History NightmareFuel / JamesAndTheGiantPeach

*** You don't even have to interpret it as a monster for it to be scary. It may very well have been a storm with winds strong enough to swallow two adults and orphan their child, which isn't even a concept of fantasy.

* Miss Spider tells a story of how her mother once got stuck in paint after Spiker and Sponge gave the bathroom a fresh coat. She and her family cared for her until one day Sponge saw Miss Spider's mother and ran to get a mop with a long handle. Miss Spider doesn't finish the story as she starts to cry, but we all know what happened next.

** Right when James and Miss Spider dive underwater to rescue the Centipede, they encounter another sunken ship on their way down, with a frightening depiction of ''James' aunts'' on the bow of the boat (in the place of the traditional mermaid). It's not only excessively creepy but it's given ''no'' explanation whatsoever ( and it's never brought up again. It ''could'' be taken as a Foreshadowing of his aunts following James across the Atlantic, but first-time viewers wouldn't know that.

** In the film, the Old Man is ''heavily'' toned down; even if a bit of the creepiness remains, he's a lot gentler and is explicitly shown to be benevolent (especially when he reappears, in silhouette towards the end to tell the New Yorkers to "let the boy speak!"), and is revealed to have been the narrator of the story all along. This does not happen in the book (though one set of illustrations has him hidden in the bushes at the end, looking over James' new house.)

** In the film, the Old Man is ''heavily'' toned down; even if a bit of the creepiness remains, he's a lot gentler and is explicitly shown to be benevolent (especially when he reappears, in silhouette towards the end to tell the New Yorkers to "let the boy speak!"), and is revealed to have been the narrator of the story all along. This does not happen in the book.

** The Nightmare Fuel might be lessened when you realize two of the pirates are played by Jack Skellington and Donald Duck.

* The premise of the book is NightmareFuel. Sure, James's insect pals look sweet and cute in the illustrations, but would you like to come face to face with a human sized [[http://gaygamer.net/images/centipedes_millipedes_and_cata/centipede.jpg centipede]] or spider in real life? They're actually ''less'' anthropomorphized than, let's say, Disney's Jiminy Cricket who is essentially a little green-skinned man with no ears.
** The premise of the book and the movie has a big one for any parents: Mr. and Mrs. Trotter's sudden deaths after being attacked by a rhinoceros that escaped the London Zoo leave James all alone in the world except for his aunts whom he's presumably never met and who subject him to physical and emotional abuse. The idea of not being able to protect your child from such cruelty might make more than a few parents consider who would raise their children if they were to suddenly die.
* James is a young child who quite suddenly loses his mother and father and is taken away from the only home he has ever know. If that isn't pure childhood nightmare fuel, nothing is.

* The Cloud Men after the Centipede mocks them. First, they throw their trash at the peach, then they make it hail, then the Centipede gets stuck in place after one Cloud Man dumps quick-drying purple paint all over him. The good news? It's not water-proof.

** The book at least explained the rhino as one that had escaped from the London Zoo, but in the film adaptation it's portrayed as some sort of ghastly, nightmarish EldritchAbomination that tragically killed James' parents ''and'' remains his greatest fear. And this actually ends up being one of the reasons why it's so scary -- [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere the rhino's origin is left unexplained]], to the point that it could be ''[[NothingIsScarier anything]]'' your twisted mind can make up.

** Right when James and Miss Spider dive underwater to rescue the Centipede, they encounter another sunken ship on their way down, with a frightening depiction of ''James' aunts'' on the bow of the boat (in the place of the traditional mermaid). It's not only excessively creepy, but it's given ''no'' explanation whatsoever ( and it's never brought up again. It ''could'' be taken as a Foreshadowing of his aunts following James across the Atlantic, but first-time viewers wouldn't know that.

* The Old Man is ''extremely'' creepy in the book. His first spoken line is: "Come closer to me, little boy. Come right up close to me and I will show you something ''wonderful''." Throughout his meeting with James, he acts rather unhinged and slightly sinister, and it's impossible to guess his real motives for giving James the crocodile tongues -- when James loses the bag so the magic works on the peach tree and the bugs instead of on him, there's the sneaking suspicion that he may have escaped a fate more horrible than anything Sponge and Spiker could have done to him. Its only later that his intentions become clear-- considering what the crocodiles' tongues did to both the tree and the insects -- it is implied that the magic potion would transform James into a giant which would obviously enable him to escape from his monstrous aunts.

* The Old Man is ''extremely'' creepy in the book. His first spoken line is: "Come closer to me, little boy. Come right up close to me and I will show you something ''wonderful''." Throughout his meeting with James, he acts rather unhinged and slightly sinister, and it's impossible to guess his real motives for giving James the crocodile tongues -- when James loses the bag so the magic works on the peach tree and the bugs instead of on him, there's the sneaking suspicion that he may have escaped a fate more horrible than anything Sponge and Spiker could have done to him.

** Even in the book -- considering what the crocodiles' tongues did to both the tree and the insects -- it is implied that the magic potion would transform James into a giant which would obviously enable him to escape from his monstrous aunts.

** Even when the rhino isn't on screen, there's always a ''horrible'' [[The dreaded feeling of dread that's built up around it]]; outside of flat-out abusing him, James's aunts torment him by promising that the rhino might come back to get him like it got his parents.

** The book at least explained the rhino as one that had escaped from the London Zoo, but in the film adaptation it's portrayed as some sort of ghastly, nightmarish EldritchAbomination that tragically killed James' parents ''and'' remains his greatest fear. And this actually ends up being one of the reasons why it's so scary -- [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere the rhino's origin is left unexplained]], to the point that it could be ''[[NothingIsScarier anything]]'' that your twisted mind can make up.

** Even when the rhino isn't on screen, there's always a ''horrible'' feeling of dread that's built up around it; outside of flat-out abusing him, James' aunts torment him by promising that the rhino might come back to get him like it got his parents.

* One of the more unsettling sequences in the film is James's [[NightmareSequence nightmare]]. He dreams that he's a caterpillar, peacefully biting a peach growing from a branch. [[MoodWhiplash But suddenly the music goes from whimsical to ominous]] as James's aunts appear in their car, launching a pesticