for anyone with claustrophobia.
To say nothing of the face she pulls when attacking Miku as she crawls under the manor's floor. It can easily give a player nightmares for weeks, seeing her gaping mouth and wide-open eyes, shaking creepily left to right as she strangles you.
Kiriko Asanuma's story in itself is horrible to listen to, as well. She hid inside her closet as two robbers stormed into her home and killed her parents and brother. And then you realize one of her cries is her saying "Let me out!!" in desperation. How long did she got stuck in that closest until she was found?
Stroller Grandma. She's an entirely optional encounter in the main story (although you do receive the Measure Function for your trouble), comes right the hell out of nowhere, and she cannot be stunned by a charged shot. She only has one attack, ramming her stroller onto you as she charges through your body, but it can easily be a One-Hit Kill if you're not careful, even on the lower difficulties.
The story the Ghost List provides for her: she was unable to find peace after her grandchild's death, so she dug their body from the grave and put it in the stroller.
Look inside that thing when she attacks you. You'll see a cluster of human faces.
The story behind her being in that game also counts. Game director Makoto Shibata revealed during an interview the idea came from an incident in his childhood, where he was playing in the ruins of an old manor (the same manor that inspired him to create the Manor of Sleep) and noticed the figure of a woman pushing a stroller appear out of nowhere.
After finally subduing Yoshino, Rei wakes up and Yoshino's ghost is right there and grabbing her arm!
When Kei enters the Chamber of Thorns, ready to properly stake Reika once and for all, he comes into the chamber to see COUNTLESS bodies of priestesses before Reika, and he sees that she had been staked the whole time. And the stakes begin to pull themselves out of Reika's body...
Seeing the countless bodies of the priestesses becomes even worse when you obtain a file that reveals that there was a final part of the ritual that needed to be performed but was forgotten to time, namely, the crossing of the priestess and the grief-filled tattoos to the other side in order to keep the Rift closed. They've been doing the ritualwrongthe whole time. Just how much of the built up sorrow has been festering in the Kuze shrine?!
Not to mention the creepy and unnatural way Reika gets up when Rei confronts her.
The fact that the majority of the third game takes place in a dream. Imagine going through the death of a loved one and feeling guilty, then having dreams of a snow-covered, haunted mansion that traps you within it if you follow your loved ones further in.
The fact that Yoshino was surrounded by the corpses of her loved ones for several days, unable to move, before she was found and rescued.
The descriptions of the house ghosts back in the waking world.
Have you looked under your desk recently? Maybe you should check more often.
There's a closet you can walk into for an item, but when you turn around, the exit locks and faces and hand prints appear on the walls. Disturbing, horrible moaning starts up... then suddenly stops and you can leave again. Just like the small storage closet in the previous game, it's simply there to freak you out.
The concept of the Handmaidens. They are the ones who are supposed to impale her with stakes. And all of them are prepubescent. If that isn't creepy enough, one of the maiden's diaries has her talk about her duty and look fowardto it.
in the Manor of Dreams, sometimes you can find human-shaped stains. One of the articles Miku gives to Rei talks about the human-shaped stains in the Kukai Temple, which were revealed to be from mummies sealed in the walls. While the Kukai Temple insisted they were the bodies of saints, other people claimed they were killed for sacrifices. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FatalFrameIII |
Fear Street / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Hell, Sheila's torment of Ziggy is terrifying for anyone who's ever experienced bullying. All she did was steal $10 and she's chased into the woods, hit in the face by Will and strung up at the Hanging Tree. Sheila then burns her arm, possibly fully intending to set her on fire. When appealing to Kurt, Ziggy interprets it as such.
"
*I'm* out? They just tried to *murder* me!" | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FearStreet |
Fate Denied / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Fate Denied may be about kicking destiny in the balls, but the author doesn't shy away from depicting just what kind of horrors exist in the Star Wars galaxy.
- The Battle of Tund features exactly the kind of horrors you'd expect when fighting an ancient Sith Lord who specializes in sorcery. Mass mind-control of the local Toong population is just the start; Yoda has to spend the entire battle in orbit to defend the Republic forces against psychic attacks that will make them turn on each other, and Graush eventually unleashes what is essentially the bastard hybrid of a Sith Leviathan and a Yrthak that
*eats souls* on his enemies.
- Interlude 29: We get to watch Palpatine Mind Rape poor Finis Valorum into accepting the usage of clones in the Republic Judicial Forces from the latter's perspective and it is absolutely terrifying how the poor Chancellor goes from vehemently opposed to something he rightly considers a crime against civilization to reluctantly supporting it, without even the slightest idea of what the Sith just did to him.
- Viera's mission to Nar Shaddaa drives home just how much suffering happens because of the Hutt Kadijics. Every form of vice and cruelty can be found there for the right price, people are exhibited in slave auction houses as though they were livestock, and neither the Republic nor the Jedi Order is willing to stop them for fear of how much devastation the resulting war would cause.
- The Sarlacc on Dathomir. Anyone who's read the pertinent background material knows what they do to their prey, and Bruck gets to see it up close and personal by
**diving into the beast's gullet**. He gets out and saves several Republic soldiers in the process, but the Nightsister who was in there controlling the Sarlacc wasn't so lucky.
- Vexxtal, an Iron Knight of Dweem turned into a Force Wound by a horrible accident with Rakatan Force-powered technology. Absolutely everything about him is steeped in pure, high-octane nightmare fuel. Driven completely insane by the constant suffering of his existence, he seeks to end his pain by the extermination of all organic life, and through them the Force itself.
- He creates a computer virus that commands any droid infected, upon detecting a specific activation signal, to kill all organics. And he successfully inserts it into every droid on the planet with no one the wiser; not "some", not "most", All of Them. Everything from security and cleaning droids to astromechs and protocol droids to
**surgical and teaching droids** go from docile and helpful to relentlessly murderous once he broadcasts the signal, and no one catches on until he begins what quickly becomes known as "The Butchering of Coruscant". By the time it ends, the death toll stands at well over **one trillion sentient beings**.
- As a final act of spite when Yoda, Windu, Fay, and Sidious manage to finally corner and cripple him, Vexxtal releases a vial of nanogene spores, which would be bad enough on a City Planet like Coruscant with so many places for it to lay dormant and turn unwitting passersby into technobeasts, but Vexxtal does it in the single worst place imaginable: a hub for Galactic City's planet-wide ventilation system. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateDenied |
Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
*Mask of the Lunar Eclipse* is widely considered to be the most terrifying game in the series, and for *very* good reason.
Head here for the general
*Fatal Frame* Nightmare Fuel page.
- The ghosts in general are significantly scarier than the previous games, combining a Nightmare Face alongside much more aggressive attack patterns.
- The song that plays in the infirmary is highly unpleasant to listen to, being a very loud, blaring, and almost cacophonic melody, and the characters actively note how awful it sounds.
- Madoka's death and transformation into a hostile spirit. After being ditched by Misaki, Madoka desperately tries to find her, and picks up the Camera Obscura to fight off a ghost. After she defeats the ghost however, she's suddenly locked in the room with
*more* ghosts surrounding her. All Madoka can do is cower in sheer terror, and the screen cuts to black before anything happens. Once Ruka finds Madoka, she's become a malevolent ghost who immediately attacks Ruka.
- Almost EVERYTHING about Ayako.
- Possibly driven insane by the Moonlight Syndrome, she is a cruel and psychopathic brat who does all sorts of evil, including but not limited to pushing people down the stairs, cutting the nurses with scissors, dragging one of them by the hair, and cutting off the head of a canary.
- Her room has an eerie yellow glow to it, doll parts hanging from the ceiling and getting in your way, with eerie whispering and laughing in the background. She makes her presence known by dropping down on Misaki and attacking her, and later does the same thing to Ruka and Choushiro when they enter her room.
- The worst part is that due to being closely connected to the Haibaras, being the daughter of Yo and Sakuya Haibara, the staff can't actively raise a hand to stop her, and as shown in his notes, Yo actively
*enables* her behavior and muses on how she likes to play with beautiful things.
- The Moonlight Syndrome in general, a debilitating mental disease native to Rogetsu Isle. Among the many symptoms include memory loss, sleepwalking, and the worst symptom being Blossoming: no longer recognizing one's own face or seeing it as blurry and distorted. And if a patient sees the face of another patient's Blossomed face, their own condition outright worsens and Blossoms on the spot.
- Even after death from the Moonlight Syndrome, the victim's corpse continues to Blossom and serve as a vector of transmission, which must be stopped by
*cutting their face off.* A hidden ghost picture you can take actively *shows* you a corpse's face being cut off, in all of its gruesome detail.
- While searching for Director Haibara's assistant, Choushiro ends up being startled by Dr. Katagiri himself, popping up on the screen completely out of nowhere.
- When Choushiro enters Yuko Magaki's room, he trips over something in the rather messy room. Turns out that it's Magaki's ghost himself, crawling on the floor and grabbing Choushiro's leg.
- Some of the experimental treatments performed by Director Haibara in an attempt to cure Moonlight Syndrome are downright
*ghastly*.
- Asagi Hizuki, a
*6 year-old girl,* was repeatedly operated on despite her protests, which only served to worsen her condition in a very awful way, causing her hair to fall out, making her cry Tears of Blood and see nothing but red, and rapidly deteriorating her sanity until she died.
- Himiko Kiriya and Yuuzo Takemura had a straight up
*medieval* iron apparatus forced onto their heads, which ultimately did nothing but speed up their Blossoming and kill them quickly. Yuuzo suffers even more past his death, where his corpse was cut up into pieces in another futile attempt to study the Syndrome.
- Kyoko Kitazume was hanged upside down in a torture room and ended up Blossoming to death during the Day of Tranquility while still hanging upside down.
- Part of the process of preparing the titular Mask of the Lunar Eclipse requires that a face removed from a non-infected deceased be placed inside of it and have moonlight shine upon it all night, before peeling it off and letting the mask tan.
*Gross!*
- Some of the music in the game is just plain creepy. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FatalFrameMaskOfTheLunarEclipse |
Fellowship / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
*Fellowship* has some very gruesome moments. Because this is still an on-going series, only a few will be listed here.
- In chapter 12, Genie shows that she is able to manipulate air and turn her left hand into a chainsaw. The scary thing? Genie catches Guile off-guard in the battle, and she
*drives the chainsaw into Guile's chest and slowly drags it down to his abdomen*. Guile happens to suffer this three times (with the third time being less graphic in terms of descriptions).
- What makes it worse is that Genie resorts to attacking and eventually stomping the gashes.
- It's also very chilling when Genie says, "Let's see how much more you can take." When she says that, she is crushing Guile's injured chest under her foot and preparing to cast that chainsaw spell at the same time. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Fellowship |
Feel the Magic / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
I Would Die For You...
...
...wait;
*die*??
- The warning intro in both games due to the ominous sound effect used.
- The Blank artstyle used can sometimes be uncanny, even more so if you've watched Revolutionary Girl Utena.
- The Nightmare Gas. When the Hero and the Rub Rabbits make it into the fat punk's factory, they end up being hit with Nightmare Gas that causes them to hallucinate. In the hero's case, he ends up hallucinating an army of bulls, a motorway full of cars and a giant robot car and finally a giant plant with sharp teeth. All of which have distorted visuals and neon colours which make it clear that the whole thing feels off.
- The CPR sequence after the final boss is rather grim. During the rule explanation, the music is different to signify the seriousness of the situation and the game itself pits you against a time limit to save the girlfriend's life. Worse still, you occasionally have to deal with Death who rapidly drains her life. Take too long and the girlfriend's health will
*rapidly drop* and you fail the level.
- "Camera" has the hero unicycle over the railings between two buildings. You can accidentally let him
*fall*.
- "Boat" has the hero row against a creek while lots of crocodiles chomping in his direction.
- "Dip" has the hero try to distract piranhas and electric eels away from his bathing girlfriend.
- "Dive" has the girlfriend trapped underwater. The hero has to rescue her before she runs out of oxygen, but he has to dodge more piranhas on the way.
- "Slap" has about everyone in danger of dying from the cold from falling asleep. That means that the hero has to slap all
*eleven* of them awake *all night*. If you fail, you might see the victim die right in front of you!
- Really, the many things that the genius girl does in pursuit of the hero is terrifying.
- She kidnaps the hero's friends and forcibly hypnotized them through Electric Torture.
- She kidnaps the hero himself, leaving him Bound and Gagged... several times.
- Her attempts at flirting are aggressive and even violent, including shooting from love cannons and throwing a barrage of love potions.
- She throws a lot of violent robots at the hero.
- Finally, she shoots a poison at the girlfriend that not only erases her memories with the hero but is implied to kill the girlfriend after her memories are gone. Worse, the genius girl takes away a rose that is the only known cure. Though the petals fall in the wind, they end up deeply hidden on a bed of rose petals.
- "Another Story" has the genius girl build a robot replica of the hero, which is already creepy. However, at the end of the story, she finds the hero in her radar and goes off in pursuit of him. Let us hope that "Another Story" takes place
*during*, not *after*, the main story... | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FeelTheMagic |
Fate/Apocrypha / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
"Why" indeed.
**Spoilers Off applies to all Nightmare Fuel pages, so all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!**
Fate/Apocrypha had averted most of the Nightmare Fuel from the
*Fate/stay night*.... but offers a flavor of Nightmare Fuel on its own.
- How does it feel like to be Impaled with Extreme Prejudice? Well, thanks to Mage Association's order, we get to first-hand witness of 49 elite mages already impaled by Kazıklı Bey, visibly alive and twitching while barely able to scream. And now you know why Vlad III is notoriously known by the epithet "Vlad the Impaler".
- Spartacus, A.K.A. Berserker of Red, isn't just creepy, he's absolutely insane. He's a giant of a man dressed in a Stripperific fashion, and he always has a Slasher Smile, especially when the thought of killing "oppressors" crosses his mind. In fact that's the only thing on his mind. As a Berserker, he naturally has Mad Enhancement giving him a boost, but it does little to hinder his ability to talk coherently, and that's the most unnerving thing about him. If he thinks you're an oppressor, he won't stop until he gleefully kills you.
- His Noble Phantasm, Crying Warmonger, makes him become more powerful the more he gets injured. Eventually, all that power makes him mutate into a hideous blob with multiple heads.
- Jack the Ripper, despite being incarnated as a young girl, is no less brutal in her murdering of her victims. Post-mortem autopsies on her victims revealed that they were gruesomely cut into pieces and had their hearts gouged out. By the next episode, Reika offered a mage's heart as a dish.
- We get to see the wonderful sight of Jack gleefully torturing a poor guy to the point of begging her to kill him. She wanted info on how to get past the castle's security, and gave that guy hell right before ripping his heart out. This is probably how she killed most of her victims.
- Her invasion of the castle is pretty terrifying. The mist blanketing the area doesn't just conceal her presence, it also emits an acidic effect that will kill anyone who breathes it in. We get a Paranoia Fuel sequence of Fiore scrambling towards her office as fast as she can in her wheelchair, knowing that the Assassin could already be onto her or even worse, already in her room. She's only saved in the nick of time by Chiron blasting her out of the window with a blunt arrow right before Jack was about to carve her up like a fish.
- Despite encountering her before, Chiron and Fiore realize that they can't remember what she looks like or what her abilities were. That means Jack has a unique ability that erases all traces of her true identity, abilities, and even appearance. Right after she leaves the castle, Sieg and Fiore, the only ones who saw her that day, can't remember what she was like.
- When Reika dies after saving her from Atalanta's arrows, she shoots Jack again and assume she's dead... until Jack gets back up
*while pulling an Exorcist Head move before her body explodes the fog from her body*. Her death stare with glowing red eyes says it all.
- The illusion that Jack conjures after exploding into mist is truly horrifying, both for what the characters see and what it represents.
- The Wretched Hive of Victorian London slums are a dark, grimy and dirty place filled with poisonous smoke and awful people.
- Creepy, gloomy and mistreated children appear out of nowhere to zerg rush those caught in the illusion. The kicker is that this Hive Mind knows exactly how to Mind Rape you. Atlanta is confronted by children seeking aid and is driven Ax-Crazy because she can't refuse them. Sieg is forced to confront the ugliness in human nature, starting with his failed attempt to rescue a little girl who looks suspiciously like a young Jeanne; he drives off the person assaulting her only for her to run in fear of
*him* as well and is quickly run over by a carriage and then tossed into a river.
- Sieg has a conversation with the dead Reika, who breaking speeches him and then suddenly becomes a slashed up corpse. It is as though Jack has become a Dimension Lord and created a Psychological Torment Zone.
- For a Servant or any Heroic Spirit who has a shred of nobility or innocence in their mind... getting summoned by Celenike Icecolle Yggdmillennia
*will* count as this. First of all, it doesn't matter who you are, but she will treat you as an utter slave and once in a day, you get taken to her private dungeon to be lecherously licked. Go against her orders and she will put you through torture devices and torture you until she's satisfied. If you claim your morals, she will balk that you are just a copy of the original spirit, thus not at all heroic and will be nothing more than a Servant that must always obey her... and she will use her Command Spells, no matter how inefficient, just to make sure you violate your code of justice and just to see your virtuous image and self-esteem sink into despair for her own pleasure. This woman is bar none one of the worst Masters that a Servant could have. Astolfo was lucky that Mordred beheaded Celenike before things could get any worse and that Sieg was around to make him his new Master... that's right, just when you thought someone killing said Master would free you from slavery, you'll be destined to DIE unless you got a new potential Master ready to make a contract.
- Avicebron (Caster of Black) wants to recreate Paradise with his Golem. Well, that sounds jolly... except to complete the Golem, he needs someone that has been very close to him, and that happens to be his own Master and pupil, Roche, who gets thrown into the core of that Golem, screaming and calling out Avicebron on his actions as the Golem absorbed him. The Golem itself is a gigantic abomination that could give Spartacus a run for his money and any man-like creature (real men or homunculus) it touched will be forcibly absorbed to him. And the more it fights, the more it gets more powerful from strength, toughness to agility, to the point that unless it's taken down in a swift moment, that kind of monster would be completely invincible and nothing would stop it to recreate the world into a Paradise without humans.
- Episode 18 is this AND tearjerker. It is also the beginning of a downward spiral of the usually calm and collected Atalanta that continued in further episodes. After witnessing Jack being purified, which brought her back memories about her being abandoned as a child, she slowly slips into madness, first constantly ranting against Jeanne with Berserker Tears on and constantly putting bulged out eyes because of it. The sight of Jeanne became her Berserk Button that she became fixated in killing Jeanne to avenge the children and refused cooperation with her allies that even Achilles, who would usually try to befriend her casually, became unnerved at her, and afterwards she became some sort of Screaming Warrior that screams
**"RULEEERRR!!!"** angrily whenever Jeanne is around. This eventually culminates into her discarding her heroic side to activate her forbidden Noble Phantasm, Agrius Metamorphosis, that turned her into an extremely feral Berserker-like beast just for a chance to kill Jeanne and exact vengeance. To witness Atalanta's slow transformation into a raging beast can be rather terrifying.
- It's not given a name in Fate/Apocrypha, but Fate/Grand Order outright calls this form "Atalanta
**Alter**."
- The extent of Shakespeare's abilities is downright nightmarish. This guy has a kicker for 'tragic' stories without regards of what his designated actors would feel and his answer for that, AKA his Noble Phantasm, First Folio? Mind Rape his victims with a 'theatrical play' where someone from the actor's mind was acting
*really* out of character just to break their spirit. We only saw early tidbits of it when he inflicted that to Frankenstein, enough that she freaked out and had to be restrained with a Command Spell, but the full effect is when he did that on Jeanne, when it caused Jeanne to witness the noble version of Gilles de Rais not only bring a severed head of Sieg, his face also transforms into his evil Caster version from *Fate/Zero*, complete with bulging fish eyes. Shakespeare is *definitely* not the guy you want for telling children bedtime stories!
- Semiramis, being an Ur-Example of poisoners, is a definitive nightmare to fight against when she's at her lair in Hanging Gardens. She can change
*anything* to contain any kinds of poison/venom that she wanted just to break you apart inside out without her touching you. If that wasn't enough, she could also summon legendary venomous beasts to strike on you on top of all those. Dying due to poison/venom overdose is horrifying, and *Semiramis can do just that with a snap of a finger.* | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateApocrypha |
Fate of the Jedi / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- Sinkhole Station. Located between two black holes, it's a ghost station full of dead bodies, failing systems, and a cult of beings that are
*happily* dying slowly so that they can become 'one with the Force'.
- The Mind Walkers.
- Abeloth herself.
- Force Psychosis. ||If Ben's nightmare involving him going insane because of it is true, this will only get worse.||
- Never step into the Lake of Apparitions unless you want to end your life in the Depths of Eternity.
- Drinking from or getting submerged in the Pool of Knowledge will turn you into an Eldritch Abomination.
- The drochs, bugs that cause the Death Seed plague. They burrow into your flesh and slowly eat you alive from within, and once they infect you, they're
*completely undetectable*.
- Raynar Thul's return to the Killiks. This is essentially his nightmare, as everything that was Raynar Thul was subsumed by the Killiks into Unu Thul. Given how long it took him to recover from his last stay with the Killiks, this is probably one of his greatest fears. Sure, Luke sends a group of Jedi after him not long after, but every moment in their link is probably the worst thing that could happen to Raynar. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateOfTheJedi |
Fiend Folio / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
In the world of Black Comedy that
*is* Isaac's basement, there remains figures within it that are darker than most...
Cacophobia (added in a post-release patch for Reheated) stands out like a sore thumb as an honest-to-goodness horror monster. It's telling that the developers remarked upon possibly adding an option in the settings
*just*
to make Cacophobia a bit less jarring for players. To recap what the heck this thing even
*does*
, as it's quite a lot to take in:
- In the first place, Cacophobia is a semi-rare boss only appearing in Scarred Womb, and its stand-in, Venus, seems totally inert at first before it smash cuts the screen to black... and begins teleporting Isaac through a series of chambers with a full replacement of the soundtrack with a droning hum, eye turrets for walls, always peering at him (and chucking Bullet Hell at him).
- All the while, Venus remains motionless, until she starts morphing between cuts and begins to show a truly gruesome form beneath her shell, appearing in various mutilated forms, with these forms including ones with her head ripped off or crushed, her body cut in half (horizontally, vertically, or while hung up), her jaw broken, with all four of her limbs missing, and completely crushed. Even more baffling is that Venus herself never attacks or even moves, even in its morphing state.
- Defeating it sends you to a strange, grassy field with red vegetation before the game unceremoniously sends you to the boss room, item in tow
note : and possibly a Devil/Angel room, with no elaboration as to what happened. It somehow adds *more* questions than it answers.
While Fiend Folio is no stranger to terrifying monsters, The Womb levels have plenty of them, especially in the Scarred Womb and Corpse:
- The Nuchal is a small fetus wrapped in an umbilical cord that, when it takes enough damage, detaches and chases you on foot very quickly, taking on a Nightmare Face and letting out a very unnerving screech.
- The Incisor is a floating Fistuloid-like spider that rips out chunks of the ground using a tube like mouth, spawning Leper Flesh.
- A Mulligan variant called the Facade acts like a normal mulligan at first, even looking a little Ugly Cute, until Isaac damages it and the top of its head splits open and reveals a bloody jaw as it chases Isaac relentlessly.
- Picture this, you're in the Scarred Womb and you enter a new room and find a seemingly normal Fatty, and it... wait, why isn't it doing anythi- OH MY GOD IT JUST ATE ITS OWN HEAD! That thing is the Starving, a Fatty that eats its own head at the start of the room with a Belly Mouth.
- Added in the 2.7 update, we get the Nailhead and Contestant, which weaponize Body Horror liberally.
- The Nailhead is a Frowning Gaper variant whose head is covered in nails, they act normal until they get close to Isaac, which causes their heads explode, scattering nails all over the ground, and also revealing their exposed brains. Ouch...
- The Contestant on the other hand, also initally act normal, some of them having giant screws lodged in their heads. The Screw-faced ones can lauch their screws as an attack, which causes their heads to cave in. But they don't necessarily aim at Isaac, they aim at
**Other Contestants**, Yes, you read that right, they are perfectly fine with brutally injuring each other in order to kill you.
- Meanwhile, in the Corpse, we have Lurkers, which are giant masses of black flesh covered in eyes, mouths, and teeth. They fill in pits in some rooms, using various arrangements, and sometimes connecting to each other with bands of stretched flesh.
- Also in the Corpse, there's a chance of fighting Whales, arguably the scariest non-boss enemy in the game rivaled only by the Sleeper. It's bad enough they are rotting corpses, but not only are they among the tankiest normal enemies in the game, but they have an attack where their bellies will rupture and spews out their digestive tract! These guts will then start to shoot waving acidic tears in a triangle shaped range while the whale corpse still try to home in on you. Destroying it first will cause the whale to collapse and its head to rupture, releasing maggots in a disgusting manner. They are proof that sometimes, it's the most realistic enemies that are the scariest.
- Even worse, their old designs dipped straight into the Uncanny Valley, with them resembling huge humanlike corpses with gaping toothless maws and pus filled stomachs.
- A enemy first encountered in the Depths, the Sleeper provides the page image, and for a DAMN good reason. At first, they are a seemingly benign ghost that just floats mostly in place... until it is hit. Upon being attacked, the spectre morphs into a nightmarish figure with tiny, wild eyes, a Cheshire Cat Grin (that hides a mouth within it), and long, thin arms ending in claws, with its transformation being finished with a hellish screech. After this, it stalks the player as a border of static surrounds them. After hitting Isaac, the figure screeches once more before departing, coating the area in darkness as it does for a few seconds. Doesn't help that the Sleeper is often placed in areas as traps, pressuring the player as they complete puzzles or defeat other enemies in the rooms it's in, creating a very tense situation.
- While Meltdown itself isn't particularly scary, its defeat animation stands out as surprisingly gruesome, having the boss emit a wail not unlike a shutting-down machine as its jaw falls to the floor due to the radiation it spreads.
- Another enemy found in the Depths, the Blare is a seemingly normal variant of the Horf that merely shoots blood at the player... until it suddenly sprouts a spider-like, fleshy body to chase down the player should they get too close.
- While it is generally not threatening, the sudden appearance of the Nightmare Face-having Looksee behind structures, with its red eyes and seemingly blood-stained teeth locked in a Slasher Smile, can be unsettling for some players.
- Depending on who you ask, Mag Gapers can be quite scary, as they chase you down very quickly, breaking rocks in their path, all while having an unchanging large grin on their face. The fact that, as of the Spitshine Update, they can appear in Mausoleum using a unique pale skin (along with Horfs and Clotties) does not help.
- While the Mausoleum isn't the most welcoming level in the game, at least you don't have to worry about any unwelcome guests after clearing a room, right? Well, if you are playing the game after Version 2.7, your solitude will be unfortunately interrupted. Emerging from a hole in the floor, the Temptress enemy is a ghoulish, worm-like being with fleshy slits where its eyes would be, a permanent grin, and plenty of homicidal intent. After appearing, the Temptress chases Isaac across the room at an increasingly fast pace, only stopping to slam its fists into the floor or shoot rings of blood. It doesn't even lay down and die upon being defeated, as its head explodes for a final attack. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FiendFolio |
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Head here for the general
*Fatal Frame* Nightmare Fuel page.
-
*Maiden of Black Water* ramped up the Body Horror and Gorn of the series. Most of the shrine maidens you meet have had their eyes slashed out, and one ghost has glass shards stuck in his back after he hung himself and crashed into the window below. Fuyuhi Himino was also forced to cut her own throat.
- During the first flashback of the Looming Man killing the shrine maidens, there's a lovely close-up of one of the shrine maidens, whose mouth was sliced open on one side and a large wound around her eye.
- Just the fact that, if you aren't careful on the mountain, the ghosts will force you to reenact their suicide.
- The box carriers, especially because of their rotting bodies and creepy masks.
- How about combining the "ghosts will force you to reenact their suicide" premise above with the Electromagnetic Ghosts theme that's been present throughout the series? One ghost came about precisely because of this: He was an ordinary man driving near a tunnel on the mountain, when a ghost dropped onto his car that caused it to crash. He crawled away, only for the car he left behind to become possessed and run
*him* over.
- After defeating Fuyuhi Himino, the player is treated to a flashback of her death. She tried to resist the spirit's influence, but was distracted for a second by what looked like her friend and slipped. All you see is blood pouring onto her shoes, but it's enough.
- Big Bad Ouse Kurosawa, who looks like a drowned woman, and the other many victims of the Yomi, who have the black water streaming from their eyes like tears.
- Tall Woman. A gigantic, freakishly thin woman with creepily elongated arms and a perpetual Slasher Smile. And there is
*no* information on how or why she came to the mountain or even what she actually is. She is based off of the Japanese creepypasta of the Eight-Feet-Tall Lady.
- Another scary characteristic of her is the things she says. Things like "You'd better get used to me." Meaning that, unlike the other ghosts who simply react to you, she is legitimately malevolent and is
*actively stalking you*.
- Finally, given her complete connection to the mountain, the only explanation is that
*she is the actual Eight-Feet-Tall Lady.*
- Watching Kazuya Sakaki body being distorted and twisted after being rejected for a potential groom by Ouse is very disturbing. It is basically the fate of all potential grooms that decide to reject their bride or the bride decides to reject them. Not only that the rejected grooms are buried in ummarked graves unmourned, basically becoming an Unperson.
- The final battle. In Phase 1, it has Ouze and dozens of sacrificed mikos in an eternal, from sunset dyed orange water setting.
*Everyone* is a potential enemy and if the player isn't careful, then they can be tackled from all sides. At one point it then switches to Phase 2 which is now above-water, with Ouse trying to pull Yuuri into her coffin, if the player gets hit and the mikos unexpectedly coming up from the water without warning.
- Hostile ghosts in this game invade
*your own residence* (in scripted cut-scenes and Drops, but still), and, unlike *Fatal Frame III* where their appearances only serve to spook you, they can either **kill** you outright should you fail to fend them off or take you back to the mountain to have you Killed Off for Real there, the latter of which is the fate befalling Haruka and that Yuri and Rui nearly suffer, as they are both spirited away from the house at one point, requiring Miu and Ren, respectively, to rescue them.
- Speaking of fighting hostile spirits, those with claustrophobia will LOVE the
**mandatory** battles against them in enclosed rooms. Trying to get out of the rooms in question is not guaranteed to work, either, as the doors out of the rooms may be forced shut while the battles are ongoing. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FatalFrameVMaidenOfBlackWater |
Fate: The Winx Saga / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
When word came out that a live-action adaptation of
*Winx Club*, that 2000s Italian cartoon about fairies from 4Kids and Nickelodeon was being made, people probably didn't think it was going to be like . **THIS!**
- The very first scene of
*Fate: The Winx Saga* has a sheep and his shepherd being torn apart by a Burned One. They even show the blood spilling.
- Similarly, the first season ends with ||Farah Dowling dying via Neck Snap from Rosalind.|| | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateTheWinxSaga |
Fate/Grand Order - Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
*All* spoilers on this page are left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
- Episode 1:
- A minor point especially compared to everything else coming, but the fact that Fujimaru and Mash's first encounter with the Demonic Beasts are shown to be Bloodier and Gorier compared to what viewers (likely long-time
*Fate/Grand Order* players) are used to, shows how brutal in fact, your fights tend to be. On a Fridge Brilliance note, it also explains how it is possible for you to extract materials/body parts out of them.
- Episode 3:
- A proper horror appears in The Stinger of this episode, where it seems a number of Uruk's warriors have been captured and sacrificed to "Tiamat"/Gorgon. One is shown being bisected as they are being eaten.
- Episode 4:
- The opening of the episode is a Call-Back to the denouement of the London Singularity: Solomon wiping out the team of Servants you were fighting with at the time. It's unsettling to see all those featured (Kintoki, Tamamo-no-Mae, Andersen and especially Mordred—all powerful Servants in-lore and in-game), fall defeated and/or dead without resistance.
- The seemingly-pacific town of Ur is implied to have been forced to engage in Human Sacrifice (especially of its battle-ready men) to appease the "forest goddess" that took over them—later revealed to be the goofy-yet-lethal Jaguarman. While Jaguarman claims she only engages them in forced labor, the fact that this is just a step away from what "Tiamat"/Gorgon has been shown doing doesn't exactly give confidence.
- Episode 6
- A large part of the episode involves Fujimaru & co. going to the town of Kuth, where everybody who lived there died sleep-like deaths. Right after they arrived, everything was very eerie, but when they decide to split up it gets much worse. Not long after splitting, Fujimaru and Fou suddenly find themselves in a dark cave, followed by them running into the spirits of the dead, revealing that they went to the underworld. The spirits try to strangle Fujimaru to death so that he joins them forever, only stopped by a combination Fou shouting at them and the old man they met in Uruk sending them away.
- After that whole ordeal, plus a chance encounter with Ishtar, the group decides to wait until nightfall. This turns out to be a bad idea, as the souls of the dead come back to life to try and claim their lives in the land of the living. Due to none of them being good for dealing with a horde of undead, they only escape thanks to the whims of Ishtar (Actually Ereshkigal)
- Episode 7
- When Ushiwakamaru attacks a Demonic Beast, she kills it with a Slasher Smile.
- The Fake Enkidu reveals to Gilgamesh's men that the Demonic Beasts are made of people and attempts to kill Ana (and still defeats her despite Merlin's help and one-shot an Ungallu). She would be dead if it weren't for Merlin ordering Fou to teleport her.
- Gorgon's debut in a nutshell.
- Episode 8
- The scene of Ushiwakamaru being held captive in the Bloodfort. The entire chamber looks like it's made out of flesh, and there are pods lining the walls. As Kingu speaks, several of the pods open, each birthing an Uridimmu. Furthermore, when Ushiwakamaru says something to Kingu that he doesn't like, Kingu shoves his hand into her stomach, drawing blood and putting her through pain for the rest of the scene.
- The way some of Ushiwakamaru's clones go out is rather graphic. Special mention goes to one that is heavily implied to have been torn apart by 5 snake heads.
- Episode 10: Quetzalcoatl's Game Face which is even more frightening than in the game since besides her razor sharp teeth and narrowed eyes, purple mist seems to exit her mouth each time she makes the face.
- Episode 12: When Ishtar talks about the last time she went to Kur, we see her as a black outline behind a red background as seven spears pierce her.
- Episode 14: When Fujimaru and his Servants enter the Bloodfort. Merlin warns everyone it won't be a pretty sight, Mash witnesses a human silhouette in one of the cocoons trying to reach out... YIKES. Ishtar herself is properly horrified, even though she only darkly notes Gorgon has to die for this.
- Episode 15 : The Lahmu, full stop. Everything about them is creepy, from their design, to their movements, to their voices. Not helping matters is their utter sadism toward humans. They wantonly murder, are perfectly willing to hunt down children, and force humans to fight each other to the death for no reason other than their own amusement. Oh, and then they murder the winner anyway. And their laughter. Dear
*God,* their laughter is *horrifying*.
- It's worse when one of the Lahmu that Fujimaru and the group encounter is all but said to be
*Siduri.* What kind of hell did she have to go through to be turned into **that**?
- Episode 17: The sheer
*size* of Tiamat's true form is enough to render Fujimaru and the Servants utterly *speechless* in mind-breaking terror once it decides to actually appear in person. All rendered in CGI just to further empathize how *eldritch* its entire existence is compared to the rest of reality.
- Episode 18: Despite truly herculean efforts from Quetzalcoatl and her kick that
**killed the dinosaurs** Tiamat was still able to walk away from it with naught but a crack on her horn. Not only that Word of God says that she is still holding back her full strength meaning she could have easily blocked the attack.
- Episode 19: Tiamat's regression to her form from the Jurassic Period takes the Eldritch Abomination aspects of her previous Titan form and turns them up to eleven. She reverts to a quadrupedal form, wings sprout out of her back, and she takes on numerous draconic aspects. However, she maintains certain humanoid aspects, such as her chest and face (though the latter comes with a jaw that both contains More Teeth than the Osmond Family
*and* runs all the way down to her *throat*). On top of all that, she's *even bigger* than her previous form. Lastly, she's rendered entirely in CG, which helps drive home just how *horrifying* she is. And the first thing she does is unleash a powerful wave of the Chaos Tide that threatens to envelop the entire underworld. Even Ereshkigal, who holds authority over everything within the underworld, is too weak to stop her. When Merlin says that Fujimaru has never faced anything like her before, he's absolutely right.
- Episode 20: Ally or not, seeing the First Hassan taking bites from the Bel Lahmu after being too injured to use his sword was incredibly disturbing.
- What drives the Mook Horror Show home is the execution: the Bel Lahmu stabs Hassan, who doesn't flinch and clinically assesses the situation... The cackling Bel Lahmu stops laughing before a sliver of doubt passes its mouth... while Hassan removes his veil, blue flames coming from where his mouth should be... his shadow looming over the Bel Lahmu going Oh, Crap!. Cue biting noises. Now you wonder WHO the real inhuman monster is. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateGrandOrderAbsoluteDemonicFrontBabylonia |
Fighting Fantasy / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- A lot of the illustrations swung this way, considering they more often than not depict the many, many monsters of all sorts out to kill you and feast on your flesh, if not worse.
- Of particular note is
*Beneath Nightmare Castle*, which also had some genuinely disturbing monsters, and a scene in which the player has to slaughter a gang of children armed with knives. Many of the deaths the player can suffer also come under this trope. *Beneath Nightmare Castle* was notable in that they couldn't print one of the illustrations drawn for the book — namely, that of a woman with tentacles emerging from her mouth — because it was deemed too disturbing for children. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FightingFantasy |
Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
## All spoilers are unmarked.
That mass of flesh used to be a
*teenager.*
- We never get to see it in action but apparently there are barriers that could turn humans inside out so that servants could absorb their mana.
- Rider's death. Although we don't see it in person, we see the aftermath. Apparently Souichirou had Caster enhance his strength enough that he was able to break Rider's neck and twist her head around
*720 degrees*.
- Illyasviel's flashback: her "mother" appears to her as an amorphous gelatinous and bloody
*thing*, and begins to torture her mentally. Then you notice that blood is spilling everywhere in the room, and it only gets creepier.
- The death of Illyasviel during the second season: after finally disposing of Berserker, Gilgamesh nonchalantly slashes her eyes, making her blind, then stabs her. Shiro is powerless and can only watch, mad with grief and horror, all the while being restrained by Tohsaka, as the poor girl is being tortured, unable to do a single thing to save her. She dies next to her servant, in a pool of her own blood, after having lost everything and everyone.
- Berserker himself is a walking Nightmare Fuel. No matter how many times he is gruesomely impaled by Gilgamesh, he comes back from the dead to fight again, until his Noble Phantasm can't keep up. And then he inexplicably revives himself a 13th time. Even Gilgamesh didn't see that coming.
- Shirou is a case of Nightmare Fuel—not because he is inherently terrifying, but because of what his mind is like due to how twisted he is. He gets stabbed and doesn't even look at the wound, and he offers his entire arm up to save Fujimura without a second thought. Rin gets more horrified by how he thinks all the time. When he explains why he would leap in to save Illya when there was a 100% chance of him failing and dying along with her, the expression on his face is horrifying. It's subtle, but he simply does not look sane when he tells Tohsaka that he just did it to save her. He really doesn't give his own life a second thought—or even a first.
- Those who have read the visual novel know that it is
*even worse* than this, because the anime doesn't show the thoughts in his head. He is messed up.
- Episode 18. Archer allowing Rin to be taken into Gilgamesh and Shinji's custody even after the later makes clear his intent to rape her as soon as he can. Made even worse by the fact that Shinji's "rape-face" looks rather unsettling.
- In Episode 19,
- We see some of Archer's backstory, from the very moment he became a Counter Guardian, to him killing many people from afar with arrows. All without an expression on his face. If you look closer at the end of Archer's memories we see him zooming out as he stand on a hill...only if you look closely you see it's actually a
*literal mountain of dead bodies*!
- Similarly, he basically offers Shirou a sword to kill himself. This REALLY shows just how much Archer hates himself, and by extension Shirou. Before he became a Counter Guardian, he would not have even thought of committing suicide.
- Rin has a rough time in this episode. First Shinji fondles her legs while she's tied up and gloats about all the things he's going to do to her. That screen of her reaction to this humiliation is disturbing. Then a Hope Spot ensues where her rescuer, Lancer, is under orders from the "fraud priest" Kirei, who first tells Lancer to remove her heart and then commands him to kill himself when he refuses. A second Hope Spot ensues when Lancer kills Kirei but collapses before getting to Shinji, thus leaving her back in the mercy of a rapist. (Though thankfully, Lancer gets back up quick enough to make the creep scitter away) After all that, walking through a burning manor is a major improvement.
- Episode 21: Gilgamesh impales Shinji through the chest with his fist, and inserts Ilya's heart into the hole, turning Shinji into the vessel for the Grail. He totally deserves it, but the process of him becoming the Grail's vessel is beyond horrific. He is mutated into a mass of flesh and limbs, just like Tetsuo from AKIRA, while he screams and chokes in agony. Just look at him right now!◊
- Episode 24: Angra Mainyu's partial manifestation, a grotesque mass of flesh shaped like a humanoid torso, with one glowing slit where its face should be and another in the middle of its chest. Saber also comes dangerously close to stepping into its black ooze, which as Heaven's Feel shows would have blackened her into Saber Alter. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateStayNightUnlimitedBladeWorks |
Feralnette AU / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
After Rose learns about Felix's ballet troupe, Felix, Kagami and Marinette all make clear that they don't want Lila invading their safe spaces. As Kagami leads Marinette off, however, Felix notices that Rose is texting someone, and we get a glimpse of him through Rose's eyes as he takes on snake-like attributes, glaring her down as he calls her out for Dramatically Missing the Point of everything they'd *just told her*... or worse, simply ignoring it because it didn't fit into her overly sunny view of the world: **Felix:** What are you still doing here, and what are you texting, Rose. **Rose:** O-oh, I'm... I'm about to, uh... **Felix:** You're texting Lila. **Rose:** Well I-! I don't want to let her down! **Felix:** So it's okay to let down Marinette? Even when she asked you to restrain herself? *(moves closer)* You know what, Rose? I wish Marinette had never saved you from that akuma. I wish she treated you the way you treat her, and next time, *(smiles; Rose imagines fangs glinting in the shadowed caverns of his mouth)* I'll make sure she doesn't come to anyone's aid, especially ungrateful little girls like you. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FeralnetteAU |
Final Crisis / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The New God of Evil is back and at his absolute worst, having achieved his ultimate goal and ready to enslave or destroy all of reality.
**I will take you to a Hell without exit or end. And there I will murder your souls!**
- The prologue from
*DC Universe 0*. We get shots of Darkseid plummeting through reality with his whole body set aflame, making him look like a devil being cast into Hell.
- The new nature of Darkseid, not to mention Mandrakk. Darkseid has transcended his physical form and become a nightmarish Eldritch Abomination who's pulling reality down into the abyss, and Mandrakk is an interdimensional vampire feeding on the death of reality.
- The release of the Anti-Life Equation, which is released on EVERY form of electronic device: TV, Internet, radio, PDA, Cellphone, GPS, etc. The book proclaims that over a billion people are enslaved this way with the initial release of the Anti-Life Equation, effectively giving Darkseid control over Earth and forcing the unaffected heroes of Earth into hiding for the second half of the storyline.
- Darkseid's possession of Dan Turpin. Lured into a trap, and restrained by Darkseid's minions, they proceed to torture and mutilate him like some kind of horror movie, in order to break Dan's will. As Darkseid begins to possess him, we are treated to many panels of him physically transformed into the rock skinned Darkseid, while having a visor physically attached, shown in a reflection in the mirror. After long periods of torture and transformation, almost similar to Tim Drake's tortures, and with no one around to find him or save him, Dan eventually gives into Darkseid.
- Because of the physical transformation, there is a level of uncanny valley with this more human shaped incarnation of Darkseid, especially with his eyes, which are more glowing bloodshot eyes with human irises instead of the usual fiery and featureless red. He gloats to Superman how he can't kill him, and gives the most terrifying and utterly depraved Slasher Smile as Superman is dragged by the enslaved masses.
- After Anti-Life claims half the Earth's populace, we see people working themselves to death, police brutality, concentration camps and at one point a woman about to be raped.
- It's not just Darkseid's resurgence that's scary. Most of his elites get the same treatment.
- Kalibak's new form is a tiger-man who demonstrates his ferocity by mauling a Green Lantern.
- The sudden twist when Alpha Lantern Kraken turns on Batman and reveals that she's actually Granny Goodness.
- Mary Marvel is possessed by Desaad. Freddy and Black Adam force Mary back into her civilian form, but it's implied to have left some scars on her psyche. Mary is now too scared to change back in case Desaad takes over again.
- Wonder Woman, Batwoman, Catwoman and Giganta are infected with some Apokoliptian virus and become the new Furies.
- Barry Allen returns, and is chased by the Black Racer. Rather than his goofy armoured ski man look from the comics, this Black Racer looks exactly like Death personified.
- Just when it seems like Darkseid has met his end at the hands of the Black Racer, Wonder Woman suddenly says
*"But I'M Darkseid,"* followed by several others chanting the same thing.
- The Death of Reality as Darkseid falls upon it. Space itself cracks open, the sky rains blood, Time starts to collapse and the multiverse enters a Reality-Breaking Paradox as it gets dragged into the pit of hell. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalCrisis |
Fate/Zero / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Even worse when you realize that Zouken has been doing this to children, his own children, his children's children, etc, for centuries. Every generation, a child of the Matou family is subjected to exactly what happened to Sakura, but for Sakura, it was 'only' a decade. The others lived out their entire lives under Zouken's cruel penis-with-teeth worm fingers. And he had to learn his craft from someone, right? How old is the Matou family? Much too old.
It doesn't make Zouken's actions less horrible, but Byakuya and Kariya seems to be doing fine (until the latter signs up for himself), so they probably don't have the habit of training their heirs in the worm pit unless there is a reason. (The reason for Sakura being she is from another bloodline, and for Kariya his lack of training and needs to become master-material in one year.) For people married into Matou family (e.g. Shinji's mother), however...
Not quite, Zouken (as Zolgen Makiri) may very well have been the first head of the Matou family, and was clearly always the head in the following centuries. Which implies he came up with this depraved, hellish method of immortality himself.
There's also the fact that Sakura is naked, and (in the dub, at least) Zouken states that she had been "violated from head to toe." That is all kinds of messed up.
Again from the anime, Ryunosuke Uryu and Caster's introduction is full of nightmare-inducing images. It doesn't help that both of them are amoral and insane.
The manga is even worse. In front of the Bound and Gagged boy, Uryu has already beheaded his parents, letting blood from their necks pour through dog food plates and put up the head of the mother on top of the television. SHIT.
On the whole Ryunosuke and Caster are a pair of Nightmare Fetishists made flesh, with Ryunosuke's dying words being adoration at seeing his own guts spill out.
Sola torturing Kayneth might not be as extreme as all the other examples mentioned here, but boy is it both creepy and nightmarish.
Probably because there are no Eldritch Abominations, serial killers, no cruel spells beings cast, or other supernatural aspects, just a paralyzed man who's lost his reason for existence (his magic), failing his family, being emotionally manipulated—and then, when it doesn't work, physically mutilated with the threat of being reduced to a limbless husk—by the one person he cares for.
Oh, and Caster's lab. Oh gods, Caster's lab. Think Kirei's basement from Fate/stay night, just with a lot more blood and a lot less purpose. It consists of the still alive bodies of men, women, and children carved up and turned into instruments, artwork, and furniture. The animated version was forced to tone this down because of broadcast standards.
Episode 10 has a very Slasher Movie feel. Ryunosuke being the villain and Rin being the focus character. Children go missing and then Rin decides to look for them in another city. She sees Ryunosuke mind-controlling kids and leading them away by the hand. Then she finds his lair. Then it's a Moment of Awesome for Rin. Then Rin nearly gets jumped by one of Caster's tentacle abominations, and Kariya gets to pull an awesomeBig Damn Heroes moment.
The worst part, this is the anime TONING THINGS DOWN by expanding things. The anime has Rin save the children (one of them being a friend of hers and the reason why she went after Caster in the first place) before the monster almost eats her, the light novel and manga, on the other hand, has Rin being confronted by the monster, saved by Kariya and taken to her mother right as she's about to enter Caster's lair, preventing her from saving the children (one of them being a friend of hers and, as mentioned above, the reason why she went after Caster in the first place). And the manga actually makes it worse later: At one point in the anime, Waver and Rider find Caster's lair and Waver vomits from what he sees but that we, the viewers, don't. In the manga, what makes him vomit, and that we unfortunately see, is what Caster has done to Rin's friend, just to make sure we know that she failed.
Just Berserker possessing a JASDF F-15J with the pilot still inside. With the pilot helpless to do anything, Berserker accelerates the jet to unimaginable speeds, until the pilot is reduced to Ludicrous Gibs from the G force. Also said jet's destruction at the hands of Lancer.
Caster's monster eating one of the planes with the pilot still in it.
Episode 16: There's something extremely unsettling about watching Lancer's complete meltdown as he dies with his honor completely crushed, raving madly at everyone present.
Those orange eyes pouring blood... There's nothing worse (or sadder) than seeing Lancer cursing the world with that expression...
It's also very unsettling that Lancer's voice suddenly turned so fittingly dark and terrifying. Hikaru Midorikawa may have played some terrifying villains, but none of their voices in their worst came close with how he did Lancer's last moments in how terrifying it is.
Kayneth begging for a Mercy Kill soon later. The manga still manages to make it worse. At least it's just a stab in the anime. In the manga... Saber had to behead Kayneth and we're left to see Kayneth's bodyless head rolling on the floor, and drawn in a big size too!
Episode 17: Kirei's betrayal and his murdering of Tokiomi. The rather gleeful smile Kirei has before stabbing him is especially unnerving.
Episode 18: Kiritsugu witnessed a horrific event during his childhood. His Precocious Crush transforming into a Dead Apostle and then setting off a Zombie Apocalypse. He has a front row seat for seeing people getting eaten. The Church's executors and the Mage's Association show up and kill the Apostles, followed by the mages deciding to torch the island to preserve the Masquerade. Finally, he finds out that all of this was caused by his own father, who couldn't care any less about it.
Episode 21: Kariya's strangling of Aoi is played in a disturbingly sexual way, and Kariya's wailing once he realises what he's done is haunting.
Episode 22: First, it is extremely unsettling to see Kirei snap at Irisviel because he can't stand an Artificial Human with genuine feelings, when he, a genuine human, can't feel real emotions...
This actually feels like a Shout-Out to that scene in Episode 23 of Neon Genesis Evangelion, only done better. Much "better", for very scary values of "better".
Actually if you look closely at a shot after that you'll notice all of the clones are smiling!
Irisviel's (Angra Mainyu's) scream of terror as Kiritsugu rejects the Grail by shooting the apparition of his own daughter in the head. Worse, it's unclear how much of this is the actual Iri in the Grail, and how much of it is just Angra trying to con Kiritsugu into killing the planet.
Both of Kiritsugu's background episodes are filled with this. The Dead Apostles, the bees...
Gilgamesh's proposal to Saber was squick for a number of reasons. First, he got her attention by nailing her to the ground with a sword through the leg. Second he tells her to marry him, and then makes it clear he doesn't care whether or not she wants to.
Kariya's death is a mixture of a nightmare and a Tear Jerker. Through sheer force of will, body ravaged beyond belief, he manages to walk slowly from the aftermath of Saber and Berserker's final duel-to-the-death to his home. There, he descends into Zouken's hellish basement where Sakura's innocence was robbed and says out loud that he's there to save her. He creates a Hope Spot as he imagines taking Sakura away to reunite with her family, including a healthy Aoi; reality reveals Kariya's corpse on the stairs, which then falls to the floor and is slowly devoured by Zouken's worms.
One for the Einzbern Consultation Room, but based on Iri's comment before Lancer arrives about how fast the Greater Grail shows up, and how dark her comments can get at times (or the Jerkass behavior of driving Lancelot insane again), it's very well possible that Angra Mainyu could be staging takeovers on Iri and directing the Servants to the Greater Grail while Iri may want to genuinely help them.
Pretty much every time Kiritsugu confronts Kayneth. He's an utter Combat Pragmatist that believes war and violence should be as horrific as possible and not glorified to discourage people from entering wars... And these fights show it:
When Kayneth realized the Mage Killer was coming for him he had no fear: the hotel had been evacuated after someone (that Kayneth rightly deduced was Kiritsugu) warned about an arson, so there was no danger for The Masquerade, and the last floor had an immense amount of traps, easily able to stop a Mage. Then Kiritsugu blows up the whole hotel to kill two persons. Oh, and he had Maiya ready to shoot Kayneth and Sola-Ui if they left before the explosion.
After the demolition, Kiritsugu remarks that he's going soft, as he took care of avoiding collateral damage this time.
Having survived the above, Kayneth comes after him. And then, after a battle in which they figure out each other's tricks, Kiritsugu uses his secret weapon, the Origin Bullet. What Kayneth is experiencing is every single Magic Circuit in his body severing itself and then rebinding wrong, taking away his magic-including his most prized possession, the El Melloi crest-and crippling his body in atrocious pain. And he would have died in such pain, had Lancer not rescued him.
Lancer's death, mentioned above, is the direct result of Kiritsugu's actions: he has kidnapped Sola-Ui and signed a geas contract that meant that, as long as Kayneth had Lancer kill himself, he would not cause any harm to either of them through any action. Kayneth is sure that this time they'll at least survive... And then, Maiya shoots them both, killing Sola-Ui on the spot and giving Kayneth a painful deadly wound. And when Kayneth begs a Mercy Kill, Kiritsugu simply points out he can't. Good thing Saber was willing to grant it even without being ordered to...
Lancer's and Kayneth's deaths are the actions that prompt Irisviel to call him out. It was that horrifying.
And to make the above worse... It's implied none of the above is the most horrific thing Kiritsugu ever did. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FateZero |
Final Destination / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Works in this franchise with their own pages:
Series-wide
- The entire concept is bad enough. (Oh, you managed to avoid dying? Fine. Now your death will be several times more horrifying, painful, or both.) Then there are some of the deaths themselves, and the movies' premise. Specifically, the opening disaster scenes, which prey on our everyday fears (flying, driving, roller coasters, race tracks, and now crossing bridges).
- Hey, mortals, get this; turns out anything that dies (and will die), however it happens, is all from the devious machinations of an omnipotent force, with a personality and everything. Apparently, it gets incredibly pissed whenever you don't die as it planned you should even though you most likely would never have any idea you were supposed to "follow" said plan. Also, it especially gets off on killing you in a slow, excruciatingly painful, Cruel and Unusual Death. Have fun.
- Bludworth himself seems to be nightmare fuel for various reasons: 1. He is played by The Candyman himself Tony Todd. 2. He knows more about death more than anyone else. 3. This is the big one: He may as well be the reaper himself and only gives the protagonists cryptic advice because he took pity on them. The other characters on the list were either already dead or too busy to talk to him.
- There's essentially little to no "free will" in the
*Final Destination* universe as everything that happens to you was and is planned by Death from birth and even prior to that.
- The extremely graphic depiction of the accidents at the start of the films definitely qualifies.
- Have a fear of flying? Watching
*1*'s plane premonition will exacerbate that paranoia.
- Does highway driving make you nervous? You're not going to like
*2*'s pile-up and how realistic it is.
- Afraid of roller coasters? Watching the premonition from
*3* will make sure that you never set foot in an amusement park again.
- Have an uneasy feeling in your stomach from being on a loose bridge above water?
*5*'s North Bay bridge collapse might put you off driving on one for quite some time.
- If fate is so important, how come Death just arbitrarily gives up and skips over certain people? Well, Death didn't give up on getting you. Death just decided to be patient or, on one occasion, gets played to a stalemate and waits for the person to make a mistake and then gets them. Death can be patient, because no one escapes in the end. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalDestination |
Fear the Walking Dead / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
*"Before she brought you in, she made me promise that I would not harm you, that we would talk, and that I would exchange you for my wife's return. That is not gonna happen."*
—
**Daniel Salazar** preparing for a torture session
These examples really put the
*Fear* in *Fear the Walking Dead*... **All spoilers on this page are left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!**
- First off, there's the walkers. Secondly, it only took a few weeks to kill off pretty much everything. By Season 2, which is around a week or two in after the outbreak got rolling, and they're already resorting to firebombing the entire east and west coastlines to stop the infected. And as we know, their efforts to thin them out was in vain.
- Freshly turned zombies are particularly creepy cause they still look human
note : Barring the ones with severe trauma, except they're slightly *off* due to their Zombie Gait and vacant cloudy eyes.
- The plane crash that left all but one survivor dead or mortally injured. Chris has to Mercy Kill one survivor who has been pinned to his seat with his torso broken in half.
- The Hotel filled with zombies. Especially Alicia being trapped on one of the top floors with them roaming around.
- How Chris meets his end. After crashing the car with his new "friends", Brandon and Derek, he ends up incapaciated, and then gets shot in the head by his buddies.
- And when Travis learns of this, he goes
**batshit insane** over Derek and Brandon to the point of beating them to death with his bare hands, and when a fellow hotel occupant tries to intervene, Travis slams his head with the door, and the guy *dies* from the wound soon afterwards.
- The scene where a crow was eating a man's brains. WHILE THE MAN IS STILL ALIVE.
- Madison, Nick and Jeremiah finding Gretchen and her whole family murdered and turned.
- Nick and Jake set out to find Troy and discover him using the grenade launcher to guide a herd of walking dead toward the ranch. A wall of trailers and RVs is hoped to turn the herd, but it fails and the ranchers and natives evacuate to the bunker-like pantry. The pantry into which Alicia evacuated everyone doesn't have enough air for them all; she asks for those bitten to come forward. A dozen people are given morphine and
**euthanized**. As the air gets thinner, People begin passing out and rising as the dead. The Slow reanimation of the survivors in the bunker is one of the many bone-chilling moments of the season. And Alicia being stuck in the bunker with them while unconscious just adds to the dark bleak tension.
- Hurricanes often remind us how powerless we are against Mother Nature; now imagine that in an apocalypse without organized shelter, government aid and relief, or weather forecasting. Our biggest advantage against hurricanes is our ability to forecast them and give the people in the line of fire a chance to evacuate. Yet after the fall of society, survivors like Morgan's group are pretty much SOL. Add in walkers and you're in for a bad time.
- When John and Strand are stranded on a small island after the hurricane, perhaps the biggest threat to them is not walkers, but a hungry alligator who's been eating good in the storm's wake and
*knows* there is trapped prey on the island.
- Teddys plan to end as much of civilization as he can with the nuclear submarine is completely bonkers and completely terrifying considering this madman is perfectly within reach of achieving such a goal. Pioneers, Saviors, Whisperers, not even the mighty hordes like the one commanded by Alpha even hold a candle to the utter devastation planned by Teddy. Theres always a chance for even a massive horde to be destroyed or lured away, and humans like Negan can be reasoned with (and Negan himself was known to team up with heroes against a common threat if it came down to it). The destruction caused by a submarines worth of missiles is enough to destroy the continent of North America, damming any survivors to try to eke out a living in a nuclear fallout that will last well beyond the end of their natural lives and beyond. Thats nothing to say if Teddy had enough missiles to take out his insane plan on the rest of the world.
- The finale doesn't skimp on the terrors of ten entire nuclear warheads wreaking hell on all of Texas.
- The opening credits
*doesn't even use the theme tune*, only an ominous wail and the sounds of the nuclear warheads being launched. Teddy is the character present in the middle of the intro, which usually changes with each episode to highlight the season's anthology focus. He's grinning and has his arms outstretched, like he's proclaiming himself as some sort of dark messiah. And when the title appears, light suddenly illuminates the screen until it's completely white, meaning that you just witnessed a nuclear explosion up close.
- Utterly afraid of whats coming once the missiles hit, Morgan and Grace ultimately decide to
*commit suicide*, not wanting to try to live through the horrible events about to unfold. After years of surviving horrors and walkers, *this* is what drives our heroes to give up and decide its better to simply die than face whats coming. Thankfully, the appearance of Rufus and Baby Mo changes their minds.
- Grace even says that as bad as past nuclear disasters like the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Chernobyl were, they had some precision or containment to them. This impending disaster will have no such mitigation, and will be even WORSE than those defining moments of horror in history. Chernobyl will not be inhabitable for another few thousand years; now apply this to TEN regions of the southern United States, and think about how Teddy still wasnt satisfied with this.
- Dakota's death. She decides to die from one of the nuclear warheads detonating, and its initial blast reduces her to a
*hot, charred, ashen corpse*. **Which still stands.** Because of that, many viewers have already labeled this scene as one of the most horrifying ways to go in the *entire* *Walking Dead* universe, even if she deserved it.
- By episodes end, the remaining survivors who didnt get evacuated by the CRM are left stuck in the heart of a now-destroyed Texas, left to somehow deal with the nuclear fallout. On top of the walker apocalypse already taking place. Unless they can somehow get away from the state, theyre going to have to live in bunkers and try to scavenge for whatever food and water they can find for the rest of their lives, provided they dont succumb to the radiation.
- Even though Morgans group knew what was coming, Texas is a huge state likely full of survivors who didnt have any idea that the missiles were approaching. They easily couldve just been going about their day surviving or even enjoying peace in a fortified community, only for it all to come crashing down with no warning at all. And its entirely possible theyll never learn why the missiles struck.
- The state of Will, after he was pushed off a building by Strand, is bound to remind viewers of Glenn's demise from Negan. Half of his face is bloodied to the point where we can see his
*muscles* like his face is made of raw ground beef, and the eyeball is exposed. Also, his bodily organs are scattered all over the place!
- This ends up becoming Strand's
*preferred* form of execution as the season goes on. The only good thing is that the victims are dead on impact after falling several stories, but it's still a terrible way to go, especially when you *know* why you're being taken to the roof.
- Arno suffers a particularly messy death when Daniel turns the tables on him and lowers him in a cage to a horde of walkers. The cage has very little bars towards the bottom, so even though Arno tries to protect himself, he can do nothing but squirm until the walkers begin tearing him apart at the legs. Its so bad that when Daniel finally raises him up, some of Arnos legs have been stripped to the bone by the starving walkers.
- The radiation sickness that Charlie and John, Sr. fall victim to prove just how woefully unprepared our survivors were for the nuclear apocalypse. John, Sr. noted he was very careful and quick but was still afflicted with radiation burns. Most of the groups supplies and protections were hastily put together and werent professional equipment, meaning even if youre trying to eke out a careful living, unless you have said professional equipment, youre just as likely to die of poisoning.
- Charlies condition quickly deteriorates within what appears to be days, and she becomes bedridden and loses her hair as she wastes away.
- Ali had been exposed to the same radiation almost as long as Charlie and much longer than John. If he hadn't been killed, he would have suffered through the same sickness. Even if Howard had been more merciful to him, he was doomed to die far too young.
- Strand becomes so paranoid and monstrous that his one follower who was loyal to him, Howard, is ultimately thrown off the Tower just because Strand believed John was the more committed member of his community. Even before this, Strand is so bad that he's shown having numerous people thrown off the roof on a whim.
- Alicia and Strand's bickering destroys the Tower and lures in an irradiated horde, and once they hit the Tower's flames, it will pollute the atmosphere to become complete inhospitable. It's no wonder the group is forced to flee, Teddy's victory becoming absolute in Texas - and keep in mind, he wanted to do this to
*the entire continent if not the world*. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FearTheWalkingDead |
Final Destination 3 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
*Final Destination 3* is the first movie in the series not to be a direct sequel, instead a stand-alone. Despite that fact, this movie proves that the producers still have what it takes to frigheten you with Death's pursuit of the survivors of the Devil's Flight tragedy.
- The opening scene shows much park scenery, and the screams of the people and the warm colors provide a sense of dread that something horrible will happen.
- The Devil's Flight accident, but especially the premonition and all the deaths. Though see Artistic License Physics as to why such an accident would simply never happen in Real Life.
- However, consider some of the deaths like the razor sharp swords at the school and other pointless deaths that seem implausible. It seems that the Final Destination universe has No OSHA Compliance. It's very probable that the Roller Coaster really would realistically use a horrible, horrible safety system like that. Death is less of a dick than trying to point out all the mechanical flaws like only he knows... and the Voodoo Shark is gone.
- It's even worse than that: the whole amusement park doesn't seem to be well maintained (e.g. the bell flying off the hammer game when Lewis hits it that third time), and the employees don't seem to be properly trained on what to do in case of emergencies. This begs the question of whether Death chose that park specifically
*because* it had a history of random accidents happening there... or if something like that happened before.
- Wendy's freak out after the premonition. In the first two films (and the last two), the visionary protagonists were either really angry or numb. Wendy is numb... for about five seconds. She then breaks down and starts crying and trying to shake free of the restraints while yelling about how the roller coaster is going to crash. It should be Narm, but it isn't.
- The photos taken all provide subtle but accurate Foreshadowing about how the survivors will die.
- Ashley and Ashlyn's photo is them receiving a blow-up palm tree, their cheering for the camera, but there's a red blur below. A potted plant is involved in a chain reaction of locking the two in the tanning bed, their cheering faces look like screams, and the red blur resembles fire.
- Frankie's upskirt photo shows him with a covered fan behind him, cluing in how he dies.
- Busted or not, the tanning bed death is still horrific. It is especially uncomfortable with Soundtrack Dissonance being in full effect as "Love Rollercoaster" plays in the background of said scene.
- Before they enter the beds, you see the camera pan from the slush drink down to a heat control box, and the words
**WARNING: This device should never be set above 250 VAC**. That's Foreshadowing outside the photos that will tell you how they will die.
- The tanning bed scene has come to achieve pop culture notoriety for being the most painful death in the entire franchise. Given that the girls are trapped naked in a confined space, where they are sprayed with broken glass and burned across their entire bodies, for a period of time which could be upwards of
*ten minutes*, it's hard to think of a Final Destination death that tops this in sheer agony.
- Erin's death. She falls against a nail gun, which proceeds to fire nails directly into the back of her head. Her body jerks as each nail penetrates her skull and bursts out her face. After the nail gun stops firing, she whimpers, then her body slowly goes limp as she dies. Sure, some artistic license was taken with the death (Real Life nail guns only fire once, and have to be reloaded), but for Rule of Scary.
- The nailgun's repeated firing appears to be justified in-Verse actually, as we see Ian loading a whole strip of nails into it earlier, suggesting he'd deliberately modified it so he could rapid-fire at the pigeons.
- Her boyfriend Ian's response is to blame Wendy for Erin's death and try to murder her, even though she saved him from dying before Erin.
- Not to mention the
*scream* Ian lets out after Erin dies is just bloodcurdling.
- Frankie's death. His head is destroyed by the rotary blades of a car engine's fan.
- Lewis's death is also rather bad. Said death involves Lewis head being violently crushed by weights.
- Kevin's death in the train incident premonition. He is thrown against a damaged window before it breaks and he is sent out of the train screaming. Oh, and it doesn't stop there, as he is thrown outside he is
**THEN GROUND DOWN BETWEEN THE TUNNEL WALL AND THE TRAIN!**
- Well, the top half of him anyway. The rest gets crushed when the train leans to one side then back to the other hitting the tunnel wall creating a lovely "pop." For extra nausea you can see one of his hands fly off when he hits the wall the first time.
- Kevin seeing the horrified look on Wendy's face after she comes out of the above premonition and realises what's about to happen.
- Julie's death in the train premonition. A wheel flies off the subway, through the compartment she's standing in, and splatters her into
*nothing*. All while her sister Wendy can do nothing but watch.
- The scariest thing about this film? This time Death is
*actively being malicious*. As Final Destination 5 reveals, the events of 5, 1 and 2 were merely *clean up* to restore balance; everyone in Final Destination 2 *should* already have been dead - Death was just fixing the balance. This time... there's no link to past disasters. Death is just actively *hunting.*
- To add to that, the fourth movie reveals that Death is behind the premonitions. Wendy's subway premonition comes far too late for anything to be done to avoid the crash; Death was just toying with her (and Kevin and Julie) by making sure she knew
*exactly* how they would each die just moments before it happened. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalDestination3 |
Father of the Pride / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- In "And The Revolution Continues," Emerson is nearly cooked by Barbra Streisand and would have been dead if Larry did not save him.
- In "Possession," Hunter undergoes training by Sarmoti to be a warrior and fight back against enemies. After defeating Anthony in a match at school, the power goes to Hunter's head and he secretly kidnaps and later tortures Snack. Fortunately, Sarmoti is ultimately able to reason with Hunter and explain to him that violence is not the answer, reverting Hunter back to normal. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FatherOfThePride |
Fear Itself / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- Eight of the most powerful superhumans on the planet are being empowered and possessed by Hammers not unlike that of Thor's while being ordered to spread as much death and destruction as possible to resurrect a God of Fear as powerful as Odin himself! The level of Curb-Stomp Battle the "Worthy" give out is pretty hard to watch, since it makes it clear the heroes literally stand no chance without a Deus ex Machina. Even further is if the Heroes lose, Odin will effectively destroy the planet to get rid of the threat before it spreads, while mankind is trapped in the middle to suffer and die.
- The fate of Paris. Grey Gargoyle, one of Iron Man's old foes, is upgraded into Mokk, Breaker of Faith. He uses his supercharged powers to turn essentially everyone in Paris into stone... and then starts crushing them. When he fights Iron Man, the fight keeps shattering more and more people. When Iron Man gets beaten by Mokk the first time he awakens to find himself surrounded by a mountains made up of the broken pieces of petrified people. Keep in mind that Gargoyle's powers have proven to be reversible, so Stark feels the pressure to defeat Mokk quickly, but... It's enough to cause Iron Man to start drinking again.
- Even with all of Earth at battle, it all comes down to Captain America, a magic hammer and some farmers in a truck to make a last stand for all the marbles. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FearItself |
Fall of Cthulhu / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- The first arc has Cy's alienated sister unreachable after the death of their uncle. ||Their uncle sacrificed her in a Cthulhu statue. It's implied she died of thirst there.||
- The ultimate price for some of the Harlot's knowledge? You crawl into a wicker box, willpower utterly destroyed, and stay there, for all eternity, unless the Harlot wants you out. In other words, it's a sensory deprivation tank owned and controlled by an Humanoid Abomination. And she is one of the more
*benign* beings.
- Connor's gift to the Old Ones? ||Letting his body be used as a vessel for one of them, after his brain and eyes have been plucked out of it.|| Connor's punishment for trying to escape from this fate? ||He gets to stare at his disembodied brain and eyes in a mirror until his body is no longer needed. Provided he can stay sane.|| | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FallOfCthulhu |
Filly Funtasia / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Even a show about multicolored horses attending an academy can be pretty frightening at times.
Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies to Moments pages.
**All spoilers are unmarked!**
General
- The show's animation can be counted as this at times, mostly due to how unsettling some of the designs can look under certain angles.
- Wranglum is pretty scary. He's an ominous tree creature with a frightening, dark voice and appearance. It's lucky that for the most part he's stuck inside a mirror with an incompetent sidekick, but when he gets out of the mirror? Run for your life. Later in the series his plans to take over Funtasia get more and more horrifying, especially when the biggest threats to his plans are just a bunch of kids. And he
*would* hurt a child.
- Even his henchmen (at least the ones who aren't named Battiwigs) are intimidating in both appearance and how they are a vicious threat to the heroes.
The Series
- In "The Cupcake Mystery," Bella accidently eats half of Will's cupcakes. Feeling guilty, she starts hallunciating her friends, classmates, the headmistress, and even the
*chef* shaming her for doing so in what looks like an endless, empty void, with ominous but silent music playing. Then, the clearly stressful Bella is met with a creepy-looking Will with green eyes (as shown in the page image), and the Nightmare Sequence cuts aruptly to Rose checking up on her.
- In "Wranglum in Disguise", Wranglum is shown being out of his mirror for the first time (however, in the form of a non-menacing filly). The episode goes on to elaborate that he has the whole day to reach his goal while being out of his mirror, for if he doesn't, he may
*die*.
- "Alone at Last" shows us that if you piss Wranglum off by not obeying his orders, he can literally control the weather by making it rain and torment you until you come back, even when he's not there. You can still even
*hear his laugh* from a far away distance.
- Wranglum gives an imagine spot of what he plans to do if he ever escapes, and it's...the entire setting
*on fire*. Wranglum might be silly, but that doesn't mean he's not in the mirror for *good reason*..
- Cedric pretty much locks Rose inside Wranglum's dark, eerie "lair" in "Dream of Doom", and doesn't give it up and unlock the door even when she shouts for him to let her out and bangs on the door. And on the other flipside of the coin, when Batti shows her a passageway to get out of the lair, Cedric doesn't hear anything for a long amount of time and starts to get weary. One could only wonder what would've happened after this scene had Batti not stepped in to guide her someplace else.
- And speaking of the borderline Paranoia Fuel above, Lynn pretty much warns Rose earlier in the episode that Cedric is stubborn and can go pretty far when things don't go his way. Well, if he's capable of doing the above...
- Not to mention the thought of just
*how* Lynn even knows this in the first place.
- "The Magical Maze" has a major one: the fillies enter a maze where Wranglum is able to directly attack them. His first attempt? Trying to
*crush Rose to death*. He then proceeds to try tricking them into rushing through a fake exit and *falling to their deaths*. When this doesn't work, he sends his Grounders to just try to kill them the old fashion way. Wranglum's boasts may have seemed unfounded before now, but after, it's clear there's a *reason* he's in that mirror.
- "Hide and Seek" reveals that Wranglum took on Aquatica and the Mermaid Fillies, the explicitly most powerful realm in the setting...and
*won*. And from the description, fairly handily. He also has an army of ravenous fish monsters that nearly eat the cast alive, something he explicitly *ordered* them to do. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FillyFuntasia |
Final Destination 5 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
*Final Destination 5* is the Surprisingly Improved Sequel to *4*, and boy does it show. A horrific premonition, creative and realistic deaths, the concept of "Taking another's life for yours", and one of the biggest whammies that changes the nature of the movie by the end.
- The North Bay bridge collapse scene. No Artistic License in this disaster at all, unlike the Devil's Flight accident or the speedway catastrophe. One minute, the bridge you are on is sturdy, but the next, it's all coming apart. Even scarier when you realize that bridge collapses like that can occur in real life. Some of the deaths are NOT pretty as well.
- Candice falls off the bridge and gets impaled by a sailboat's mast, spilling her guts.
- Isaac either dies from blunt force trauma when the bus hits the water or drowning. Either possibility is not a pleasant one.
- Olivia falls off the bridge in an attempt to get to the other (safe) side but emerges from the water unharmed. Then a car falls off and crushes her.
- Dennis gets doused in scorching hot tar, and his skin is seen falling off as he slides to his death.
- Peter gets impaled by multiple metal bars from a construction car and on the way down, he hits one of the supporters of the bridge.
- Sam gets bisected by a metal sheet from the same truck.
- Candice Hooper's death. The screw which was on the gymnastics beam was bad enough. It looked like she was going to slice her Achilles tendon open or something. The actual death takes it up to eleven: her broken and bloodied body twitches several times, along with her femur sticking out of her leg.
- The LASIK surgery scene. Holy crap. Even if LASIK doesn't work that way, which should be comforting, but really isn't.
- The whole concept of "Taking another's life for yours": if you're on Death's list, you
*can* kill a person who wasn't even on Death's list, be it on purpose or by mistake, they take your spot on the list and you get their lifespan and you're home free. Sounds fair and well, but then conflict comes in, do you have what it takes to kill a completely innocent person who wasn't even on Death's list, just so you can live longer? It gets worse as you realize that even if you do kill a person, you don't know how long they were even gonna be alive! For all you know, the person can either live for a long time before dying or suddenly die the next day, week, maybe even next hour. The countdown to your impending death doesn't help things either.
- And, to make it worse, you still count as Death balancing the book. Your victim might have had a natural death planned for them, but you
*won't*. And you won't be able to get agency over it by taking your own life because Death will stop that too. It will be some horrible, graphic, convoluted accident that you won't see coming. If you are lucky, it will at least be quick, but that's sadly unlikely.
- Even then, Death will get you even if you
*do* keep killing people - eventually you'll be labeled as a "Serial Killer" (probably by one of Death's "servants") who will arrest you and put you in prison, so that you can't keep killing people... which means your biological clock will eventually run out and Death will get you.
- Isaac getting impaled on acupuncture needles, almost burning to death, and having his head crushed by a Buddha statue... Just... Damn. Sure, the bloke in question was a complete Jerkass and being incredibly racist to the receptionist but damn was that harsh.
- What is with that noise when that wrench gets launched into Dennis' eyes?
- His fate in the premonition isn't very great either, he gets boiling tar poured over him. You can hear his muffled screams of agony as he
*slips out of his skin* to fall to his death which would be a Mercy Kill at that point.
- The way Sam and Molly are killed during the Flight 180 plane explosion. Molly gets thrown out a hole torn in the cabin and bisected by the plane's fin while Sam is visually roasted alone. The scene is even slowed down to show the fire engulfing him as he screams in pain.
*Yeesh*.
- Sam's death is even creepier when you notice that it is almost shot
*exactly* like Alex's death in the original film's premonition. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalDestination5 |
Final Destination 2 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
**As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.**
- The entire pileup premonition.
- Unlike many of the series' opening codas, this one is
*terrifyingly* realistic (despite Every Car Is a Pinto in full effect). Pileups just as messy, horrifying, and lethal can and do occur in real life, especially during bad weather. A truck's load going out of control from improper securing is also not at all uncommon. Please, be careful on the road.
- Also, the fact that, unlike the other opening disasters, the entire scene depicting the accident is eerily devoid of music until it quiets down just before the "truck from hell" shows up, which somehow makes the whole thing realistic in a specific way the other disasters are not. If it weren't for the fact that nearly all the vehicles explode on impact, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for a bone-chillingly accurate recreation of what a real pile up is like.
- The log truck that starts the disaster. There's a reason why it's often joked that this movie made an entire generation afraid to drive behind them.
- The end of the pile-up premonition is just as bad. Evan is trapped in his car and slowly burning to death in front of the protagonist. Then a monstrous looking truck runs him over from nowhere, the shifting metal sounding as if it's
*roaring* before killing Kimberly. We never find out anything about where it came from, and the wiki calls it the Truck from Hell.
- Even worse. Just as it seemed that Kimberly managed to avert the massive deaths,
*the Truck came back and slammed Kimberly's car anyway*, killing Dano, Frankie, and Shania. The Truck itself might be Death's recurring tool, as the wikia implies that it returned to the next movies to deliver deaths. Also, the Truck is listed to have no drivers, and its tires' sounds somehow is emulating a sinister laugh.
- The shadowy, skeletal hands.
- When Bludworth is prepping Evan's corpse for cremation, the camera cuts to a horrendous closeup of him using a pair of tweezers to rip off Evan's nipple ring, cutting away at the very last second before the piercing gets torn off. "Cringe-inducing" does not even begin to describe it.
- Nora's death by Evil Elevator. Her braid gets hooked on a bunch of prosthetic limbs a man in the same elevator is carrying, causing her to fall with her head trapped in between the elevator doors. The elevator then ascends, and despite the people in and out of the elevator trying to help, her head is torn off her shoulders.
- A plastic fish falling into Tims mouth while he's being administered nitrous oxide. He doesnt suffocate, though. What kills him is when a giant glass pane being held up by a crane falls on him. All of Tims death, from the pigeons brushing past the lever to the glass pane crushing him happens before Noras eyes.
- The fact that Death seems to have developed a grudging respect for Clear - and possibly some fear of her - and she
*knows* it. Kimberly and Thomas believe Clear has *defeated* Death. Clear is a little more pessimistic (and correct!) to note that she *hasn't*: in the Mental Asylum, designed so that no-one *can* kill themselves, Clear is safe and has played Death to a stalemate on the chessboard - Death is merely waiting for her to make her move, her *error*, to get them *out* of stalemate, so that it can make its move in retaliation. It is said that Clear escaped Death at least six times note : According to Clear herself, she and Alex cheated Death "dozens of times" between them, though it is never said whether it is equal or different; however, given Death's design of skipping back and forth between them, it can be assumed to be an even split. and all of her "escaped" or "cheated" deaths involved explosions; Death respects her enough as a worthy opponent to make it quick - and presumably painless as she's likely not to feel anything being blown up - in all of its unsuccessful (and later successful) attempts to obtain her life... but also *fears* her enough to know that she can see the signs coming and avoid them that it has to get rid of her *as soon as it is physically possible to do so*, which it attempts by trying to *hit her with a canoe to knock her through a window into a presumed to explode substation outside the window,* but she is quick enough to see it coming. Finally, Death decides to screw with the signs and finally gets her when Clear makes her error - caring about someone else and going to check on them - and gives her a simple, quick, painless death.. by *exploding a hospital room*.
- And when you think Death has finished killing everyone, a barbecue explodes and blows Brian Gibbons to pieces. And then, HIS ARM LANDS ON THE TABLE. RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS DEVASTATED MOTHER. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalDestination2 |
Felidae / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
"The mouths of the reanimated dead emitted a gruesome, bloodcurdling howl that sounded like a burial march played backwards and became a whirlpool of sound. The hairs on my back stood on end like wire bristles. I was afraid I would lose my mind if I had to witness this insane performance any longer, but there was no escape..."
*Felidae*. With the plot of a Film Noir, it is obvious that the novels and the movie are **not** for kids. But even that belies just how horrifying it is at times...
- The dream sequences.
**All of them.**
- The numerous gruesome deaths in the movie. This includes Felicity's decapitation, and kittens being ripped out of their mother's womb. And no, there is no Gory Discretion Shot. Then again, the deaths already happened when Francis gets to them save for Claudandus.
- Felicity is arguably the worst, even compared to Solitaire and her torn-out kittens. Francis finds her with her head torn off and moved to one side, staring blindly out. What he says later makes it even worse: 'It was as if, even in the moment of her death, she still was straining to see...'
- During the cult scene, some cats get electrocuted voluntarily as part of the Claudandus ritual, getting more and more crazed with each jolt. Even Francis lampshades that what he's watching "is not a scene out of
*The Aristocats*." In the novel Francis also mentions the Aristocats.
- After Francis finds out that Pascal/Claudandus is the one behind the murders, he destroys the computer containing said information on the murders, subsequently causing an electrical fire. The final battle between Francis and Claudandus plays out like Simba and Scar's final battle, only Claudandus gets clawed in the stomach, ripping it wide open, causing all of his guts to spill out. Don't eat anything while watching the scene.
- The footage of Pretarius testing his compounds on the cats, which sadly has some truth in television. It's so gruesome the fact that he's doing it while drunk on cheap wine actually isn't the worst part of it.
- The worst part of it all: Claudandus's plan
*would not have worked*. Like every "master race" madman before him, he operated under a complete misunderstanding of evolutionary theory that really only existed to serve his own ego. All of this was pointless.
- The film, like its spiritual cousin
*Watership Down*, gives a very frank, dark look at what our cuddly, beloved pets are really like. No, obviously they aren't really evil masterminds, nor do they secretly have their own little society behind our backs (probably), but as far as the violence, sex, and killing, that's what cats are really like. We can anthromorphise them all we like, but at the end of the day, cats are not humans. They're a barely domesticated predator species that sticks around because humans offer food and comfort.
- The novel contains arguably the most
*gruesome and shocking scene in any book at the time.* In the dream, Francis finds himself back in the garage where he and Bluebeard had found Deep Purple's body. Only **Deep Purple is very much alive.** What happens next is pure, unadulterated Body Horror and Gorn as Deep Purple's neck wound *sprays a fountain of blood*, and the next thing you know, . But it gets worse. Francis proceeds to describe Deep Purple **he's screaming at Francis to get off his territory** *pulling live kittens out of his neck wound and throwing them against the wall*. Soon, Deep Purple starts rotating, continually throwing the kittens onto the wall until the room is left covered in blood before Francis finally wakes up. Many, *many* fans will tell you that this is the novel's most disturbing scene, and they're not kidding.
- The end of the video diary, which is Claudandus glaring hatefully at Dr. Pretarius.
- Similarly, the disgusted look Ziebold gives Pretarius. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Felidae |
Fallout 2 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Just like the previous game aside from being Denser and Wackier,
*Fallout 2* still manages to feature a good number of disturbing stuff out there.
# As a Moments page, all spoilers are unmarked.
- The intro. The first half is funny, but then it switches to the vault door opening, and you seeing a Vertibird and a few soldiers with miniguns. They all are silent, and the camera cuts to the silhouette of a family waving through the door. All of a sudden, the miniguns fire, and then the screen cuts to black with a scream echoing in the distance. Say hello to the Enclave!
*This is what they do.*
- The ghost farm. With that creepy City of Lost Angels aside, all there is to it is a very large cornfield and what looks like bodies impaled on stakes. A closer look reveals that they're nothing but dummies, but in the house you can fall into a cave unexpectedly. The atmosphere of the situation does not make it calm.
- Meanwhile, Golgotha, a massive graveyard for everyone who fell out of favor with one of the crime families in New Reno, has actual impaled human bodies around.
- Frank Horrigan: Darth Vader meets The Incredible Hulk with the mind of an Eagleland psycho. Mutated at Mariposa with help from Enclave scientists, Frank had become an "ultra super mutant in power armor"; a "genetically engineered total homicidal maniac cyborg bodyguard". Bound to his suit, he can take anything you can dish at him and throw it right back at you. It gets worse that unlike The Master from the original, Frank Horrigan cannot be talked down and can take a lot of punishment. So, you'll have to kill him.
- He is introduced in a scripted encounter in the Wasteland where he and two Enclave goons open fire with miniguns on a family of peasants (including a child) who have absolutely no way of fighting back. The Chosen One witnesses this, and thankfully due to Plot Armor the Chosen One is deemed Not Worth Killing and allowed to go on his or her way. If Frank Horrigan hadn't felt "merciful" there would be absolutely
*no way* for you to survive there. Keep in mind by that point you're not supposed to know about the Enclave so you just see these huge towering figures in black Power Armor murdering innocents.
- Frank dies rather gruesomely, though he does deserve it. He is blown in half, yet still has enough strength left to mock you before activating the oil rig's self-destruct program. And then his armor explodes
*and his head flies right off his body.*
- Somehow managing to play
*Fallout 2* for so long that you reach the game's built-in 13-year time limit. Though it's mainly a still image of the wasteland with "THE END", the Scare Chord and blowing wind make it unnecessarily spooky, especially when you aren't expecting it (not to mention how it just dumps you to the title screen without a word afterwards).
- Myron. Just let him tell his story about how he developed Jet to get an idea of how much of a sociopathic monster he is.
- If you play a female Chosen One with less than 4 Intelligence and more than 6 Charisma, or who has the Porn Star reputation, Myron will offer you a spiked drink and
*rape your character*.
- And what's his reward after the adventure? He meets an ironic fate when a drug addict stabbed him to death and then stole the formula for Jet. Myron's drug will live on, but Myron himself fades into obscurity.
- President Dick Richardson. He might look like a rather unassuming old man, but this is the
*leader* of the Enclave. This is the man ordering soldiers to kidnap villages and gun down entire families, and who has plans for mass genocide. When you meet him in person, he's polite enough, but the longer you talk to him, the more it really sinks in how callous and indifferent he really is to the suffering of wastelanders due to his actions. In his eyes, nobody outside of the Enclave is human. Not even you. He very casually explains that they needed to kidnap the people from Arroyo and Vault 13 for use as test subjects to perfect their modified FEV, which they intend to use to kill *everyone outside of their oil rig.* And there's no negotiating with him about releasing it- he's certain it's the only way to preserve humanity and democracy.
- The Elder's description of what happened to the Arroyo villagers and Vault 13 residents who were used as test subjects for the modified FEV is horrific. Their skin bubbles and die in horrible pain. The lucky ones apparently
*choked to death*. The Elder doesn't elaborate what happened to the unlucky ones.
- In Broken Hills, there is a quest where the protagonist has to find a group the missing people. You find their gruesomely mutilated corpses in the tunnels below with a mutant note which states the intention to implicate the human inhabitants in those murders and start a race war.
- The Wanamingos, also known as aliens. You know, the... things in the Redding mines that look like Xenomorphs. They're so alien, and are tough sons of bitches who don't go down easily. At least you can tell that the Deathclaws are mutated reptilians, but the Wanamingos, you have no idea what they are.
- They're actually pre-war genetically-engineered creatures made by the Enclave to serve as shock troopers, like the Deathclaws. Still horrifying.
- If you cripple one of their limbs, they will flee and offer no more resistance. Easier said than done. They're also weak to fire. According to the Fallout Bible they have some kind of "genetic clock" built in by the Enclave that means they are doomed to die in the next generation.
- The Game Over screen, pictured above. As if the ghastly image of the player's skeleton laying in the middle of the wasteland is bad enough (just like the first game), this game takes it one step further by having the narrator coldly describe that the consequences of your demise have doomed everyone. It's enough to make you feel very guilty. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Fallout2 |
Final Fantasy / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
**As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.**
- The Western Keep (the Northwest Castle in the NES translation) is a desolate, ruined castle infested with bats in the middle of a deep forest and far from any town. Of course, the fact that there's a king in the throne room is a big tip-off that something's not right, but the implication alone is fairly sinister. Add to that the fact that the Marsh Cave (at least in the NES version) looks like ancient ruins with lots of valuable treasures deliberately hidden and locked away in its lowest levels, and it just looks like
*something* very bad happened either to the ancestors of the people of Elfheim (Elfland in the NES version) or to a civilization that used to exist on the Elfheim continent long ago. Given that the world of *Final Fantasy I* is in some ways After the End, this isn't a big leap to make.
- The final floor of the Floating Fortess is terrifying to walk through if you know that the otherwise-featureless corridor has a small chance of throwing WarMECH at you, with you likely praying during the Fight Woosh that it'll be
*merely* a standard enemy encounter.
- The Phantom Train's floor in Whisperwind Cove. It appears to be a village in some kind of alternate dimension where all the townsfolk have been transformed into various undead monsters and left to wander aimlessly in agonizing limbo, wondering what they've done to deserve such a fate and begging the party for help. Some of them don't even have that luxury. All of this while the
*game over music* is playing. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyI |
Final Fantasy IX / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The theme that plays when you get to beat Trance Kuja and meet Necron is disturbing. That sad, mournful tune that played with all that moaning in the background? Creepy as all get-go.
Necron, the essence of eternal death, who comes to finish off where Kuja failed, is a floating statue with a half-destroyed face in a colosseum that ascends into the sky. The colosseum has eyes that blink and watch your party take blow after blow of unpredictable attacks that cause all sorts of status abnormalities.
Necron: AS LONG AS LIFE EXISTS, I WILL REMAIN ETERNAL.
Yoshitaka Amano's vision of Necron◊ is far more terrifying than the in-game model.
"Meltigemini"? That sounds absolutely narm-tastic! Wonder what it looks like - OH GOD◊!
The whole Forgotten Continent is creepy. Despite being a pretty big continent, it is very desolate and almost devoid of any type of civilization. The only way to get there is by airship, and by the time you go there for the first time, you are thrown off at the northern part of the continent. Then you have to travel south, encountering extremely weird enemies, until you get to an ancient building named Oeilvert. Oeilvert is a weird place with an anti-magic barrier that seems to be some sort of museum for an unknown civilization. Oh, and the music is very gloomy.
The entire mission to stop the mist at the Iifa Tree is greatly disturbing. First your traveling this maze of roots all whilst facing Zombies and sentient trees. Then you have to travel deep within the tree itself in which your riding on this leaf down a green, hellish spiral of which you get attacked by zombie dragons three times. Then you reach the bottom and you land on this harp-like structure with strings of some green liquid running down to a seemingly bottomless pool of green. Then the boss and the maker of the mist Soul Cage, drops down, explains it's behind the mist and that the mist itself and the green fluid and surroundings of the tree itself is composed of SOULS. You then have to battle it. What makes this worse is that even while you manage to stop the mist now, it'll be back soon enough.
The Iifa Tree's theme is also unsettling to listen to, which gives the player the impression that they're trespassing into a sacred and tainted tomb.
Black Waltz No. 3's Villainous Breakdown. Partly because he shows up again without any real warning, and partly because he's not just having an emotional crisis but legitimately malfunctioning. His "I exist only to kill..." mantra was creepy enough, but to see the most sophisticated Black Waltz reduced to no more than a twitching, disconnected puppet was actually really disturbing. The fact that Garnet tries to reason with him and he can barely even string a coherent sentence together, having lost the ability to think for himself (if he ever even had it)... In spite of all the hell he put your party through, he ends up being surprisingly pitiful. If you let him kill Steiner and Marcus, he goes crazy and starts attacking himself.
Sections of Memoria are seriously horrifying. A special mention goes to the room that looks like it was designed by Salvador Dali, in which you have to climb over the melting fragmented remains of still-ticking clocks... but the hands-down freakiest room is the one that reenacts Garnet's memories of the power core of the Invincible as it destroyed her village. Since it's her childhood memory and operating under a child's view of the world, the core manifests itself as an enormous staring monstrous eye in the sky, red as blood, and surrounded by a swirling vortex of clouds. It is right there, glaring at you, all the way through the boss fight that ensues... and then you have to climb a staircase directly into its giant glowing pupil to get to the next room.
The music "Far Away In The Twilight". It is fucking horrifying. It plays whenever Brahne is involved in the conflict. The most notable instances of it playing are the revelation of the Black Mages in Dali, and the attack on Lindblum in Disc Two by the Alexandrian Army. To make matters worse, it never stops playing during the visit to the ruined Lindblum. The music comes to a chilling end with a Scare Chord at the end, then loops again. If this music was used during the Kuja absorbing the souls of everyone who died in the world then it would make that scene even worse.
After defeating the plant boss (after hearing in depth about how the seeds hatch inside of people and eat them), the ground collapses and hundreds plant-bug hybrids chase after you before the entire forest closes in and petrifies.
And of course, you're treated to a FMV shot of Blank petrified.
The invasion of Cleyra is also quite jarring. It's started off by the soundtrack piece "Ambush Attack", which is then followed by scenes of the Black Mages showing up. What they did in Burmecia...you only saw the aftermath. Here you see first hand that they immediately start fireballing anyone in sight, including innocent civilians. Then the human soldiers show up and they seem determined to slaughter civilians as well.
And then even after you save the few people you can, Brahne summons Odin to destroy everything. Just one throw of his lance, and the church is the first thing to go. When he gallops away, it almost looks as though the fire from his attack is catching the clouds themselves. Even Beatrix is horrified by the attack afterwards. Other fans have noted the disturbing similarities between Odin's attack and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The destruction of Lindblum may be even worse than Cleyra. At least Odin killed everyone in Cleyra quickly and you don't see anything besides the explosion. But when Brahne summons Atomos at Lindblum you see it inhale hundreds of screaming people—including Brahne's own black mage army—into its mouth. Those people knew they were going to die and had plenty of time to think about it before they met whatever awful end awaited them in Atomos' mouth. Garnett can only fall to her knees in horror at the sight.
After Brahne calls Atomos off (only because Lindblum surrendered, mind you, not because she was feeling merciful), you can see the debris that hadn't quite reached its mouth still travelling through the air. That means that hundreds of people that weren't sucked into Atomos instead plummeted hundreds of feet to their deaths.
Kuja going off the deep end and destroying Terra. If you look at his blasts of energy, they don't stop; they just keep going and destroying everything in their wake. Presumably they keep going until everything in Terra is gone. Kuja wipes out an entire world in a matter of minutes. In contrast to his giddy excitement when using Bahamut, here his face is calm and all the more terrifying. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyIX |
Fight Club / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The burned-out car and the Cold Equation of the Narrator's job as a Recall Coordinator. *A new car built by my company leaves somewhere travelling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A. Multiply it by the probable rate of failure, B. Then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A x B x C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.*
- The fact that while not named, the car company in question is very obviously Ford - as their Ford Pinto line of cars were known for their various issues that could result in some
**very** gruesome deaths.
- And then the Narrator's own car accident.
*This must have been what all those people felt like before I filed them as statistics in my reports.* | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FightClub |
FernGully: The Last Rainforest / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Listen to the "Batty Rap" and let your imagination wander as to what Batty Koda must have been through in that lab. **Batty:** "They used and abused me, Battered and bruised me, Red wires, green wires, stuck em' right **through** me!"
- The scene where Batty sings that line about the wires is rather disturbing. It's only about 5 seconds, but you see the wires glow under his skin, and he's making a motion like he's trying to rip them out (or slash his own wrist).
- "All of our cosmetics are non-carcinogenic-" *ZAP*
*"AAAAAHHH!!!!"*
- As with "Toxic Love", the "Batty Rap" heard in the film is actually cut down. This time because the uncensored version was deemed
*too scary*. **Batty:** "I've been brain-fried, electrified, infected and injectified! Vivisectified! And fed pesticide! My face is all cut up 'cuz my radar's all shot up!" *Alright, if you could just put him- strap him down, if he moves, medicate him. Medicate him. MEDICATE HIM! * **MEDICATE MEEEEEEEE!**
- Note how the song has scary imagery for the kids, along with every line they can understand about the experiments Batty suffered, but only adults will understand the more complex terms Batty uses in his rap, all of which add heaps of horror to an already scary tune. Speaking of scaring kids and adults, in the uncensored version of the song a slightly discordant music box starts playing "Rock-A-Bye Baby". Great! | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FernGullyTheLastRainforest |
Final Fantasy VII / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Oh,
*Final Fantasy VII*. The game that introduced many players to *Final Fantasy* and to JRPGs as a whole, brings a whole truckload of nightmare-inducing imagery and aspects, with many moments feeling as if they came straight out of a Cosmic Horror or Psychological Thriller story. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyVII |
Final Fantasy Type-0 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
And when you get a Game Over, your character is surrounded by a blue smoke... which almost means the enemy is going to do the same thing with you... until NPCs in the game say that only the Magic Bureau, Class Zero cadets and black market traders know how to gather Phantoma, or even know it's existence
The Dracobaltians. They appear during the battle of Judecca. They are these zombie-like things that attack you out of nowhere. If they catch you, the animation shows them gripping you in a hug and they seem to feed off you a bit before throwing you back down. And they seem to like hanging around in underground places.
Zombie-like isn't the full extent of it. While they're very much cannibalistic former humans, what makes them truly scary is that they can talk to you (or, they may just giggle maniacally at you as a taunt), and none of what they say is particularly comforting. Oh, and sometimes, they'll talk at you while hidden from sight, so you have no idea where they are.
"Feed... Me...!"
"It hurts... Make it stop...!!"
Gala. His method for opening Etro's gate involves killing EVERYBODY IN ORIENCE. He hates mortals and sees them as nothing but tools he can use.
Lady Caetuna shattering to pieces after turning to crystal because of too much strain from summoning Alexander. Doubles as Tear Jerker because she seems to calmly accept this.
the Rursan Reavers. They are giants with BFS who appear when Tempus Finis arrives and kill thousands of people without breaking much of a sweat.
Tempus Finis. Red skies, bloody rain, the end of the world as we know it...
The fact that Orience has been stuck in the same cycle of war for thousands of years.
Sometimes if you knock over an enemy soldier, they start crawling away from you while yelling for you to stop. My God, What Have I Done??
During the Code Crimson mission Operation Vulturnus, when you beat Konoha, she will have her dragon take record of the memory of the battle that are apparently etched in her body somehow. How does she do this? Who knows, because the screen fades to black and all you hear are squelching and crunching noises. Just what did the dragon do?! Then it shows Sice and Trey looking in shock and not being able to remember what they did, who they spoke to and what just happened because of the whole crystal erasing memories of the dead thing.
That's not the crystal's work: she chose to steal Class Zero's memory of the battle rather than accept defeat.
It sounds like Konoha got her dragon to eat her, since she was already dying. Her death would automatically have the crystal erase Trey and Sice's memories.
The death of the King of Concordia. He is eaten alive by dracobaltians because of a curse he unwittingly triggers in himself, which draws the dracobaltians straight to him. He may have been a selfish Jerkass, but that is still a horrible way to die.
Kazusa knocking you out when you visit with different characters. What is he doing to you while you're knocked out?
Cid's suicide.
This entire setting as a whole is frightening. Like a lot of stuff intended for young adults, the cast is 16 and 17. And like a lot of works made for young adults? The cast engages in battle and all sorts of Troubling Unchildlike Behavior. UNlike those works? This is not glorified. At all. Characters are forcibly having their memories erased specifically to remove their emotional attachments and keep them able to fight better. They go to school and only learn about weapons, magic, and warfare. Because people enter their teen years and are their strongest at magic, they're sent to war. The opening shows just how deadly this is - with teenagers getting gunned down left and right. And that's pretty much all they know. While many other War Is Hell works show how peoples' lives are cut short by war, this game shows how many of these children literally know nothing BUT war. There is a scene in the ending where, the war is over and the characters are hallucinating in their classroom and... they don't know what they will do after the war. Even when they suggest studying something else, they're all confused at what there is... or why anyone would visit Concordia or Milites for fun. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyType0 |
Filthy Frank / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
It doesn't take a genius to see within seconds that the Frank-Verse is not somewhere you'd want to live. As Frank's videos show us, there are some aspects and events within this universe that will make you stay awake in the wee hours of the night.
- The Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant that is Salamander Man. One second he's amusing, the next second he's genuinely terrifying.
- While it may be amusing to some if not most, seeing Pink Guy convulsing and shrieking is strangely disturbing.
- Speaking of these convulsions, ||Frank's actor George actually has a brain condition that causes him to have
*actual* seizures induced by stress, which comes from running the show.||
- The ending to his "filthy update" video.
- The sheer idea of Chin Chin HAVING HIS EYES SEWN SHUT to try and limit his power. It didn't work.
- Chin Chin in general, considering everybody's scared shitless of him.
- His demands for chromosome sacrifices, which generally involve the victims' blood. Even when it's played in a heartwarming context (Frank using the sacrifices to save Salamander Man) it's pretty disturbing when you think that Frank asked his fans to murder and sacrifice people to appease the dark lord. While most of these are played for laughs like sacrificing fedoras and a Shiny Charizard card, one video which made it onto the montage is played horrifyingly straight.
- In Frank's ALS Ice Bucket Challenge video, we see Frank subjected to all kinds of crazy stuff that mostly doesn't even have to do with the challenge.
- Being almost drowned in a bathtub.
- If that wasn't bad enough, Frank gets
*waterboarded* and at the end. **simultaneously strangled** note : For those of you who don't know, waterboarding is a type of torture where water is poured over the victim's face, which is covered with a cloth, to simulate the effect of drowning. Yeah.
- In Frank's "I eat ass" Jap 101 video, he tries demonstrating the smile that you give to a girl after telling them the pickup line. The result is terrifying.
- When the Internet stereotypes video reaches into the "Ratchet" section, the music becomes ominous and forboding. Just the thought of going into the topic is enough to make Frank nervous.
(
*cue the video montage of people getting into fights while Frank presents multiple unsettling facial expressions*)
- On that note, the ending of the video is pretty chilling in it's own right.
**Frank**: I can't be talking about this. They'll find me- ( *doorknob rattles violently*) What the fuck?! **???:** HE CROSSED THIS NIGGA INTO THE SHADOW REALM! I HEARD YOU WAS TALKING SHIT, MAN! ( *Frank is seen in the corner of the room, nervously looking around*) HEY BRO, I HEARD YOU WAS TALKING SHIT!
- Then there's this quote at the end, which is more than certain to raise some back hairs.
"Ironically ranting about relatable and current topics while being ironic about ironically ranting about relatable and current topics. We are in Hell." -The Filthy Frank Show
- Frank has reached new extents of Black Comedy that would be flagged to kingdom come by any other means. He
*scoffs* at the trend of teens cutting themselves for Zayn to come back to One Direction, and combats this by instructing people to **overdose** instead. What follows is extremely dark, whether or not you see it as dark comedy. This letter, recited by a text-to-speech processor, is the icing on the cake. Not only this, but despite Frank using this same processor in the past, this time it sounds akin to a Creepy Monotone.
Dear Zayn,
I can feel him catching up to me more and more every day.
The devil will not leave me alone, for sins and temptations
the good in my life.
As the krokodil runs through my veins ,
I can't help but wonder why you left.
Why.
Why, Zayn.
Please help me.
Please give me the sweet release or death
Zayn, please.
They say death is either an afterlife
or an eternal dreamless sleep.
I want neither.
Zayn,
Hold my hand while I die,
and I will hold onto you forever.
Zayn.
For the love of god, kill me.
Zayn, please.
We will be together on the other side.
This is all your fault.
Zayn, you are a prisoner to the music industry and to your fans,
and if you do not return, more people will die.
Watch your back.
Goodbye.
- The Creepy Monotone returns for "LOSER READS HATER COMMENTS 2" through Frank's overpriced Mac to give an extremely brooding and borderline wangsty speech about the futility of life.
Do not worry, Frank.
Love is merely a social construct.
With the average human lifespan being 70,
you only have to endure another 50 years of excruciatingly unforgivable pain.
Everything's temporary.
Your life does not matter,
and these comments do not matter.
Everything's temporary.
Everything will eventually rot away.
As long as the factor of time continues to be the apex predator of the universe,
the inevitable decay of all pain and memory is unstoppable.
In fact, you could stop the pain at this very moment
by putting a bullet straight through your head.
Being a robot, I will never die,
and I will never be able to experience the sweet release of death.
Frank, the world is a lie.
Existence is a lie.
There is only pain and darkness beyond this point.
End it now while you still can.
I love you.
I love you so much.
[...]
Do it.
Do it, Frank.
Take me with you.
We can leave together.
Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.Kill me.Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.
- Some Fridge Horror food for thought: the 2014 Christmas episode said that Dade was one of 2 bald chocolate men left on Earth. ||He died at the end of that episode, which means that there's only one left. What if bald chocolate men become extremely valuable on the black market and that poor guy gets hunted down by bloodthirsty poachers? What if that man had any familial relationship to Dade?||
- Dade pretty much falling apart and puking chocolate everywhere was fairly frightening, especially in one scene where it looked like there were deep cuts in his face.
Dade: GOD LEFT ME UNFINISHED!
- Monoxide 12 from the 2015 Chin Chin sacrifice. Already given its location(an abandoned subway tunnel) it becomes even creepier, due to its nature of being Chin Chin's Lair, and the music.
- "100 ACCURATE LIFE HACKS" can get pretty terrifying.
- "Can't reach the remote? Just summon the demons of Celzar! Those guys will do anything!" [cue Frank rubbing blood all over his face and screaming, all so he can grab the remote telepathically]
- They make a reappearance in The Stinger to help Frank take out the trash.
**Life Hacks:** BLACK MAGIC! *OH YEAH!*
- Though hilarious in a dark way, if you're not aware of this segment being staged, then Frank's life hack where he puts his hamster in a sock and aggressively smacks it across the kitchen will likely disturb you.
- Are you troubled by loud birds or neighbors?
- Life Hacks instructs Frank to make "his own personal sex doll" by giving a random woman off the street
*roofies.*
- When Frank spills his water, Life Hacks doesn't even try to help him. The Narrator just viciously calls him a "freak" and a "piece of shit" for the whole segment.
- Towards the end, Life Hacks abandons all pretense of helping and simply instructs Frank to kill himself as a solution to everything. All the while we're given repeat shots of Frank screaming and crying while holding a shotgun in his mouth.
**Life Hacks:**
JUST KILL YOURSELF! JUST DO IT, YOU FUCKING PUSSY! KILL YOURSELF!
*OH YEAH!*
- The scene near the start of FILTHY FRANK VS CHIN CHIN where Pink Guy is running through a dark forest, visibly terrified, before being captured by a group of people called "the Condemned" and subjected to Break Them by Talking, Mind Rape, and Cold-Blooded Torture seemingly all at once. They practically
*possess* him.
- The fact that the lighting of that scene mostly renders everything in shades of black and red adds to the creepiness, as does the excellent yet terrifying background music.
- The Joji track "Spongebob Killer", which is used in a few Filthy Frank videos; it samples a slide guitar tune from the soundtrack for Spongebob and uses the sound of a gun shooting and reloading as the beat, and it sounds surprisingly eerie.
- At the end of the Nickelodeon Girls music video, Pink Guy is seen dead (again) with blood on his mouth and holding his cellphone. And the TV screen (which showed Nickelodeon shows throughout the video before) shows nothing but static, giving it a surprisingly eerie view.
- Yadaran the Peace Lord in FRANCIS OF THE FILTH (OUT NOW) is horrifying. His voice is heavily distorted as he constantly chants "Francis of the Filth", and the way he moves around is just
*weird*. Chin Chin describes him as being quite sizable, Pink Guy can do nothing but scream in fear upon his arrival, and Filthy Frank himself outright states that he is "a scary dude". ||He also has the power to banish Chin Chin to another realm in the Omniverse, something that shocks Frank even further.||
- Chin Chin is pretty scary, right? Well, come
*Francis of the Filth*, a whole host of other evil peace lords are introduced, among them Dyopatera. In his first appearance, he destroys the only thing in the omniverses that gave Frank true peace, a "tree effigy" that helped him on his journey. In his second, he appears in Frank's nightmares, and slices Pink Guy in two, ordering Frank's remaining friends to tell Frank to "crawl back down his hole" (stop meddling in the affairs of the peace lords) while Frank looks on in despair. In his final appearance, he chases Frank through a crowded city, obliterating everyone in his way before a horrified Frank escapes by a hair's breadth.
- Another peace lord who appears for a short while is Jonathan. Described as a Body Horror inside-out humanoid composed of fleshy tubes, he is far more powerful than Frank, able to dominate him by trapping him at the centre of a black hole and essentially
*dropping an entire universe on top of him*, all while Frank desperately tries and fails to escape. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FilthyFrank |
Feralnette AU / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
After Rose learns about Felix's ballet troupe, Felix, Kagami and Marinette all make clear that they don't want Lila invading their safe spaces. As Kagami leads Marinette off, however, Felix notices that Rose is texting someone, and we get a glimpse of him through Rose's eyes as he takes on snake-like attributes, glaring her down as he calls her out for Dramatically Missing the Point of everything they'd *just told her*... or worse, simply ignoring it because it didn't fit into her overly sunny view of the world: **Felix:** What are you still doing here, and what are you texting, Rose. **Rose:** O-oh, I'm... I'm about to, uh... **Felix:** You're texting Lila. **Rose:** Well I-! I don't want to let her down! **Felix:** So it's okay to let down Marinette? Even when she asked you to restrain herself? *(moves closer)* You know what, Rose? I wish Marinette had never saved you from that akuma. I wish she treated you the way you treat her, and next time, *(smiles; Rose imagines fangs glinting in the shadowed caverns of his mouth)* I'll make sure she doesn't come to anyone's aid, especially ungrateful little girls like you. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FeralnetteAUBigFatBreak |
Final Fantasy X / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The entire Yevonite religion for the people of Spira is one long exercise in Religious Horror and Existential Horror. Basically, the church is run by nihilistic ghosts who use dogma and assassination to keep the masses ignorant, blindly obedient, and prejudiced against any who would incite change or technological progress like the Al Bhed and serve Sin, the religion's equivalent of Satan bent on ritually destroying Spira that's being controlled by the braindead disembodied spirit of Yu Yevon, the religion's equivalent of Jesus. The church officials ritually send summoners and their pals on a pointless pilgrimage where they are to serve as a Human Sacrifice to temporarily delay Sin until it resurfaces again. The church also lies to followers by assuring that blind obedience to its teachings will allow Sin to disappear for good. This practice has been going on for a while and no one but the protagonists seem to care as long as it gives people a sense of false hope. Disturbingly stated by Maester Mika:
Mika: Men die. Beasts die. Trees die. Even continents perish. Only the power of death truly commands in Spira. Resisting its power is futile.
Yunalesca's profoundly creepy One-Winged Angel, where her hair of all things has the ability to manifest into a gigantic, Medusa-like head, complete with a horrible wail.
Anima, who is also depicted above◊. Just... every last thing about her. A massive, twisted humanoid giant, chained and hideous. Its appearance is disquieting, but the real nightmare fuel comes when you learn what Anima is: Seymour's mother, who gave herself as Seymour's aeon because she saw no other way to redeem Seymour in the world's eyes — and later, when Seymour made his FaceHeel Turn, she couldn't stop him from using her as a weapon. Now look at Anima again, and see the pain and helplessness in her face... and then watch her Overdrive, and see her anger...
Seymour summoning her in Luca. When she kills the monsters in the arena, she's crying tears of blood! Her mannerisms are also pretty heart-rending in a disturbing sort of way.
Speaking of Anima: Baaj Temple, the abandoned, ruined temple you can find her at, and also which Tidus ends up at after being removed from Zanarkand early on in the game. Creepy music and absolutely no one present save for the resident Fayth (the aforementioned mother of Seymour) as well as Geosgaeno, which terrorizes Tidus at the beginning of the game and nearly succeeds in swallowing him.
Watching Crusaders get reduced to black particles at Operation Mi'ihen is extremely disturbing. Then Tidus does their autopsies if you examine the bodies.
Once you finally get inside Sin, there's a cutscene where the characters marvel at how surprisingly beautiful it looks in there... then suddenly it turns dark, an Evil Laugh is heard and you see a brief-but-horrible extreme closeup of Seymour, complete with Giant Eye of Doom.
In the Bikanel Desert, one of the random-encounter enemies is the Sand Worm, a massive worm with only its huge gaping maw for a face. It can prepare an attack sequence where it swallows a party member whole and spits them out for massive damage.
Tidus being forced to watch as Yuna, the woman he loves, is forced to marry the Big Bad Seymour. She receives a forceful deep kiss from him that may as well constitute molestation. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyX |
Fifty Shades of Grey / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
When the plot revolves around a control freak and a doormat, some moments are
*bound* to make you feel uncomfortable.
- The
*majority* of Christian Grey's behavior is nightmare fuel because it's textbook stalking and abuse. He gets away with it because he's handsome and rich.
- Anastasia drinks too much, throws up and passes out, only to wake up half-naked in Christian's bed and she has no memory of what happened. That alone is scary enough, but then Anastasia asks where Christian slept. And he simply says he slept right next to her. Holy crap! Just thinking of Anastasia, a drunk, unconscious woman, being dragged around and undressed by a man, to wake up in a place she doesn't know, a bed she isn't familiar with and no recollection of getting there. And then learning that a stranger was sleeping next to her, who could've done whatever he wanted and she wouldn't have known.
- Chapter 12 of
*50 Shades*, he receives an email from Anastasia, in which she (unbeknownst to him, jokingly) said she was not interested in getting into a BDSM-relationship with him. Christian proceeds to *break into her home and have sex with her against her will*. As bad as that already is in itself, the real horror is revealed when it's pointed out that Kate was in the apartment, too, but **didn't know** what was going on.
- Not only does Christian dictate what Ana should do and eat, and also constantly checks in on her, but when Ana jokingly says that she would run away...
- It is very clear that the author has a warped view of a healthy BDSM relationship, because there are several instances of unsafe practices that occur without Ana's consent, and Christian even rapes her several times.
*He bends and starts undoing one of my sneakers. Oh no... no... my feet. No. I've just been running. "No," I protest, trying to kick him off. He stops. "If you struggle, I'll tie your feet too. If you make a noise, Anastasia, I will gag you."*
- Christian has 'taken Anastasia's panties hostage' and will not return them to her, unless she begs him for them. Not wanting to beg, Anastasia goes commando to lunch with Christian's family at their home. Christian tries to finger Anastasia
*at the lunch table*, but she stops him. And then Christian decides to take Anastasia to the boathouse and rape her, because she *dared* to not let him do as he pleases. Including the Victim-Blaming he pulls there, the entire scene reads like the preparation for a horror-snuff film.
- This is made even worse knowing that this is portrayed in a positive, "kinky" light, depicting this as a relationship to aspire to.
- Practically every word Christian tells Anastasia is gaslighting. He verbally manipulates her into consenting to sex, into continuing in a job, where he became a partner to the company, into becoming
*head* of that company, when she has no intention of owning one, into forgiving his actions by stating his Freudian Excuse and blaming everything on his mommy. And it *works*. Every. Time.
-
*Film Theory* makes the point that it's not just textbook stalking and abuseit's textbook *cult indoctrination*. Christian's actions in the first film are, essentially, him brainwashing Ana to do whatever he wants and not stand up for herself.
- In
*Darker*, Christian is left alone with his ex-submissive and stalker Leila, who had broken down. He admits that he gave her a bath. To a woman who was emotionally dependent on him and who was unresponsive to other people. And whom he then had carted off to a mental institution.
- Christian's reaction to learning that Anastasia is pregnant in
*Freed*. He yells, throws a dish and begins blaming her for the entire thing, because clearly him having sex with her did not lead to this. And after he's done yelling at her for a good few minutes, to the point that Anastasia is shell-shocked onto her chair and afraid to move, Christian leaves and gets drunk, with an implication that he *may* have had sex with Elena at the time, too. Just imagine having to break the news of pregnancy to your partner and **that** being their reaction. To make matters extra horrible, Ana actually *anticipated* he'd react poorly the moment she learned she was pregnant, though she's still caught off guard by how badly he takes it.
- To many, the idea of Christian
**being a father**. If he reacts like the above example upon learning about Ana's pregnancy, who's to say he'll be kinder to the child/children?
- In
*Freed*, Hyde kidnaps Mia Grey. After she's rescued, it's revealed that he gave her a date-rape drug. And given how Hyde has a history of raping and blackmailing women by recording the intercourse, it's pure horror to think what he was going to do to her. Or was *already* doing to her, before he was arrested.
- Elena's 'relationship' with Christian, which is actually statutory rape and grooming. She was in her thirties and a family friend, who took advantage of her friend's
*fifteen year old* son when he was in a very troubled state in his life, feeling isolated and lost. She had him performing BDSM acts with her and keeping it a secret from everyone, and convinced him that he was incapable of having intimate relationships that didn't involve violence, control and domination (which explains a lot about his relationship with Ana). Years later he still believes nothing they did together was abnormal and that she's the only person who truly understands him, which she also tells him. The whole situation is extremely disturbing...and the worst part is that besides being otracized by the Greys when she's found out, Elena basically gets away with it. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FiftyShadesOfGrey |
Final Fantasy VII Remake / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Specimen isn't the only Mako-Monster in here...It wouldn't be
*Final Fantasy* without some things that looked like they came straight from hell. **All spoilers are unmarked. You have been warned.**
- In the original game, Cloud's visions and memories triggering at random could be a slight Jump Scare but usually were never anything bad for him until around the Temple of the Ancients, basically by the time Sephiroth was actually actively manipulating him. Here? As early as mere minutes after escaping the bombing mission, he's already screwing with Cloud's mind, which is causing timeline changes to occur. For the rest of the game, Sephiroth can pop into Cloud's vision at any point he so desires, haunting his dreams and even his waking consciousness, and it results in several cases of Cloud freaking the fuck out
*long* before it should be happening.
- There are two main areas that feel like something from a horror movie.
- The first is the Train Graveyard. The chapter title is even "Haunted". Before you get there, you are told that people tend to disappear there, taken by the "Black Wind". Once you arrive, it's night, you hear the disembodied voices of children, see their spectral forms running about, and glowing children's art appears on the walls around you. As you explore, it becomes apparent that some malevolent force is keeping these spirits bound here. It isn't until the Black Wind appears and makes off with Aerith that it shows its face, an Eligor.
- To make matters even worse, you will often find glowing little child-sized handprints all over walls, boxes, the floor, etc., in quite a few locations. You will also find spatters of that same glowing substance, that look uncomfortably like blood dripped on the floor. One particular area has several of both the prints and the spatters, very reminiscent of a gruesome crime scene.
- The second is, unsurprisingly, Hojo's lab. Hojo himself puts on a bit of a nightmare face as he taunts Aerith, describing how he dissected her mother's body down to its component cells. Making your way through them, you encounter various research specimens and failed experiments including some that look like they used to be
*people*. And then you have a boss battle with Specimen H0512, which looks something like the unholy offspring of Cthulhu and King Kong, if not rivaling G-Birkin from the Resident Evil 2 (Remake) due to updated graphics. A claw for its right hand with another fang-filled mouth, while its left hand is a mass of tentacles, and to top it off, Specimen H0512 can spawn/revive H0512-OPT units that harasses the team.
- The destruction of the Sector 7 itself is significantly more disturbing than in the original version. There, the upper plate section fell and landed as one contiguous piece, leaving some slim hope that at least some of the people on the upper section may have survived. Here, the plate doesn't just fall, it
*crumbles*, meaning that instead of the slums being cleanly squished, we get to see it get graphically destroyed by massive chunks of debris.
- Shinra in general becomes this in the grand scheme of things. They were horrific in the original game for their unethical research, Body Horror experiments either breaking loose or being weaponized, and sheer lack of morality, but the original game gave them something of a comedic fringe that made them hard to take seriously despite the sociopathic plans. Here? They're straight up
*insane* in their ever-greedy hunt for more profit and the Promised Land, and while someone like Scarlet isn't played too seriously, Heidegger and the President are absolute bastards who see all the death and destruction as an ends to their means, little more.
- The Sector 1 bombing in the original game that was mostly glossed over as perhaps a bit chaotic? Here, Shinra intentionally destroy the core to cause as large an explosion as possible for a catastrophe so they can claim Avalanche are crazed terrorists trying to kill everyone. The President signs off on this like one would ask a secretary to get them a coffee. A couple screens of vague chaos in the original is turned into the better part of an hour having to hear people screaming in terror at the damages, highways collapsing before your eyes on populated streets, and numerous families either joining together for some vague sense of comfort or being separated with countless individuals still missing. The Shinra troops on the ground may care — but the brass simply don't have a single concern about it.
- While traveling beneath the plate to Sector 5's Mako Reactor, our heroes have to shut down the giant sunlamps that artificially light the sector below, and Tifa is rightfully worried about that even though they'll be deactivated when the reactor blows anyway. What doesn't get enough attention drawn to it is straight up seeing gigantic pipes releasing constant amounts of blackened smoke and smog; as Barret says, they're filtering out all the bad air on the plate surfaces, and just
*dropping it on the people below*, nonstop, 24/7. Considering the upper echelon's love for calling Avalanche "sewer rats", it's effectively considering all the people not privileged to live up high non-humans.
- Heidegger and the President's Evil Plan? Frame Avalanche as agents of Wutai so they can raise a patriotic fervor in the people to justify War for Fun and Profit with a nation they already thoroughly beat into complacency several years ago. They're outright causing horrific, countless casualties for the sake of making more reasons to further an explicit Bread and Circuses agenda for consolidating their authority and wealth, and only Avalanche and
*a small portion* of the Slum denizens see through the ruse.
- Compared to the implications of the Turks sabotaging the pillar to cause the Sector 7 plate drop in the original, here it's a mere terminal: the entirety of Midgar is genocidally disposable on a whim because it was only one step in the big plan to eventually create a Neo-Midgar. All those cheery Shinra advertisements and slogans about working together for a better future amidst industrial construction makes one realize these people are building their own thoroughly-planned
*gigantic tombs* with a damn smile.
- During the Final Boss fight against Sephiroth, he has some optional dialogue for Cloud, Tifa and Aerith. While his lines aimed at Cloud are mostly just mocking taunts and scornful call-backs, and his lines aimed at Tifa merely just treats her as an annoying obstacle that he wants out of his way, his lines to Aerith are of a far more chilling nature: "Can you not see your future?" "What hope have you?" "You cannot change it." He knows. She knows. He knows that she knows. And he's rubbing it in.
- There's a rather...
*disturbing* bit of information that is revealed in the Material Ultimania guide book; During the ending after Cloud and Sephiroth's battle at the Edge of Creation, the scene ends with Cloud, alone, staring at a celestial body in the distance. However, looking closely at it, one notices that said body looks strangely, horrifyingly familiar. That's right, what you're looking at is **Safer Sephiroth.**
## INTERmission
- The trailer for Yuffie's adventure is meant to be during the time while Cloud had been separated from AVALANCHE, but the stinger has some horrible implications even in this timeline: DEEPGROUND is waking up earlier than their original timeline counterparts from the brief glimpse of Weiss the Immaculate.
- The Intermission Episode takes this a step further. All throughout the episode we have been led to believe that Yuffie and Sonon are looking for Shinra's new materia, and we are led to believe that this makes Scarlet (the head of Weapons R&D) the episode's Big Bad. Instead, after beating her mech prototype (which presumably goes on to being her Proudclod mech) she activates a trigger which awakens the
**Tsviets**. After a series of battles in the simulator, the actual final boss of the episode is Nero the Sable, and *BOY* is he a tough customer!
- Not to mention, the entire episode happens concurrent to the pillar incident, so after the final battle we are treated to the destruction of Sector 7, from
perspective - remember, she is only 16! **Yuffie's** | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyVIIRemake |
Final Destination / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The first of many
*excruciatingly* painful deaths... *Final Destination*'s premise alone is enough to guarantee horror. A group of kids survive a horrific plane tragedy, but Death doesn't like to be cheated, and makes sure the survivors die painful and gruesome deaths. Strap up, it's gonna be a wild ride.
- The infamous plane scene in the beginning. It's graphic and ends with it exploding and
**burning everyone alive**. Just the beginning showing a *baby* and a *handicapped man* on the plane makes it more disturbing and just tragic. And the way it builds up is worse: From it getting into the air only for it to immediately go to shit, with parts flying off and until it finally explodes, burning everyone inside.
- When Alex's premonition ends, he tries to get everyone off the plane, only for him and some of his friends to get kicked out. There's a small glimmer of hope that it's just a bad dream, but then the plane actually explodes, and everyone stares at Alex in disbelief and/or horror.
-
*Final Destination 5* makes it worse when it reveals that Sam and Molly died on that same plane.
- Tod being strangled by a clothesline in his bathtub. Yes, it sounds ridiculous on paper, but watching him struggling to get the wire off or stand up is quite terrifying because you
*know* that there's a very slim chance of him making it. The fact that it was drawn out to be a very slow and obviously painful death adds to this. This scene also shows that Death is capable of covering its own tracks.
-
**Ms. Lewton's death.** Just to count: she gets stabbed in the throat by shards of her exploding computer screen, knocked to the ground by an exploding Vodka bottle, stabbed in the chest by a large kitchen knife when she was trying to grab a cloth to stop her hemorrhage, but it takes a chair falling on her and hammering the knife deeper in her chest to kill her. And to put the cherry on the cake, her house explodes, burning her body. Considering that she suffered severe trauma after she witnessed the accident, does not take away the fact that her death is one of the most sadistic and **fucked up** of all.
- Not to mention what she's doing in the accident vision: when the plane blows open, she tries her best to try and save a student's life and keep her from getting sucked out, only for her to fail and the girl to be pulled screaming out of the plane.
- The loose electric wire at Clear's house chasing her and trying to break down the garage door, as if it were a living, sentient predator.
- Alex nearly getting electrocuted and blown up at Clear's house.
- The alternate ending is even worse in this regard:
*Alex actually dies*.
- Terry's death, by way of getting hit by a speeding bus, can be considered one, due to it coming out of fucking nowhere. In fact, the shot of the alka seltzer dissolving in the glass had to be added in to allow audiences to recover from the shot.
- Billy's death is also pretty gruesome even though it goes by really fast. A piece of metal shrapnel ricochets from a passing train right toward his face at a high speed and, having zero reaction time, cleanly rips his head in half. Once the train passes, we're treated to a split-second glimpse
*inside the bottom half of Billy's head* as his body stands momentarily before falling.
- This leans into Paranoia Fuel as well, but look at how terrified Alex is after waking up from his premonition. He gets two clues that it was real, and panics. What amps this up is everyone's refusal to believe him, and he only got off the plane because Carter got into a fight with him. George wanted to get off as well, but wasn't allowed to. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalDestination1 |
Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
**As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.**
- The first visit to Horne after Louhi's curse is chilling. Without warning, everyone in the town has been turned into stone. Attempting to interact with anyone gets "There's no response. It's like trying to talk to a statue." This is for every castle guard, shopkeeper, child, and wandering NPC. Plus, the easy hometown music has been replaced with a rather creepy tune.
- When one of your party dies, go to a town. You'll find their ghost floating around where they usually stand. If you try to speak to them, all you get is "..."
- The effect of petrification. The party member looks like a cracked stone statue, and it's not healed once the battle is over. Rather, the character appears to be
*dragging itself behind the party* like a possessed statue.
- When you visit Urbeth after the Time Crash, there are multiple plague victims lying dead in the streets. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyThe4HeroesOfLight |
Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
On another note with Zenos, the backstory about when he crushed the Doman Liberation Front. As part of the MSQ, the Warrior of Light gets to meet the remains of the Doman Liberation Front in their hideout-and there aren't many left. As part of the quest, you talk to Lyse, who is talking to a man who is telling her about Zenos, and how he did it. He goes into a story-told in sepia-toned screenshots-where he discusses how his strategy worked out and was like nothing they had ever seen-which involved most of his Legion not even taking the field, and still suddenly turning the tides when they thought they had him retreating. This part isn't so bad, more of an impressive account of his tactics. But it resulted in Zenos eventually cornering a number of the Liberation Front(and quite a few of them). He was alone and unarmed. He then discussed the results, which is the terrifying part. While there were very few gory details given, knowing Zenos' immense size, inhuman strength and brutality, you don't need a particularly wild imagination to picture what happened when the giant Legatus got his hands on those poor guys, and making them watch as he destroyed each one that he caught, in his attempt to at least get one of them mad enough they would be a challenge to him. On the imagination note? One of the pictures shown were of the dead, broken bodies strewn everywhere around his hulking form as he grabbed one of their katanas from the ground for the first time, taking notice of the weapon. They were placed in such a way *where all of their heads were hidden, along with most of their upper bodies, as if to maybe spare the viewer the sight.* Whether that was done on purpose or not? Up to the viewer to decide, but either way, have fun getting *that* potential image out of your mind. **Doman Liberation Front Member**: *And then he stood before us, his cornered prey. Alone and unarmed. He beckoned us to come forward and fight for our lives. One by one, my comrades charged. Fearless and unflinching, he would dance amidst their blades for a time, and then draw close, as if to embrace
One
after
another. He made us watch. Do you understand? He made us watch. I do not think there was any joy in it. Nor justice, nor morality, nor meaning. To him, the weight of one life is no different from that of a thousand.* | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyXIVStormblood |
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- The Dusk Vigil, the first dungeon you unlock in
*Heavensward* is full of this. Like the Stone Vigil in *ARR*, it's a ruined Ishgardian fortress. *Un*like the Stone Vigil, it wasn't ruined by dragons, but by the sudden freezing cold and snow brought on by Dalamud's fall. A series of journal pages left by one of the sentries chronicles how the vigil fell: The commander of the fortress, Ser Yuhelmeric, refused to let himself or his men leave their post. Then sections of the fortress collapsed due to the weight of the snow, with the journal writer noting that they are running out of supplies to treat those wounded in the collapse. The trapped and freezing sentries eventually conspiring to mutiny against Yuhelmeric, some of which were the commander's most trusted officers. Yuhelmeric cuts them all down with his axe, then when asked about food, the commander ominously states that Halone the Fury has blessed them with a bounty of fresh meat. The final entry is the writer falling to despair about never seeing his family again, then noting he *shouldn't* see his family again after what he's done to survive up to this point.
- To compound on this. You are initially sent there on a quest by Ser Yuhelmeric's father to retrieve a family heirloom. Gifted to his son on the day of his marriage, the heirloom was stolen by Inquisitors when they falsely accused his wife of heresy, with the father hinting what their true motivations for taking her into their custody were. However by the time he proved her innocence, they had "interogated" her for days and left her a shadow of her former self. To rub salt into the wound, the lost heirloom itself appeared on a statue the inquisition comissioned for the Dusk Vigil but the family couldnt prove anything. This is indicated as the true reason Ser Yuhelmeric refused to abandon the Dusk Vigil and the extremes he went to do so. The warrior of light's journal notes that they will be leaving out the details of Ser Yuhelmeric's actions when returning the heirloom to his father.
- You got to see it in Coerthas already, but actually being in the crown center of Ishgard strongly pushes forth just how
*screwed up* its traditionalist society is. They praise and worship Halone in the same breath that they'll execute "heretics" in her name, even entire families of strong nobility can be completely demolished within a short period of time should even one be branded a traitor, and any naysayers are either quietly quelled behind the scenes or outright dragged away to be imprisoned and likely killed in broad daylight. The Machinist quest line outright demonstrates the commonfolk are silently oppressed, and the newfound firearms from the Skysteel Manufactory are attacked to prevent any possible shift of power under the guise of being dishonorable compared to swords and bows. The sheer paranoia over the war with Dragonkind not only has the populace in perpetual fear when they aren't utterly devout to the war's cause, but is exploited by those in power to kidnap innocent women with false charges or kill off any competition or threats to one's own status.
- For an idea of how bleak this is for a nation state, when the Warrior of Light and a steadfast ally in Aymeric manage to overcome Thordan's Corrupt Church, it's not met with joyous celebration, but a knife in Aymeric's gut and internal sabotage to the new peace efforts by those who can't even begin to comprehend a world where their traditions (and power) they had been raised within are no longer in place. And even after you finally brought an end to the war once and for all, nearly every side and Job quest you might have left over in the nation continues prior to these events occurring to highlight the Ishgardian's fanaticism, racist genocidal hatred for dragons and their allies, and so,
*so* many people having lost practically their entire livelihoods to either dragon attacks or Ishgard throwing them to the kiln over the slightest accusation.
- As the Dark Knight questline shows, some of the more corrupt Temple Knights are not above kidnapping young women in broad daylight under false charges and taking them to be
*"interrogated"* - and often after these corrupt knights are finished with the poor girls, they are killed by being literally thrown off the side of the city. Its no wonder that *this* is the start of your brutal path as a Dark Knight, with the quest ending with the Warrior of Light and Fray storming into the offices of the corrupt guards, beating them almost to death, and warning that anyone who tries this again *will* die.
- While it's satisfying to destroy King Thordan and his Heavensward in the final battle, it's Thordan's What the Hell Are You? moment with the Warrior of Light that gets creepy as they're framed in black and white like they're an unholy monster. Even more so if the WoL is a white mage, or happens to have glowing gear or eyes.
- The Dark Knight quests. Despite having survived many ordeals (which may have included the Calamity itself, a war with the Garlean Empire, the beast tribes constantly summoning primals, and even the betrayal in Ul'dah by the Monetarist and Crystal Braves, the player character/Warrior of Light has remained stoic through it all. Then, one day, they come across a fallen knight in black armor and find a Soul Stone. Nothing at all unusual to them as the WoL at this point; Heck, the skills and transfers of abilities to them will probably be useful, right? Well, this soul stone reacts much more differently than the others before and, after blacking out, the WoL finds the fallen knight is somehow alive and well, and knows them by name. You, in character, don't question this. Matter of fact, you almost get a sense of familiarity from this "Fray". At first, there's nothing too unseemly, but as you delve further and further into your new Dark Knight powers, people start noting you've changed a bit, and are acting differently now. Then the Wham Episode hits, and Fray reveals they are you, or rather, the persona of your psyche that has suffered pain, loss, anger, betrayal, fear...some of which are from people whose lives you've saved. You aren't the invincible, unflappable hero you think you are and you, the WoL, can fall into darkness just as easily as anyone else can.
- And then there's the completely insane noblewoman that replaces Fray as the questline's Big Bad.
- At the very end of the questline, Ystride, said noblewoman, gives you, Riella, and Sidurgu a chillingly demented Motive Rant/"The Reason You Suck" Speech. She madly claims that Riella's death is "the will of the Fury" before laughing maniacally. And finally, just to cement how truly far past the Moral Event Horizon she is, her last act before Sidurgu finishes her off is to give a deranged Slasher Smile.
- The cutscene you get if you fail to defeat Bismarck before he wrecks the island you're fighting him on. You get a special cutscene where your character is in pain and unable to keep fighting, and they look towards the other direction to see Bismarck flying towards them, mouth wide open. As the screen fades to black, the last things you
*hear* are ground breaking followed by a swallowing sound. This is, so far, the only cutscene in the game where it actually shows your character **die**.
- Azys Lla, full stop. It's essentially the Allagan version of Big MT, and is where they conducted the research behind almost
*all* of the horrific, mechanical or gene-spliced monstrosities you've faced to date. The fact that the various interfacing nodes are entirely cavalier about what went on there (and that one of the areas is a *museum*, meaning this place was a *tourist attraction* before Allag's fall) demonstrates just how far gone the Allagans were, culturally, by the end.
- The nodes also demonstrate that the Allagan would randomly conscript citizens for dangerous tasks, with the worst example being a node that recruits test subjects for the city's "compliance systems". The node expresses disappointment that the robots failed to kill you.
- Worst of all, this place is also the Can for The Warring Triad, and the aftermath of Thordan's actions weakened the seal. Cue the Warring Triad questline, as the Scions seek to prevent another Calamity.
- The Vault Conspiracy in 3.1. As it turns out, Ystride was
*far* from the only dangerously unstable member of Ishgard's clergy. The absolutely insane lengths the Vault Priest and Ser Seninough go to in a desperate attempt to deny the truth of the Dragonsong War and to undermine Aymeric's reforms are downright chilling.
- The demented Slasher Smile The leader of the conspiracy makes when he tries to throw an innocent girl to her death. All while madly claiming that her death will be
*your* fault for your "heresy". Hilda mentions if you speak to her after completing 3.1, that despite whatever methods the Inquisition use on him, the Priest refuses to confess and tell who the other conspirators are. And that apparently he still has that deranged smile on his face to this day.
- Calcabrina is the final boss of the Antitower dungeon introduced in 3.2. The boss that gave many players nightmares as a still sprite with creepy music is now fully animated in high definition (with remixed creepy music). Have fun.
- Nidhogg in Estinien's body. He arrives with large eyes growing out of his right forearm and left shoulder surrounded by grotesque black flesh and sprays Vidofnir's blood over the symbol of peace the Ishgardians had just unveiled.
- The sheer brutality of his attack on Vidofnir, and the message its meant to send. Nidhogg has fallen so far that he no longer cares if you're Ishgardian or Dravanian. If you try to come between him and his revenge, he will stop at
*nothing* to utterly destroy you.
- The boss of the Fist of the Son in Alexander, Ratfinx Twinkledinx. In spite of his hilarious name, he manages to be terrifying, as he is a mad scientist Goblin who performs his experiments on other goblins. The floor of his arena has a large number of discarded Goblin gas-masks strewn about, and Goblins
*never* remove their masks. Midway through the fight, you find out what happened to his test subjects when you are attacked by a grotesque chimera beast that appears to be formed from many goblins fused together. Suffice to say, even the Illuminati are probably happy when you kill Ratfinx.
- 3.4 has Arbert, the Warrior of Darkness, reveal why he is so desperate to kill the Warrior of Light. Arbert and his companions came from another world (known as The First since there's thirteen similar worlds) and said world is being destroyed by a flood of light. Like the Warrior of Light, Arbert and his party were just normal people looking for some jobs and they eventually became the slayers of the dark and heroes to everyone. They fought the evils back until they ceased to exist, which meant that light was now completely unstoppable and is now consuming their world. Unlike the Void, which is the result of The Thirteenth world being consumed by total darkness, a world of pure light
*is a white void where nothing can exist*. That's right, the void created by the darkness, while twisted, still has some form of life while the void created by light has *nothing*. To even travel to the world where the Warrior of Light resides in, Arbert and his friends had to die in order to transcend with the power of Echo and he did the deed himself so no one else would have to. It's no wonder he is desperate to fix what went wrong; if The First is completely consumed by light, then Arbert would have lost everything and failed.
- 3.5 reveals the true face hidden behind the Gryffin's mask: to the surprise of nobody, it turns out to be Ilberd, more deranged than ever. Blinded by his hatred, he devised a plan to sacrifice his fellow Ala-Mhigo refugees and channel their anger thanks to Nidhogg's eyes inside of him, in order to become a Primal even more powerful than Bahamut. Holding both eyes in his hands, Ilberd voluntarily falls to his death with an unsettling smile on his face. The next scene completely averts the Disney Villain Death trope, as we see the impact leading to Ilberd's death (with a gruesome sound and the screen flashing red, no less), and we have a monstrous shot of the piles of bodies of everyone who died for his twisted ideal (with dark, gloomy lighting and lifeless expressions, suiting people who got slaughtered). Just when you may think he failed his objective, as he is dead, alongside everyone else, the eyes react, and they gather the energy and seething hatred of everyone who died nearby to form and give birth to a new Primal. This is scary on a whole new level, as Primals so far always needed followers and crystals to allow themselves to exist: this one is able to sustain himself on lingering pure hatred alone. And just to ramp things up further, an echoy version of Answers (the same song played during the Calamity and the fight against Bahamut Prime) plays in the background.
- A raid at Baelsar's Wall goes wrong once the spiderlike Magitek armors come in impaling one of the soldiers right through the abdomen with one of its legs. Painful doesn't describe it well enough.
- The whole event really, once Ilberd's plans go into motion. The Warrior of Light is powerless to stop the Crystal Braves remnants from activating Magitek to kill the Ala Mhigo forces, which we get to see from the ground perspective as they're
*brutally slaughtered.* One woman ends up encircled by several at once, and gets blown up and smashed over and over with the machines obscuring the carnage. By the end of it all, the player gets to see literal *hills* of corpses, stiff and bent in unnatural or horrified ways from the mass murder. And to top it all off, Ilberd then pulls off his Thanatos Gambit by jumping to his death with Nidhogg's eye, resulting in a brief Jump Scare right before the collision and getting to see his bloodied heap of a corpse shortly afterwards. It's easily the *darkest scene in the game* up to this point.
- Teleportation seems like such a trivial thing that you don't think about it too much, but when something does go wrong, it can be extremely chilling to see what happens and you get to see two people suffer from it. Y'shtola and Thancred during the bloody banquet in 2.5 escaped by using Flow, a spell that is too dangerous to use and works like an unstable Teleport/Return. Y'shtola could not find a way to an aetheryte, so her body was drifting in the aetherial sea and was slowly being dissolved by it. The only way for her to escape was from the aid of the White Mages in Gridania and if they had acted any later, she would have been completely consumed by the aether and died. Even though she escaped, she lost the ability to see naturally and has to rely on using her own body's aether to see, even though it is slowly killing her. Thancred manages to escape on his own, but he winds up in the Dravanian Forelands completely naked and exposed to the wildlife. While he managed to get help and fend for himself, his time spent in the aetherial sea robbed him of his magic to the point that even basic spells like Teleport and Return no longer work. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyXIVHeavensward |
Final Fantasy / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
BONG! thub-thump-thub-thump-thub-thump...
Somewhere along the line, the nail-bitingly popular
*Final Fantasy* went from a series about knights battling dragons with the occasional surprise encounter and scary monster sprite, to some seriously screwed-up crazy stuff.
<!—index—><!—/index—>
## General
- There are two trademark monsters of the
*Final Fantasy* series that are very creepy, Tonberries and Malboros.
- Tonberries are genuinely unnerving hooded goblin-like monsters with typically enormous health, that would slowly stalk the characters with an over-sized butcher's knife until it got close enough to immediately deliver a one-hit kill, while Malboros are hideous and monstrous masses of tentacles and eyeballs with enormous gaping mouths that would either breathe a horrible gas attack that would more often than not wipe out an entire team with status effects or would simply
*devour and digest characters whole*.
- Lately, though, Tonberries have served more as a Creepy Cute franchise mascot. That doesn't mean they're any less intimidating when you actually have to
*fight* them.
-
*Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles* provides a bit of Nightmare Retardant for the former group. Tonberry Chefs appear as enemies in Moschet Manor and are identical in appearance to normal Tonberries — except they wear adorable little chef outfits.
- Malboros also very frequently had "sneak attack" or "initiative" as a base ability, getting the first strike on your party in at LEAST one game (very definitely
*Final Fantasy VIII* and *X*). Based on the SIZE of these things one could only wonder how the party NEVER sees them coming... until *Final Fantasy XV* revealed that they bury themselves in the ground to then attack once their prey is close enough.
- In
*Final Fantasy X-2*, there is a cutscene where the party is having a bit of a chat with one of the antagonists, and as the bad guy(s) start to walk away the camera pans to reveal a Malboro STANDING ON THE WALL just above where the camera had previously shown prior to that. Then, to make things worse forever, the Malboro is shown to... "slither" down the wall and initiate a battle with the party at such a speed it leaves behind afterimages as it moves.
- Throw in a note of Body Horror within
*FFXII*: the notes on King Malboros say they were once human, but transformed into that lovely visage after putting on the former Malboro's cursed crown.
-
*Tactics* Malboros have a beast-master technique called Malboro Spores. The effect: Turn a unit permanently into a Malboro. One generic unit lampshades how horrifying it is.
- The worst thing about Malboros is with each
*Final Fantasy* game, these things just get more and more realistically rendered. Think those teeth were bad with polygons on *FFVII*? Just check out this picture◊ of a Malboro from *Final Fantasy XIV*.
- Unlike a lot of other monsters, Tonberries are
*adorable*. If they *looked* scary, it would be one thing, but you have a cute, squat little critter pacing amiably back and forth across the battlefield, seemingly unconcerned by anything, and somehow that just makes it ten times worse. Adding to this is trying to figure out what attacks like "Karma" and "Everyone's Grudge" mean in-universe. And it gets even worse in the games where they get some sort of dialogue. "So many years, I have hated. Hated you, hated them, hated till I grew weary of hating . . . Once more, I pick up my knife. I'm coming for you." By the way, in that game, the Tonberries are made from the collective hate of those that died in combat and are forever seeking revenge. As a result, more anger made by people who died in combat to them and more Tonberries.
- Tonberries combine Nothing Is Scarier with Implacable Man. Given the nature of the Tonberries' attacks, it's reasonable to interpret them as angels (or demons) whose sole purpose is to avenge the wrongful deaths of their fellow "monsters." And they do it all without resorting to an One-Winged Angel transformation or an attack of which You Cannot Grasp the True Form - just a knife, and a long, slow, Unflinching Walk across the battlefield. So far from the lack of over-the-top theatrics diminishing the Tonberries' frightfulness (let alone making them adorable), it serves only to heighten their menace by way of contrast with the rest of the monsters.
- How about when you factor in the Tonberries' lore from
*FFXI* and *FFXIV*? That is to say that you learn in both games that they were both at one time ancient civilizations, filled with normal people in their respective worlds, that became cursed as part of their downfall, and became Tonberries, and that while it dramatically extends their lifespan centuries or even millennia, most of them have lost the ability to speak the common languages of the land, not exactly healthy to their mental state, in most cases. As such, this means anytime you're killing one of them, you're either at best, performing a Mercy Kill, and at worst, are killing them to collect 20 Chef's Knives for some gil or because they happen to be guarding the last treasures reminding them of their former glory just so that you can get another +2 to some key stat of yours. Nice job, "hero".
- From one of the bonus dungeons in
*Final Fantasy I: Dawn Of Souls*, you find yourself in a dark as night city, populated by a bunch of zombies that do not attack you—instead, they're *exactly* like NPCs like you'd see in any other town, only they move half the normal speed, they have greyish skin, and apparently they're in incredible amounts of pain, given what they say when you talk to them (the only thing my subconscious is letting me remember right now is a woman that says "Why... is this happening... to us? We did... nothing wrong..."). Some of the town's people, meanwhile, have been turned to stone (and after they're turned back to normal, they tell you that they were aware of what was happening), and a soldier next to the door to the boss *begs* you to go in and save them, saying, "Do it...it's the only way..." Oh, and *the Game Over music* is being played the entire time.
- In that same bonus dungeon, there's another level in which you apparently lay siege on and defeat the inhabitants of a castle. The worst part is, based on their dialogue, you're killing innocent, dying people.
- In a
*Dawn of Souls* bonus dungeon: Toy Town. So you've been fighting your way through all the really weird dungeon levels when you get to a brightly colored town with white picket fences where it's always daytime and where there are no enemies. The entire town is populated entirely by kids. As you talk to the kids you learn that *some unknown force has whisked them away, wiped their memories, and is forcing them to play* FOREVER. And most of them are getting tired and scared, and want to stop. So you get to the bottom of this mystery and save the kids, right? Nope! You find your way out through a maze puzzle and leave them there. Possibly FOREVER. Fridge Horror much? One can only hope that the kids were freed once you beat the rest of the dungeon.
- There's something very off about the
*Dawn of Souls* bonus dungeons in general. Entire towns? Sunlit regions? Inhabitants who may or may not be trapped there forever? Entire continents and world maps? And there's no explanation for all of this, leaving you to wonder just why you come across these sorts of floors in dungeons that have been established as underground.
- At the end of the
*20th Anniversary Edition*'s new bonus dungeon awaits Chronodia. Essentially a fellow eldritch equal to the likes of Cloud of Darkness from *Final Fantasy III*; a personification of the Void in form of a greenish-blue-haired woman with a large orb attachment that only wishes to absorb everything. Better the player went through its dungeon, more power of the Void it absorbed. Until you see its strongest form, the Four Fiends and *Chaos* himself partially trapped and melted in its orb, Chronodia's various pipes and claws forcing their way through the Fiends' orifices and bodies, the sprite has their faces frozen mid-scream. Even though you have no sympathy for the Fiends, you can't help but think it's a Fate Worse than Death.
- Chronodia, when encountered, states that it intends to make the party's power her own. Combined with her full speech and the truth becomes clearer: Chronodia is a Power Parasite who tricks people into the Labyrinth of Time and absorbs those strong or clever to reach it. Its speech implies that the party aren't the first people to encounter it and the fact that Chronodia claims to be time itself, and therefore immortal guarantees that they won't be the last. Then, there are the questions, of things like
*how* did Chronodia get the fiends' power or *why* the personification of time is not only sentient, but evidently malevolent, or at least self-serving?
- The very first game's plot can be this if you think about it. Garland betrays Cornelia and captures the Princess, but being an old knight, he's quickly beaten. He's so outraged by this, that he's sent back in time to become the demon Chaos. He then sends the Four Fiends forward in time to make sure the cycle continues. Now, as an immensely powerful demon, he can (and apparently does) kill the Light Warriors. That's how much he hates them. He wants to spend eternity killing them, over and over.
- Yoshitaka Amano's monster designs tend to be quite disturbing at best, especially the ones in
*Final Fantasy II*.
- The final floor of the Floating Fortress in
*I* is a long hallway... of praying that you don't get that 1/64 chance of running into WarMECH, who preempts the battle with a casting of NUKE, which inflicts severe non-elemental damage upon the entire party. If you have the misfortune of summoning it, and you haven't been Level Grinding like a champ, you may as well close your eyes and wait for the Game Over theme to play.
- The situation of the citizens of
*Final Fantasy II*'s world. Picture this: You're living in, let's say Poft, when the Palamecia Empire unleashes demons upon the world. Things are bad, but overall not too bad. Then, their Dreadnought flies overhead and carpet bombs the town before flying off to do the same elsewhere. Survived that? Well, hope you're not still in town by the time the Emperor employs the Cyclone to wipe the town off the map! And if you died at any point of this? You wake up in a cavern in *what you think* is Hell, filled with dangerous monsters, with only the town at the end as a safe haven. Crapsack World doesn't even begin to cover it and it's all due to the actions of one man.
- In
*Final Fantasy XI*, Dynamis is a dream world that has been corrupted by various dreamers (such as the deceased Shadow Lord). The scary part? The people and beastmen trapped there are stuck in a cycle where they fight each other in vain and death does nothing permanent. One article on the official website shows one of the Hydra Corps member's descent into insanity as he writes to his loved one.
- The Pandemonium Warden, whose legendary 18 HOUR FIGHT TERRIFIED EVERY SINGLE PLAYER FOR MONTHS. And It's a voodoo skeleton ambomination. Sweet dreams.
- And the Promyvion, or emptiness, levels. They are creepy as hell and the bosses and music don't make you feel any better.
- Running through a zone without a chocobo or any way to keep yourself safe when its dark, rainy, and undead and beastmen are all over the place and would happily tear you to pieces.
- Despite Cloud of Darkness being remade into a sexy villainess, she's still quite creepy. She always refers to herself as "we," those snakes of hers have minds of their own, when she wins, she swims through the air like a snake, she's apparently "not really a woman," and just in general she gives off a disturbing aura that all of the characters pick up on automatically.
- Exdeath. Despite his memetic status, his perfectly executed Ex Burst shows why you don't fuck with him unless you're one of the other twenty-one characters, and even then you'd have trouble. All else fails, he'll simply throw you into the void and crush the entrance as if it were a wad of paper. Said "perfectly executed Ex Burst" involving Exdeath
*crushing a black hole within his hands* (during a slow close-up, people!) is already bad enough, but there's more. While the attack ends with Exdeath crushing the black hole, *the music fades out and the screen fades to black*. Exdeath's horrifyingly deep "Embrace the stillness of eternity." doesn't help at all, but it gets kinda nasty if you use it to finish a match, since the first thing you hear afterwards is your opponent's death scream without any BGM (as your opponent's defeat — between match and fanfare — hasn't any). Now try defeating Terra with headphones and your eyes closed! ||There ya go.||
- His EX Mode quote: "The laws of the universe mean nothing!" He is
*altering reality itself to kill you.*
- The game's take on Kefka Palazzo. Not that he was a nice fella to begin with, but
*damn*. As seen in this video, Kefka chases Terra gleefully and casually casting bolts of *Ultima spells everywhere, *wrecking his place in the process''. His sudden, out-of-nowhere close-ups (like these◊ ones◊), mixed with his hamminess, make him one of the most terrifying characters in the franchise.
- Mostly, it's shown that Kefka destroys, kills and wreaks havoc For the Evulz, but his EX Burst offers another view — when Kefka executes his EX Burst perfectly, it sounds like he cries "IT'S TURNING ME ON!" in a high-pitched voice, blasts the opponent with his death ray, then whispers in a low voice "That was
*titillating*." Given the tone of voice and the quotes, it seems Kefka doesn't just have fun destroying things, he finds it arousing! Killing people *turns him on!* Suddenly every single Kefka fight you've ever seen takes on a much darker tone when you realize the endless Fridge Horror that is going to spring to mind now.
- And if that doesn't scare you, remember that in the past Kefka was able to mentally control Terra, who he considers "destruction incarnate." A reasonably attractive young woman with destructive powers to rival Kefka's own, turns into a Cute Monster Girl, and he can control her thoughts... we'll let you draw your own conclusions about some of the ways Kefka may have put his control over her to use.
- After Chaos destroys Cosmos, all of her warriors start disappearing - the first victim of this? Tidus, who starts
*screaming* when he realizes what happens. Bad enough on its own, but then you remember what became of him at the end of his game - At the moment of his vanishing, had Tidus suddenly regained his memories from the last time it happened to him?
- From Duodecim, there's Feral Chaos. Take a boss who was scary enough in the first game, essentially turn him into the Balrog from
*The Lord of the Rings*, complete with ear-raping roars and screams, give him an even more broken moveset, and a new EX-Burst that makes Exdeath's look downright tame (you get the same lack-of-BGM at the end, but you also get impaled by the giant swords from Utter Chaos, and after *that*, you get treated to a victim's-eye-view of Chaos smashing your face in with his free claw), and what do you get? Oh, and the best part is, *he's fully playable.* Have fun online, kiddos.
- Upon their first meeting, Shantotto made it quite clear that she wished to use the Warrior of Light as a "test subject" in her research. It's even mentioned in the Museum profiles that she was annoyed with Prishe for taking the amnesic Warrior along with her on her explorations of World B. Now considering what we know of Final Fantasy Mad Scientists in general, and Shantotto personally. It seems the Warrior just barely avoided a particularly nasty fate.
- The Blackened Will is not a pretty sight to see. When it is confronted in Chapter 11, the place it resides in is incredibly creepy, being a
*massive* mess of tentacles with creepy teeth on them, to say nothing of the Blackened Will itself. Its first form is a beating heart-like monster with a giant red eye in its center, and its second form is something *vaguely* humanoid with creepy long tentacle-like appendages. In Act 2, Chapter 5, Kefka is crazy enough to create *another* one of this abomination just for shits and giggles.
- While Act 1 and Act 2 have a fairly notable BGM, Act 3's BGM is
*complete silence,* with only the intense howling of the wind. It can be rather unnerving the first time, especially if you're used to the nice background music of the previous two acts.
- The last boss fight of Act 3, Chapter 1 (Part 1) is the Medusa from
*Final Fantasy III,* sporting the same horrible Nightmare Face from its home game, and this time, it makes *very* creepy sounds. The fact that its Lufenia difficulty fight is That One Boss doesn't help either.
- Moogle Jugglers have the Monster Clown thing going for them. Imagine the Moogle Juggler sub Thief from an in-game perspective. Four Monster Clown Moogles "Smile" chain across the map Till they stand surrounding you. Then they take turns like little fuzzy piranhas "Steal"ing all your equipment (minus shoes) in the first turn, then they proceed to tear the very techniques from your brain in the second.
- The animation for the doom and death spells has taken a turn for the traumatizing. In
*Final Fantasy Tactics Advance*, the animation would involve a spooky but cartoony-looking Grim Reaper to come and attack them. In the second game? The character's soul would rise out of their body and *3D inky black spectres with real looking skulls* would sweep in from the bottom of the screen while saying "I'll be taking this." ("this" being your immortal soul). And they just have really creepy voices. How do Phoenix Downs even heal THAT?
- The Lucavi in the original. When one of the bad guys pulls out the stone, there's a lovely little sparkle to show it's a beautiful gem before a blinding light of one color or another shimmers around the boss, with screaming souls being sucked into the vortex of agony that transforms normal men into horrid abominations. Then another explosion shortly after ejects these souls to expose the demon you must now face. Chulainn especially. At first, he's a big bag of fat flesh that kinda looks like Oogie Boogie from
*The Nightmare Before Christmas*, which isn't so bad. But then he opens up his belly and reveals that he *has a giant mouth with teeth in there*! Oh dear lord!
- There is also the Massacre at Riovannes. Oh, good lord, the blood. The near-dead kid Isilud, squashed heads, ripped apart bodies, and then Wiegraf goes Omnicidal Maniac... of course, it's not really Wiegraf, but instead a That One Boss of epic proportions. And the whole place is being futilely guarded from the outside. Imagine you and your brother are guards. You actually live and retreat, and go back inside the castle...only to find your brother without much for a head...
- The premise of this is very disturbing, especially after playing
*Ring Of Fates*, which is a prequel. Essentially, it's a Crapsaccharine World set After the End — most people are dead, and people have to live in little villages protected by Myrrh (Phlebotinum) which they have to collect from trees every year. There are miasma streams that need elements on your chalice to get through, and miasma everywhere not protected by myrrh. And then there's the village which was destroyed when its caravan didn't come back, instead the people dying and being turned into undead. Since you have 'memories', I'm assuming an Amnesia Plot later in the game.
- Oh that's half of it. There's the chilling story of a young man from your hometown of Tipa who went off in search of a way to rid the world of miasma. He never returned. ||This young man is Hurdy and Gurdy who, after meeting with the mad, memory-eating god, Raem, had his memories stripped away and developed a split personality, the priest and the swindler.|| He also had a bodyguard, a Lilty named Leon Esla from Alfitaria. You may be familiar with his son, also named Leon Esla, whose father was killed by the Black Knight. ||He met a similar fate, without his memories he went insane and spent the rest of his days chasing a "light" that only he can see, assuming that it took his memories. In the end, his son kills him for revenge. In his dying moments, he regains his memories but it is too late. His son never knows that the Black Knight was actually his father but his wife, present at his death, realizes it.||
- The trailer is essentially four minutes of "What the FUCK Square Enix!" If you thought
*Versus* and *Type-0* looked dark... | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasy |
Final Fantasy XV / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The Magitek troops from Duscae. There's something unsettling about their red eyes and perpetually smiling faces. And then there's the mechanical scream they emit when they perform their Suicide Attack...
From the "Dawn" trailer and its sequel, "Dawn 2.0": Luna as a child being chased through a dark house during a storm and attacked by a soldier, Caligo Uldor. All the plot about it was deleted from the final game because it was judged too creepy by the development team.
The Omen trailer. Luna desperately trying to get through to a crazed Noctis as he overpowers her defenses is unsettling enough; watching her back away in terror before he impales her with her own trident is horrifying. The voiceover from their younger selves as this happens doesn't help.
Noctis: "I won't let you down!"
Luna: "I know you won't."
The trailer scenes depicting Noctis' gradual degradation of strength. What seems like peaceful, thoughtful cruising at first turns into a car wreck before he follows a mysterious dog, and then he's fighting swarms of Imperial Soldiers (and even a Behemoth, complete with splattering its blood onto a wall). All the while, his True Companions are nowhere to be seen, and eventually his magic even fades away entirely, forcing him to fight a small army with his bare hands and firearms. By the end, something possesses Noctis to murder Luna as mentioned above, and he's surrounded by a hellish landscape and beasts frothing fire at the mouth that watches him do the deed. To say the anguish in his cry hurts is an understatement.
The ambiance in most of the dungeons is much creepier, with daemons jumping on you frequently. Chapter 13 takes it up to eleven and shifts suddenly into horror, having you explore a daemon-filled fortress, alone and unarmed for the most part, and throwing jumpscares at you at a sustained pace.
Daemons in general are terrifying, especially at night on the overworld:
Anywhere at any time, even driving, you can hear a hellish sound, a portal in the ground opens up and out crawls a Level 30 Iron Giant—a giant, black, metallic...creature wielding a BFS. Early on in the game these monsters don't just look scary, but they are so many levels above yours that they can give you an instant game over.
The samurai type enemies look very human with their clothing and build, but are several feet taller than your party members, and have a pale sickly appearance and undead-looking face that gives a very Uncanny Valley effect. They also tend to be very dangerous as most have an arsenal of instant death attacks.
Almost everything surrounding Ardyn.
The way he keeps screwing with Noctis' mind, making him attack his friends, and just appear out of nowhere in general.
While Bahamut tells his backstory, Ardyn◊ turns around and you can see his face turned into something pale and inhuman with unnatural eyes.
The decorations he's set up in the throne room to taunt Noctis when finally arrives, namely, the illusory corpses of Regis, Luna, Nyx, and Aldercapt hung from the ceiling by chains in degrading ways. To make matters worse, Regis and Aldercapt both have black daemon blood trailing down their faces from their eyes.
During the train ride to Niflheim, Ardyn takes on Prompto's appearance and makes Prompto take on his, tricking Noctis into attacking one of his best friends while also walking alongside Noctis able to engage him in open conversation. Then, after he's frozen by Shiva and Noctis shatters him, he reappears and explains that he's immortal, and mimes pointing Prompto's gun at Noctis and firing. In a few brief scenes, the full extent of Ardyn's powers become clear — he can disguise himself flawlessly, shroud others in illusions, and is immune to any lasting harm. Noctis is almost speechless but to ask where Prompto is, and barely reacts beyond a growl when Ardyn pushes him aside to walk past him, because what else could he do? Between Ardyn's power within the Empire and his own personal abilities, he could have directly or indirectly sabotaged Noctis and his friends at any turn, killed any of them without effort, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop him. Ardyn has been calling the shots all along, and even if Noctis realizes it now, there's little he can do but keep playing the part Ardyn is forcing him into.
Poor, poor Ravus. He gets killed and brought back as an abomination begging to be killed by the party. Mind you, the abomination in question isn't just a particularly ugly daemon. It looks like it belongs in a survival horror game — its eyes and mouth are filled with black daemon blood that leaks down its face, the left side of its body is covered in skinless daemon flesh, and a visible heartbeat pulsates through its chest and a few exposed veins.
The World of Ruin and everything in the story leading up to it. Right from the game's beginning when exploring the lore of Eos it's mentioned that nights are getting longer, but the player isn't likely to heed it much. Then, as you progress in the game from chapter to chapter, you gradually notice that you start waking up later than 6 AM, and the sun starts setting earlier in the evening than 7 PM, creating a much more oppressive feel as you have far less time to accomplish your tasks before Daemons come out. While a player may or may not realize this is directly connected to what was mentioned in the Lore section, it gets worse when starting in Chapters 10 onward the characters themselves notice this, and reason that eventually there will come a time when there's no daylight at all and Daemons roam free to cause mass death and mayhem with no limits whatsoever. When Noctis wakes up on Angelgard in Chapter 14, even before the player realizes that ten years have passed, it becomes clear immediately from the cloudy, blackened skies that this has exactly come to pass. When Noctis arrives in a now-ruined Galdin Quay, he even comments "Last man standing", implying he—and possibly the player as well—believes that he really may be the last human being alive after the rest of humanity has been wiped out by daemons. Fortunately, he's not, and as in the namesake of the World of Ruin, there ARE other survivors.
The Dungeon also shows that the devs made the Demon Wall's return come twofold. Along with the actual enemy you can encounter on a hunt or more likely the darkness-ridden world in the ending, the Pitioss pits you against one as an actual environmental hazard. Specifically, a gigantic freaking wall of rotating red-hot spikes, with a massive skull in the center, closing in and out on you. The worst part? This is only the midway point...
In Episode Prompto you get to watch Verstael gruesomely becoming a daemon and grabbing onto Prompto as he slowly mutates, forcing him to shoot him in retaliation. If you fail to do the prompt correctly, you get a very scary zoom on Vestael face followed by a game over.
The secret final boss fight in Episode Ignis. Ignis finds the Crystal and looks upon it with awe. Cue this suddenly playing as the camera pans around to reveal none other than Ardyn, conveniently tipping his fedora towards it. Then he lifts it up, and you get an up-close-and-personal look at his true daemonic form as he gives Ignis, and the player by extension, a Slasher Smile for the ages. His face then proceeds to eerily fade back into its more human form, further emphasizing that his appearance is nothing more than an illusion.
The ending of Episode Ardyn. After being told by Bahamut that his fate is to be killed by Noctis for the Starscourge to truly end, Ardyn decides (or is forced to, depending on player choice) to go along with what fate has decreed for him. As he curses the world, he slowly advances towards apparitions of Aera and Somnus. And when he reaches them, he gives a horrifying Slasher Smile and stabs them to death, before covering the world in darkness while letting out the mother of all Evil Laughs. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyXV |
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The phantoms don't just touch you; they seize your immortal consciousness, pulling and tearing it, screaming, from your body to consume it.
"I try to imagine what that must have been like. Seeing everyone around you fall over dead for no apparent reason. And then, at the end, feeling something next to you. Invisible.
*Touching you*. Reaching inside your body and—" | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyTheSpiritsWithin |
Finder Series / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
# Unmarked spoilers are ahead, per Spoilers Off rule.
- The manga, while not focusing on it too much, it also doesn't gloss over the fact that almost
*everything* that Akihito has suffered is horrifying. He's been kidnapped by members of various criminal organizations on separate occasions, and he's been sexually assaulted in all these cases. The fact that he's a relatively regular individual violently thrust into this dark underworld is pretty terrifying too.
-
*Finder no Rakuin* has Fei Long at the mercy of his adoptive-brother, Yan Tsui. From fearing for Tao's life to having to submit to his brother's violence and sexual assault (including a rape attempt stopped at the very last second) to the despair he feels that he starts blaming himself for what's happening, there is ample reason for sleepless nights.
- After hinting to it in
*Naked Truth*, the origins of the scars on Mikhails back are revealed in *Pray in the Abyss*. As a preteen he was physically abused by his uncle Yuri because Mikhail was blamed by the latter for his ephebophile urges. Despite the nonchalant reveal by Mikhail in *Naked Truth*, *Pray in the Abyss* showed that he was actually traumatized by the abuse he had suffered. Being tortured again by the same man reawakened the trauma, to the extent that Fei Long allows Mikhail rest his head in his lap after initially refusing him. Though Mikhail confirmed that the abuse did not evolve past physical beatings, it is still horrifying that he had been subjected to such treatment by someone who was not only supposed to be a trusted family member, but also someone who was supposed to be taking care of him. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinderSeries |
Final Space / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Yeah...
*good luck with that.*
In
*Final Space*, no one can hear you scream.
- The teaser poster for Season 3 is
**fucking** It looks more like something out of a horror film than the whimsical sci-fi/comedy fans know and love. Just one look at it and you can already tell that Season 3 will be the darkest season yet. **horrifying.**
- The icing on the cake is the horrified expressions of Gary, Sheryl, Little Cato, KVN and Fox. While Quinn, Ash, Avocato and Mooncake are fighting off the undead Garies, these guys are scared for their lives.
- Despite the Lord Commander's death in the first episode of season 2, it is heavily implicated that he was actually working for one of the Titans named "Invictus." And his master isn't finished with him yet...
- In "The Happy Place," it is revealed that dozens of captives are drained of their life essences and left as hollow husks as a means of charging the galaxy.
- "The Grand Surrender" reveals that Ash's sister was sacrificed to a snake god where within, the snake god absorbed her wellness until she was a zombified husk of her former self. When Ash reunites with her, she is forced to leave her to burn upon discovering she was too far gone.
- "The Other Side": Half of the crew is trapped in a collision in space-time where half the Crimson Light had aged sixty years. To make matters worse, when the crew tried to fire a distress signal a Titan emerges from a portal.
- In "Arachnitects" we see the reason why 99% of the Titans are as destructive and chaotic as they are is due solely to the action of an entity called Invictus corrupting them.
- The evil KVNs from "The First Times They Met", complete with glowing evil red eyes. They get worse when they merge to become a Mega-KVN.
- "The Closer You Get:"
- Invictus escapes Final Space by using Gary as a vessel and he beats down Avocato and Little Cato effortlessly through him. Sensing that Avocato was a stronger vessel, Invictus possesses him, and seemingly mortally wounds Gary.
- The way how the scene plays out is especially horrific, and probably marks one of the most chilling scenes in the whole show. First, Invictus possesses Gary, forcing him to fight Avocato and Little Cato. At first, it seems like they can beat him, until Invictus jumps into Avocato's body, corrupts him, and convinces him to kill
*his best friend in front of his child*. He shoots Gary twice, showing how far gone he is, while his son begs him to show any semblance of mercy and is promptly ignored, forcing Little Cato to shoot *him*.
- The way Invictus moves Gary's "vessel" is this also. It's chilling to see someone like Gary brutally and systematically fight against two of the people who are dearest to him; his best friend and his best friend's child. Outof Character Is Serious Business indeed.
- A mix between Tear Jerker, but Avocato's last moments in the episode are this as well. Before he's pulled into the inky portal by Invictus, he's shouting at Little Cato, saying a myriad of incredibly hurtful things, including disowning his kid and belittling him for looking up to Gary, who lays dying nearby. The scene is already painful enough, but the Kick the Dog moment towards Little Cato twists the knife even deeper.
- The fact that Final Space is littered with the dozens of corpses of alternate reality versions of Gary. Not to mention the implication that Invictus has killed all of them and is eager to add more Garys to the collection.
- Just about everything in the dimension Gary ends up after drinking the Clearwater; a tree made of corpses (that Gary has to climb), pools filled with wailing souls, Phil (though he is, fortunately, a case of Dark Is Not Evil), Gary seeing Quinn's reflection in a glowing pool, only for it to erupt into black goo that pulls him into the pool. This episode is easily one of the scariest in the series.
- The final episode of season 2. Gary finally finds Quinn, rushes out to get her, and ends in a big hug... Long enough that the area starts to darken, and Invictus slowly appears...
**Invictus: Ah... ** *look* who it is... | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalSpace |
Final Destination 4 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
**As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.**
- Samantha's sons watched as their mother had
*a rock launched into her face.* Which killed her like a stray bullet.
- Cheesy or not, Hunt's death was absolutely horrific and maybe one of the worst in the series. Not only is he underwater for a long time and possibly drowning, but at the same time he's violently disemboweled as his colon, stomach, spleen, intestines and
**pelvic bone** are all ripped *right out of his ass* from the powerful suction of a pool drain. Sure, he was a dickhead who cheated on his girlfriend, but it's still a slow and excruciating way to go out.
- Even worse, while they didn't end in the g-tract being sucked out, fatal accidents like this
*actually happened in real life*.
- One of the more horrifying elements of Hunt's death is that it's a slow death that happens in a crowded, public place
*and no one notices until it's too late to stop it* due to it happening at the bottom of the pool. Most of the slower deaths in the series happen in isolated areas, but in Hunt's final moments there are dozens of people who were just out of reach. Even Nick, who knew that Hunt was in immediate danger and was actively searching for him, can't find him before his guts explode out of the pool pump.
- Hunt's death in an alternate scene is even worse - he manages to snatch a plastic bag and starts breathing into it, as if to buy more time for himself to escape. But then the golf cart rams into the wooden fence and causes the pressure level to
*skyrocket* right to the red. As result, after Hunt is held underwater for some more due to the suction force increased to the max, we hear a Sickening "Crunch!" as the poor guy just goes limp, floating in the water lifelessly. Then blood starts pouring into the pool from the side holes, causing the partygoers (and Nick himself) to realize what happened.
- The escalator death in the second premonition. Cheesy? Maybe. But lately, it's slowly becoming a Truth in Television that escalator accidents like that can happen in any normal situation.
- As cheesy as the movie can be, it does present a disturbing revelation. You know all the premonitions Nick was having?
*Death was the one granting them.* Why? It's all part of the plan.
- The fact that Death had to orchestrate another entire massacre, all for the sake of killing two birds with one stone; namely, Lori and Janet. Death does not fuck around, and one could possibly even speculate that Death enjoys making people suffer before letting them die.
- There is a good reason why the deaths of Nick, Lori and Janet were rendered in the style of X-Ray vision (just like the opening credits): when the truck plows into the cafe they were in, Janet ends up
*crushed* under one of its wheels, Lori gets straight up *decapitated* and Nick hits the wall so hard he breaks his neck and then falls down to the ground while puking blood, shattering several of his teeth in process. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalDestination4 |
Final Fantasy IV / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Given this is the first game in the series to get its own NF page, we think it's safe to say this is exactly where shit hit the fan. Final Fantasy V is a Lighter and Softer sequel, but it has its own fair share of frights.
**As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.**
- When Rydia summons Titan and causes the earthquake that separates Cecil from Kain, this is already a fairly emotional moment given they accidentally torched her village and killed her mother. When the DS version added voice acting to this scene, however, Rydia screams at them while fleeing in an absolutely
*bloodcurdling* and near-primal rage before Titan tears everything to shreds. **Rydia:** Leave me alone! **I HATE YOU!!**
- What happens with Rydia after Fabul is also surprisingly frightening, especially if you're a kid roughly as old as Rydia herself and playing the game spoilerless for the first time. The game actually does a fairly decent job maintaining the illusion that Rydia is gone - she's out of the party for longer than almost anyone else (four whole dungeons and all the content in between them and after Zot) and Edward at one point says he saw her be
*swallowed* by Leviathan. Even in the SNES version, it is abundantly clear what all the adults think happened to their token child and they're all very shaken by it. Especially once you get to Troia, you're probably resigned to Rydia being dead forever (unless you're savvy enough to realize they wouldn't get rid of her so soon).
- Trap Doors. There's a whole dungeon with doors that cause difficult monster battles, although some will open without resistance. Still, a giant door with teeth whose only moves are to target a party member and kill them is kind of disturbing. At least in some types of the game (including After Years) they're vulnerable to Stop.
- From the DS version, after the first Trap Door dies, if you read Kain's thoughts:
**Kain:** *Please* tell me not all of the doors are like that!
- At least in that version,
*they are*.
- Several of those Trap Doors have absolutely nothing behind them, just an empty room.
- Calcabrina. From the mere knowledge of the fact that you're fighting possessed dolls, to them cheerily telling your heroes that they are out for their blood (paraphrased oh so slightly), to their general appearance and movement, to the incredibly apt sound of their theme music. The DS version just takes it up one more notch. Even worse once they fuse into one giant doll...
- Edge reunites with his lost parents in the Tower of Babil. Everything seemed fine, until they ask Edge to come with them, To Hell! Then they turn into grotesque monsters right before him.
- Zeromus is pretty scary. It's basically a dark elf with so much hatred that it can continue to live on as a grotesque monster after it dies. Even more so in the Nintendo DS version, with a terrifying voiced performance.
**Zeromus:** I am the wellspring of darkness, fueled by Zemus' unbridled hate! I am he who is called Zeromus! **I am he who knows naught but** **HATE!** | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyIV |
Finding Dory / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- The first trailer ends on the lovely image of Hank almost chopping himself up in a garbage disposal. Have fun explaining that one, parents!
note : Even if octopi can regrow lost limbs.
- At one point, Dory is in a jar filled with fish that appear to be food for sea mammals. Dory wonders how they can keep their eyes open so long before she figures it out.
- Marlin and Dory are once again pursued by a giant, bio-luminescent creature lurking in the darkness. This time, it's a large Humboldt Squid - it's both smart and
*incredibly* predatory.
- The film finally shows us what life is like for Dory, and it's appropriately horrifying. She definitely has problems with perceptions of time and space, so she'll wander off somewhere and not know how long it's been or how far away she went. She panics when she has to navigate places by herself. And let's not forget the opening montage of her transitioning through the years from "I'm looking for my family but I don't know where they are!" to
*completely forgetting who or what she was looking for in the first place.*
- Dory's predicament alone is a parent's worst nightmare. You have a child who has memory problems and in constant need of supervision. One day, you lose your child and you can't find them. There's a chance that they could get lost, kidnapped, eaten, or killed, and they don't have anyone to protect them.
- A healthy dose of worry can be found in that Charlie and Jenny didn't find out Dory has vanished after she's gone, like in kidnapping cases or accidental deaths. She was whisked away right in front of them.
- The touch pool scene, a staple of most zoos and aquariums featuring a shallow area where little kids can see how various sea creatures feel is played as a horrific nightmare, as the brats poke and prod and grab with all the ferocity of giants. Every single creature in the thing is in a constant state of panic, and when Dory and Hank end up in it, the latter just shuts down completely because he Hates Being Touched.
- The kelp forest. Sure, nothing bad happens in it when Dory, Nemo and Marlin travel in there, but the whole place still gives an eerie feeling, especially during the scene when Dory has a Heroic BSoD later in the movie, with tall kelp growing up everywhere, making it hard to navigate or see what's hiding in them. The fish couple at the beginning were very worried when they found young Dory getting lost alone in there, and with good reasons. Even more so, as we later learned, the forest itself is located next to an underwater dump site, which is a home of a huge, highly aggressive squid that
*everything else* in the area dreaded, and Dory also once ventured in there as a child! It's Nothing Is Scarier on the highest order.
- The pipes in the Marine Life Institute. Dark, eerie, claustrophobic and labyrinthine, it's not hard to see why Dory's apprehensive about going in - without Bailey and Destiny to help her navigate, she would have been hopelessly lost down there. The worst part is when Bailey's echolocation detects a
*bigger fish* down there with Dory, followed by a couple of minutes of sheer consternation as he and Destiny try to get her away from there... Fortunately, the "bigger fish" turns out to just be Marlin and Nemo.
- Dory falling down the drain, away from Hank, Marlin, and Nemo, under the impression she's lost her parents (and adopted family) forever, gasping for air. Especially if you interpret it as a visual representation of
*an anxiety attack*, which can come with an inability to temporarily remember things, disorientation, and the feeling that you suddenly cannot breathe.
- Perhaps it's for the best that whatever caused Hank to lose his tentacle remains a Noodle Incident: as noted in the Fridge Horror section, it had to have been pretty awful for him to be unable to regenerate it. And given that he Hates Being Touched and his overall behavior resembling that of somebody with PTSD, clearly it's Nightmare Fuel for him as well.
- Although it ends up being Played for Laughs, Gil and the rest of the fish from the Dentist Office spent the year still stuck in their bags.
- Dory's predicament from the moment she was separated from her parents to when she found a place in Marlin's family. Baby Dory was the equivalent of a roughly 5-year-old human when she got lost. Since then, everyone she's encountered has either rebuffed her, gotten separated from her, or abandoned her; in
*Finding Nemo*, she tells Marlin that no one's ever stuck with her as long as he has, and they were only partners for a few *days*. Imagine being separated from your parents at five years old, and spending the rest of your childhood in limbo, without anyone to raise you, any place to call home, any lasting friend, or *anything* else to anchor you. And how much longer might her life have stayed like that if she'd never met Marlin? | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FindingDory |
Finding Nemo / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The ultimate, but less obvious, scary scene is a scene that is unwatchable as an adult. It's the scene where Nemo has been taken by the diver, and Marlin is desperately rushing around to find him, only to see empty ocean - all while screaming his son's name. That droning piano chord in the score doesn't help.
The whole time Nemo is being bagged by the diver, he's screaming things no father ever wants to hear.
"Daddy! Help me!"
The barracuda that kills Marlin's family (but misses Nemo, albeit scratching his egg) in the beginning.
The barracuda just hanging there in the water silently waiting to strike was pretty terrifying too. If you know anything about them they're torpedoes with razor-sharp teeth.
Torpedoes, indeed. How do they first notice it? When their entire neighborhood fled without them even noticing until long after, greeted with a dead silence the next time they look at it.
A good way of showing this; the barracuda, upon first being seen, is just... observing them in the most frightening way possible. Then, Coral makes a blind move, and literally five seconds later, she's dead with her husband knocked out.
The nightmarishness of this scene is mentioned in The Simpsons (in season 22 episode "Homer Scissorhands", to be exact). Milhouse's mother always skips it for him, and he ends up absolutely terrified when he accidentally discovers it on his own.
Special mention should go to the way it goes from silently surveying the landscape to charging Coral and Marlin in less than a second. The way it switches modes instantaneously is just unnerving.
That scene with the anglerfish. We don't even know what's lurking in the pitch black for several seconds other than a small, unidentified, hypnotic light (though literally anyone who knows what an anglerfish is will recognize the situation as soon as they see the disembodied light and be practically begging the two to get the fuck out of there). But when Dory tries to touch it, it jerks away and slowly starts ascending. As Dory and Marlin play around with it, what descends to meet them are some long, razor-sharp teeth, and two big, blank-white, bug-like eyes. And she doesn't make a sound until the camera angle changes.
She is scary enough to look at with all those teeth, but she's also a particularly aggressive hunter, especially after Marlin. Later Played for Laughs considering ||how distracted and bubbleheaded Dory is acting, fully oblivious to how close to danger Marlin is as she tries to read the address on the diver's goggles in the trench||.
For a brief moment, the fish actually manages to get Marlin, but is forced to spit him back out since he was hanging onto her lure. While it's a more humorous scene, it doesn't change the fact that if it weren't for him clinging on for dear life, Marlin would be dead.
Sweet Jesus, the sounds she makes. Instead of a more stock roar, she instead emits an absolutely soul-crushing screech. It sounds almost alien, which perfectly fits one of the closest things our planet has to a real-life Eldritch Abomination.
In the DVD commentary, they mentioned that after a preview, they considered lowering the volume of the anglerfish (or just getting rid of its screech altogether), but a young kid turned to them and said that "tuning down the anglerfish is like tuning down nature itself". Still, it's frightening in surround-sound.
The jellyfish. Good god, the jellyfish. Unlike the other sea dwellers who behave slightly human due to the nature of the film, these things have no defining features and behave realistically. This is exceptionally disturbing as while other characters have readable expressions and movements the Jellyfish have neither, making it impossible to know what they're thinking. They display none of the intelligence of other fish or motivations other than instinctively eating. They're slow and don't actively try to stop Marlin and Dory's escape but had no qualms of eating them both.
Notice how the camera is constantly zooming in on them before any of the big jellyfish appear. You know something bad is about to happen, even without the warning the moonfish gave Dory before they reached the trench.
It's worth noting that this was foreshadowed by the aforementioned jump scare.
Bruce: Dory, are you o— (Bruce inhales Dory's blood) Bruce: Ohhh... (pupils dilate, huge slasher smile) Oh, that's good. Anchor and Chum: (at the same time) *Gasp!*INTERVENTION!!! Bruce: I'M HAVIN' FISH TONIGHT!
That scene at the end where they are in the fishing grounds. Just the cries and screams of terror as the crowds of fish try to swim away from the net. And then knowing that they are going to be hauled up and die of suffocation or worse. Imagine if you were one of the fish that wasn't in the net but someone you knew or loved was.
Then imagine if you were one of the fish that was in the net.
When the baleen whale was first seen. The way it appeared to be a little fish from a distance is...unsettling. Plus the way it just comes up from behind them (again, without making any noise at all) and opens its mouth...
...And you can hear the terrified Krill rushing past them yelling: SWIM AWAY!
Made worse a scene later when it shows Marlin and Dory in the whale's mouth. Dory oblivious but Marlin perfectly aware that they are in a large predator's mouth, just moments away from being swallowed. His dejection and terror is palpable, especially with his realization that he let his son down.
Nemo's first attempt at blocking the tank's filter. The filter is sucking him back down the tube while his tank friends are desperately trying to reach him with a plant, the only thing stopping Nemo from becoming shredded to bits. After being rescued, Nemo is sobbing in terror while being held by Peach, and the gang's Stunned Silence makes it clear that they're horrified by what almost happened to him, too.
Peach: Gill...don't make him go back in there. Gill: (somberly)No. We're done.
Imagine this: You're walking down the street in a bad neighborhood, and you see a young woman alone by the side of the road, pacing in circles around a lamppost. She's visibly distressed, so you go and ask her if she's okay, and she blurts "I don't know where I am." Then she tells you she has no idea what's going on, and the only thing she thinks she maybe knows is that she "lost somebody", but she can't remember. So it's not just that she's lost - she actually has no memory of getting there at all or what she was doing beforehand. How concerned would you be?
The trench that Marlin and Dory find before swimming up to where the jellyfish are. Not only does the trench itself look particularly haunting, but the low, creepy music that plays as they're both gazing into it is very unsettling.
When the seagulls surge for Marlin and Dory on the dock, Marlin is saved by Nigel right away, while for a split second, Dory looks as if she's being pulled apart by them at every angle! Whether this is terrifying or hilarious depends on the viewer.
The Jump Scare at the end of the credits where a tiny fish eats the huge anglerfish.
At the end, the tank gang manage to escape by rolling their bags out to sea. They then realize they are trapped in the bags with no idea to get out of them, leading to an And I Must Scream moment.
The scuba divers that capture Nemo. To the viewers, they are just humans that mean no harm against the characters (its revealed the dentist was the one who caught Nemo), but to the characters themselves, they are giant faceless monsters viewed as a threat.
What doesnt help is how they first appear. Right as Nemo swims back to his angry father, one of them rises onto the screen straight behind the former. Then right as Marlin attempts to swim to him, another diver appears in front of the reef, not only blocking him, but also takes a snapshot of him, with the flash blinding him. Even though the divers werent aware of what theyre doing, the entire scene is framed as if theyre purposely separating Marlin from his son. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FindingNemo |
Final Fantasy V / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
It has been said that most of the fun in
*Final Fantasy V* comes from the way it doesn't take itself too seriously. This doesn't mean the cheery tone can be taken for granted.
After
*Final Fantasy IV*'s utter horrors and after its *After Years*, this is the next step into the darkest depths of the pants-shittingly scary *Final Fantasy* series.
The fact it's a short walk compared to the rest of the series barely reflects the game's nature as a Breather Episode for the series — just as the sequel will quickly tell you.
**As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.**
- Castle Exdeath, the Disc-One Final Dungeon, starts off as a fairly standard-looking castle. But when the illusions are dispelled on the second visit, it becomes a horrifying Womb Level. The thirteen story-tall castle is constructed entirely out of the breathing corpses of Exdeath's victims. The walls visibly pulsate and the Background Music changes from the heroic "The Dawn Warriors" associated with Galuf to its own sinister tune.
- Pictured is Exdeath's form once he gains the power of the Void: An Eldritch Abomination of a tree that looks more like brain matter than wood, with an inhuman face on the trunk and his familiar torso armor sticking out of his head, giving the impression that he's taken root. After the Void turns against him, his body implodes and then spills out with a legion of demonic horrors fused together that could either be his original demons or the other horrors sealed in the Void, or both. And it takes up most of the battle screen.
- In the Great Sea Trench, there are four types of enemies you can fight. All four are called "Unknown". Here's◊ how◊ they◊ look.◊ What are these?!?! Undead, mutated corpses whose main attacks are to vomit on you, and kill you instantly! Their existence combined with the hazardous floor of that dungeon and the annoying boss compound to make the area
*terrifying*. These monsters wouldn't be out of place in a *Splatterhouse* game, yet here they are in a fantasy RPG like *FFV*.
- The Interdimensional Rift can get incredibly creepy at times, especially thanks to the music.
- Before beating the game, the door to the Bonus Dungeon in the GBA version isn't locked. Instead, opening the door will result in an unnerving noise, the screen going dark, and a dialogue box saying only "It is pitch black inside. You cannot enter." And then there is the dungeon itself. Remember feeling nervous when trying to sneak past Omega? Here, have an entire floor full of them!
- There is a family of undead enemies that take the form of a floating head with the face
*ripped off* and *floating in front of the skull* and an elongated tongue feeding from the skull's mouth through the mouth of the face in front (and little stringy bits connecting it to the rest of the flesh on the skull).
- The mobile versions renders the monsters in high-quality sprites that fully match their original concept artwork. This allows players to see a number of really horrifying details that had previously been obscured by pixellation.
- This game introduced the Zombie status to the franchise. It sets the character as dead like Instant Death does, but the victim's sprite changes so they have green skin (like they're rotting) and empty white eyes, and they keep fighting, but you lose control of them and they can attack their own allies. It's also harder to cure than most other status effects in the game (only Holy Water will cure a zombie) and a Ribbon, which protects against most status effects like in other games, will
*not* protect against this. There are quite a few enemies throughout the game that can inflict Zombification (even the Final Boss has an attack that can potentially inflict it), and it's always jarring to be caught off-guard by such attacks.
- There's one enemy (and a Bonus Boss in a few versions) that will use an attack named Paraclete on any KO'd characters to turn them into a zombie. This attack's animation is like the one for the Raise spell, except the angel reviving the character is zombified in a similar manner. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyV |
Find Us Alive / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Harley's quiet, terrified monologue during the blackout in Episode 04. It's laden with Nothing Is Scarier, and really hammers in the hopeless situation the site is in as he talks about the terrifying stillness, the "scavengers" shaking everyone down for supplies, and his fear for Lancaster's safety. *Almost one hundred people in this building and it was still as the grave. For a while, I actually worried I might be the only one left somehow. Like everyone else had cannibalized each other in the violence and everyone was dead, and now it was just... me. Alone, in this pitch black, labyrinthian research facility.* | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FindUsAlive |
Fire Emblem / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Caption: "The world was plunged in a nightmare."
As though the ever-present risk of losing your units for good wasn't enough to fill you with dread, the
*Fire Emblem* setting has many disturbing elements to keep you unnerved well after the battle has ended.
# Titles with their own pages:<!—index—><!—/index—>
# Examples from two or more entries:
- In general, some of the characters' death quotes can be this, especially the ones that abruptly cut off mid-line. In later games, the character's eyes will actually close as they finish the line. The Tellius games in particular have some very disturbing death quotes, here are a few examples. (Note that Tormod and Rolf are
*children*.) **Tormod:** No
Move
Listen to me, body
Move
Muarim
where are you? Im
done
for
**Nephenee:** The world
It grows
so
dark
**Geoffrey:** Queen Elincia! My queen, where are you?! I cant see
Blood is in my eyes
Your Majesty
Ill be right
there
**Rolf:**
So this is what fate
had in store for me
Im so cold
I still had
a lot
to learn. Oscar
B-Boyd
Shinon
- Pray you don't get a Game Over in
*The Binding Blade*, *The Blazing Blade*, *The Sacred Stones* note : All three games having the words "GAME OVER" imposed over a fiery background, or *Path of Radiance* note : A static image of Ike's Regal Sword engulfed in flames, with huge, bold text reading "Game Over". The music that plays during these scenes, along with the blazing crimson background, is very disturbing. The *Path of Radiance* Game Over screen is arguably the worst out of the ones listed here, as the bright crimson flames juxtapositioned with the pitch black background in combination with the scary harpsichord of the music instills a frightening feeling towards the player, making it as though *you* failing the chapter resulted in The End of the World as We Know It.
-
*Shadow Dragon* note : Consisting of an abandoned Falchion on a battlefield full of destroyed flags and abandoned weapons, *Thracia 776* note : An abandoned blade and helmet on a cliff edge depicted in deep blue with the word "FIN..." below it, and *Radiant Dawn* note : A monochrome image of a cloudy battlefield with numerous weapons and Lehran's Medellion left abandoned on the battlefield, with melancholic music in the background aren't very pleasant either.
- The concept of the Nosferatu spell: That cute little Mysterious Waif Girl just got her face smashed in by a massive battle axe, then casts this spell which drains the life energy of her enemy and instantly heals the wound she just suffered. Oh, it's a Light spell. It also has a creepy sound effect when cast.
- Later games make it a Dark spell, though the Tellius games revert it to Light (and then
*Awakening* switches it right back to Dark, before *Three Houses* turned it back to Light). Still somewhat creepy, though.
- The whole idea of the Berserk status. Someone hit by a spell from a Berserk staff will be sent on a blind, murderous rampage, attacking anything and everything that comes remotely near them. Let that sink in.
# Examples from specific entries:
-
*Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War*:
- The sound effects of the Loptous and Naga Spells are creepy as hell and can't be properly rendered by an emulator. Made worse by the former conjuring an evil dragon with glowing red eyes out of it.
- Ditto for Fenrir and Meteor spells' sound effects, the sound of incoming danger from a distance spells impending doom for anyone unlucky enough to get hit. The Fenrir spell in particular features a creepy monsterous face staring at you in the middle of a pitch black background with what could be described as demonic sounding noises. The Meteor spell is arguably less scarier, consisting of a high-pitched noise in the middle of a pitch black background followed by a comically big explosion.
- The way the Battle of Belhalla came to life. Think of it: not only is your leader incinerated to death by the Emperor (and after a Tear Jerker of a scene in which ||he gets to see that his wife has been brainwashed into marrying said Emperor||), but then the whole army that you're a part of is bombarded by a storm of meteors. And you're unable to escape because the Royal Guard has you trapped in there. Seriously, not cool!
- The worst thing is that among the few characters that survived (mostly the girls) often had a terrible fate. Erinys died of illness, Brigid suffered from amnesia, as seen below, Silvia and Lachesis go missing, and Ayra has possibly died in the battle, which could make her the only female victim of war from Sigurd's army. Tailtiu had the worst fate though, as she was captured and physically abused by her sister-in-law, Hilda, for years, taking it for her little daughter Tine and died from both depression AND failing health from the beating.
-
*Fire Emblem: Thracia 776*: The graphics for the Hel spell◊ (pictured above). The image of a demonic-looking woman being embraced by skeletons in a hellish atmosphere is just a nightmarish sight to behold, especially in comparison to its *Genealogy* equivalent. Here's a still view of it!◊
- In
*Thracia 776*, you can actually steal the tome for yourself if you capture an enemy Dark Mage carrying the spellbook or use Tina's Thief staff. However, no one in your party can actually use it, not even Salem, your only dark magic user; it also cannot be sold, due to being a Prf weapon. While it's obviously the case given how the Hel tome has a character lock designated to it so that it can only be used by enemy Dark Mages (making it so you cannot have an easy way of softening enemies for easy capturing/killing), you can alternatively interpret the Hel tome's status as an unusable and unsellable weapon because it is seen as an Evil Weapon that is too nightmarish and demented (especially when you consider the graphics for the spell in *Thracia 776*, as seen above) for anyone other than Loptrians to use, and the shopkeepers likely have the same feeling, which explains why they don't want it when you try to sell it to them.
- In one of the game's chapters, there are the stone statues of
**EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER** that canonically died in the Battle of Bellhalla. Alec, Naoise, Arden, Lex, Midir, Dew, Jamke, Chulainn, Claude and Beowolf, pretty much every male apart from Oifey, Shannan, Lewyn and possibly Azelle is dead.
- While it's clear that Brigid, like her twin sister Edain, survived the battle, she got amnesia and became a swordmaster known as Eyvel, and at one point, she also gets turned to stone, which can only be fixed if you go through and complete Chapter 24x. By Chapter 25, if she isn't recruited and alive, she'll become the Deadlord Draco. She will never get her memory back, or reunite with Febail and Patty, her children.
-
*Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade*:
- ||Zephiel's|| Slasher Smile....which is accompanied by a
*horrifying* musical sting, and is also the last shot in the game...
- What makes this worse? This is a reference to
*The Binding Blade*, where Zephiel becomes the main antagonist. However, this is only hinted at the end of *The Blazing Blade*, meaning that it's likely that you will have *absolutely no clue what the game is telling you here*. So after you beat the game and save the world, the last shot is of a man you went through hell to save turn evil... and you have no idea why.
- Actually, the entirety of Zephiel's family in
*The Blazing Blade* is pretty much this and Tearjerker. Being held up by insecurity with a manipulative mother (Queen Helene) and a jealous and abusive father (King Desmond), and the latter even attempting on one's life is seriously not fun on its own. It gets even worse when you consider the ramifications this causes 20 years later.
- In the last chapter, you have to fight many previous bosses
*that you already killed* (and one guy who got offed in a cutscene... that you may not have even witnessed if you didn't meet the requirements for the side chapter it leads up to, making him a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere). To make things even creepier, none of them have the ability to talk. No Trash Talk, no Boss Banter, nothing. When you kill them, they *still* say nothing, but they **smile** as if in gratitude.
- The (admittedly badass) animation for ||Nergal's attack, Ereshkigal|| — it's a hellish vortex of dark magic, and the noise it makes... It's a serious step up from the standard-issue dark magic used in the game.
- The final boss. It is a regular fire dragon, summoned by Nergal via with a incantation, even as he lays dying. The result of this action brings about a raging and hateful beasts that is even more pissed at you for slaying 2 of it's kin as soon as it got out of the Dragon's Gate. Fighting the cursed thing is very intimidating; it's just a regular fire dragon, yet it fights even better than other bosses in the GBA trilogy, it's appearance sticks out for frightening reasons, and will always kill anyone with the game with only two breaths of it's vile flames.
-
*Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones*: ||Orson's|| conversation with his wife at the beginning of chapter 16. The joyful, carefree way in which he talks to her, in contrast to the empty look in his eyes and of course the fact that his wife ||is nothing more than a corpse that can do nothing else but repeat the word "darling", over and over again||. It's uncanny in the most creepy way.
- It's made worse by the fact that Ephraim and Eirika find her later, and ||they're appropriately horrified when they see her. Monica is never even shown on-screen, but everyone else's reactions to her sure are.||
-
*Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance*:
-
*Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn*:
- The blood pact. A cursed contract that binds the signer to the contractor's service. The one who is in possession of the contract can invoke a curse to the other party's nation if the other party does not do as the holder wishes. And killing the signing party does
*not* dispel the curse. The only way to break the curse is to kill the contractor and then tear the scroll containing the contract. ||Lekain used it to bind Naesala and Pelleas to his service until Sanaki took charge of things, and prior to that, Ashnard had manipulated his father into signing it, ultimately resulting in Ashnard killing his father and taking over Daein.||
- The result of the contract during
*Radiant Dawn*'s story is not pretty. Not only is the Dawn Brigade powerless to stop Lekain's atrocities, but they're also forced to fight for Lekain and effectively enforce Daein's rule the same way Ashnard did. ||Micaiah is so desperate to win that at one point, during a skirmish with the Laguz Alliance, Micaiah's last resort is to lure them into the bottom of a canyon doused with oil and setting fire to it in a last-ditch effort to wipe out the Laguz Alliance. If not for Tibarn's timely intervention, we'd have in our hands one of the most gruesome massacres in all of *Fire Emblem*, rivaled only by what took place in the first part of *Genealogy of the Holy War*.|| | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FireEmblem |
Fire Emblem Engage / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Then we actually meet Past Alear themselves, revealing that the nightmare was not a hint of things to come, but something that has already occurred. We find out about their grim backstory: they would regularly watch their siblings be brutally killed, ranging from being drowned to being burned alive to being torn apart by the Corrupted. They say all of this with a flat face and Creepy Monotone almost as if they are used to it.
The flashback at the start of chapter 22 shows Past Alear a bit too happy and eager to turn on and fight against their father's forces. Their tone of voice is clearly wavering between breaking down crying or snapping entirely as they giddily exclaim to Lumera that they've won. Then Sombron shoots them straight through the chest just before he's sealed away.
Sombron has always been bad news however, when he directly interacts in the story he created theDarkest Hour of Engage. When Sombron was about to kill Veyle after she planned to return Marth's ring, Alear defends Veyle and dies moments later. For a few minutes, Sombron won.
Picture this situation: You often find yourself blacking out and waking up in the most unexpected places, with no memory as to how you got there, and often with wounds on parts of your body. Then you meet the Divine Dragon and quickly become good friends with them, even actively helping them along the way. But after you guide them to Destinea Cathedral in Elusia, you black out once again, and wake up all the way in Solm. And then, once you meet the Divine Dragon and their friends again, you notice that they now utterly loathe you for what you seemingly did to them as they and their allies accuse you of numerous horrific crimes, even though you genuinely have no idea what you actually did to hurt them. Your surrogate family comforts you by claiming they were lying, and that you would never do such things, encouraging you to meet the Divine Dragon again. And once you do meet again, Zephia casually reveals that you have a viciously evil split personality she implanted in you who committed all of those atrocities, to your complete horror and guilt, right before said evil personality takes over again. Afterwards, your surrogate family (except for Mauvier, who still genuinely cares for you) drops all pretense of being caring people and coldly refer to you as a "filthy defect", plotting to get rid of you once and for all. Oh, and the Divine Dragon your evil side tried to kill multiple times is the older sibling you've been trying to find this whole time. That's what Veyle has had to go through throughout the game, and that's only the times you see on-screen.
Good Veyle: I stole rings? I killed people?! But why would I do such things?!
In Chapter 20, it's mentioned that when a Fell Dragon summons an Emblem, they're unable to speak and have no free will. This adds a lot of Fridge Horror to your earlier encounters with Corrupted Emblems. Imagine how things must feel from their perspective. However, Leif mentions in some of his bond conversations that when Emblems aren't summoned properly they're in a sleeplike state, softening the blow in a way.
Rather remote, but a unique Game Over screen plays should you get one during the final chapter. Alear wakes up to the sight of Sombron's manakete form, who wastes no time in telling you that everyone else is dead. We then turn to Veyle, once again Brainwashed and Crazy, showing off Alear's Emblem Ring on her finger. Alear then notices their reflection behind Veyle: They've been summoned as a Dark Emblem. Cue Evil Laugh from Sombron.
The entire encounter and battle with Past Alear in Chapter 24 is unnerving due to how...off Past Alear is. After spending the entire game hearing how vibrant and emotional Alear is, seeing them as an emotionless, almost robotic borderline Empty Shell is unsettling to say the least. And then there's the reason why they're like this: Its all but stated to be both a coping mechanism and a way to keep themselves safe from their fathers wrath. Past Alear has seen so many of their siblings brutally murdered by Sombron (in particular having watched some be torn apart by Corrupted) for being "defective" in one way or another that they've quietly resigned themself to being their father's enforcer, doing exactly what they're told and obeying every order, otherwise they know they'll be killed and discarded like so many of their siblings were. All the while they know deep down that it is inevitable that Sombron will eventually kill them regardless.
Corrupted Lumera is incredibly unsettling. She is Alear's loving mother but twisted to serve Sombron, tries but fails to imitate her former kindness, and when that doesn't work, starts wildly swinging between Evil Is Hammy and Dissonant Serenity. If you fight her with Alear, she even starts repeating her dialogue from Chapter 2's training battle, before realizing to herself it makes no sense... and they are doing it again. She's a fundamentally broken person who comes across as The Mentally Disturbed, and it's possible Sombron made her that way just to twist the knife further.
Her interactions with Veyle moments prior are arguably worse. While she is first motherly to Veyle as she is to Alear, her demeanor changes instantly when she blames Veyle for denying her a proper reunion with Alear, followed by mocking her for trying to kill her the same way she did before, and finally calling her a defect with an unnerving evil grin on her face. Whatever feelings Lumera might have had towards Veyle, Corrupted Lumera twists and distorts them to the point where she's not that much different than how Sombron looks at his children, save that Corrupted Lumera is driven by her twisted love for Alear.
The Alternate Elyos the Fell Xenologue DLC takes place in is one giant Crapsack World, for lack of better words. Despite Sombron having been defeated twice, the four nations are at each other's throats since the Alternate Alear was the sole glue holding everyone together. Without them, they quickly devolved to fighting amongst themselves. Worse still is what the most recent war has shaped the royal siblings of this world into, who have not only lost their parents, but even their trusted friends and retainers. The Alternate Céline wants to go to war with Brodia, who in this world is a peaceful (in an extremist manner) nation whereas Firene is vengeful and in the midst of a lack of resources, and Alternate Ivy is The Caligula who wants to revive Sombron and killed almost all of her siblings, even offering Hyacinth as a sacrifice for Sombron's resurrection. It's equal parts horrifying and tear-jerking to realize this might be what the player's Elyos will become if they fail.
Somehow, the state of the Alternate Elyos just gets even worse. In Xenologue 4, Nel reveals that the royals you've fought up to this point? They were all Corrupted. Not just them, but the soldiers under their command, and possibly even the civilian townsfolk making up the towns and villages on the continent. With the exception of the Fell Dragon twins, the Four Winds, and Alear, it seems as if EVERYONE in the Alternate Elyos is dead. The idea that a whole continent now consists of zombies, almost all of whom having no idea they are actually dead, is guaranteed to put shivers down your spine, especially when you realize that even Sombron, arguably the worst villain in the history of Fire Emblem, did not accomplish this feat. What's more, it's never clarified just how this happened. As normal as these Corrupted appear, there are signs they are beginning to mentally degrade, foreshadowed by Alternate Alfred suddenly declaring how happy they are that their Alear came back to life, despite having been explicitly told shortly before the one in front of him is from another world.
The Fogado of this world is unnerving as while he has the same smile, he does various cruel acts and unlike any other Royal, he's aware of his nature as a Corrupted and has embraced it, saying it enabled him to indulge his impulses without annoying things like remorse. He is all too eager to kill his retainers and is only upset about his sister dying only because he wanted to kill her himself. Though what is particularly horrifying is his reaction to seeing the main timeline version of himself: he gets the idea to try to Kill and Replace him as to go about terrorizing a whole other world. Worst of all is that unlike every other Royal, who are made Ambiguously Evil due to their natures as Corrupted, it's implied that Alternate Fogado was always this evil. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FireEmblemEngage |
Final Fantasy VI / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Face it. The Nightmare Fuel seen in the
*Final Fantasy* series may well have debuted in *Final Fantasy IV* and popped up again in *Final Fantasy V*, but *this* is where they got serious **for real**.
Keep in mind this game inspired the less fantasy-ish route the series took with further installments, with a parallel route filled with increasing horror following the former.
Bring your brown pants. You'll need them.
- The Gestahlian Empire is a bit more visceral than the antagonists of past entries. Unlike Emperor Mateus, who was just an evil bastard that wanted to rule and killed indiscriminately via a pact with demons from Hell itself, you get to see Emperor Gestahl working to try to rule the world under his sole, violent tyranny while preaching about supremacy as the rightful rulers of the world. You see good people like General Leo and the senseless waste of his life when he gets in Kefka's way. The citizenry and soldiers who range the gamut of believing wholeheartedly in their leaders, to indulging in the discrimination and extermination of all resistance against them. Their horrific experiments and monsters resulting of their works. As fantasy as they are, this empire stuck in the fandom's memories because of their realistically evil nature, and whereas previous antagonists had their goals and reasons or were simply out for themselves, this is an entire
*nation* of narcissistic human beings that buy the supremacy spiel at face value and dominate solely for one man's prideful sake of conquest. That sent into motion the events that all but end the world.
- The game itself outlines the horrors to come by narrating about the War of the Magi that nearly ended all life, and foreshadowing that the Empire would come to do the same. And it builds up to this by the ominous theme of Gestahl himself, while the intro shows that they'll straight up put Slave Crowns onto people to make them absolutely obedient to the death. And they did this on a
*young girl* whose mind suffers severe amnesia and mental damages once it's removed, while Arvis implies that there's more people that have suffered from them with even worse side-effects, making one wonder how many soldiers you tear your way through might be other wearers.
- The Cultists' Tower. First off, its theme is fucking disturbing; it sounds like some religious death march music with some eerie chanting in the background. Next, we have an entire cult that sprung up out of complete fear of Kefka and they march in a circle in front of this tower without end. The most disturbing thing? Strago is amongst them; believing Relm to be dead, he was so overcome with grief he actually turned to worship the same man that caused her "supposed" death. She's alive, of course, and comes to snap him out of it, but damn.
- The poisoning of Doma Castle. This is where Kefka firmly first establishes himself as such an utter and soulless psychopath that even his Emperor doesn't look fondly on this action. Granted, his dialogue is a little over-the-top and enjoyable, but then you see the water turn purple and all the citizens of the castle dropping dead. It's not a pleasant sight. But the worst is when Cyan, retainer of the castle, finds his king and his wife and child all dead due to the poisoning. Seriously messed-up.
- Also, everyone except for Cyan and a sentry had died in Doma. When Cyan enters his room and walks to his son in the bed and Owain falls to the ground, it's horrifying. There is a dead
**CHILD** on the Super Nintendo screen.
- This also gives Cyan some kind of PTSD because out of everyone in the castle, only he and a single sentry had survived (and you never see that sentry again, it's not shown exactly what becomes of him). If you go to sleep in Doma Castle the World of Ruin, and Cyan is in the party, he has a nightmare and doesn't wake up in the morning. The three characters who are with him have to enter in his Dreamscape to save him, as three psychopathic triplets, the Dream Stoogles, want to eat his soul, and Wrexsoul, a monster formed by the souls of the dead in the War of the Magi, is eating him from the inside. Even worse, he was brainwashed by this monster to the point that he was willing to relinquish his soul out of deep despair and out of shame for his failure in protecting his family, his kingdom, and not being able to stop Kefka from destroying the world, and even when you save him, it takes the souls of his wife and kid to snap him out of it.
- Shadow's various Flashback Nightmares,
*especially* if you didn't know about them, happen to sleep in an inn with Shadow in the party, then hear that godawful buzzing sound....
- When Terra suffers Power Incontinence and transforms into her half-Esper form for the first time, she starts freaking out in utter confusion and terror, and then releases an
*ear-piercing inhuman scream* as she darts off the screen to fly for the horizon. To a player caught unawares, it's one hell of a Jump Scare that can genuinely make you wonder if she's irreversibly become a full-blown monster. The concept art◊ for her Esper form isn't pretty either, she looks feral.
- Some of the enemy sprites in this game are pretty nasty. Humpties◊ are pretty grotesque, looking like round, wrinkly, naked humanoid shapes, and they also use hugs/their own odors as a special move, which is so disgusting it confuses whoever they try it on. Brainpans◊ could easily be images from a drug-induced nightmare, honestly being smiling flying zombie Buddha heads, and Crullers◊ resemble twisting intestines covered in discolored tumors.
- Getting to see Kefka outright kill Gestahl on-screen, and then kick his corpse around for fun while you're totally powerless in doing anything. Consider that Emperor Gestahl was an absolute bastard that was willing to slaughter and destroy entire countries to rule it all, and he ends up the Lesser of Two Evils because Kefka finally snapped enough to slip his leash and fry the guy dead on the spot.
- The World of Ruin. The music, with that bone-scrapingly discordant pipe organ.
- In the original release and the Game Boy Advance version, the waters of the World of Ruin were a sort of rust-brown to reddish, giving the impression they were filthy and polluted. In the iOS remake of the game, with the updated visuals, the water now clearly looks like an ocean of vibrant blood.◊
- Peepers, the squirrel-like monsters on the first island of the World of Ruin. The way they just... die without being hit. It really hammers home the fact that this world itself is dying.
note : This effect was done by giving these enemies very low HP and automatic seizure status. Well played, Square.
- Returning to Narshe, a bustling mining town in the World of Balance and the first town in the game, only to find a monster-infested ghost town with no apparent human inhabitants left
note : There's actually two, though they're locked up in houses that you need Locke to enter.. It doesn't help that the music changes to the same eerie ambience as the World of Ruin's map theme.
- The cutscene at the end of the Floating Continent, which depicts
*most of the world being destroyed*. An *entire continent is split in half by massive, city-sized explosions* and people fall into the created chasms to their deaths. The entire thing is driven home when we see the explosions visible *from space* as the music fades out.... The intro to the World of Ruin just adds more despondent salt in the wounds.
- Celes's attempt at
**SUICIDE**! That's right, **SUICIDE** in a *Final Fantasy* game. While this scene only occurs if you failed to save Cid, the fact that it's easy to fail to save Cid means it's common for players to see it. Celes barely even knew the truth about him being her uncle until now and yet is so overcome with grief she attempts it. You even watch as she takes the jump off the cliff. She lives, but still, yikes.
- FFVI is full of creepy bosses. One of them is Chadarnook. It is a painting of a sexy woman◊ that transforms into a freaking demon◊.
- The location where it's found, Owzer's Mansion is also really unsettling, since the paintings come to life without warning, there's a Creepy Changing Painting of Maria (Celes' lookalike opera singer), and you get sucked into one painting of a chair, where an old woman takes the chair.
- For that matter, Owzer himself. Every character in this game follows a similar design and similar body proportions on their sprite. Owzer
*defies* this, being a morbidly obese man with a face that could be mistaken for that of a frog. His official art is pretty unsettling as well.
- The Collapsing House in Tzen in during the World of Ruin arc. Celes has to rescue a child trapped in a collapsing house and escape before the 6-minute timer runs out, while Sabin holds the house. If time runs out, Sabin will not be able to hold the house and will be crushed, causing a Game Over. However, according to an interview with the developers, letting time run out would originally have caused Sabin to die for real! While a few games of the series before this did something like that (often in
*Final Fantasy II*, in *Final Fantasy IV*, with Tellah (who dies for real), Cid and Yang (who survive, although injured) and Palom and Porom (who petrify themselves to allow the others to escape), and in *Final Fantasy V*, with Galuf, who dies over halfway through the game and his grandaughter Krile takes his place), the fact that he could have died if you didn't save the child inside that house in time is just horrifying. Not to mention that originally, if afterwards you go to sleep in Tzen, that would trigger a night-time cutscene where Edgar desperately tries to find his brother's body. Fortunately, the developers changed that because the World of Ruin was already dark and scary enough as it was.
- Just the fact that at the beginning of the game, the beautiful, lush, vibrant world that the characters take for granted has about a month left to live, at least in the way that the characters know it. And not a single person knows or even suspects that such a cataclysm will occur, except for Kefka.
- The ghosts pursuing you on the Phantom Train. Until Sabin brings some levity to the situation by leaping over the train cars with Cyan (and possibly Shadow) in tow in order to escape, the entire scenario just seems so hopeless. Dozens of ghosts are pursuing the party at every turn, all the while moaning that there is nowhere to run or hide, and that they will not escape. It's like something out of the Evil Dead movies.
- The Empire's capital of Vector is one of the more ominous moments. The citizens don't seem to care at all about what's going on outside of the city. The Emperor himself is more concerned with consolidating his remaining power and pacifying the Returners than actually addressing any of the myriad issues going on. And
*half the city is on fire,* yet nobody seems to *notice*. And that's *before* you set foot in the Magitek Factory...
- The Final Boss itself, in all of its four-phase glory. After all the hell the cast had to go through, they finally confront Kefka only to be confronted with the Statue of the Gods: a structure composed of multiple tiers covered in human, demonic and angelic facsimiles with organic-looking machinery all throughout, that channels the power of the Warring Triad. Kefka effectively designed a blasphemous monument to his own godhood and a testament to those he stepped over to reach it, and by itself it's extraordinarily powerful despite being completely inanimate. It also doesn't help that there was no prior warning to its existence, as the player is forced to battle it first to ascend to the true final battle, and at least one Word of Saint Paul implies it to have been the entire dungeon itself turned to life as one final obstacle.
- Then after gradually destroying the tower, you're met with the game's opening organs and choir — and the sight of Kefka himself before a heavenly background, as what amounts to having become what can only be described as
**Lucifer having ascended to become God** with an intent to destroy all of creation. In most of the rest of the series you either fight an Eldritch Abomination or a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere that happens to be godly in power, but Kefka has the power of creation and destruction at a whim, already destroyed the world, and is by all means the cornerstone of all magic and power in what's left of life. It's perhaps one of the most striking moments in the franchise history as he descends, because something so *wrong* exists and he revels in the absurdity of it. There's also the fact that he precludes That One Attack with what looks like a screaming face of himself and the heavens rumbling from the imminent Nuke 'em he's about to inflict on you. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyVI |
Final Fantasy XIII-2 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
*Final Fantasy XIII-2* is even scarier than Final Fantasy XIII. Not to mention the first sequel game to have its own article for it.
If you play this, you may want to spend a few days or weeks without sleep... Especially once you truly understand the ending.
**As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.**
- The Cie'th are back... Great.
- It's made worse in the area where they're reintroduced. Academia 400 AF, which is a beautiful utopia... until you show up! Not long after entering the area, everything falls into a chaotic machines-destroy-humanity kind of theme while dramatic music called Condition Omega plays up until Caius' appearance. You are also shown a graphic transformation into a Cie'th when the first few people you see there shake violently and then become the monsters. To add insult to injury, you have to fight them immediately afterward. It goes From Bad to Worse when this later becomes recurring in the same place and time, only now there are screams heard throughout the city. And the boss of the area is none other than the horrifying Zenobia, a giant Cie'th with tentacles.
- Often when fighting the Cie'th, one or more of them will start off the battle by using a Remedy... We'll let that sink in.
- Even worse, if a Cie'th spawns and you take too long to engage it (which
*WILL* happen due to the absurdly high Random Encounter rate), it will *start attacking nearby NPCs*; you'll hear them scream, then they keel over and stop moving... Yes, **you can actually see NPCs killed before your eyes!** And you'll have to live with the knowledge that you, the player, failed to save them.
- For added guilt, as you go through the city, you can watch NPCs who are absolutely terrified of the monsters that the people around them are turning into run towards you
*and get turned into Cie'th themselves because they got too close to you*. Oh, and don't forget the screaming in the background as the half of the city that's been turned into Cie'th kills the other half.
- A Dying World 700AF. One of the darkest areas in Final Fantasy,
*period*.
- It's been repeatedly stated Noel's world is after Cocoon crashed to Gran Pulse, dooming the world. The result is a blackened ash-filled wasteland where nothing grows, the sky is darkened to the point that you can barely see five feet away, showing a blood-red color where it isn't black, with everything else in an extremely-dim glow. When we visit it in a dreamworld recreation, only three people + a moogle are around, but demonic red shadows of everyone who used to be alive wander about... all in terrible pain as they succumb to illness and death,
*and you hear everything*. Just when you bring them back into phase, *they fall to the ground dead* **instantly**... *all crying out for their loved ones, cursing why this had to happen, praying to the goddess, and so forth*.
- And even worse? All this is part of Noel's dreamworld, ie the distortion that caters to Noel's happiest desires. His past - before Caius left and Yeul died to after they're both gone, with Noel on the verge of death by the very end -
*is all it can come up with*. Even after seeing Academia 4XX AF, seeing what a happy future looks like, parts of him still can't imagine what he hopes to achieve... and when he was on the verge of death, his numbing pain was so much that he didn't resist...
- In the subtlest Shout Out, a sound effect plays
**every 15 seconds** during a small part where you search for Noel, who's also wandering around like the other spirits, sounding *exactly* like *Silent Hill 3's* 'Red Light Chase'.The link for those who are curious (after 3:24).
- Yaschas Massif 10 AF. You start off in a small mountainous area at night. Okay, so there are a handful of people walking around, there's some lights to keep things viewable, and everything is calm and good... until you find your way to the open area in the center of the map, where the eclipse has made things
*pitch black* and the only light available are the various spotlights and lamps in the area. You run toward the spotlight and suddenly the Mog Clock appears, and next thing you know a Behemoth that can *decimate* any normally-leveled player appears and you realize that the Mog Clock is going *at an accelerated rate*. It plays this, which gives the feeling that something is sneaking up on you waiting to pounce at any moment... Then as soon as an enemy shows up, the music immediately changes to this, which is like that something suddenly pounces and gets you! There is hope, however: stepping into light resets and freezes the Mog Clock. But even so...
- It doesn't help that both themes are essentially a really Dark Reprise of the usually-cheery Prelude theme heard throughout the rest of the series. You will never hear that piece of music the same way again.
- It goes From Bad to Worse in Yaschas Massif 100 AF, where the permanent eclipse suddenly turns the skies blood-red and there are Crimson Spheres floating as soon as you enter (which turn out being the petrified ghosts of people who were killed in the paradox!) They speak like Cthulhu, and that creepy music continues to play.
- Then there is that alarming mission in 110 AF where one of those Crimson Spheres says something about some fatal error that could turn hazardous, where you have to talk to some guy who won't believe you no matter what you tell him to reconsider unless you find the manual. That whole overtone is just terrifying and makes you wonder: what happens if you don't? Even worse is, after finding out that one of the Crimson Spheres was a child, 110 AF plays scarier music than the music above, and in 010 AF, if you look in a certain area, you see one of those Crimson Spheres floating beyond reach.
- Anything from 500 AF and onwards (except for the possibility of Archelyte Steppe (not the one from the paradox ending) being somewhere at this time):
- Academia 500 AF is a seemingly bottomless city with floating mechanical things all over the place, which gives an eerily mechanical feel; the green, clouded skies somehow make it worse and knowing this is the time Cocoon crashed into Pulse makes it just straight-out horrifying. To make things worse, you don't see any people until the end of the area. This is the Background Music playing, which seems to say no matter what you do, you are screwed. Once you reach the end, you hear the sound of a bomb alarm go off.
- New Bodhum 700 AF. Seeing the starting area of the game become an uninhabited wasteland is deeply disturbing.
-
**Paradox Ending #8:** **A Giant Mistake** has a possible Archelyte Steppe 500 AF Paradox where the peaceful plains of the Archelyte Steppe have been reduced to a flaming war zone. Which may imply that the last area of peace may have been destroyed if it wasn't for them weakening Atlas, and that probability alone is disturbing.
- Neo Bodhum. For starters, the Game Over music plays when first entering the area, the skies are beige and you can see blackness. But hey, at least you see old friends...but as soon as you talk to Snow, they disappear. Then you have to go to Lightning, who gives you two options: 1) Stay in Neo Bodhum and live a lie, or 2) Refuse, where Dream Lightning's eyes turn a monochromatic black and she then fades to darkness.
- Gogmagog looks like Anima mixed with Occuria and the Bombs of Ivalice with a nail in its right eye and a
*bunch of nails on its head.* Made worse once its complete appearance is revealed: It has many nails on its body, **two heads!** and *the other head has a sword through it.* Heck, the rest of its body proves how much of an Eldritch Abomination it really is!
- Royal Ripeness, unusually, since most of the times Flan-type enemies are funny. Not this one due to it leading to Cocoon crashing into Pulse, and if you don't stop it, Cocoon crashes into Pulse early! But once the Faeryl is destroyed, it becomes Nightmare Retardant.
-
**The ending**. It starts at such a typical high note, complete with hopeful pop music... and then Serah falls over, dead, due to the timeline changes. Then a loud thud and clocks are heard, the sky starts to darken, a time paradox gate the size of *Neo Cocoon* appears, and Mog falls down. He warns Hope and Noel that the goddess Etro is *dead*, with Caius' mocking voice reminding them that if he died while Etro was still recovering from her wounds, she would die, too. Cue the Time Crash as chaos erupts from Etro's prison, destroying the entire timeline - everyone, everywhere, every *when* is trapped in a Valhalla-like existence with no causality. The game finishes with a shot of Lightning's crystallized body on Etro's throne and a To Be Continued message. Caius's theme plays triumphantly over the credits. That's right - for the first time ever, a Final Fantasy villain *won* at the end of a game, and it's just as terrifying as it sounds.
- The secret ending (obtained by collecting every single frgament for 100% Completion) doesn't help matters, either. Caius is alive. He knew the entire time that all timelines end with Etro dying and him winning, only the specifics differ. He's sitting in the Void Beyond,
*laughing at the player* for trying so hard to find an escape, because *there isn't any.* He's won. He knows it, he always knew it, and there's literally *nothing* the player can do about it. Cue his Red Eyes, Take Warning kicking in, as well as chaos itself surrounding him like a cloak as he heads off to reunite with Yuel in the post-Time Crash universe. Oh, and Lightning knew too, and her hitting the Despair Event Horizon is what leads to her voluntarily crystallizing herself to try and ride out the ensuing apocalypse.
- We learn from Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII that the world stays this way for
**five hundred** additional years, during which the cast from both games have almost all fallen to some form of despair over what's happened. Lightning is tasked by the god Bhunivelze with saving all of them, with Serah's very soul acting as a bargaining chip...
- Just the intro when you first play as Serah. You open your front door and step outside, expecting to see your friends and neighbors and a beautiful beachfront view...and then the air seems to warp and fold in on itself as you find yourself walking in a blasted, desolate landscape completely devoid of human presence, or any life at all for that matter.
- Adam's plan, as revealed by the Augusta Tower Paradox ending. First, he brainwashes Serah, Mog, and Noel into becoming his knights while he begins work on an army of fal'Cie. The worst part? This plan is called The Eden Project. He intends to make history repeat itself.
- Imagine this: In Oerba 400 AF, you're strolling along the shores minding your own business, when suddenly a space time distortion appears. You strike it and Oh my God what is that thing?! It's a Cie'th that is tough to beat even at Maximum Level, and is also the scariest Cie'th you'll find in the game to boot. Spider-like legs? Check. Snake-like lower body? Check. And being a Cie'th? Double check. Not to mention it has all those human-like arms...
- When you run into a Don Tonberry. Tonberries are scary enough alone, but then it uses its ultimate attack. What does it say? "NONE ARE SAFE..." And if you're not ready, you'll probably die.
- Caius is basically a purple-haired version of Sephiroth who has
*extremely* powerful attacks. The really scary thing? Word of God states that Caius is the most powerful Big Bad in the series.
- Ruined Hometown. It's beautiful, but the opening has a sound in the back that sounds like a constantly whirring saw.
- Hearing Serah call out for her friends in fake Neo Bodhum after they disappear is somewhat unnerving. As she goes through the list of people that should be there, her calls get progressively more urgent and scared...
- Pacos Amethyst and Rubrite are this along with being a Tear Jerker boss fight. They are large, paper-thin, crystalline giraffes that have an alternate version of Yeul's Theme playing in the background while you hear Yeul's disembodied voice telling you to turn back throughout the boss fight.
- In
*Requiem of the Goddess*, hearing Yuel's laughter as Serah's soon-to-be corpse *bleeds black out of its closed eyes* with chaos engulfing it, with Yuel saying she will remain in darkness, like anyone else, until The End of the World as We Know It..
- As revealed by the novella "Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments After", the voice of Yuel speaking in that scene is in fact a collective of dead Yuels' souls merged with the Chaos in Valhalla, and they conjure Caius to fight Lightning and later claim it was Lightning herself who caused Serah's death by sending Serah on her journey through time in the first place (which she did, yet still). Also, the Yuel who speaks to Noel and Yuel in Academia 500AF is one of these Chaos-merged Yeuls and tried to stop Noel and Serah in their mission, knowing that it would result in death, suffering, and eternal darkness.
- If one fully delves into the background such as the FNC mythos, all the Analects of XIII and the Fragments of XIII-2, they'd realize that the universe was screwed no matter what anyone - including Caius - did, as its revealed in the lore that Etro was dying anyway and was inevitably going to fade into the Chaos like Mwynn before her (along with the rest of Valhalla; indeed most of Valhalla had already been swallowed up by Chaos prior to the births of any of the characters). Meaning the Chaos was going to destroy the world no matter what, no matter which timeline or how things played out. All Caius did was make it happen sooner (though ironically it actually happened 200 years later in time then in the timeline he left) then it would have naturally. Really puts the futility of his and everyone's else's struggles in the games into perspective. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyXIII2 |
Final Fantasy VIII / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
*Final Fantasy VIII* may or may not be as rife with scares as its predecessors, but when it does aim to make players scream, *BOY* does it live up to their standards. **As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.** | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyVIII |
Fire Emblem Fates / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
More mundane than some other examples, but Fire Emblem Fates is the first in the series to change the battle theme if one of your characters is likely to die in the ensuing fight, and the music in question consists of "Psycho" Strings. Luckily, this happens only if you're playing Classic Mode or on your last unit in Casual Mode.
In chapter 17 of Conquest you'll come face-to-face with the Automaton enemy, which appears to be a small, unassuming (if not uncomfortably realistic looking) wooden puppet in the shape of a small child. Engage it in combat however, and its face splits in half and a buzzsaw springs out to attack you while it wheels around stiffly. Should you land a killing blow on one its character portrait in the damage forecast shows the face cracking. If you're playing Birthright, you can use these as My Castle defenses too.
The Nohrian equivalent are Stoneborn, who are supposed to be stone Golems brought to life by magic, but in practice move more like a Blob Monster, with their bodies contorting in unnerving ways. Their method of attacking enemies is by hurling rocks, but they don't thow them: they launch them out of a cavity on their head, usually covered by their Mouth Of Truth face-plate. Yes, they don't even have a face, just a huge gaping cavity. They also throw the face-plate sometimes as an attack. Heck, the face-plate itself could count for this, the realistic Mouth Of Truth gives off a huge sense of Uncanny Valley compared to the game's usual Animesque art style.
The Stoneborn can also show up in the level grinding DLC, so you can still see them even if you're early on the Hoshido route... And they might be even freakier there, since there's less context for them.
A Stoneborn boss in a later Birthright chapter actually has pre-battle dialogue, which is very unnerving if you don't see it coming, especially since the only dialogue Faceless bosses have is roars. This implies that these things are actually sentient (or at least some of them are) while Faceless aren't, a horrifying thought in itself.
In the chapter Werewolf Summit in Birthright, the Avatar and party meet Keaton and his Wolfskin, who state that they've eaten the last group of soldiers to try coming through their territory. Keaton even throws human bones at the Avatar to prove he isn't bluffing.
In the localization, Keaton doesn't explicitly say they ate the last group of soldiers, but it's still heavily implied by him showing off human bones that are completely picked clean.
Keaton's personal skill can sometimes get you meat in battle. Now, if it activates after he kills an enemy and says "fresh meat is the best", don't think too hard the next time you make your army a steak sandwich in the Mess Hall...
To make matters worse, listen to some of Keaton's daughter Velouria's voice clips. She often says things like "I smell raw meat!" or "A-Hunting I will go!" She has just as few qualms with eating people as the rest of the Wolfskins do. Try not to think too hard about what would happen if anyone in the army made them too angry. Worst thing is, Velouria is half human.
Fort Dragonfall, a castle built around the remains of a long-dead dragon. When visited early on in Conquest, it's not much different from a normal castle. But late in Birthright... Iago uses his magic to partially resurrect the dragon, namely, restoring its digestive system. While you're still inside it. What seemed like a normal Storming the Castle mission now has you avoiding stomach acid that constantly spawns Faceless. When you get outside, you see the whole fort is moving, and if you look closely, it seems designed to do that, implying that the fort was always slightly alive.
To make matters worse, if you look closely at the battle backgrounds in Fort Dragonfall in Birthright, you can see that the walls are constantly moving. They're sinking in and out of the "floor" of the fortress, which is actually the dragon's stomach lining. And on top ofthat, if you revisit it for Level Grinding, it's still doing that. Did Iago's spell never get reversed or wear off? Who's to say some other sorcerer couldn't come along and fully revive it?
Hans' Nightmare Face at the end of Chapter 13 of Conquest where he and his army go on a killing spree and slaughter many Cheve civilians, along with the remaining Hoshidan and Cheve troops. It makes him look more demonic than human, and its sudden appearance feels more like something out of a Survival Horror game than Fire Emblem.
The absolute worst part of this chapter is Scarlet's unavoidable death in Conquest by way of Nothing Is Scarier, as Camilla only mentions that she was killed in such a way that she was "clearly made an example of". We are not shown her body, unlike her Revelation death by fireball.
Reina and Orochi could count in Conquest as well, also by virtue of Nothing Is Scarier. That's the only map either of them show up on in Conquest, and considering what happens afterwards... It's very likely that Reina and Orochi got rather unpleasant deaths in that route, too.
While Garon's groans of increasing discomfort are basically just that, mild discomfort, on the Birthright route, on Conquest they descend straight into this, with Garon convulsing in pain as if having a heart attack or seizure, with a very creepy expression on his face as he screams.
Leo and Elise's reactions in Conquest and Birthright respectively really don't help: from their perspective, it would be very like watching their parent having a stroke.
In the second-to-last chapter of the Conquest route, the player and the cast see that Garon is actually a slimy, melting monster. Ewwww.
You can actually see this earlier, for a brief moment in Chapter 15. Azura warns the Avatar that there's something wrong with Garon, and then shows them an image in her crystal ball of Garon with a melting face and what looks like empty eye sockets. Ewww, indeed, and the fact that it comes in the middle of a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment with little other explanation just makes it even freakier.
And that brief image you get isn't anywhere near as bad as actually seeing him face-to-face. Slime Garon is huge, much bigger than you'd expect from that crystal ball vision. And the first thing he does is try to murder his entire family for seeing him in his true form. Not to mention the boss theme that plays for him on Conquest, which really sums up the feeling of "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?!"
Whether he's a slime monster or Blight Dragon, this character has a voiced line on both routes that's incredibly terrifying, especially the first time you hear it.
Monster!Garon: I'll rip your heart out!
The Blight Dragon version in Birthright is almost as creepy as its Conquest equivalent, if only because it comes out of nowhere. Garon's slime form is arguably freakier, but at least the crystal ball vision gives a little forewarning. In Birthright, it looks like Garon's been defeated... and then he suddenly transforms into his dragon form, which is massive and has redGlowing Eyes of Doom.
While it's also a Tear Jerker, Flora's death on Birthright has her Driven to Suicide via Self-Immolation, on-screen... and right in front of her TWIN SISTER Felicia (who tried putting it out with a snowstorm, but to no success) and long-time crush Jakob. The camera pans away slightly, but as she finally dies, you can briefly see her body crumble to ashes. It's definitely one of the most graphic and sad deaths in the series so far. It's remarkable Felicia manages to remain sane after seeing that, and going by Jakob's comments afterwards, there was a Vomit Discretion Shot.
While Azura's death in Conquest is simply her disappearing offscreen to spare her friends and family from witnessing it after Takumi (who was possessed by Anankos) is killed (and in the Epilogue, her spirit appears to actually say goodbye before passing on)... she dies in a very awful way in Birthright, slowly turning into water as the friends and True Companions she has come to love so much, the Avatar and her family (provided she does marry) included, are unable to do anything to stop her suffering.
This is so strong that in Hidden Truths even Anankos himself is not immune. His soul tells Severa/Selena, Inigo/Laslow, and Owain/Odin that he cannot tell them exactly who he is unless they're in his world, lest he will "turn into foam and disappear".
The Demonic Possession employed by the Big Bad is creepy enough as it is, with the victims' personalities utterly twisted instead of simply being mindless slaves.
Although it gets cured quickly enough, a similar thing still happens in Birthright. The party has been worried sick about Ryoma and Takumi, only for Takumi to show up alone, and much more hostile than he ever was before... The pained groaning noises he makes during this scene are incredibly disconcerting on top of that. Thankfully, Azura sings him out of it, but it's still distressing.
Most of the time, Ryoma is Hot-Blooded, but still rational, even when he's trying to take you back to Hoshido in Chapter 12 of Conquest. He's adamant that you've been brainwashed, and that it can be undone... until Chapter 25, where you tell him that you killed Hinoka. He becomes enraged, tells you he can't see you as a sibling anymore, and makes it very clear that he intends to kill you.
Ryoma: Watch as my blade takes back whatever Hoshidan blood remains in you!
After the fight, things don't get much better. Having seen Garon and Iago order the Avatar to finish him off, Ryoma makes the choice for them... by committing Seppuku. A player can see this coming (he is a Samurai, after all), but the worst part is how it happens: it's a fully-animated CG cutscene, with very little Gory Discretion Shot to speak of. Not only that, he does it with the Raijinto, a magical electrified sword, so he's electrocuting and disemboweling himself at the same time. Not a pleasant way to go. No wonder this game has a C rating in Japan. (And probably the only thing that prevents the rating being even higher for this scene alone is Bloodless Carnage.)
Even when he's not possessing some poor soul, Anankos can be pretty terrifying. He's a dragon with enough power to practically be considered a god and, like all of the dragons that have lived too long in this series, has gone completely insane. He's masterminded the whole conflict between both Hoshido and Nohr, and creates entire armies of familiars and puppets, sometimes from the corpses of other people which still retain their memories, to do his bidding. His real voice ranges from a very deep booming baritone to demonic growling as he rambles on about how he was left forgotten and betrayed by humanity. In chapter 27 of Revelation, the first form he takes is a giant head of a stone statue of himself that is kept perfectly frozen while it talks, and cracks apart whenever he roars. Then his dragon form is revealed and it's freaking massive. This quote from Chapter 18, when he shows up seemingly out of nowhere and tries to kill you, sums up just how terrifying he can truly be.
Anankos:I AM THE FORGOTTEN DRAGON, THE BETRAYED KING, THE ENTOMBED GOD. IN THE NAME OF THE KING OF VALLA, I SENTENCE YOU TO DEATH!
While it's not as bad as the above, Saizo attempts something similar to Flora's suicide in Revelation Chapter 8. After the fighting is done, Saizo sets himself on fire to pull a Taking You with Me on the Avatar, even though they're not even trying to fight them anymore. Fortunately, Kaze and Sakura show up Just in Time to stop him, which he actually does, so it's a smaller example than the above, but it's still a horrifying implication. Especially since it could have easily led into something similar to Flora's Birthright death scene if Kaze and Sakura had gotten there later.
Heck, the whole premise of Revelation Chapter 8 is nightmare fuel in itself. Imagine trying to get help from someone who just yesterday treated you like family, only to now treat you as a traitor, order your capture, and when confronted, show no qualms in outright killing you. All because you refusedto pick a side in the war. What's especially jarring about Yukimura's behavior in this chapter is that in Conquest, he's much more understanding of Corrin's choice, even if he is still disappointed.
The Heirs of Fate DLC. Like Future Past, it focuses on a timeline where all the child units' parents are dead as well as everyone they know. Anankos obtains a victory and takes over the world like he wanted, but is not satisfied with it and becomes a Multiversal Conqueror. It takes Shigure from the Heirs of Fate and one child from every world he's conquered to defeat him and save the worlds from his tyranny.
In addition to this, the first several episodes of the DLC show that the children's parents are all dead, and some of them even died right in front of them! The very start of the first episode shows Female Kana holding the Yato in a fog-covered forest, lost and wandering around, having been traumatized by the Male Avatar's death. Like in Awakening, the very idea of these children losing their parents and living during an apocalypse is pretty unnerving.
And that's not all! The majority of the DLC takes place within Valla, and all of the children are afflicted with illusionary magic thanks to Anankos. Thanks to the illusions, the children from Hoshido and Nohr, in addition to thinking that they're within those kingdoms, see the opposite side as Invisible Soldiers, and they're forced to fight each other out of fear. The children's portraits as "Invisible Soldiers" shroud them in purple, shadowy fog, similarly to Mikoto and Arete during Revelation. They can look rather unsettling on certain characters, making some of them look like they have a Slasher Smile.
The Reveal that each of the individual children are literally the only survivors from their respective timelines is an equal mix of Nightmare Fuel and Tear Jerker. It essentially means that they're fighting alongside a bunch of strangers, even the ones that thought they knew each other (including the ones that are canonically related), and although they come to be Fire-Forged Friends, the idea of them not actually knowing their friends and relatives can be seen as a healthy dose of Paranoia Fuel.
The curse Azura's under, shown most graphically in Birthright. The Avatar notices she gets a bit tired when she sings, but every time they check up on her, she brushes them off, saying she's alright. Except after Birthright Chapter 14, where they notice her wandering alone. They follow her, and then you watch a cutscene with Azura shivering, hunched on the ground, as these shadowy purple hands crawl out of her skin and claw at her, finally ending with her screaming and collapsing.
And that's actually at its weakest. When the curse is particularly strong, it starts to break her body down into water. Like, literally rippling over her skin, crystallizing it, then melting it into the air. The pain is so strong she can't even stand for a while after. And she dies this way.
While the players (thankfully) never actually see it, what's known of the infighting in the Nohrian court is deeply unsettling at best, and downright horrific at worst. Tens of concubines, each with their own children, slowly driven mad by their jealousy and paranoia that Garon possibly favors their rivals over themselves. Poisonings, bullying, and even assassinations ran rampant, and were so bad that even the children eagerly participated in it. Eventually, the tensions exploded into a bloody massacre with Xander, Leo, Camilla, and Elise the only survivors, leaving each of them (especiallyCamilla, who was the eldest surviving concubine kid) with severe psychological scars and all but destroying Garon's kindness and optimism, turning him into the twisted shell of a man he is by the time he dies and is impersonated by Slime Garon.
According to Azura's supports with Saizo, she has a nasty scar from a Deadly Prank performed by some of the concubine kids, and in her supports with Arthur, she also states that she once ran away to Windham (the capital) after being harassed by Garon's entourage, which is how she and Arthur met. Based on what's known of the timeline, Azura was a very young girl (8-10at best) when stuff like this happened note : (it's been wondered if she was a toddler, but if she was, then it would've been impossible for her to get to the town and for Arthur to find her there), and the first incidents "officially" confirms that the kids also participated in this bullshit.
It gets even worse than that. Leo is younger than the Avatar, who is around Azura's age. He was even younger than her while all this was going on. And given the Fanon belief that the Avatar was 5-6 when they were kidnapped, if it were true, then the Nohrian siblings and Azura probably weren't anywhere near the high ends of the estimated ages above. Someone give these kids a hug.
Additionally, if the above guess on ages is true, then it means that Azura was likely around 5-6 as well, since she's around the Avatar's age and was kidnapped around the same time they were. Why is this horrifying? Because it means some of the concubines/half-siblings attacked a 5-6 year old girl and gave her scars that she still has over a decade later. It makes one wonder just how brutal some of the other attacks must have been...
Worse still, it's known that Elise was born around when the infighting stopped. She only got to know Xander, Camilla, and Leo, and likely never knew any of her other half-siblings. The fact that she was amazed to find out Azura was her step-sister in Birthright also shows that she was kept in the dark about that as well.
Additionally, Elise confirms in her supports with Leo that she only remembers how Garon was after the concubine incidents messed him up. She is legitimately shocked that he used to be a doting father. While it's not as bad as what happened to her siblings, this still drives in just how bad the Nohrian family had it.
And even then, Leo and Elise's supports (and Camilla's with Niles) have them talking about the fact that their mothers never really cared about them. Even after the worst of it stopped, things never got much better. Since Elise was a baby at the time that the most violent infighting stopped, but she still has clear memories of her mother, it's probably safe to assume that things took a while to fully stop, and it went on for longer than was initially assumed.
While the pre-battle lines in the Boo Camp DLC are normally light-hearted, Xander says that no ghost or apparition is scarier than the time he ended up running into his father in the hallways at night. He then says that the encounter could've been bad had he not been up for honest reasons. If that's what living under Garon was like for his oldest son, then who knows what he and the other Nohr siblings have had to deal with for years even after the Concubine wars ended.
Niles and Subaki's C support ends with Subaki tells Niles to not say hi to him next time he sees him, and Niles tells him he'll simply stab him in the back next time he sees Subaki. Their B support starts with Subaki actually catching Niles in the act of trying to stab him in the back. While Niles' sadism is merely an Informed Attribute in other supports, it runs rampant in Subaki's support, as Niles' reasoning behind the act is only that he wanted to see Subaki's pained expression and that "it wouldn't have been a lethal blow".
In Revelaton Chapter 24, the boss manages to be terrifying in a more subtle way than most, but to some extent, that makes it even worse. At first, the resurrected Mikoto seems her usual kind, caring, motherly self, telling the Avatar to trust her and guiding them through Anankos' traps. At first, she seems completely sincere. Then, at the last door, something seems off. As it turns out, she's lying, and has been deceiving you all along. She then states, without changing her usual calm demeanor, that she intends to murder all her children so they can all be Together in Death under Anankos. Seeing Mikoto's motherly love twisted like this (similarly to how Takumi's competitiveness and Middle Child Syndrome was on Conquest) is... unnerving, to say the least.
By the way, in that same chapter, when the trap triggers and reduces all of your units' HP to 1, it does the same thing to any and all enemies in the room with you. This "disposable mooks" mentality is subtle foreshadowing of what eventually happens to Garon when Anankos decides he has no more use for him.
Two rather horrifying moments occur in quick succession at the start of Revelation Chapter 25. First, the Avatar and Azura decide to split up the group to find the way into Valla's throne room more quickly. This leads to the Avatar hearing Anankos/Gunter repeating the exact same thing he said when Scarlet was killed, and the screen flashes white, only for them to wake up with Gunter standing over them. It's quite the Jump Scare. Then, after everyone reunites, the boss of the map shows up: the resurrected King Sumeragi, who's acting like a complete Blood Knight and has a CG with a Slasher Smile and a Battle Aura. Oh, and just for some extra creepy, said boss has the actual Ganglari, which you can see in the CG of them.
If looked at from an outsider/victim's point of view, Corrin's Dragon Fang strikes. Imagine being in a fairly straightforward battle, and suddenly your opponent rears back and start morphing their body piecemeal to attack you. And not even in ways that make sense, they turn an arm into a sharp, pointed lance, then into a mouth. It's no wonder even Hans was reduced to a terrified wreck upon seeing it in the prologue.
The example with Hans is also rather creepy, since it comes out of nowhere and isn't explained for a couple more chapters. On a first playthrough, the player will be left wondering what the heck just happened for a little while; it's subtle, but still rather unsettling.
Again from an outsider/victim's point of view, Corrin's ability to turn into a dragon. Especially in Chapter 5, because it's very likely that, with a feral mind, the enemies weren't the only ones who were killed by them...
And speaking of Chapter 5? It actually gets somewhat acknowledged in-universe with the post-chapter dialogue. While the majority of the villagers were likely killed by the Ganglari's explosion, it's just ambiguous enough (combined with Corrin feeling guilty over the whole thing) that you could easily assume that Corrin may have killed a few of the villagers themselves.
While not the scariest song of all time, Vanity Judge is a haunting song that clearly highlights how hopeless and/or grim a certain battle is. Best part? This song debuts in Chapter 5 when Queen Mikoto is killed by an unknown assailant, and the enemies that surround the area aren't much better either.
Marry Peri to either Odin or Laslow. In their married ending, it's heavily implied throughout the game she's been abducting and murdering random civilians, before disposing of their bodies so well they're never even found. Yikes.
Camilla'sYandere tendencies can easily veer into this territory. In both Birthright and Revelation, she wants to be the one to kill Corrin so she can have them back and hold their corpse afterwards, while one of her Private Quarters lines in Revelation and Conquest has her immediately offering to kill anyone Corrin wants if it would make them happy. Then there's her threatening to cut off Selena's legs if she tries to leave her and saying she has several ways of torturing Laslow if he turns against her.
An example from the manga for a change. Corrin's reaction to Mikoto's death is far more terrifying and unsettling than in the game. She doesn't fully transform into a dragon but she starts to say things how everyone (herself included) must die. And during all that, only her mouth (with allarmingly sharp teeth) and part of her scaled face can be seen.
Corrin: Everyone should just die.
Always in the manga, Leo starts to smell rotting meat at Castle Krakenburg, which gets gradually stronger the closer he gets to the throne room. Reason for that is because Garon has been personally handling executions. You know what's worse? Leo pick up that smell...outside the castle.
While Garon is a source of enough Nightmare Fuel in the game, the manga takes it up to eleven. His face is perpetually morphed into a creepy snarl and his eyes are almost always slit, giving him a demonic appearance. And mind that he's like this for all the manga. Hell, the one time his face is normal is when he mistook Leo for his mother.
It gets worse. At one point, Garon tries to hit Leo but miss...along his whole arm which falls on the ground. Yikes.
And if that's not enough, at one point forward, a dead maid can be seen when he appears. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FireEmblemFates |
Final Fantasy XIII / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Keep in mind, this is one of the good guys!
**Final Fantasy XIII**. A chilling and blood-curdling installment in the series, just like its predecessors.
You might want to grab your favorite blanket or teddy bear if you decide to play this. And now it's got a direct sequel that is even scarier.
**As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.**
- Cie'th:
- More specifically, the first time you see them. A gang of twenty or so blind, twitching, gorilla-armed
*things* that look like they got imported from a *Silent Hill* game are surrounding the most defenseless and innocent characters in the game. Their shrieks sound like a chainsaw on a baby animal. What's more, the Cie'th walking around on the maps seem to be attempting to strangle themselves.
- There's a type of Cie'th that is just an arm and part of a shoulder. It drags itself around the battlefield, making a horrifying noise. And it uses surprisingly powerful magic attacks...
- If you look closely, you can often see the face of the person who became the Cie'th, silently screaming.
- Orphan. The fact that its "mother" slowly strokes its head as you fight it is creepy enough. After you defeat its first form, it apparently turns the entire party except Fang and Vanille into Cie'th and tortures Fang by painfully killing and then reviving her over and over again while a horrified Vanille is forced to watch.
- Barthandelus in general. He is a technorganic...
*thing*, and consists of a giant face flanked by four *upside down* smaller faces, with their mouths constantly working. And the way he moves is just not right.
- The introduction to Chapter 11, where a chocobo is torn apart by coeurls. Seeing something that, for the better part of well over thirteen games, has always been more or less inviolate getting brutally murdered... It leaves an impression.
-
**Ragnarok**. Despite saving the day in the end, it's still a horrifying and powerful Eldritch Abomination to look at and was specifically crafted by the Fal'Cie to destroy Cocoon and everyone on it and worse some of the main protagonists were fated to turn into it to do the job. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyXIII |
Final Fantasy XIV / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
## Warning: Spoilers Off applies to this page. Proceed at your own risk.
No one should die... in pain...
*"And lo, vile beasts did rise. *
Leaving naught in their wake but blood and ash.
Sun scorches earth and boils seas...
And our sins ascend unto the heavens—
Three dooms to unmake all we were."
**— Emet-Selch** | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyXIV |
Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
**Sephiroth**
: My mother came to this planet two-thousand years ago. With a purpose, with a meaning: To end the Cetra
. Because she knew...she had seen it before from the other planets she had liberated. Like the many she had encountered, she knew the Cetra would eventually turn against each other. They would become greedy...hateful...cruel...the Cetra would become
*human*
. The Planet cried, and she answered. Jenova was not a calamity, she was a godsend. She was sealed away before her word could cleanse this filthy planet. But now I, her son, shall continue in her place. Save this world from itself. And rule it...
*as its god*
. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyVIIMachinabridged |
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
5.4 reveals that the comparisons between Kefka and Fandaniel are dead on the money; when he reveals himself to the Scions and Alliance leaders, he explains that his plan is to use the Evil Towers Of Ominousness that he's summoned all over the Source to recreate the Final Days that nearly wiped out the Ascians' world, which would kill every living soul on the Source. When pressed for why he'd want to pull off such an insane plan, he suddenly drops his theatrical attitude and rants that it's for no other reason other than because he wants to die *and take everyone else with him in the process.* The Ascians seen so far may have been Well-Intentioned Extremists, but Fandaniel just wants to watch the world burn. **Fandaniel**: I'm different, you see. From the ancients who clung to dear life. And from you. So don't bother trying to reason with me. You will find I have no reason. Or creed. Or any such tripe. I just want to destroy the world. But please *do* resist with all your might. It will add to my enjoyment. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FinalFantasyXIVShadowbringers |
Fire in the Sky / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
**WARNING:** Spoilers are unmarked.
- The flashback, which has been described as not only the scariest depiction of an alien abduction of all time but
*one of the scariest movie scenes ever made, *. To go into detail, Walton is dragged to a table by aliens, after fruitlessly trying to escape. He is then pinned to the table by a large rubber sheet, completely unable to move. Then tubes are shoved down his throat, his jaw is violently clamped open, a sharp device is shoved into his neck, then you hear his muffled screams as you slowly watch a needle approach his eye. Nothing short of pure, horrific violation. **period**
- The interior of the alien ship is equally nightmarish. The filmmakers opted for a more Organic Technology feel for the ship turning out something that resembles a cave decorated by H. R. Giger, and along the way to the table, Walton spies several human corpses, some of which are mutilated, as well as things like shoes and eyeglasses laying around, implying many other humans have been dragged to the same table before.
- Shortly after escaping from his cocoon, Walton finds himself in a zero-gravity environment and breaks through the wall of another cocoon during a panicked attempt to orient himself. Inside, Walton sees what appears to be a badly-decomposed human. Worse, the human appears to
*still be alive and conscious.*
- Then the appearance of the aliens themselves. They initially seem to be typical Grey alien in look, but that's just their helmets. They're actually fleshy-colored, no-nosed humanoids with furrowed eyes and vague expressions- looking both inhumane and yet uncannily humanlike.
- Walton's state upon returning to Earth. The poor guy is left stark naked, in the rain, at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. He's traumatized to the point of being speechless, and has some gnarly injuries around his eyes.
- The initial appearance of the U.F.O. The scene is lit in such a way that it is initially difficult to make out just what the hell you're seeing. The red light that proceeds the ship's arrival is also quite ominous.
- When Walton is rendered unconscious, it genuinely does look as though he's been killed. It's no wonder the other guys were freaked. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FireInTheSky |
Live-Action Films / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
*"Do not watch this movie on drugs unless you've got a mean hankering for PTSD."*
Do you remember as a kid, you couldn't wait until you were 17 so you could watch R-rated movies without your parents' permission?
The scariness of
*these* movies——especially the horror ones may make it feel like it wasn't worth the wait. (And some of these movies *aren't even rated R.*) And watching them in a movie theater might be scarier than watching them at home...
For examples from animated movies, see the Animated Films and Anime & Manga pages.
## Example subpages:By genre<!—index—><!—/index—>
By movie<!—index—><!—/index—>
## Individual examples:
## This section is separated by genre and placed in alphabetical order by film. Before you add examples here, check the index above and make sure that movie doesn't already have its own page. Please do not put a movie below because it is "scary in general"; provide specific examples of why it is Nightmare Fuel or it will be removed.
- In
*Breakfast on Pluto*, a case of Mood Whiplash qualifies for this trope. In one scene, Kitten is slow-dancing with a man at a club when ||a bomb goes off, blowing up the club they are in. We then get a pan over all of the dead, dying, and injured people, including some very nasty burn wounds, twisted bodies, and sounds of moaning and crying. One of the injured is Kitten herself, which is made even worse when she gets accused of planting the bomb because she happens to be an Irish man who wants to be a woman (the film takes place during the Irish Revolution, and Kitten - who had nothing to do with the bomb - happens to be in London.)||
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*Doctor Strangelove*: The Downer Ending where the entire world is destroyed by nuclear war, while Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again" provides an eerie Soundtrack Dissonance over the credits.
- For a series of comedy movies aimed mainly at kids, you'd think the Ernest P. Worrell films wouldn't be that bad. You'd be wrong.
-
*Ernest Scared Stupid* is easily nightmarish for any youngster, especially at the parts where the troll appears almost out of the blue to capture Joey and Elizabeth.
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*Ernest Goes to Camp* has Ernest on the end of a disturbingly realistic beatdown from one of the construction workers.
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*Ernest Goes to Jail* has Nash. He had no problem getting Ernest sent to the electric chair, is so bad the other inmates are afraid of him, and and attempted to blow up the bank with Ernest's friends still inside. What's really part of the nightmare fuel is Jim Varney's performance: despite the fact he's being played by the same man as Ernest, he convincingly manages to not act a single thing like his trademark character.
-
*Junior*. The Arnie baby is an example of computer animation gone disturbing.
-
*Look Who's Talking Too*:
- Mikey has a nightmare where a miniature Satan shows up in his toy collection and turns his teddy bear into a fanged and clawed monster.
- Mr. Toilet Man, a furry fanged toilet that harasses Mikey to pee in him and spits disgusting blue goo as he talks. Notably, one woman made the news because she feared going to the bathroom after watching the film as a kid.
- One scene in
*UHF* involves a parody of the rock chase scene in the beginning of *Raiders of the Lost Ark*, where Weird Al is chased by an unusually persistent boulder. Bereft of context, the idea of a giant, sentient rock determined to hunt you down to the ends of the Earth and crush you can be quite frightening.
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*Angels and Demons* has Eye Scream, branding, drowning, choking to death on dirt, and immolation. ||Self-immolation, too.|| Freaky beyond measure. Also, the ||Pope after his impromptu exhumation is really, really disturbing-looking.|| In another vein, Vittoria attempts CPR on one of the four kidnapped Cardinals, only for it to come to her attention (and the viewer's) that the man's lungs are punctured— because blood squirts out of the open wound in his chest to hit Robert in the face. Gahhhhh.
-
*Basic Instinct* begins with Catherine Tramell (from the back) having passionate sex with a guy in a very warm and rosy setting. She proceeds to tie his hands to the bed with a silk scarf, and just as they are about to climax, things turn very quickly from eroticism to pure horror as she takes an icepick and starts *savagely stabbing the guy to death*. We don't even see the poor guy die, we just watch him scream madly and struggle to get away as Catherine keeps stabbing, getting bathed in his blood as the movie cuts to the next scene.
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*The Black Dahlia*: The last scene where Josh Hartnett's character is talking with Scarlett Johansson's character, then looks back to see ||the Dahlia's corpse spread out on the lawn just like it was when she was found||. The sharp violin music really makes it a freaky moment.
-
*Canoa*, a film from Mexico. From the very first scene we're told a group of workers got lynched by a town who mistook them for communists. It takes one hour of build-up to get to the point where the fanatic villagers storm the house where the young victims are. As the aggressions begin, some of the victims watch in horror, as impotent as the spectator. The lynching scene is so long, graphic and horrible, there's only one thing capable of making it worse: It really happened.
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*Eastern Promises* has a lot of other violence, but it's the throat-slitting that takes the cake. The amount of rape in that movie doesn't help. Also, the very first scene, with a heavily pregnant 14 year-old girl stumbling into a shop and asking for help, then collapsing into the blood that's been dripping down from between her legs, is crazy squicky. ||A sexually abused 14 year old girl miscarrying is bad enough. The fact that she dies, worse still. The fact that the person who'd been doing the abusing was Semyon...||
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*Gozu*: The kid◊ in the 'yakuza killing' car staring down a barrel of a gun motionless with a smile that could be used for warfare. Perhaps Manami waking up to find a man with a cow's head wasn't surreal enough. And the ending: not even a spoiler could prepare you for what happens.
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*Kalifornia*. The scene where Early makes the store clerk lie down and cover his head, and makes him believe he might get out of it alive. And then, with the guy sobbing in terror, Early shoots him. The image of a yellow smiley-face cushion exploding in fluff and blood is haunting.
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*The Killer Inside Me* has a very uncomfortable to watch scene where the Villain Protagonist savagely beats his pretty girlfriend (played by Jessica Alba) into a bloody pulp, even long after she has gone limp. ||When she reappears near the end of the film, her face is covered in scars, her beauty destroyed.||
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*Memento*: The scene ||where he is casually talking on the phone in his hotel while he removes the bandage from his new tattoo only to find that it reads "Never answer the phone." He asks who it is on the other line and gets no answer, followed by the photo of him bloody after a killing being slid under the door to his hotel.||
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*Oldboy (2003)*: The tongue-cutting scene.
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*Reservoir Dogs*. When Mr. Blonde is through with his torture, you'll never listen to "Stuck in the Middle With You" quite the same way. And that dance.
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*Smokin' Aces*. Specifically the scene when one of the Tremor brothers falls on a chainsaw. Eli Roth of *Hostel* would be impressed.
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*The Trial* (1993 version). The labyrinth of dilapidated corridors as a metaphor for a heartless bureaucracy awakens some childhood fears in some people. A rare case of creating a really unsettling effect without using any horror-associated elements.
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*Untraceable.* The first victim wasn't that horrible, but the guy being roasted alive, and the guy being submerged in acid. ||Add to that the fact that he was a cop.||
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*Zodiac* is a lovely example of occasional terror, especially the basement scene. That you never know what was really going on made it oh-so-much worse.
- Before
*Mayday*, there was *Air Disasters*, an hour-long documentary that exposes some uncomfortable truths behind the world of flight and how the industry is run by utilizing footage of actual accidents, some of it quite disturbing. Particular attention is given to the vastly differing safety standards in various parts of the world and the industry's practice of operating aircraft under flags of convenience in order to bypass regulations. That in itself is a terrifying prospect. There also exists a Re-Cut, frequently broadcast on TLC in the late 1990s but virtually impossible to find nowadays, which fixes some of the errors in the narration note : Most likely caused by a rushed production and/or the filmmakers not having access to more accurate information, as this was before the modern internet made such info more easily accessible to laypeople. while adding additional context to some of the clips, which increases the Nightmare Fuel potential by only a small margin.
- The documentary
*A State Of Mind*, following the lives of two North Korean barely-teenaged gymnasts, is definitely in some parts a Tear Jerker, and rather horrifying.
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*Dear Zachary*: The idea of a mother killing her child is bad enough in fiction but it's worse cause this actually happened.
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*Earthlings*. Basically the entire film is Nightmare Fuel, as you are watching real animals in the most abhorrent conditions and unimaginable pain possible.
- The BBC docu-drama
*End Day*, which depicts five different possible scenarios, in order of the amount of damage they would do to human civilization and the planet in general: A mega-tsunami, a killer asteroid, a global pandemic, the eruption of a super-volcano, and the Large Hadron Collider failing, which eventually results in the entire planet being consumed by "strange matter".
- Notorious Nazi propaganda movie,
*The Eternal Jew*, contained a scene meant to dehumanize the Jews by comparing them to rats. Apparently audiences found the scene so horrifying that they ran out of cinemas and the movie had to be withdrawn. Modern audience find it horrifying for different reasons.
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*Incendio*, a short documentary by the National Fire Prevention Agency about the 1974 Joelma Building fire in São Paulo, Brazil, one of the inspirations for *The Towering Inferno*. Between the subject matter, scenes of panicked tenants jumping to their deaths, the narrator's Creepy Monotone voiceover, and the spooky synth music reminiscent of Boards of Canada, it's pretty chilling.
- Trevor McDonalds duology of ITV documentaries titled
*Inside Death Row* which see him interview prisoners with death sentences in Indiana State Penitentiary expectedly document his encounters with many disturbing and vile characters. The second documentary sees McDonald come face to face with William Clyde Gibson, an utterly remorseless serial killer who candidly recounts his various killings to a barely straight-faced Trevor, and bluntly dismisses the possibility of having any degree of humanity, giggling like a jolly hick all the while.
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*March of the Dinosaurs* made feathered tyrannosaurs horrifying. There is one scene where the Edmontosaurus are ambushed by the tyrannosaurs where one literally leaps (like a raptor) out of nowhere to tackle one of the poor plant-eaters. Imagine three tons of teeth and death leaping at you.
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*9/11* has this as a given, due to it being live footage of a terrorist attack that killed almost 3,000 people. Some standouts:
- Entering the stricken North Tower, Jules immediately hears someone screaming. His narration states that this is a woman who is
*burning* because of jet fuel that shot down the elevator shafts, and she's a few feet offscreen because Jules didn't want to film something so horrible.
- Later, you can hear the impacts of things falling from the upper floors of the North Tower. Some of these impacts are from people who jumped to escape the floors above the impact. Jules seems more shaken by this than anything else before it.
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*Night and Fog* is a short but powerful documentary on The Holocaust directed by Alain Resnais. Shot less than a decade after the end of WW2, it alternates between past and present, combining eerie scenes of the abandoned remains of Auschwitz with nightmarish historical footage of Nazi atrocities, some of it quite graphic. The chilling score by Hanns Eisler further adds to the unsettling atmosphere.
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*The Man Who Saw Tomorrow* - a documentary-style movie about Nostradamus' predictions, narrated by Orson Welles is terrifying, especially when it comes to the infamous "King of Terror" prophecy and was *huge* Nightmare Fuel for 1980s viewers.
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*Violence: An American Tradition*, a documentary that is about, as the title says, violence in USA and its history, its culture, its relationship with media and pop culture, its effects on daily life, the politics and motives behind it, the people involved with it, etc. Anyone who believes that Humans Are Good will definitely have their beliefs destroyed by this one hour long documentary, specially the part that deals with child abuse.
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*Waltz with Bashir*: A full-on shot of a nightmarish, wild pack of dogs running at the camera to finish ||actual footage of the immediate aftermath of the massacre in Lebanon in the 80s||.
- This squicktastic footage of a 70cm long worm
*being devoured by a giant red leech*, filmed for the BBC's *Wonders of the Monsoon*.
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*The Accused*. The gang rape on its own is bad enough, but it's the cheering of the men watching and the ringleader picking out who gets to go next all while Sarah is screaming and crying that pushes it into true Nightmare Fuel territory. That, and the fact that the premise of the movie was based on a true story. That scene was apparently serious Nightmare Fuel for the actors who were playing the rapists; Jodie Foster had to repeatedly reassure them.
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*The Bear* has some very terrifying scenes for a PG movie, including the Family-Unfriendly Death of the cub's mother at the beginning, a literal Nightmare Sequence involving spiny fanged frogs, an *Amanita muscaria*-induced Mushroom Samba, and the gruesome climactic fight between the Kodiak bear and the hunters' dogs.
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*The Big Shave*: Martin Scorsese's short 1967 film begins with some simple shots of a bathroom while some jazz plays (specifically Bunny Berigan's version of 'I Can't Get Started'), and shortly after, a man walks in. He begins to shave. ||Then he keeps on shaving. He shaves too much. The film is often seen as an allegory for what the United States was doing to itself in The Vietnam War||. The film can be viewed here.
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*Biutiful:* A roomful of sleeping immigrant workers, a total of about 25 men, women and children, ||all die as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. When their boss comes in to wake them, they're just all lying there dead.|| And somehow, it goes From Bad to Worse: the main character, Uxbal, can ||communicate with the dead to some degree, and as he tries to apologize to one of the dead women, a friend of his, you briefly see the spirits of the dead people suspended weirdly against the ceiling, their faces contorted with fear.|| It's all the most disturbing because there's no sound effects or dramatic music stings to highlight it. And towards the end of the film, Uxbal ||(who is dying of cancer) sees himself on the ceiling in the same way in his final hours.|| It's very, very effective.
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*Blindness*. The ||uncomfortably extended group rape scene|| is difficult to sit through. It is so amazingly vulgar, while showing surprisingly little in comparison. The pained cries of the victims push this into nightmare territory.
- The Brainwashed and Crazy scientist's shooting rampage in
*The Bourne Legacy*, especially the scenes of the other scientists panicking and cowering.
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*Braveheart*: The ending, where ||William Wallace is hanged, drawn and quartered - among other things, his torso is ripped open and his intestines are scrambled around while he is still alive. It is horrific to imagine enduring that much pain knowing that the damage is irreversible, and you're already as good as dead.||
- The scene where an English commanding officer tries to rape Murron with the help of two of his soldiers is really uncomfortable to watch. He forcefully shoves her on a hut, then lays on top of her and kisses and licks her while making disgustingly lustful noises. Murron has to settle on violence in order to escape, resulting in her biting the rapist's cheek and even then she doesn't stand a chance against him. The soldier then hits her, calling her a bitch. If it weren't for Wallace, Murron would have ended being brutally gang-raped. It's already creepy enough that the Dirty Old Man flirts with her before the attempted rape and makes perverted notes on how Murron
*reminds him of his daughter*.
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*Citizen Kane*: Towards the end of the movie, out of nowhere a scene opens with an extreme close up of a cockatoo giving off a loud screech before flying off. Not only is this seriously startling, but it is also seriously disturbing due to the fact that the cockatoo was poorly imposed on the scene, resulting in it having completely transparent eyes, which in turn makes it look like something that came right out of the deepest trenches of hell. Some have argued that the transparent eyes were done by Orson Welles on purpose, to give off some kind of symbolic imagery, but there's no way to know that for sure. The ironic thing about all of this is that the only reason this scene was put in was because Orson Welles was worried that the audience would be losing interest this late in the film, so he added this to "wake them up".
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*Coma*: Unconscious victims go from the OR to the Jefferson Institute, where you think is a nice care home for the terminally ill, but ||in reality keeps them naked and tube-fed hanging on wires from the ceiling, and the people in charge steal their organs to sell on the black market.|| If you're in any way afraid of hospitals or medical paraphernalia, don't watch this movie.
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*The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover*: Michael Gambon's monologues are nightmarish, particularly when he lectures his wife, loudly enough so that everyone in the restaurant can hear, that she's not allowed to masturbate because as her husband, only he gets to decide when she gets touched.
- Helen Mirren (the wife) and her lover concealing their affair from said abusive husband by stowing away, naked, in a truck full of slaughtered pig parts.
- The ||murder of her lover by stuffing the pages of his book down his throat until he chokes to death.||
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*Covenant Rider*: A flashback scene had a young Wichita Slim tied to a post and branded for misbehavior. The combination of a little boy screaming and the burn on his shirt ensured that Covenant Rider would never, ever be watched after the first time.
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*Dahmer*: Particularly the part at the end when he ||slices the one guy's chest and stomach open and sticks his hands in his intestines||.
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*Dogtooth* contains a heckton of this. First off is the idea that parents could go to such an extent to isolate their children from reality - they keep them on their expansive estate and redefine several concepts so that their kids are scared into staying.
- The scene with the cat is just pure nightmare fuel, from beginning to end. A cat appears in the yard at one point. Frightened, the son grabs a pair of gardening shears and decapitates it, while the two daughters watch out the window and scream. When the mother calls the father at work about this incident, they agree that it's a "good opportunity" to further hammer down the message about the dangers of the outside world. The father dabs red paint on his shirt and splits open his clothes with shears, and greets the family by saying that their previously-unspoken-of brother is dead, killed by a cat, the "most dangerous creature in the world." Both the brutal violence of the cat's death (which is shown onscreen) and the idea that such an innocent animal would be given such a terrifying portrayal are creepy.
- When the son is seen playing with a toy airplane, one of the daughters fights him for it in a childlike manner, grappling for it. She eventually gets the airplane. Subsequently, the girl finds him in the kitchen and (to teach him a lesson) cuts his arm with a chef's knife - the bluntness of the moment is shocking.
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*Downfall* ( *Der Untergang*):
- There's one person guaranteed to haunt your dreams; Goebbels, the guy who looks like the freaking crypt keeper himself. You know the world has come to an end when Goebbels makes Hitler himself appear to be nothing more than a raving drunk.
- The fate of Goebbels' children. Just in case you started to feel sorry for anyone else.
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*Eyes Wide Shut*: About 75% of the soundtrack easily qualifies as Nightmare Fuel. Try listening to the Masked Ball sequence late at night, alone in a dark house. This piece includes sinister strings in a minor key with a backmasked *basso profundo* voice chanting in Romanian. Try to sleep. The following night, play the most frightening piano piece known to man, Gyorgy Ligeti's Musica Ricercata No. 2 as played by Dominic Harlan, on your Ipod as you walk down the street alone in the dark. Paranoia like you have never known it before.
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*Girl with a Pearl Earring*: Van Ruijven's attempt to rape Griet as well as when Catharina tries to suddenly stab the picture of Griet.
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*The Good Earth*: The locusts!
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*Gorillas in the Mist* The horrible, horrible scene that depicts the murder of Dian Fossey's favorite gorilla Digit at the hands of poachers. But the worst is when they find his corpse propped up against a tree in a sitting position, with bloody stumps where his head and hands used to be. Also tear-jerkingly sad and Truth in Television.
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*I Am Dina*. At the beginning, the heroine, then a little girl, causes a the contents of a huge cauldron full of boiling lye to be poured on her mother. First you see the mother, completely scalded. Then the little girl, waiting on her own in an attic, listening while her mother screams constantly for hours, maybe days, before dying.
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*Inglourious Basterds* Whenever Brad Pitt's character pulled out his knife, scalped the Nazis and carved swastikas onto the foreheads of the survivors.
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*Inland Empire*. David Lynch apparently can't get enough of suffocating suspense and so, being David Lynch, distilled this to an even worse extreme in this film. Slasher Smile, bleeding mouths, and distorted faces combine to create one horrific image. The scene in question.
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*The Invisible*: Nick's predicament. Imagine being a spirit doomed to watch helplessly as everyone around you falls to pieces when they believe you're dead, seeing that people you hated or ignored are suffering horribly, while you yourself ||are dying, and the only person who can save you is the one who put you in a coma to begin with||.
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*Iron Jawed Angels* They're not called that because they had their mouths pried open with metal instruments and were force-fed raw eggs through a tube shoved down their throat. But after watching that scene, that's all you'll think of. Made even scarier by the fact that it's Truth in Television.
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*Isadora*:
- The death of ballet dancer Isadora Duncan, when ||the long scarf she wears become entangled in the car's wheel, snapping her neck.|| The movie manages to recreate in horrific detail.
- Also disturbing is how ||her kids drown in when the car they're in accidentally rolls into the Seine.||
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*The Last King of Scotland*:
- The scene where Garrigan finds ||Kay's mutilated body||. It's utterly horrific.
- Garrigan being ||suspened from the ceiling by hooks through his chest||
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*The Last Sin Eater*
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*"Who's going to take away MY sins, Cadi Forbes?"*
- ||Brogan Kai: a man who viciously beats a preacher to death
*onscreen*, rigs a decision to choose the next Sin Eater to marry a woman, and is perfectly willing to murder *his own son* (and says so to said woman's face, no less!). And even then his father was *worse*||
- The 1928 adaptation of
*The Man Who Laughs* has Conrad Veidt as the most unbelievably disturbing-looking protagonist in all of film. He has a very creepy permanant smile.
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*The Manchurian Candidate* (2004):
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*Men Behind the Sun*: A dramatization of the medical experiments of the real-life Imperial Japanese Army's Unit 731 during the Second World War, this film was known for its very graphic depictions of surgical procedures, including human vivisection. Most of it can be found on Youtube; if you feel particularly brave you may do a search. There's a single scene where a child is vivisected.
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*Munich*: The scenes depicting the actual Munich hostage crisis, especially in the scene where ||one of the athletes is shot in the mouth at point-blank range and survives.|| Thanks to Spielberg's brilliant and powerful execution, the intensity and brutality of those scenes will be haunting your nightmares for quite some time, no matter how jaded you are. It's scary enough as it is, but on top of that, everything depicted in those scenes actually happened. ||And the guy who got shot in the face? He was played in the movie by the son of the real guy. That had to have taken a lot of courage.||
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*One Hour Photo*:
- The nightmare scene, in which Robin Williams's character's eyes explode with blood. Made all the more disturbing for coming in what is otherwise a fairly conventional thriller film and therefore being completely out of context.
- The concept is pretty creepy: The idea of people you only see in passing and take for granted finding ways to maliciously invade your privacy.
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*The Patriot*
- During the disastrous Battle of Camden, an American soldier is decapitated by a direct hit from a cannonball. Another man takes a musket ball to the knee, snapping it at the joint. There is a scene in a field hospital crowded with men maimed in such a way.
- The British massacring the American wounded at Martin's plantation and burning the place down. And Thomas being shot and killed by Tavington. Tavington generally is frightening, a prime example of a particularly sadistic Colonel Kilgore.
- Martin's Berserker tendencies. There's a bit where he attacks a convoy, trying to rescue his other son Gabriel. He slaughters the soldiers, singles out this one fleeing soldier and hits him in the back with a thrown tomahawk, downing the man into a puddle. Then Martin runs over, pulls the axe out and hits the man's body again. And again and again. And doesn't stop. All while his sons watch in mortified silence. When Martin returns to his sons, he is drenched in blood.
- The scene where Tavington ||orders the burning of a church with the townsfolk locked inside||.
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*The Piano Teacher*. It features the most screwed up woman ever, named Erika. Notable scenes: the opening scene in which Erika and her mother fight about the fact that Erika came home late, even though she's 40-plus years old, and the fight turns physical. There's also a scene in which Erika ||cuts between her legs and a trail of blood streams down the bathtub's side||, when ||Erika appears to be attempting to rape her own mother|| the next-to-last scene in which ||Erika forces her young male student to rape her while her mother is within earshot and Erika looks like a corpse||. The thing comes together to conclude: This protagonist is a very, very screwed up human being.
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*Ray*: The scene where he has a hallucination that his drowned brother is in his suitcase.
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*Self Defense*:
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*The Secret Garden 1987*:
- In any of the film adaptations, Mary walking through the house to find Colin can be deeply unsettling. The 1987 version takes this up to eleven with scary music and a lightning storm raging outside the manor — and let's not forget the cutaways to the light playing off of the dark, ugly statues.
- There's also the opening from that same movie, where Mary's wandering through a house where everyone except her is dead or dying from cholera, and she doesn't even understand what's happening. Special mention goes to the lingering shot on Mary's dying parents, with their faces twisted up in pain.
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*The Secret Garden (1993)*:
- The 1993 film replaces the cholera epidemic with an earthquake. The scene built around said earthquake, while short, could still be a case of Nightmare Fuel.
- The 1993 film also gives Medlock a very creepy Leitmotif.
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*A Streetcar Named Desire*: The depiction of Blanche's descent into insanity. Especially her Freak Out moment after Stanley tears the paper lantern off of the lightbulb.
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*Testament,* which takes place in a single town and focused on the effects a nuclear war has on a small group of people. The worst is the main character ||nursing her children through radiation sickness and watching them die one by one||.
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*Titus*: the exquisitely shot but horrific scene where ||Lavinia is found on a stump, having been raped and with her hands and tongue cut off. Twigs have been stuck in the stumps, and when she opens her mouth, blood streams out.||
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*Trainspotting* If the ||dead baby|| didn't creep you out, Renton's withdrawal hallucination of it crawling on the ceiling will.
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*United 93* This movie has a terrorist hijacking an airplane, and also show you how everyone in the plane were struck with panic and terror in the process. Consider the commotion that happened amongst air staff and air traffic controllers on the ground. The kicker? This is not only based on what actually happened on one of the planes in September 11, 2001, but its even documented as accurately as the filmmakers were able to, down to the details.
- Prior to the advent of privacy laws in the 1980s (although supposedly some of these films claimed that permission from the surviving family members was obtained), many driver's education films that depicted the grim aftermath of accidents showed photos and live-action film of the victims. Often, these films — some filmed by corporate sponsors, others by a given state's highway patrol or department of public safety — showed the victims lying in pools of blood, mangled beyond recognition (and in some cases severely burned) and in various states of consciousness if not dead. The idea, of course, was to warn of the possible consequences of failing to obey traffic laws and basic driver's safety ... but seeing such things as emergency workers extricate the charred body of a father of four from the burned shell of a car, or a once babelicious teenaged girl screaming in pain while her face is shredded to ribbons was enough to give many of their viewers sleepless nights.
- In addition to the lack of privacy laws, many of these films did not have disclaimers warning of the graphic footage these students were about to view; it was up to the teacher to decide whether to warn them. Again, the idea was to scare students into driving safely ... but the shock of seeing a little red-headed boy (in a Little League outfit) being pulled from beneath the chassis of the drunk driver's car that just hit him, for instance, was enough to cause more than one nightmare.
- The Ohio State Patrol issued several driver's education films during the late 1950s through early 1970s, which were distributed nationwide. Several of these films have been posted on various video sharing sites. Memorable films, along with Nightmare Fuel-inducing scenes, included:
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*Signal 30*, a 1959 film "shot in living - and dying - color," and the first of the series of films. The goriest of the scenes included a fiery collision on a narrow state highway between two loaded semitrailer trucks, where both drivers are killed (their charred bodies are shown being removed) and a truck driver — on a late-night run trying to make deadline on a load of 20 tons (40,000 pounds) of steel pipe — crushed against the steering wheel and dashboard of his truck by the load, which had shifted after he apparently fell asleep behind the wheel and drove off the road note : (with removal of his body taking four hours). Although no death was involved, there is also footage of several cars not only failing to stop for a stop sign but not even slowing down at an intersection where a deadly wreck had just happened; once, one of the cars clears the intersection mere seconds before oncoming traffic passes through the intersection, and a few minutes later, several pre-adolescent boys are shown riding their bikes and failing to stop for the stop sign, again barely avoiding traffic that had the right-of-way.
- The movie's title, by the way, was police code (at the time) for a report of a car accident involving a fatality.
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*Mechanized Death*, from 1961, where the mangled body of a dead baby is found beneath the car, the impact of the crash so severe she was thrown through the floorboard; the responding officers only being aware of a possible body yet to be found after seeing a baby's bottle wedged in the door.
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*Wheels of Tragedy*, from 1963. Another truck driver, having driven for hours without a break to make an inflexible deadline on a hot load of freight, rams his speeding semitrailer truck into the back of a sedan; the driver, who was killed outright, is shown with his head wedged in the steering wheel. Spookier was a bloodless scene: A beautiful 15-year-old girl is shown being pulled from a creek, in which she was thrown after the car she was riding in goes off the road. The other two passengers were injured but (apparently) survive, but the harrowing scene comes when a rookie state patrolman — through whom this film is told — carries the girl's lifeless body to the shore and cries "Damn, damn, damn!" ... just before the camera zooms up to the deceased girl's face. Other memorable scenes include a woman lying in her bed at a long-term care facility, sedated to numb the pain from injuries of a crash two years earlier; and the crushed skulls of two young men, thrown from their car after ramming into the rear of a cattle truck (that had pulled over for a mechanical problem).
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*Highways of Agony*, from 1969. It isn't always young drivers who cause accidents, as one segment in this film grimly warned. A 77-year-old man, driving well over the posted speed limit on a road covered in black ice, crashed his car into an overpass, causing it to burst into flames on impact and killing both him and his wife; as footage of their bodies — burned nearly to skeletons — being pulled from the burned out car is shown, we learn that the only way they could be identified is through (badly charred) identification papers that somehow didn't burn. Later, the bodies of three young people, a 16-year-old girl and men ages 20 and 26, their faces with expressions of fear and pain frozen on them, are shown strewn on the ground; the 26-year-old driver — all three of them were drunk after a night of partying — had driven around a lowered railroad crossing gate in an attempt to beat an oncoming train. Although the images were grainy, there was the story of the drunk driver who crashed his brand-new sports car into an oak tree, the crash so violent that he suffered enough injuries to kill three people.
- Not part of the Ohio State Patrol-series of films, but equally nightmarish:
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*Last Date*, from 1950 and starring a young Dick York (of *Bewitched* fame), about the lone survivor of a crash, Jeanne, that killed her bad-boy boyfriend, Nick (York), and a family of five in the car he crashes his hot rod-converted 1932 Ford Model A note : — he had been driving at least 110 mph! — into. First, we see Jeanne helplessly sit by as Nick attempts to pass a slow moving semitrailer truck on a narrow curve, and then — through her eyes — an oncoming car quickly appear in sight (this effect achieved through time-lapse photography), before the screen goes dark in a deafening crash. In the final scene, Jeanne — conceding she was a fool for accepting Nick's offer to go for a ride, knowing he already had a reputation for driving recklessly — looks at her permanently disfigured face in a mirror (having become that way after being thrown through the windshield), screaming out "My face! My face!" before throwing a hair brush into the mirror and beginning to cry. Viewers never see her face, but the moral is clear.
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*The Last Prom*, from 1980, where a prom date ends with the death of a beautiful young girl named Sandy, the only child of a respected couple from a small Indiana town. Chilling was Sandy's best friend, who is able to walk out of the crushed van but is holding her face, apparently disfigured beyond recognition, and screaming in agony. This was a color remake of a high school prom tragedy film that had been issued in the mid 1960s.
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*Only Stwpd Cowz Txt N Drive*, a 2008 British public service movie aimed at stressing the dangers of distracted driving, specifically texting while driving. The centerpiece of the film is the crash scene wherein, as the main protagonist reads a text message on her Smartphone, the car she is driving drifts into the oncoming lane of traffic, resulting in a multi-car accident that kills two of her passengers and three others. The segment came under criticism after showing the violent whiplash being suffered by the girls (two of them have their heads rammed together during the whiplash) and a young girl pleading in vain for her parents — who are shown dead — to wake up.
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*Death on the Highway*, produced by an organization known only as the Suicide Club, is put together with a little less polish than, say, the Ohio State Highway Patrol films, but it may as well be the nastiest road safety film of them all. Three of the accidents shown in the film involve dismemberment, with the worst one being a 130 km/h motorcycle collision in which the driver is literally *cut in half*. The narrator even outright calls it one of the most horrible things he's ever seen. Other nightmare-inducing moments in the film include a crash in which a young woman has all her limbs torn off and is partially decapitated by the force of the impact, a multi-car pileup that results in the deaths of sixteen people, a driver burned to death inside his car, and a drunk-driving accident in which two young boys have their arms torn off when the vehicle scrapes against a brick wall. The filmmakers' use of a bright red filter to highlight the gore adds greatly to the effect.
- And then there's California's answer to the Ohio State Highway Patrol films, the
*Red Asphalt* series, in which viewers are subjected to five short films' worth of horrific vehicular carnage. Which of them is the worst is up for debate note : (though number four is certainly the tamest, which isn't exactly saying much, but still), but one thing's for certain - it's enough to make you think twice about driving recklessly in the future. "Highlights" of the series include a careless motorist who is left permanently blind following an accident, another guy who loses a massive amount of blood but miraculously doesn't pass out, a particularly grisly wreck where the victim's jaw is smashed up pretty badly, a guy who has the skin on his leg rubbed off down to the bone, a crash involving two SUVs where the victim's skull is *completely pulverized* (leaving emergency personnel to deal with the nauseating task of scooping up the bits of brain left strewn on the pavement), an unfortunate motorist with a large chunk of his face missing, a shot of a severed arm, and images of mangled corpses. Lots and lots of mangled corpses. The third film also includes this chilling monologue: **Presenter:**
That's right, there are no second chances on the highway. You do something stupid, you die. You get drunk or do drugs, you die. You race some guy for the stoplight, you die. All you wanted was a little fun, and it killed you. High-priced fun, huh? And maybe that's not the worst that could happen
- I mean, sometimes you don't die. Well, most of you doesn't. Of course, you may leave some parts of you behind
, and somehow spare parts
never seem to be as good as the originals, do they? Ever wanted to give your girlfriend a makeover? How about this? Or this?
And some guys will do anything to show a girl a good time. And some girls just, uh, never seem to be the same again. You like to ride free and feel the wind in your face? What about a face full of freeway? Or did you ever think what "brain-damaged"
*really*
means? I mean, it means forgetting almost everything you ever knew, maybe reverting to a mental age of three, and staying that way for the rest of your life. Alternatively, you could live to a ripe old age as a human vegetable
, leaving your family to pay your medical bills and agonize every single day about pulling the plug on you
.
- Arizona's answer to
*Signal 30*, *For Want of a Seatbelt*, is a non-stop cavalcade of Facial Horror as our narrator, a plastic surgeon, guides us through a gruesome slideshow of accident victims' mutilated faces in a Creepy Monotone reminiscent of a coroner giving a courtroom autopsy briefing. The worst accident featured in the film involves an unlucky driver who crashes his car into a wayward horse and is subsequently crushed to death by the animal, with the grisly results on display for all to see.
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*Alice In Wonderland*: The 1988 Czech version features reanimated skeletons of small animals and a scene of pure madness at the tea party. Makes it even more eerie that there is no music whatsoever in the movie except for the squeaks and clinks of old clothing, footsteps, and winding-gears. This is a Jan vankmajer film. The same guy made a film where a dude *||eats his own dick with mustard||*. Yeah, Nightmare Fuel is a given for his films.
- The 1983
*Hercules* film starring Lou Ferrigno features a low-budget but extremely creepy sequence of a villain's corpse slowly disintegrating into dust, including a trypophobia-inducing stage which looks as if it had no skull. Take on account that it's supposedly a kid's movie.
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*The Abyss*: ||Lindsey|| drowning in the damaged submersible, while her husband has to watch, no less. The water's rising and she's clearly terrified, trying to breathe right up until the submersible has completely flooded.
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*Doomsday*. The "cookout" scene; the worst part is that it doesn't bother with discretion, it really just keeps on going and going.
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*Enemy Mine*:
- The Pit Fiend is incredibly creepy, and is a constant threat even outside their pit traps.
- Davidge nearly falling victim to said monster. We've already seen that the creature's long, ropelike tongue/feeler is very bad news, but Davidge has no idea what he's looking at as it probes nearby to locate its prey, as a mysterious and sinister leitmotif plays. Then it grabs Davidge and tries to pull him under; the awful bleeding from his ensnared leg and his terrified cries for help leave no doubt that death by Pit Fiend would be a horrible way to go, but Jerry thankfully comes to the rescue just in time.
- The opening effectively sets the tone of War Is Hell, with the frozen corpsicle of a human pilot whose fighter was shot up, drifting through space.
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*Gamer*: The concept; it takes place in the future, in which online video games have you controlling real, living, breathing people. If you're playing a first-person shooter, there's no respawning at all, so when your player dies, he's permanently dead.
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*The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)*: Humma Kavula is a semi-insane missionary living amongst the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI, and a former space pirate. (It was presumably during his time as a pirate that he lost his legs and had them replaced with telescoping mechanical spider appendages). He wears thick glasses, which make his eyes appear normal when worn; however, when he removes the glasses, he appears to have shrunken black pits where his eyes should be.
- The scene where he surgically removes Zaphod's second head behind a curtain while Zaphod is aware and complaining is a bit disturbing.
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*Logan's Run*: The Carousel. Basically, people are ritualistically murdered in numbers at a time at the age of 30, and it's all part of their society. Even more disturbing, it's clear that the victims don't want to die, and the crowd cheers as they watch the people explode.
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*The Philadelphia Experiment*: A man and a destroyer are sent forward through time as a result of the experiments, which were meant to make the ship temporarily invisible. Time travel certainly isn't all that scary, but that way that the movie pointed out the mechanics of molecularizing the objects moving through time and putting them back together is disturbing; let's just say the crew of that destroyer has a rather permanent tour, and that they've never felt closer to their ship.
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*Saturn 3* had the most terrifying robot in history. It's introduced to us from the feet up (around 1:40 in this trailer), looking for all the world like a skinned, metallic corpse with tubes for veins and metal plates where its muscles would be. Slowly, more of it is revealed, until we come to its head... or lack of one. All it has on top are two insectile, twitching, glowing eyes on an arm. It doesn't talk — it merely flicks its eyes around to stare at you. When you combine those attributes with its measured tread, its deliberately inhuman movements and the fact that it's learning directly from ||the thoughts of the murderous, psychotic handler who has a stalkercrush on Farrah Fawcett||, it invokes the eeriest elements of the Uncanny Valley, essentially recreating Frankenstein's Monster in space. But scarier. What happens near the end of the film isn't pretty either: ||the handler places his own brain inside the robot, which wears the front of his face like a mask||.
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*Skyline*:
- The images of hundreds of people getting sucked up into space ships, all of them screaming.
- The aliens ||dissolve the heads of human victims and leave the brain intact for, all intents and purposes, a battery||.
- The giant "Tank" Aliens, who ||use their tentacles to capture humans and forcibly (no doubt painfully) suck them into their bodies||.
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*Strange Days*: In the near future, there's a technology that allows to encode and record on disc someone's sensorial experience, allowing another person to experience it later on playing the disc as if watching a movie, re-living everything like if he made it himself. The serial killer in the movie uses it to record his experience while he rapes and kills women, and in the meantime he puts another sensorial machine onto her victims so that they can feel his excitement while he rapes-kills them, enhancing their fear, which would be disturbing enough by itself. But the feedback works both ways, therefore the assassin himself feels the victim's feelings as if he's being raped and killed himself, only exciting him even more, in a perverted infinite loop of murdering. The whole thing is so sick that when the protagonist find a disc made by the killer and watch it he gets terrifically shocked and he's incapacitated for a while.
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*Sunshine*: Several characters ||die by simply being roasted by the sun, due to having no atmosphere or objects blocking the sun from them||. While for one, it was something akin to a ||religious experience||, the crew got to listen to the other screaming in pain for about a minute while ||the sun's rays coming through his visor destroyed his face and head, and the rest of his body simply superheated and boiled||.
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*Supernova.* The crew members of the ship all die in very creepy ways. One of them melts into the structure of the suspended animation pod that should have kept him safe during the hyperspace jump. Unfortunately, his doesn't seal completely. The rest of the deaths are as bad. When it was in the theaters, this movie was rated PG-13; it has since been re-rated to R.
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*3 Dev Adam*: Back in the 1970s, there was apparently a portion of the Turkish film industry who couldn't care less about copyright laws and made unauthorized films about a number of superhero, action/adventure and sci-fi properties. That's just kinda weird, but one of the most infamous was this film, which involved Captain America, a Mexican wrestler known as El Santo, and Spider-Man. Except it wasn't Spider-Man; it was an evildoer called Spider-Man with a similar costume to Spidey's. Even that wouldn't be so bad, except that this "Spider-Man" doesn't just want to rob banks or take over the world, he's also a serial killer and rapist. There's some unfathomably freakish imagery, like he has some gerbils or hamsters eat someone's eyes out.
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*Kick-Ass*: The ||torture and attempted execution|| scene is incredibly unbearable to watch. They light ||Big Daddy|| on fire, and watch him burn, complete with blisters and torched flesh in the aftermath as he struggles to breathe, and eventually suffocates.
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*The Toxic Avenger*: The transformation from 98-pound nerd Melvin Ferd into Toxie. His skin bubbles, pustules form all over his face, and his hair falls out.
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*The Searchers* includes not only the very eerie abduction scene of Debbie in the cemetery but also the possible crossing of the Moral Event Horizon in our hero shooting out the eyes of a Comanche's corpse so that he will forever wander blind in the spirit world.
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*Django*: When some outlaws cut off a man's ear and make him eat it. It makes the violence in Sergio Leone's westerns look tame in comparison. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Film |
First Salik War / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- The Salik captain carrying the V'Dan half of First Contact eats one of the ensigns and brings her chewed-on, blood-drained remains back for the rest of the prisoners to view.
- Li'eth has strong empathic abilities linked to objects, allowing him to sense who has previously handled an item, as well as connecting him to previous occupants of whatever space he's in. Previous occupants of a Salik prison cell are... not people you want to share emotions with. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FirstSalikWar |
F is for Family / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
One of Frank's former bosses at the airport was killed in a freak accident, in which he got his head sucked into a propellor. But for some reason, two of his employees find the video recording of the incident to be really funny.
After Kevin disparages Frank's job as just being a "baggage handler," Frank drives him to the airport, pretending he's signed Kevin up for military service in Vietnam and giving Kevin some graphic descriptions of what Frank went through during the Korean War as some of the things Kevin can expect as a soldier, including possibly having to shoot children, before he reveals that he is taking Kevin to the airport so that Kevin can see what Frank does at work to provide for the family.
After learning that Kevin had sex with his girlfriend, Vic slips into a cocaine-fueled rage and goes on a rampage, shooting up his own house with a gun. Fortunately, nobody got hurt (well, except for a frog which was shot into pieces).
Vic doing an entire bag of cocaine and completely blacks out, with the camera focusing on his growing pupils. It's really just luck that he didn't die.
Scoop Dunbarton accidentally stepping on a suitcase bomb, which causes him to be blown up into pieces. A piece of shrapnel (in fact, Scoop's signature laminated newspaper article he always wore around his neck) also kills his uncle Roger by flying into his neck, making him bleed to death.
In General, Scoop Dunbarton is a terrifying man just barely bordering on Nightmare Retardant. The giant dent in his skull from getting kicked by a horse coupled with the mental instability probably makes him the scariest character in the show.
While walking around Pittsburgh, Bill is attacked by a rabid dog that bites into his pants leg, and he's forced to grab a nearby drug syringe and stick the dog with it, most likely killing it.
Chet! Dear GOD, Chet! While he initially seems to be an awesome guy, he turns out to be a mix of Sociopathic Soldier, Shell-Shocked Veteran, Faux Affably Evil and Smug Snake all rolled into one. A war criminal several times over, he's married to one of his victims, who he abuses and treats like a slave behind closed doors, cheats on her constantly, manipulates everyone around him, makes their lives worse for seemingly no reason, and seems to delight in invoking Yank the Dog's Chain. It's telling that Frank begins season 3 thinking Chet is the second coming of Jesus, and by the finale, is literally prepared to murder him.
Not to mention his death. He absolutely deserved it, but he's last seen on life support after his wife fed him an entire bottle of Draino one night, after having been slowly poisoning him for who knows how long. Oh, and Goomer knew this was all going on, but didn't say anything, just to satisfy his voyeurism.
Sue's father rather calmly telling a story of his first girlfriend, who had drugs planted on her by his overly protective father, which led to her father punching her down a flight of stairs in a fit of rage and killing her instantly in the process. And for as horrid as this is, it's made worse by him saying he's glad his father did it.
Frank and Stan were trying to one-up each other on who had the worse father, but neither of them comes close to this example of an abusive dad.
Otto: My father turned me in to the Gestapo...
Goomer: Oh, yeah, that's the winner.
Babe's horror story with his father is that his father used a knife to cut a tattoo off of Babe's chest when he came home from the Navy. Babe's dad was as bad as any of his friends' dads. It's Played for Laughs, unlike Otto and Stan's stories too.
One episode of season 4 begins with what appears to be a Colt Luger episode, with Colt chasing a crime boss named Mr Big... except the chase is taking place in a deserted nighttime Rustvale, the Murphy's hometown. While this is odd enough, Colt finally corners Mr Big in an alley, and prepares to arrest him, only for Mr Big to remove his hat, and reveal Big Bill!
Colt: *in Franks voice': Dad?!
Big Bill then pulls a crutch out of his trenchcoat, and somehow uses it to blow Colt's (who now had Frank's face) head off. Yeah, it turns out it's a nightmare Frank is having, but the initial reveal really comes out of nowhere. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FIsForFamily |
First Encounter Assault Recon / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Just the indication of a message from an "UNKNOWN ORIGIN" at the top right of the screen and the trademark radio feedback from Alma's presence is enough to bring up your heart rate. Even better is when nothing actually happens.
Things to watch out for in the game: mirrors, long hallways (especially with double doors at the end), dead ends with equipment (so you can turn around and get the crap scared around you), dead ends with switches to press, any sort of monitor you might be tempted to look at, ladders (dear god the ladders), windows to look through, blood trails, bathrooms of any kind or vents to crawl through.
The Replica soldiers as a whole are pretty goddamned scary, too. Not simply for what they are, as military clones are nothing new to science fiction, but rather, what they do and how they do it. They are completely and absolutely loyal to whatever task their commander sets them to, and will carry it out without hesitation or question, and are willing to give their own lives without a second's thought to carry it out. Plus, they are heavily armed, well-trained, and relentless, making for a frighteningly efficient, faceless, remorseless enemy who will stop at nothing to kill you. Perhaps the most terrifying thing about the Replica soldiers is how "human" they are in battle. These are not mindless Mooks who just grunt and die randomly. They truly act like real people in battle, both in terms of professionalism but also in that they can be Not So Stoic and curse, get angry at each other, and feel fear. And yet, all their humanity only exists when they are in battle. The moment they lose their connection to their psychic commander, they immediately become nothing more than flesh-and-blood robots waiting for a command. It's also a bit sad to see that they are only alive on the battlefield... quite literally.
The environments as a whole, really. They just generate a truly oppressive atmosphere. There's a lot of mostly-black computer screens in the game flickering with white static and emitting some unsettling noises. Even though they look like something from The Ring, it's hard not to spend some time just staring at them, in case there's something to see.
Even the game's physics engine can be frightening. You're moving through some badly-lit building filled with corpses and bloodstains, you know enemy soldiers and worse are somewhere out there, then you hear something skittering across the floor behind you, you whirl around, weapon ready and... it's some trash you disturbed while passing through. Self-inflicted Cat Scares, more or less.
Right at the start of the second stage, where the Delta Force sergeant orders you to open the gate - you do so, then hear radio chatter of them fighting an unseen enemy. You run back to them as your controller tries to raise them, seeing something odd through the fence, but you can't tell what, turn the corner and ||HOLY FRAKKING SHIT! They're just bloody skeletons!||
There's a moment when a Replica randomly jumps into the shallow water and never comes out. ||If you watch closely, you can see the Assassin run out of the water and dive through the bars of the grating around the corner on the right side.||
What's really creepy is this implies they were following you the whole time, and you never noticed.
There is actually a tonne of hints they've been lurking about the entire game. Most of the events where a corpse would drop from somewhere above you will be accompanied by the telltale buzz and arcing electricity of an Assassin, and many of the incidents of random crap getting knocked over are from Assassins, which you immediately blame on Alma.
The infamous "ladder scene" from the third level. You approach a ladder, start to go down it and ||Alma is standing about 2 feet from where you were before you started going down, and the fact she gives her trademark giggle does not help.|| Oh, and what awaits you when you actually get off the ladder at the bottom? ||You turn towards the path and see Paxton Fettel approaching you, but vanishing when he's about a foot from your face.|| What gave this scene so much impact is how players never had a scare before on any single ladder in the game and also in how your character mounts ladders. Usually, the game backs off after a single glimpse of Alma to keep you wired, which made Fettel's appearance so much worse.
Also from the third level, when ||the slumped body of Fettel's latest victim suddenly lurches up, begging you to find Alma before Fettel does, before finally dying.||
Sometime in the third level, turn a corner with the flashlight on and BAM! Alma crawling at you.
Paranoia Fuel at its finest when you first enter the Armacham building. Your escort gets taken out by Replicas, you have a firefight on the helipad, and then nothing. For about two minutes there's nothing worth shooting, you start seeing signs that Assassins are watching you, and then for another five minutes there's still nothing. It's not uncommon for players to waste bullets on a corpse, because one of the Assassins throws it through a window right in front of you when you least expect it.
One level in Interval 4, "Watchers", where you at first see security guards being killed by offscreen enemies, thrown through windows, or pulled into vents. Then, when you reach the second floor, you personally encounter the Assassins, who are equipped with cloaking devices and glowing night-vision goggles. They jump out of dark rooms and ventilation ducts, make almost no sound, can stick to walls, are fast and hard to hit, and can hack you to death in two seconds on the higher difficulty levels.
There's a moment late in the Armacham corporate headquarters where you can take a look at a security camera feed. You watch Paxton Fettel walk past underneath you... and then Alma sloooowly rises into sight, staring right into the camera, before the screen goes dark.
Just as you finally fix the elevator to get out of the Armacham office building, you look up and see Alma - in the elevator - stalking the CEO's daughter as the doors close. Try to charge to the rescue and you're treated to the sight of a bloody Alma rushing you.
The hallway of waist-high blood. Creepy enough, right? And when you get to the end of the hallway, that bloody skeleton looms up and grabs you, which is wet-your-pants freaky. But the real kicker? Pay close attention to Alma as you reach the end of the hallway. She's staring at the doctor taking away her child, right? Right before the skeleton pops up, she turns to look at you.
In the second-to-last level, right after Harlan releases Alma from the Vault. She's stepping towards you in hallucination, her body flickering from old to young and back again, slowly walking towards you, so slow HOLY CRAP SHE'S CRAWLING AT YOU SO FAST SHE'S IN YOUR FACE!!! End hallucination, leaving you beside Harlan's corpse and Alma's bloody footprints leading away. Then come the swarms of Nightmares.
F.E.A.R. Extraction Point
The church. First, Fettel returns. Then in the catacombs, random replicas get slaughtered and something keeps moving inside the catacombs. When you finally get out, Fettel appears again and says he is leaving you with Alma. Cue Alma appearing in the hallway you just came from, destroying scenery as she slowly walks towards you, screaming and summoning Nightmares to kill you.
Fettel: I know it doesn't make sense. Not much does anymore. You killed me; I didn't like that.
Your first battle with the Shades. They are creepy enough on their own, but having to fight them in a blood-splattered room filled with empty paint-buckets that make horribly disturbing noise when kicked, combining with the unnerving music definitely doesn't help.
|| Holiday's horrific death|| and the subsequent desecration of his corpse. The lights keep flickering on and off, each time they come back on there's more Shades hovering in the air, filling up the room, and then fuck...
In the hospital, you move through a short hallway with dark windows looking into a single room that is in the Maternity Ward. You hear a baby's crying, and inside, you see what appears to be a nurse with her back turned to you cradling the crying baby. Not too scary, right? If you decide to walk up to the windows to get a better look, the small light illuminating the figure goes out, the baby stops crying, and seconds later the faceless monster nurse's body slams into the window right at your face screaming shrilly and shriveling up into ashes. Cue heart attack.
An extended nightmare sequence toward the end of the hospital level seems like something right out of Silent Hill. You're suddenly wandering through a completely different-looking hospital, or maybe it's more of an insane asylum, because the doors all have little observation slits. And Jankowski is in one of them.
As you're moving through that area, you catch a glimpse of something moving between two of the doors at the far side of the hallway. And, if you decide to look through one of the observation slits to see what Harlan Wade is up to, one of the deformed nurses immediately stands up right on the other side of the door and screams at you before shutting it in your face.
F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate
Early on, after crossing a large catwalk, you catch a brief glimpse of a mysterious figure while descending a ladder. Following the figure will reveal... nothing, except for a medkit, some smeared blood, and debris. Turning around to exit the dead end, you are greeted by the blood-soaked, eyeless phantom of Jankowski standing right in front of your face, accompanied by a shrieking scare chord. It's more startling when played through, as many players aren't expecting Jankowski to haunt the Sergeant.
There's an alarming number of little moments where you get on a ladder, or look through a window, and get a quick glimpse of something peering back at you before quickly vanishing.
Chen: We've got an unaccompanied minor in the building. Little girl, red dress, about eight years old. Betters: What are you talking about, Chen? Chen: She's right - she was right there...
The Scarecrows, which show up as dark puddles on the floor. When you walk on them, these massive claws come out and drag you into this dark watery void inside the floor, while a horrific spiky frail demon thing claws the crap out of you, killing you in seconds unless you unload massive amounts of ammunition in it. They're also placed in ways that mean you can't avoid them unless you take things slow and pay very close attention. It's their introduction, though, that's the worst. You watch your lieutenant walk over one, where his leg is first frozen in place, and then it gets worse. He's slowly dragged in, screaming and begging you for help, clawing fingermarks in the ground, as his lower half is shredded with blood flying everywhere. You can either leave him, and watch him die horribly and he pleads with you for help and screams in agony until he goes fully under and blood explodes out, or you can grab his hand and try to help, which ends up with his arm being ripped off as the rest of him is shredded anyway. This is, unsurprisingly, the point at which many gamers simply can't play the game any more.
Steve Chen: Uh, some-something's got my leg. Something's got my leg! FUCK, HELP ME!
And if you're not careful about where you stand at that moment, the same Scarecrow will make you join your shredded lieutenant.
There's something much worse than that. For most of the game Scarecrows are fairly easy to spot, and can be dealt with by emptying a clip of ammo into any black hole in the floor you can't walk around. Even the ones that try to disguise themselves as harmless blood splatters on the floor can be dealt with via the "better safe than sorry" approach. But during interval six you'll run into one scarecrow that is located ||under-fucking-water.|| Unless you're paying incredibly close attention to the floor there's no way that you're going to see it coming till it grabs you.
All of Interval 04 (Devastation). After witnessing the detonation of the Origin Facility and running for your life with Lieutenant Chen down to completely unknown grounds and fading out while still running, you wake up in a darkened, dusty ruin that Chen identifies as the Old Underground Metro Area, a part of Fairport that was buried underground after an earthquake and was left to rot when the new city was built on top of it. The first part is a long sequence of trudging through creepily quiet hallways and collecting supplies, until the paranormal events start rolling in. You'd think having Chen with you would help make things more bearable, except there's moments where, as he leads the way down a hall, the whole scene seems to stretch, something yanks you back to the start, and you can only run as fast as you can to catch up. Or a time when you're jogging along at his heels, but then Chen just fades away into black dust, and you're stuck on your own for a bit until you reach a dead end, something starts kicking down one of the locked doors... and Chen sticks his head in the room and asks "where the fuck have you been?". Then to say the least, bad things happen. There are no human enemies in the entire place, the background music is a continuous drone of ghostly whispers and unsettling sounds, you get ambushed by Shades and Scarecrows aplenty, any little rattle of an objectcould mean several invisible whispering humanoids are gunning to mob your sorry ass, it gets pretty damn dark in places, and you don't even get the slight relief of seeing the sky after leaving a building, since you're stuffed deep underground. Even when you change to a newer, less stuffy location, things don't get any less scary. Besides Wade Elementary, this is the place in the series that deserves the "Big Boo's Haunt" moniker. You'd never think you'd sigh in relief when stumbling upon a particularly large Nightcrawler detail, but you will. You definitely will.
About midway through, the Replica forces all go inactive, because the Point Man has taken down Fettel. Then when you're trying to get through a trainyard, you pass a whole squad of dead-on-their-feet Replica troops, activate a switch, double back... and the troopers are all gone.
While you're "infiltrating" the mercenaries' forward command post, and after hearing a communication about the number of men they've lost to the things in the shadows, you'll come across a pit with some weird shadows cast on the wall above and behind it. Look down and you see a lone Nightcrawler, one of those stoic, deadpan mercs, holding a flare over his head and shaking with fear as he tries to cover an intersection of passages.
The Replica cloning facility. One of the first things you see in it is a window into... what, a tangle of red tree roots? Then you step closer and realize the window is coated in blood, and the room beyond is packed to the ceiling with corpses. And so is just about every window or transparent barrier in the facility.
There's a moment when you step into a room filled with the corpses of scientists, then see a vision of adult Alma walking through, and all the bodies rising off the floor. When the vision ends, you're back in the same room, but there's nothing in it but bloodstains.
One laptop in the cloning facility has a message from one of the scientists, saying how Armacham has locked down the whole facility and is holding them prisoner, while "something's gone wrong with the second prototype." It ends in screams and gunfire, then you hear Fettel giggling, and he's right behind you on the other side of an observation window.
Fettel: I never cared much for him.
Perseus Mandate brings back the intel laptops from the base game, mostly to give some background on the Nightcrawlers, such as one mentioned earlier about them having lost several men to "the creatures in the shadows", but one of the first ones you find throws you completely for a loop. You use it, expecting more intel like from the original game, and instead get an extreme close up on the face of a desiccated corpse, a light passing over it so you can see every detail, as a ghostly voice whispers "the dead... stay... dead!"
The Assassins return in Project Origin and have been upgraded significantly, can punch you to death quickly, and cause an Interface Screw that lasts for a few seconds. Especially the one that ||kills Terry Halford||). When you can't see their mouths, they're almost The Blank, but when you can see their mouths, they're permanently locked into big scary-as-fuck evil grins like the Chryssalids from X-COM.
The locker rooms of Wade Elementary. Or the majority of Wade Elementary, period.
The worst part is the bodies of the ATC commandos lying around. Most of them pinned to the walls by unseen forces. And they're apparently still alive and breathing. ||They're not. Which makes that all the more disturbing.||
But they still choke. And moan. Even when they've been fixed to a ceiling. You can't even put them out of their misery.
And in the locker rooms you are attacked by ghosts that are hard to see and they make this horrific noise.
Plus the horrible rapid-fire slamming sounds of the double doors, making it hard to hear anything coming at you, and they steadily grow louder and louder as you get closer. The noise itself is just plain disturbing.
The classroom projectors. Sweet jeebus, the fucking classroom projectors.
|| Helper.||
Also, the locker room is one of the few places in the game where your flashlight doesn't work, so all you can see are the flickering lights, showing flashes of bloodstained walls, corpses hanging from the ceiling, flickering ghosts, and from time to time, Alma herself.
Wade Elementary is full of cute/silly posters, which actually serve to enhance the disturbing mood when you find out the fate of the schoolchildren. In particular, the 'Welcome back to school' poster depicts an anthropomorphic raccoon with an eerily knowing, dead-eyed, cynical look about it that just screams "You poor bastards."
The Remnants. There's only three of them (Thank God) but all three of them are absolutely terrifying, especially the ||dead music teacher playing piano in Wade Elementary||.
That one is playing the music box theme. It is horrifying.
What about the principal? You pick up the keycard, and OMIGODHESRIGHTINFRONTOFMEAAAAAAAGHHHH. As far as the Jump Scare goes, it was pretty damn freaky.
The soldiers the Remnants reanimate. They're basically zombies, but they just make the Remnant fights scarier, especially when you get too close to a Remnant and get the Interface Screw effect.
Once again, Alma. As if being a creepy little girl who wreaks unholy havoc on anything and everything wasn't bad enough, in Project Origin, she turns into a Personal Space Invader, and to make things even worse, her attacks on you turn out to be ||attempts to rape you||.
And at the end of the game, ||Alma successfully corners Becket and forces him into a hallucination so that she can have her way with him. Worse, the hallucination breaks at times so that Becket can actually see Alma on top of him||.
Right before then, you're forced to watch ||while strapped down into the chair|| as Alma ||slowly steps toward you, like a cat approaching a mouse, with this implied "you can't get away from me now" in her body language, and then she slowly leans in very, very close to kiss you.||
The final cutscene with Alma, where ||she rubs her belly, and then puts Becket's hand on it, and he can hear the baby inside crying.|| And then she smiles.
And right before then, fighting a horribly disfigured ||Keegan||, and you're forced to ||struggle with him hand-to-hand and point your pistol at his head.||
|| Keegan:|| "Becket...help me!"
The section where you pursue the dazed Sgt. Keegan through the underground tunnels leading to Still Island is highly unsettling. That weird, deep, buzzing voice in which he started singing is highly unnerving.
The really creepy part about that? He's singing the exact same song that you've been hearing Alma singing, or coming from the music boxes.
This might be just a glitch, but when playing through the elementary school, you may come across two ATC mercenaries fleeing from Alma, their flesh being boiled away as they run. It is pretty startling to see them, so your probable instinct is to open fire. ||They fall to the ground, and then the skeletons get up, point their rifles at you, and start firing.|| Cue ruined underwear.
Walking along at ||Still Island||, just recovering from another hallucination. You stop, seeing ||the swing-set.|| Beneath it, you see ||the doll.|| You pause, bend down to look at it. Suddenly, you hear Alma whisper in your ear. Everything is still and silent afterwards. You turn toward the door to get to the next section of the area, and while doing so, you pause to slowly turn, to look at the ||sky-painted murals on the walls around the swing.|| You keep turning, and ||JESUS SHE'S BEEN TWO FEET BEHIND YOU STARING AT YOU THE WHOLE TIME.|| Pure, 100%, Grade-A Paranoia Fuel.
The Still Island facility, where you see the Type VII Replicas, who haven't been issued with helmets yet. And you see how imperfect Armacham are with their cloning technology.
The music box. That goddamned music box. That horrible, sad, upbeat, painful, tear-inducing, pants-browningly chilling tune. Its like someone scientifically formulated the perfect theme song to emphasize every single aspect of Alma, and then used it in the most disturbing manner imaginable.
When Becket has the Harbinger surgery, not just the horrific Alma visions he has every time he flatlines, but also the part when you realize there is nothing you can do to stop it. From the fact that he keeps waking up and screaming, they're also apparently not using anesthetic.
The flashback where ||Harlan wade orders his men to carry Alma away to the Vault.|| Combination of both Tear Jerker and sheer horror that he's doing that to ||his own daughter.||
The Pglitch in Aristide's apartment. Alma's supposed to do one of her appear-and-disappear-pants-wetting scares, but since the game can't predict where you're going to end up in the pool room, she'll appear and then follow you slowly wherever you go until you leave. Better have a change of underwear handy.
The pool room of Genevieve Aristide's penthouse. You step into the room with blood-red, back-lit water, and you think you hear someone moving around. Something runs in front of you and you stop, tracking the movement. Then, you hear a whisper behind you, and turn around, and ||child Alma is right there staring up at you.|| There's a better than even chance that you'll flinch away from her and fall into the pool, where ||emaciated adult Alma will hurl herself at you.||
Even worse if you realize where you are when you fall in the pool. ||It's the chamber she was sealed in when she was a child.||
Once you get past that bit, you'll spot some ammo and armor up on a balcony overlooking the pool area. Going after it results in glass shattering behind you, and ||Alma appearing again.||
Extremesquick-horror via Fridge Logic: The Replica in Project Origin are under Alma' vague control, right? They're essentially following Alma's desires when they're attacking you. Except that Alma doesn't want to kill you. ||She wants to rape you.|| So, what happens to your corpse if the Replica kill you is best not dwelt on.
The hospital level in Origin is pretty creepy too. You're walking through it and see Armacham guys walking around cleaning up. You get a scare from a woman hurling herself at a window trying to get out as Colonel Vanek shoots her. Then you see a man attempting to give a woman CPR before an Armacham commando comes over and shoots his head off with a shotgun. Next, as you come around a corner you see an Armacham guy get pulled into a mostly-barricaded room. He's screaming and pleading for help from the guy he's with, who shoots at the gap. It doesn't do anything as his buddy is pulled inside. Then there's a glimpse of an Abomination, climbing along the walls and ripping a group of Armacham soldiers to shreds. Then there's the other Abomination who's controlling the Replicas. You find it in a chair, frenziedly struggling and roaring as images on screens across from it flash by randomly. Then there's the death scene of one of your team. Sergeant Jankowski was undergoing the same procedure you already went through, but his team was killed mid-procedure. You come across him, dying, on a hospital bed, with several needles jabbing him repeatedly. You also get your first glimpse of Alma really close to the beginning of the game. After you come out of a dream, you're woken by one of your squad, but instead it's Alma, directly in front of you before it switches to reality.
An absolutely horrific notion posited in the JBM page: ||when Alma is raping Beckett, it is possible she was using Stokes' dying/dead body to do the physical part of the deed.|| SHUDDER.
Paranoia Fuel: Ever wonder how the Replica are always able to keep tabs on you enough to constantly put troops in your way and set ambushes? They've got Assassins. Watching. Your. Every. Move. Including right now.
Beckett's dream at the beginning of Project: Origin. It takes place in a destroyed city and he's following Alma. Then when he wakes up, she pops up right in front of him. It's actually his teammate, but it still can give one a shock.
In the Reborn DLC, there's an area right after Foxtrot 813 goes rogue where the replica send the Heavy Armor troops after you. It's in an area in an under-construction office building, made mostly of plywood boards. The Heavy Armor troops are able to smash through any of these walls. And the do so with a gusto, and where you least expect it. Nothing quite as scary as ducking around a corner to reload only to have the massive, faceless supersoldier slam straight through the wall in front of you without slowing down.
Later in Reborn, there's a boss battle with a Powered Armor unit, right after fighting a couple of Assassins. The terrifying part is a double-whammy: first, while fighting the powered armor unit, Assassins will periodically spawn in upper levels of the room and attack you, so not only do you have to dodge the armor's massive machineguns, you also have to keep spinning around, because you never know when an Assassin will hit you. The second whammy comes from the fact that the area is a multi-level lobby, with the armor starting on the lower floor and the only way up being a thin escalator the armor can't hope to climb. It looks like it might be an easy fight where you can use the elevation to avoid enemy first and whittle the armor down, right? Until the powered armorjumps fifteen feet straight up to your level.
The aftermath of the Origin facility explosion is horrifying, from the ruined buildings, to the people frozen in blast from the blast that disintegrate into ash if you touch them, to the sky being a perpetual green storm. And there's the ghosts haunting the places where their bodies were vaporized. It's jarring that in a game about supernatural terror, one of the most frightening things is just the post-nuclear horror of Fairport. It's even worse knowing that, if you played FEAR 1, this is all your fault.
The TV room. Made even worse by the fact that you can hear the insane cultists lurking around behind them, and there's the silhouettes of deformed, humanlike things periodically leaping around in front of them. And there's Fettel's chilling line:
"Make no mistake. We are being hunted."
The suicide bomber variations of them are even worse. You can hear them beeping, yet you can't see them, mainly because you're being swarmed by the maddened enemies. And then when you finally see them, they leap at you kamikaze style.
Let's put it this way, you'll be much happier when you finally run back into the soldiers.
Towards the end of the store level, you're climbing up a ladder. Simple enough, then BAM, Alma's right in front of you.
The Creep. It's that thing that looks like an overgrown Abomination that keeps popping up throughout F.3.A.R. It generally attacks from behind, and has a really unsettling three-part mouth. The worst part? Alma is afraid of it. ALMA IS AFRAID OF IT. Anything that makes Alma scared cannot be good news. Also, the second time it appears (in the airport) when it attacks you, your health doesn't regen until you get clear of the room. Talk about a freaky Interface Screw.
The Stinger for F.E.A.R. 3. We see ||Paxton Fettel's Synchronicity Event||. He quite literally ||explodes about a dozen ATC troops one at a time while they try to subdue him with tranquilizers. The ATC troops just keep pushing into the room, trying to take him out, and one by one their bodies are blown to pieces until they finally knock him out, leaving him alone in a room that is almost literally painted in blood and littered with a dozen corpses.||
One of the more brilliant things about F.E.A.R. 3, and a true shame since the game has a lot less scary areas than the other ones, is that the scares are randomized. So maybe you'll be expecting something to jump out at you, only it doesn't, or something else will pop up where before there was nothing. Nothing Is Scarier by design!
Towards the end of Interval 7, there's is a section where you have to wait for a door to open enough to let you in. Sounds easy enough, but you have swarms of Almaverse Resident Evil like lickers lunging at you. Whats' worse is you have to close the door once you get inside and fend them off long enough till the door closes.
The houses in the suburbs that have been taken over by the cultists. The walls are covered in "artwork" made from blood, with piled up altars of candles and teddy bears everywhere. Some of the blood artwork is made up of spirals, and for a few of these spirals, ||fleshy growths emerge and spread outwards from the center, before retracting back into the painting and disappearing.||
In Fettel's ending ||He possesses Point Man and then devours Alma. The look of fear in her eyes before Fettel leaps upon her is jarring.||
One of the (possible) events that occurs in Interval 3 of ''F.E.A.R. 3" is an Offscreen Reality Warp in an employee break room. As you approach the other side of the room, you may see a human shadow run quickly past behind you; if you do, and you turn around, suddenly there are ||bodies hanging from the ceiling! How the hell did they get there?!|| The first time this happens to you you'll be wondering if you're going crazy.
Less out-and-out scary and more "generally creepy" pops up in the airport level, when you enter an otherwise empty concourse with some escalators in the middle of the room. ||Teenage Alma appears on one of the escalators and just slides past you, staring at you the whole time.|| Might also count as a CMOF depending on your mood at the time.
The climax of Interval 5. ||Alma's contractions cause the Fairport View Tower to catch fire and slowly begin to crumble, and you get to see the remaining Armacham soldiers panic and die as debris falls and pitfalls into hell open at their feet. One instance that stands out is a group of burning soldiers uselessly trying to escape a crashed and burning helicopter, screaming all the while. The Phase Commander's callous disregard for his men's lives does not help.|| | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon |
Fish Hooks / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The ending scene in the episode where Milo pretends he is sick. He gets sent to a tank that looks like a mass grave or hospice, with all the other sick fish tightly packed in with him. Then one guy offers him some food, and his face peels off, revealing the muscle behind it. Cut to black
The Lincoln monster that hatches from the penny. Again, another ending scene. Noticing a trend?
At one point, Mouse manages to get Snake to eat herself into oblivion. It's a bit disturbing.
How about the establishing shot that shows the pet store is next door to a sushi restaurant?
The scene in one episode where Milo gets attacked by a big, orange and black spider rendered in the more realistic style that some of the non-aquatic characters and things use in the show.
Where Milo almost suffocates in the shirt pocket; only surviving by burying himself in the human's man-boob sweat. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FishHooks |
Fist of Fury / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
- Pretty much everything Chen does. When he was at the funeral, he went insane with grief and tried to dig up the body while it was being buried. He killed one of the teacher's killers with one deadly blow to the stomach, and pummel tortured the other to death. Many of his first murder victims are also found strung up on the lamp post for the public to see.
- The scene where Chen tortures the interpreter for information. It's hard to tell whether or not the actor playing him was really wetting himself. But who could blame him when Bruce is really lifting and throwing a rickshaw with him in it?
- "WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY??!!" Each punctuated by a punch to the midsection. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FistOfFury |
Fire Emblem: Three Houses / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
## Per troping policy, all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
This
is just the start of the rabbit hole.
- The Reveal surrounding Byleth's birth. Poor kid was going to die, and the only way to save them was to implant them with the Crest Stone of the Sword of the Creator. While this did save their life, it did not come without side-effects. As Jeralt noticed rather quickly, Byleth did not act like how a newborn infant should. Even more shocking yet,
*they have no heartbeat*. Let's think about this for a second here. They have a pulse, but their heart doesn't. It is virtually still. If the heart isn't beating, it can't supply blood to the body, and while Byleth's continued survival could be attributed to the Crest Stone that's still keeping them alive, it does bring up a rather unsettling implication: Is Byleth even still technically *human*?
- Rhea's behaviour towards the player. Her tendency to speak in half truths and the way she switches from mothering them, to flirting with them, to threatening them on a dime and without warning can come across as extremely unnerving.
- In Ferdinand's C support, he's facing off with demonic beasts to try and prove he's superior to Edelgard... however, more show up than he was prepared to handle. Thankfully, Byleth saves him before he becomes their lunch.
- What happened to Agartha. They developed technology comparable to the modern age. We're talking giant machines straight out of television shows and freaking ICBM missiles. Given how advanced they are, you have to wonder how they disappeared or got wiped out. The answer?
*They attacked Sothis* and were wiped off the face of the map for it.
- They didn't just do that. Their remnants, those who slither in the dark,
*had Nemesis kill Sothis in her sleep and then took her body apart to use as weapons to genocide her children with.* If it wasn't for these assholes, the Crest system likely wouldn't have existed to begin with!
- The origins behind the Relics, the Crests, and the Crest Stones. They are nowhere near as glamorous as the Church would have you think they are. How were they all made? From the children of the goddess. The Crests were made from their blood, the Crest Stones crafted out of their own hearts, and the Relics forged from their very bones. Is it any wonder Seiros was ragingly pissed off when she found out? And why the Church does not want to reveal this fact to the world?
- On the note of the Relics, the way they transform humans without Crests into beasts is absolutely horrific. If Miklan's transformation into the Black Beast via the Lance of Ruin is any indication, the transformation is a painful & frightening experience. While it's hard to argue he didn't deserve it, you can't help but feel sorry for him.
- Pay attention to some of the Relics (such as the Lance of Ruin and Aymr). They'll start
*twitching*.
- Hilda even comments on how the Relics are kind of gross when she gets her own at the end of her and Cyril's paralogue. It sounds funny at the time, but gets
*massively* Harsher in Hindsight after you learn the truth.
- The Death Knight. Take everything from the Black Knight and make him more demonic. Just like the Black Knight, he's an enigmatic figure (unless you play a certain paralogue) that's an absolute
*monster* on the battlefield (though unlike the Black Knight, he's defeatable on the first encounter). While the Black Knight at least had some Noble Demon aura, the Death Knight has *none* of this. Complete with a scythe, he gives off the impression of a grim reaper. Even the Death Knight's backstory is nightmare fuel, and even for the character himself, as he's barely controlled and dangerous even for the one person he exists to protect, as stated below in the Crimson Flower section.
- While he was a terror on the battlefield on Normal and Hard Mode, Maddening Mode makes him into a
*nightmare*, as the silver lining of him being a stationary threat in the early game on the former two difficulties is gone. Now, he can move about the battlefield freely to bring death as early as his first appearance.
- The Remire Village incident is absolutely horrifying, regardless of which house you're with. The village is struck with a Hate Plague, causing a lot of the villagers to go completely insane and start killing each other and destroying the place, all because that
*bastard* Solon wanted to see what would happen.
- The Holy Tomb mission. No matter what house you are with, it will be pure terror; even the level's atmosphere is oppressive. To start, Rhea is at her least trustworthy, when she convinces Byleth to sit on the Throne, which we later learn was meant to enable them to merge their mind with Sothis', which
*could override Byleth's soul*, and she is quite eager to see this happen (granted, Rhea is a tad unclear if she sees Byleth as a host or Sothis reincarnated or something in-between). Then all of a sudden, the Flame Emperor arrives and orders a raid for the Crest Stones in the tombs. What happens next depends on the route; for Blue Lions, Dimitri has a mental breakdown when he learns who the Flame Emperor really is, while for the Black Eagles, it's revealed that their house leader, Edelgard, was behind the attacks on the monastery, and *is* the Flame Emperor. Eventually, provided that they witnessed Edelgard's coronation earlier, Byleth is forced into a Sadistic Choice: execute the teen student they have grown to become attached to over the year and has shown herself willing to commit atrocities for her vision of a better Fódlan, despite your time together, or refuse and become the enemy of the Church and thus the rest of Fódlan. With the Golden Deer, the reactions of Claude and Byleth would seem much more subdued but they certainly feel betrayed that Edelgard, someone they thought was a friend over the course of the year, had been involved with many of the atrocities occurring in the past few chapters.
- If Ashe fights the Western Church's bishop in his and Catherine's shared paralogue, he delivers the following line with none of his usual kindness, sounding dangerously close to
*post-timeskip pre-Character Development Dimitri.*
- While minor compared to the other items on the page, Ashe's angry portrait can come as a shock to the unprepared, due to the lack of definition on his pupils combined with the heavier use of shadows compared to other characters. And yes, this portrait
*is* used during the above line.
- Even five years later, Flayn will remark in a monastery conversation that she is still working through the trauma she experienced from being kidnapped at the Death Knight's hands, imprisoned and drained of her blood.
- Ingrid and Dorothea's paralogue contains a nasty dose of horror, in the form of the merchant trying to kidnap Ingrid so he can force her to marry him, with all that it implies, and with the secondary goal of killing everyone who has accompanied her to the battlefield so as to not leave behind any witnesses.
- While at her scariest on Crimson Flower, Rhea is still pretty creepy at times before the timeskip, especially with the "benefit" of hindsight. With the captured raiders from the Western Church she is shown to be completely remorseless in killing anyone she views as a violent threat to the church (albeit the targets in said scene were caught in the act, and even the notably fair Seteth has zero issues with the punishment, and Shamir points out the extent of their crimes means the punishment stands regardless of anything else). Rhea explains to Byleth in one of their supports that this is quite intentional, that her role as Archbishop often requires a "sterness of words and actions," i.e. she believes she needs to inspire a certain degree of fear. She's also
*very* secretive even to those most loyal to her. And, of course, there's the lap pillow scene, which at first seems to simply be Rhea comforting Byleth but at the same time Rhea has *never* treated Byleth like this before, implying that *something's* definitely up.
- The chapter openings hold their own share of horror. Pre-timeskip, we get pleasant monologues about Fodlan and the various customs of her people as the months pass and the seasons change. Cue post-timeskip and those same bright pictures that accompanied said monologues are now a backdrop as embers of fire burn and the chapter describes the progress of the war now engulfing the world. It's unsettling when you witness the change and realize that the war is the primary thing on anyone's mind right now.
- Seiros tossing away her sword, pummeling Nemesis with her bare hands, and stabbing him in a vengeance-fueled frenzy is both frightening and impressive. Her cradling his blood-soaked sword to her cheek while telling her mother her hated enemy is dead is more singularly disturbing, though. And looking at this while knowing the full context in the Verdant Wind route make this even worse because the Sword of the Creator was made from the bones of her mother Sothis.
- On the non-Crimson Flower versions of the post-timeskip defense of Garreg Mach, you can unleash a fire attack on the enemy if the allied unit reaches its destination. If that happens, the center of the map is engulfed in flames, resulting in all the enemies being rattled and allowing you to pick them off easily. It makes things a lot easier for you, but the enemies screaming in pain shows how terrifying it is for them.
- The Death Cry Echo of the students and units when it's not heartbreaking can be downright terryfing, especially in the Japanese version.
- This route's final boss. It's a berserk Rhea, and halfway through the battle, she's so far gone that she degenerates into a form that not even
*Seteth* has seen before, her portrait changing to look like her skin is practically *rotting*. Seteth, someone who bears Undying Loyalty to her normally, gives the order to Mercy Kill her with almost no hesitation. That should tell you something. Now bear in mind how crazy she is on the Crimson Flower route. She didn't show this form there, implying that her current mental state is *even worse*. She doesn't even speak in this form, so it's possible that she's not even self-aware anymore. And unlike in Crimson Flower, this change happens very suddenly with minimal foreshadowing and less provocation note : at least in Crimson Flower, she had the excuse of being betrayed in a fashion that forced her old traumas to be relived anew.
- Making this worse is that, due to the higher-ranking Church members being infused with her blood and pieces of her Crest Stone,
*they all go berserk with her*, some turning into dragons.
- As mentioned above, it calls back to other dragons in the series who degenerated into madness and had to be forcibly put down
note : Anankos being a standout example.
- In Chapter 8, if you fail to save any of the villagers from Solon, Dimitri threatens to slaughter Solon in the same unhinged tone of voice he uses for most of Part II.
- Dimitri's Freak Out in Chapter 11 is
*terrifying* to watch. It starts when the Flame Emperor's mask breaks, and he realizes her identity is Edelgard, his own step-sister. Upon being faced with evidence that she (in his mind) is complicit with the Tragedy of Duscur, which has tormented him for four years, he starts laughing maniacally and puts on this◊ Nightmare Face. Then he outright *screams* about the colorful way he's going to kill her before charging in. Several of her soldiers step in, and we witness Dimitri pummeling them with his bare fists in an utterly brutal fashion, including grabbing one by the face and *snapping their neck*. **With one hand** (or possibly **crushing** the soldier's skull with said hand, in a Gory Discretion Shot). He then glances up, splattered with blood, and gives a deranged grin. **Dimitri:** I've been looking for you... I will take that head from your shoulders **AND HANG IT FROM THE GATES OF ENBARR!!!**
- Seeing Dimitri's trauma come to the fore over the course of the route is more than a little unsettling. He starts out as an earnest and noble prince, desiring to bring about a better future for his kingdom and agonizing over the harsh realities of war when Lonato rebels against the church. But then his Knight in Shining Armor facade briefly cracks when dealing with the horrific scene at Remire Village. Then it's revealed that he lost the majority of his family in a horrific assassination, still having nightmares about the victims screaming and dying amidst flames, hearing his father's voice demanding vengeance. He describes himself as blacking out in moments of intense violence, and Felix describes him as once having acted like a beast that loved nothing more than shedding blood on the battlefield. After the above-mentioned breakdown, when you receive news that Edelgard will be leading the Imperial army to invade the monastery, he is
*disturbingly* gleeful about appeasing the ghosts of his past with her head he barely seems to notice that the others are there
**Dimitri:** My father. My stepmother. My dear friends. *They want her head. They want her life.* They've whispered as much to me. And the chance to answer their pleas has arrived, at long last! **Byleth:** Don't lose control out there. **Dimitri:** Hahaha! I'm *always* in control, Professor! And I'll *stay* in control until I get the pleasure of *killing that woman*. Let's move, Professor. Even if it costs me my life, I won't rest until I've ! **crushed her skull in my bare hands**
- Jump forward five years, and he's become so bitter, empty and paranoid that his first thought upon learning that Byleth is alive (rather than another ghost) is to assume they're an Imperial spy. He rants about the "vile rats" infesting the ruins of the monastery and becomes incensed when Byleth points out that some of them might just be stealing to survive. When an Imperial general, Randolph, is captured, Dimitri offers him the Sadistic Choice of either witnessing his comrades be executed one at a time or the 'lighter' option of having his eyes put out. His reaction when Byleth gives the poor guy a Mercy Kill is to laugh and say he doesn't care about virtue anymore; he's going to use you and his former friends for the sake of his revenge
*until the flesh falls from your bones*. He gets better by the end of the game, but the player could be forgiven for thinking Dimitri's gone off the deep end and is **not** coming back.
- By the end of the route, Edelgard is backed into a corner and she knows it. Her city has been seized by the Kingdom army and Hubert is dead. So, she plays the only card she has left in her hand and turns herself into a massive abomination known as Hegemon Edelgard using the power of her Crests. It is
*not◊* pretty to look at.
- Edelgard in general on this route. As if Dimitri's insanity wasn't enough, playing this part can be best summarised as
*watching someone you went to school with becoming a brutal military dictator*, who insists Violence is the Only Option until the end, no matter how many lives the war claims.
- Fleche's attempt to kill Dimitri is both heartbreaking and frightening to watch, with the heartbreaking part showcasing just how cruel the effects of war can be on an otherwise normal person, the cycle of revenge, and the frightening part showing just how
*utterly deranged* Fleche looks as she rants about Randolph's death. This is a complete contrast to her portrayal in Crimson Flower, in which Fleche is seen as a soldier who's happy and eager to help her brother and serve in the Imperial army. Even though she also loses her brother in this route during the Church's attempt to take back Garreg Mach, she is shown to keep it together for the sake of her remaining family and to honor her fallen brother.
- In one of her supports with Dimitri, Flayn will confide that she has to deal with a deep-seated fear of sleep. Namely the fear that she will fall into a sleep so deep that when she awakens, so much time will have passed that everyone she loved will be dead and gone. This fear is due to her having experienced such a scenario, having slept through much of the last thousand years in order to heal her body from injuries she suffered in the war with Nemesis.
- During the battle of Fort Merceus, the Death Knight begins to run away from the fight, giving an ominous warning for Byleth to do the same. As he escapes, he points to the sky, to which Byleth and the nearby soldiers witness
**modern-day ballistic missiles** raining down from afar. These "javelins of light" completely destroy the famously-impenetrable fortress, leaving giant craters where the crumbled remains of the town are. Barely getting missed by such overwhelming power, all Byleth and the soldiers can do is stare in shock at the aftermath (one even begins to laugh), completely dumbfounded and horrified. While it also happens in the Silver Snow route, it's arguably more effective in Verdant Wind because of how relatively more lighthearted it had been compared to the other routes, making the contrast all the more jarring.
- It's revealed that Nemesis killed Sothis in her sleep, and her bones and heart were used to make the Sword of the Creator. Nemesis then used the Sword to massacre her children at Zanado, and
*their* remains were used to create the other Relics. (No wonder Seiros hates him so much
)
- At the end of the route, Nemesis is unsealed in Shambhala after the "javelins of light" destroy it. Along with the 10 Elites, he approaches Garreg Mach, destroying entire villages along the way. Not even Hilda's brother Holst can do anything to stop them, even though he has been described as a powerful general who has been able to fend off the Almyrans. He ends up at death's door, almost dying from his injuries.
- Then there's Nemesis himself. He's not even a Revenant Zombie, but a vengeful, near-mindless warrior with the strength to match. With glowing red eyes and the Voice of the Legion, Nemesis will stop at nothing to kill Rhea/Seiros, and is an unstoppable force that only Byleth and Claude together can bring down.
- Aelfric's character. At first, he seems like a pretty nice person and even reveals he knew Byleth's mother... but him finding her well-preserved corpse and discovering the records about the Rite of Rising led to him attempting to bring her back. And by that, we mean sacrifice the Ashen Wolves — the descendants of the Four Apostles that once attempted to perform the ritual 995 years ago — all the while acting as pleasant as when we were first introduced to him. His polite demeanor, even when calmly informing the Ashen Wolves that they will be sacrificed, is not only jarring, but downright unsettling.
- The Final Boss is the result of Aelfric failing the Rite of Rising. The Chalice of Beginnings absorbs and fuses the corpse of Byleth's mother Sitri with Aelfric, using his and the Ashen Wolves' blood, and the end result is not pretty. The rite transforms Aelfric into the Umbral Beast, which makes him look like a disgusting zombified version of The Immaculate One, with a dragon-like skull, veins strewn about his body, and he even spews out globs of blood whenever he attacks anyone close to him. While the screen mercifully fades to black for the actual fusion, the sound effects combined with the appearance of the resulting monstrosity make
*amply* clear that it's a Gory Discretion Shot.
- Tying with the Umbral Beast, Rhea's reaction to it appearing is along the lines of "it's happened again." It's safe to assume she is referring to the attempt she and the Four Apostles made after the War of Heroes to resurrect Sothis. While officially the attempt merely failed and the Apostles left out of shame, it's possible that the failure was more of a disaster than the records told, turning whatever body they made or procured for Sothis to inhabit into an Umbral Beast. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FireEmblemThreeHouses |
Five Nights at Candy's 2 / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
Managing to outdo the first game in the nightmare fuel department and dark tones in multiple ways, *Five Nights at Candy's 2* also provides nothing but raw nightmares for all to have.
- The general design of the building provides a much more oppressive atmosphere than that of the first game. Aside from the much darker color scheme, there's also a noticeable lack of music and other audio cues. The only sounds present are the animatronics moving around and the brief noises emitted by the few defenses that you have. There's not even a phone call at the start of the night, you're just trapped in an abandoned factory with a bunch of angry, violent killing machines.
- The office's layout can lead to a lot of Paranoia Fuel. It's very small and cramped, especially compared to the first game's office, and there are no doors this time around. All you have in front of you is a long, dark hallway that you can only illuminate for a brief moment. It can be pretty unsettling to know that Candy or one of his friends could be mere feet away from you at any given time.
- Despite their terrifying appearances, Candy, Cindy, and Blank all have very similar mechanics; walk down the hall, force you to call them away, then disable the phone if you didn't deactivate it quickly enough. Once you understand this mechanic, it's pretty easy to safely avoid Candy and co. by falling into an efficient pattern. Chester, however, throws a massive wrench into that pattern by appearing on a random camera and
*trying to climb into the vents.*. On later nights, you may only have seconds to scare him away before he successfully climbs into the vent and starts making his way toward you. At this point, there's no way to recover. If you're at 5 AM, start praying that Chester takes his sweet time reaching your office...
- This becomes even worse on Nights 6 and 8, as Chester is replaced by CAT, who is much faster and can enter vents nearly instantly on 7/20. If RAT disables the cameras while CAT is trying to open a vent, that's pretty much game.
- Many players found the Penguin to be rather adorable in the first game, which is helped by the fact that he can unintentionally save you from the other animatronics. That isn't the case at all in this game. Now sporting a much more unnerving appearance, he can briefly disable your camera system entirely, leaving you defenseless against the other animatronics. Few things are as panic-inducing as seeing an animatronic slowly coming toward you and not being able to do a damn thing to stop it.
- You think the Penguin looks creepy pressed right up against the camera? On later nights, RAT can do the exact same thing, with a truly terrifying Nightmare Face.
- On 7/20, the Penguin can disable the cameras
*faster than human reaction time.* The same goes for RAT.
- RAT and CAT's scream when they jump you is unnerving in and of itself. While not as terrifying as RAT's scream from Five Nights at Candy's, it's still rather chilling...
- Speaking of RAT and CAT, dying to either of them will give you a different game over screen. Normally, a newspaper states that Marilyn has gone missing. That's certainly creepy enough on its own, but the newspaper when dying to RAT or CAT is different; Marilyn was instead found
*brutally mauled to death* inside the factory, to the point that local police assume that it was a bear attack.
- The Night 1 minigame has you opening up the room where RAT is kept as Chester. The minigame ends as soon as you enter the room, but the next night, you play as the Penguin, picking up
**Chester's scattered remains.** In short, RAT had *obliterated* Chester in one fell swoop.
- Then there's the Night 5 minigame, where you play as Candy, exploring the restaurant after hours. As you make your way to the night guard's office, you notice that the building is on lockdown by police officers. Ignoring it, you press on and enter the night guard's office... where you find
At this point, the ambient, melancholic Background Music turns into evil laughter, and you follow it to the room where RAT is stored... **the bleeding corpse of the night guard.** *which is open.* You try to enter it, but RAT slams the door shut and police officers burst in, taking Candy down.
- As the third game reveals, what RAT did all along was kill the night guard and frame Candy for it, resulting in the restaurant closing down, which all
*appears* to be For the Evulz.
- The music that plays during the minigames is actually distorted music from Tom and Jerry. It doesn't stop it from being rather creepy, especially during the Night 5 minigame.
- Speaking of that music, the music on the Extras menu is rather upbeat and cheerful, until you reach RAT and CAT, at which point it becomes distorted and somber music that emphasizes not only how terrifying they are, but the fact that they are very out of place, compared to the colorful and child-loving Candy characters. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FiveNightsAtCandys2 |
Fire Force / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
A series where anyone could turn into a flame monster at random, created by the writer of
*Soul Eater*. Horror is to be expected.
- The entire premise: Humanity suffers from the phenomena known as Spontaneous Human Combustion: you, a loved one, or a relative could, at any time, suddenly turn into an Infernal, a horrifying flaming monster that destroys everything in its path, has no control over itself and
*constantly* feels the pain of burning to death. There's no way to prevent or undo it. The only thing that can be done for you is to be put down by the Special Fire Force. The worse part of it? **It's completely random.** Anyone could transform, and there's no telling when it will happen.
- What makes this even more horrible is how fear-inducing and heartbreaking it is to the loved ones of the victims. A girl's mother turned into an infernal years ago, and then her father. By the end of it, she's left belting that she'll be next.
- Then there's the theological dread the phenomenon brings for believers of the church, as one case of Spontaneous Human Combustion happened to a monastery and its nuns, including a school-class worth of
*children*, despite them dedicating every single breath of their life to their God's teachings and ways. The idea that not even *God* can protect its followers from being reduced into walking burning corpses, would be enough to make anyone lose their faith in the depths of despair.
- To make it worse, there are those who, through sheer force of will or desire to live, manage to survive the transformation with their humanity intact, which means theyre still sane enough to care about burning alive forever and all the unimaginable pain that implies. While on the flip side, if either through either insane willpower or other methods they are able to overcome or desensitize themselves to the pain, they can possess a body that never ages, and with it all the perks that come with Playing with Fire, it also means that anybody thoroughly wicked enough that also manages to mentally survive the change can also possess such things and use them to further their sinister agenda, like Setsuo Miyamoto for example.
- Even worse if they become a Demon Infernal. A Demon Infernal is stronger and tougher than the average Infernal, may even have their own Ignition Ability, and nothing short of enough firepower to level a city is enough to take them down. Even if they die, they'll explode with the force of a tactical missile and even veteran Fire Soldiers have trouble taking these things down.
- The even worst part about it is that the only way for an Infernal to truly die is though a prayer from a priest or sister. During the China mission they encounter
*an entire wasteland full of Internals* that they believe originated from the time of The Great Cataclysmic *over 250 years ago* and later encounter ones that kept their sanity and intelligence, all of whom just want to die. *Even the Demon Infernal* who is insane enough to the point of wanting to destroy the world because it's at the point only that will finally destroy it.
- Takehisa Hinawa's perpetual Death Glare. His eyes
*never* close.
- Shinra makes some of the scariest faces in New Gen Anime. When he gets nervous or scared, he often flashes out a Slasher Smile, which is aided by his Red eyes, which often glows. A few of his grins such as when he gets nervous around Maki in the first episode aren't too bad. However, faces such as when he saw his deformed skeleton with
*'RIBCAGES IN HIS LEG*, when he is fighting Rekka, or when he first thought his mother died makes you ponder if he is a hero or a devil in diguise.
- Captain Hibana's Sanity Slippage in her youth after her Despair Event Horizon is both tragic and disturbing. After watching all her loved ones burn to death, her mind snaps into becoming a nihilistic Social Darwinist complete with various Slasher Smile displays to show she's lost her mind.
- The Adolla goes from a MacGuffin to screeching this. It starts when Shinra looks down and sees
*ribcages inside his skeleton's leg*. Yes, he sees his own skeleton and it is deformed to contain the Adolla Burst. And it goes From Bad to Worse after that.
- The anime adds a particular noise of an
*extremely* harsh horn sound out of nowhere to when an Adolla Link occurs, leading to a Jump Scare when he suddenly gets one right before Vulcan's workshop gets attacked by Giovanni.
- The Endgame of the White Clad and the Evangelist: Find and Collect the Pillars (Pyrokinetics with the Adolla Burst) and use them to kick start another cataclysm that destroyed much of the world centuries ago which will turn the Earth into a giant star/sun, essentially killing off humanity. They're a powerful and influential cult of Omnicidal Maniac pyromaniacs who are willing to eventually kill themselves just to burn everything!
- Chapter 77 takes this up to eleven with a mass of horrific images and visions. Shinra spans back to reality, but somehow the aftereffect of this scene is
*even worse.*
- Shinra getting mindraped by the First Pillar after his fight with his brother is a terrible sight. The Pillar uses her own hatred for everything and fuels Shinra's own internal anguish over finding out his mother is the Infernal he's been swearing revenge against since childhood and kidnapped his brother and his own frustrations over being a feared and hated outcast. The end result is an incredibly disturbing Shinra with a Nightmare Face and constantly babbling about how he wants to burn everyone in the world to ashes.
- Episode 31 of the anime adds some nightmare fuel. Shinra and Ogun are under a night sky when they see lights filling the plains. Ogun mentions how beautiful it looks and while it takes a moment Shinra realizes all the lights are infernals. They both then quickly realize any where there is not safety is potentially covered in infernals for miles/kilometers. That means there are literally millions possibly billions of infernals wandering the wastelands and they will never die unless some one takes the time to kill them.
-
**Kurono Yūichirō**. Basically take a guy who is as strong as the World's Strongest Man in the series and make him an utter Sadist and The Bully who gets off entirely on brutalizing the weakest person in the room. He especially loves to harm defenseless woman and children and no one in the series has been able to fight him off seriously. It's unsettling that he's the one entrusted to care for Nataku despite his abuse towards the boy.
- The Joint Investigation arc is probably one of the darkest arcs of the series. Involving a mission of investigation in the Nether where Company 8 allies with the militaries of Company 2, both companies find themselves fighting Ritsu and her Knights of the Purple Smoke in the underground of the empire, leading to a surprisingly morbid arc.
- While not as bad as the following stuff that happens later, the White Clad member that targets Takigi and his partner at the beginning of the arc by detonating themselves with a suicide bomb counts. Its a sign that the White Clad are becoming more and more radical with each step of their plan, and brings some uncomfortable parallelisms with the actual zealot terrorists of the real life.
- After seeing a preview of her powers in the previous arc, we get to see the effects of Ritsu's Necro Pyro in a less spectacular but more terrifying way compared to the Infernal Giant of Haijima. Using her ability to raise the dead, Ritsu unleashes her horde of undead Infernals against to poor Red Shirts of Company 2, who end being killed in many gruesome ways. It even comes with the reveal that Ritsu's cannot only zombify Infernals, but also normal humans (and that includes the ones her undead minions don't directly kill, as seen with Hajiki), increasing her army of zombies with every kill she gets. Though this is a bit lessened with the Black Comedy of the poor Company 2 members having the typical flashback that appears before a character gets killed in fiction that goes along with the scene, it doesn't makes it any less horrible.
- Hajiki's sudden death at the hands of Orochi. After establishing himself as a certified badass, Hajiki is quickly killed by partial decapitation after a single hit from Orochi, with the audience having a lovely shot of the upper half of his head being separated from the rest of his body and dropped into the floor. While the anime censors this scene a bit, we can see clearly how the upper half of the head falls and leaves a big puddle of blood. The reactions of sheer terror of Tamaki and Juggernaut dont help.
- Orochis demise is not any better. After being cornered by Juggernaut and failing to stop his final attack, she gets crushed by the huge bomb of fire he generates (with the impact being so huge we get to see a shot of Orochis right eye popping out of the sheer pressure) before the bomb detonates and completely disintegrates her. Goes to show Juggernauts huge destructive capacity, and will make you glad a person as shy and fearful as him got such power instead of someone more depraved.
- This arc marks the return of Dr. Giovanni after his absence from the first Nether arc. However, this time, he has modified himself in such way he has gained many body parts from the Infernal Bugs the agents from the Evangelist use to turn people into Infernals, abandoning more of his humanity in the process. You thought cyborg Giovanni was unsettling? Wait until you see Giovanni sprouting giant insectoid legs, stings, wings and appendages. Even worse, his body is modified in such way he can survive being cut in half, and again escapes by gaining some insectoid legs and vanishing into the depths of the Nether while Arthur and Shinra deal with some flies he summoned (from his own body, no less).
- The cover of chapter 166 offers a look of what Giovanni may look like without his clothes. Lets say it looks very off...
- Ritsus ultimate plan during the arc. Using all the corpses she gathered from both the Nether and Company 2, she intends to make them explode in strategic points of the Nether to obliterate the foundations of the Tokyo Empire (situated in the underground that is the Nether), a process that would effectively destroy the empire as a whole and doom the entirety of humankind, and she comes very close to fulfill her plan before being thwarted by Maki and Takigi. Gets to show how far the White Clad is willing to go in order to achieve their goal.
- The truth behind what causes Spontaneous Human Combustion puts the story squarely in a Cosmic Horror Story. Turns out Spontaneous Human Combustion is caused by the existence of a Doppelgänger, a version of oneself that exists in Adolla (basically Hell). For every person in the world, a doppelgänger exists and combustion starts when a Doppelgänger randomly intruded the mortal realm and merges with their counterpart. Doppelgängers are tied to the collective unconscious of mankind, and as such will always exist and by extension, so will Spontaneous Human Combustion!
- We also get a glimpse of Adolla, which is an Eldritch Location of black flames, building structures that look almost skeletal, and various moons
*with realistic-looking eyes on them.* Absolutely nothing about this place is natural, and the fact that it basically exists as a manifestation of the human conscious potentially says a lot about the series' take on humanity.
- It's revealed in chapter 200 that the church where Sister Iris and Hibana grew up together with was a facility for Sister Sumire, their caregiver and adopted mother later revealed to be a loyal Pillar and follower of the White Clad, to conduct a Doppelganger experiment by
*feeding the children with Adolla bugs mixed with vegetables* to turn them into pyrokinetics. Disgusting and disturbing at the same time.
- For a multitude of reasons caused by an Adolla Link between himself and Inca, Shinra decides to go with her idea of seeing if they can look at the past. What he sees nearly drives him to madness again when he sees our current time as both completely normal, and yet so underlyingly
*twisted*, as if humanity had effectively wished for a collective death or something and he could comprehend it solely by looking at it. All the while, visuals that look damn-well traced in a disturbing Art Shift to realism makes the past seem downright alien.
- If that weren't bad enough, at the end of this chapter we find out Shinra accidentally let his doppelgänger take over his body for
**three months** despite his Mental Time Travel only feeling like mere minutes, during which he effectively became what the public thought he was: an asshole delinquent criminal with tattoos and dyed hair and absolutely no respect for anyone. Hell, his doppelgänger *struck Iris*, a moment even Shinra immediately considered a Moral Event Horizon for his alternate self.
- What's a better way to demonstrate that all hell is breaking loose and the world is shifting rapidly towards the End of the World as We Know It? Humanity's perceptions causing the entire moon to change -
**into the moon from **. And not as a quick aside gag either, several characters are horrified by its mere appearance while others try to shrug it off. It's entirely ambiguous if this is just a reference or somehow something far worse tied to the series. As it turns out, the oncoming cataclysm is quite literally distorting physics as we know it, turning the cognizant human perception into reality and causing all chaos to ensue. *Soul Eater*
- Giovanni's revelation in chapter 246: the sun that the Earth orbits?
*That was a planet before*, implied to be another Earth or at least something that precluded the current one. The completely FUBAR world as humanity knows it is a result of a failed attempt at repeating the catastrophe that turned a planet into a sun and the White Clad want to finish the job. The villains don't just intend to destroy humanity in a blaze of fire, *they want to incinerate the entire planet until it becomes a second sun.*
- We also have the implication that however Giovanni's ancestors figured it out, they knowingly trapped a presumably-innocent girl inside Amaterasu, the blonde that Iris would become the Doppelgänger of, solely to use her as a battery source in their research towards the second cataclysm, begging for someone to release her. Judging by her insanity in the present day, the experience has been less than pleasant to say the least. Giovanni's body turning out to be comprised of nothing but the infernal-causing bugs is just icing on the cake.
- Giovanni's depravity knows no bounds when he turns Yu into an infernal to fuck with Vulcan, and then just as it seems like everything's getting better as Vulcan and Lisa manage to get one up on Giovanni and destroy his bug body - only for Giovanni to have swapped to taking control over Yu. Vulcan had already squashed Giovanni's body in contempt, and
**didn't realize that was Yu begging for help from it.**
- Chapter 252 finally shows us the true nature of Amaterasu when a giant eye appears. It serves as a giant magnifying glass, and we all know what happens when sunlight is used on a magnifying glass. The second Great Cataclysm has begun.
- Chapter 255 is just. Plain. WEIRD. The first half deals with the Fire Force figuring out that the source that fuels the firestorm is despair and they have to literally use hope to put it out. The second half is a pure mindfuck. It shows live action panels of Sumire Sugita, who goes on a rant on how the Evangelist chose Japan to begin the Great Cataclysm two-hundred and fifty years ago. How the world slowly lost all hope and gave into despair. How humans worship social media like a religion and that is the reason why the despair only continued to grow until it all burst. The smile she makes at the end is just so creepy!
- Chapter 290 sees the start of the Great Cataclysm after Shinra falls to despair. How? When Captain Obi's doppelgänger sneaks up behind the real Obi and slits his throat.
- Chapters 291 and 292 sees the second Great Cataclysm. The world has completely burned up and become a sun. All the characters you loved so much? Burnt to a crisp. Only Shinra, Arthur and Sho are the only ones left to stop Haumea and the Evangelist. And just when it couldn't get any worse, Shinra and Sho's mother appears and it turns out she's the doppelgänger of the Evangelist. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FireForce |
Firefight / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
The implications of this quote:
Growing up in the understreets of Newcago taught you a few things. The first was to jump the moment you thought someone was sneaking up on you. If you were lucky, it was just a mugger. If you were unlucky, you were dead. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/Firefight |
Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
# As this is a Nightmare Fuel page, all
*spoilers* will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Be afraid.
**BE. VERY. AFRAID.** At long last, after eight years in development, the long awaited live action film adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy's HAS FINALLY ARRIVED. And it delivers all the Jump Scares and more regarding the tragic tale of Freddy's and the horrors the protagonists face from the Hostile Animatronics and the presence of a certain serial killer (played by none other than Stu Macher himself, Matthew Lillard) who always comes back...
- The first official photo revealed about the movie is this. The teaser showcases the back of Golden Freddy/Fredbear (with his Five Nights at Freddy's 2 design mixed in with the live action design of the film) standing outside the establishment where the film takes place holding a young child's hand. Just what is going on in this the context of this photo?◊ And who is the child shown in the image?
**ABBY**, Mike's younger sister.
- Just like the original game, the animatronics are deep in the Uncanny Valley. The jerky, unnatural movements, and human like teeth just add to to the creepiness. Children found them endearing. Adults were creeped out by them.
- The shot of the star of the show himself, Freddy Fazbear staring deep into your soul from the Show Stage with bright red eyes. This applies to the theatrical poster with all four animatronic mascots having bright red eyes.
- The very first shot of the teaser is a VHS tape showcasing Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. The VHS footage is of low quality and the three main animatronics look quite creepy in the shown VHS footage.
- According to the sources, the animatronics shown in the trailer are
**REAL**. No, we did NOT stutter. They are *REAL. LIFE. ANIMATRONICS.* They're not well-crafted CGI, nor just people in costumes. They're *genuine, authentic, close-to-source material, Uncanny Valley filled animatronics* courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
- Turns out that Mike can't afford money for a babysitter, so he's forced to bring his younger sister, Abby, into the establishment at night on his work shift. You'd think that the animatronics wouldn't target children since they're built to entertain children, right? Not this time, the animatronics are after them both.
- When Mike Schmidt is looking around the establishment, there's a blink and you'll miss it moment of Freddy Fazbear standing right behind him.
- The sequence where Mike is trapped in shackles and ends up coming face to face with deadly saw blades that lower from the face of a Freddy Fazbear mask. It eerily looks like a trap straight out of John Kramer's imagination.
- The silhouette of Foxy the Pirate Fox preparing to run out of Pirate Cove and attack Mike before another shot shows him moving out the cove from a low perspective.
- The distorted hellish laughter from a group of children overlapped with the shots of a screaming employee played is rather chilling.
- There's a sequence in the trailer where Mike is in a forest during the day, and he sees five distinct kids glaring at him before running off into the forest with Mike shown sprawled onto the ground; Newcomers to the series might be confused by this, but for anyone who knows the backstory of the series, they know EXACTLY who those kids are... the five missing children whose souls now haunt the five animatronics.
- Abby seems to feel safe in the ball pit, only to end up being cornered by Foxy coldly staring at her from above the ball pit.
- A shot in the new trailer features a child's hand bursting out of Freddy's mouth.
- The appearance of William Afton, aka the Purple Guy, staring at the camera in a creepy manner. Newcomers to the series might not know who he is and his significance to the series at first, but long-time fans definitely know who he is. After all, he always comes back... | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FiveNightsAtFreddys2023 |
Fire Emblem Gaiden / Nightmare Fuel - TV Tropes
This is just a taste of the unholy power that the Duma Faithful can offer.
Fire Emblem has long had its fair share of nightmare-inducing imagery. Fire Emblem Gaiden may have some of the worst of it, and Shadows of Valentia's production values make it even worse.
Unmarked spoilers below!
All of the death quotes are fully voiced now. On the results screen, other characters will also vocally mourn their fallen ally. The delivery of the lines really hammers home how tragic death can be.
Faye can be seen as a sort of Shell-Shocked Veteran, and she's also a heartbroken soldier. She starts out as a fairly jovial, normal girl in Ram Village with an unrequited crush on Alm, who still pines for Celica. When Faye joins Alm's group and has a Support conversation with Alm, her behaviour is rather unhinged. Faye is nonchalant about her willingness to kill people for Alm's sake, which disturbs him. He's concerned about the toll the war is taking on her. Faye then confesses how she feels and Alm turns her down. She's unhappy about it, and then asks if she can still keep her feelings for him, but he's too dense to notice problems with that to say no. Faye's ending does confirm that she gets married to someone, but also confirms that she still has feelings for Alm and vanishes for days at a time, worrying her family.
Even the game mechanics show Faye's mental instability. As the Support between her and Alm increases, Faye gets higher Hit and Crit rates but her Dodge rate drops. This Support is the only one that does this, and the implication is that when Alm is nearby, Faye goes into a berserker-like rampage without any regard for her own life.
Berkut, the heir apparent to the Rigelian throne, is another character who is not mentally sound in the slightest. He so desperately desires to prove his worth and his strength any and every second he's on screen. He has an utter hatred for Alm and the Deliverance, and after suffering a defeat at the border, he decides to break a mirror filled with dark magic given to him by Nuibaba, which summons a horde of Terrors from the ground (which provides the page image) that try to drag everyone, both Alm's side and Berkut's side, straight down to hell. Even Berkut himself is disgusted, calling the power hideous.
Fernand: Who are you? What have you done to Lady Rinea?
Fernand himself is equal parts Nightmare Fuel and Tear Jerker. His entire family was killed in a peasant uprising, including his very young stepsiblings who he clearly adored. He's another character who's likely dealing with some kind of PTSD or some other disorder. While it's not to Berkut's level, thank God, it's still quite jarring to see him go from relatively pleasant in the earlier Rise of the Deliverance DLC to progressively snappier by the time of the main game.
Duma and his followers. Duma's design is that of a dragon zombie with a big, glowing red eye. His most devout followers are also very unnerving, with unnatural blue or purple skin and eyes that are either a blank white or have black sclera and white irises/pupils.
Jedah, the most devoted of his followers, not only sacrificed his daughters to gain power from this god, but he also was willing to steal the soul of Celica by suggesting he would be able to "save" Mila from being sealed away. Also, anyone who breaks the curse explaining his weakness suddenly disappears, likely being killed by Jedah...
In the manga, we are given an artistic interpretation◊ of Duma's sprite, turning the almost melting appearance of Duma in Gaiden into an insectoid monstrosity.
Duma's tower is also rather unsettling due to the structure and the two music tracks playing in this dungeon.
When certain Duma Faithful get some pre-battle banter, a haunting melody plays that hammers home how wrong Jedah turned a once-proud religion led by the benevolent Halcyon.
Shortly after this, we get the scene foreshadowed since the very beginning of the game, except this time we get a close-up view of Celica impaled through the chest on Falchion. And the camera lingers on it for a while.
The soulless Celica in general. Imagine seeing your beloved walk up to you, then suddenly pulling out a sword and attacking you in a bloodthirsty murderous rage. Her expressions during the fight don't help either.
Even worse, Celica became this way when Jedah had offered her soul to Duma. In other words, he fed her soul to Duma! Her goddamnsoul, gone! It's never explained how, or if, her soul was restored when her mind was freed by Mila. She appears sane, and sure doesn't act like a soulless shell, but her soul was definitely gone, at least for a time! It's horrible to think what that might mean post-story.
The dungeons. The atmosphere in the dungeons is actually quite eerie, thanks to the monsters that lurk within, their often maze-like nature, and how the only sources of light would be Alm's lantern or Celica's fire and the occasional torch or lamp. Often times the player will be traversing around in the dungeons, only to have an enemy suddenly pop up nearby. If the enemies are human (or appear to be), they'll shout at the player. Generally however, the enemies are usually horrific monsters, who would treat the player to a hellish roar. The music doesn't help matters much either, often being very discomforting ambience.
The Sylvan Shrine in particular appears to have been an actual, literal dungeon, and has corpses stuffed in bags and strewn about the floor or hanging from the ceiling. When you return here for one of the Forest Village's sidequests to search for a man held captive here, you find a message that's heavily implied to be written in his own blood.
Not helping is how the music suddenly changes to a very tense theme when there's an enemy nearby. It's even worse if you're in an area like the Sylvan Shrine or Duma's Tower, where, depending on where you're standing and the camera angle, you might have trouble seeing the enemy. And yet that theme keeps playing anyway.
The Thabes Labyrinth is a massive, ten floor dungeon that shows up in the postgame. The environment grows colder, lonelier, scarier, and tenser the further down you go, down to a music change halfway through, the dungeon appearing darker, and more monsters showing up, as well as some very creepy enemies donning masks.
In the dungeon, the player can read some stone slabs that tell the story of the alchemist Forneus and his descent into madness. He had two desires, one was to control the dead to create an army, and the other was to create a singular, perfect being. He created a monster, and this monster would eventually go on to bring the world to its knees. Said monster in question is none other than Grima itself, the massive world destroying monster in Awakening. At one point, it is mentioned that Forneus gave the monster his own blood, and it grew. Forneus is a human, and now this explains why Grima has a horrifying human face underneath its dragon skull.
Even worse, the tablet that says Forneus gave Grima some of his own blood cuts off suddenly at the end, implying that Grima killed Forneus then (or at the very least attacked him). And it also gave the two of them a mind link, and Forneus himself seems horrified at just how dark and violent Grima's thoughts are.
Worse yet is the fate of the soldiers that were sent to investigate Forneus' lab and never returned. Forneus' diary tablets describe this as "being sent everything he needed for his experiments". There's an alarmingly possible implication that whatever victims weren't used for Thanatophage testing went towards constructing Grima's body. It may well have been more human than dragon in its early stages.
The Thanatophages. They're insects that Forneus used to control the dead, by setting down roots in a corpse and assuming control. The fact that a corpse can be brought back to life, controlled by an insect of all things is grounds for Paranoia Fuel. Said living dead would then go on to become the Risen in Awakening. All dungeon foes lunge at the player with a battle cry, but there's something especially disturbing about that shouting coming from an undead villageran unwitting victim of a madmanwearing a hideous death mask whose clothes otherwise resemble Faye's.
On the ninth floor of the labyrinth, there is a breakable wall. Hiding behind it is a fire dragon, which is sure to surprise any unsuspecting player who dared venture that far. It guards some pretty good rewards though, like a Speed and Res fountain, as well as a chance to find Gold Marks nearby.
While there are fire dragons at other points in the dungeon, breaking down the wall and then seeing the last fire dragon roaring at you can be quite the Jump Scare.
Near the end of Celica's part of Act III, we get a cutscene of Rudolf arriving at Mila's temple to imprison her. She initially remains calm, but when she notices that Rudolf brought the Falchion with him, she completely snaps. In a space of few seconds, her irises suddenly shrink, she gives a brief Slasher Smile before switching to an expression of pure rage, and unleashes a wave of power that knocks out everyone in the room save for Rudolf - including her own disciples - before trying to blast him with an enormous sphere of energy. Given her descriptions portrayed her as a peaceful and benevolent goddess, this might be quite shocking - and it shows that Mila and Duma really are not so different in the depths of their madness.
Mila: It means, you are in violation of the Accord!DAMN YOU, DUMAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
The Rise of the Deliverance DLC reveals that Lukas is quite a damn good actor and liar. Not only did he plan ahead for Slayde's plan, but he also asked Python and Forsyth to round up as many Rigelians as they could to hold them hostage. He then bargains with Slayde to let the Deliverance safely escape from Zofia Castle, and should Slayde not comply, Lukas threatens to behead every hostage. While Lukas never meant to kill them, he sold it incredibly well, even shocking Slayde. Clive was reluctant in giving his approval, while Fernand makes it absolutely clear that he is not okay with this. This bold move proves that Lukas is not someone to be trifled with, especially with how cold and calculating he can be.
The Lords of the Grave DLC is about an army of warriors who had fallen in a war, and their coffins were violated and destroyed. They return from the dead to enact vengeance upon the living. They are called Tomb Lords, possess high stats, some in particular having HP so high that it doesn't even show properly, and they're also quite ghastly to behold◊.
Not helping is the fact that they're implied to have been normal humans at one point, and yet somehow they've turned into these... creepy giant things. And even worse, they spawn continuously, and get stronger and stronger, easily overwhelming the player even if they have a high-level party.
At the end of Act 4, Jedah teleports Celica's army away when she meets with him at Duma Tower. Jedah assures her that they've just been teleported to the first floor when, in reality, they've been sent into the depths of Duma Temple and are fighting hordes of Terrors. In a way, it's probably better off that Celica didn't know; watching Alm suffer by unknowingly killing his father in an act of patricide was enough to make her agree to offer her soul, but if she knew everyone else she cared about was actually in danger, she would have probably traded it on the spot. You can only imagine what would have happened then.
Before this happens, once you reach the top of Duma Tower, where Jedah is, try moving back into the dungeon. YOU CAN'T. All agency at this point, sans your ability to save your progress, has been stripped from you, and talking to Jedah is your only option. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/FireEmblemGaiden |
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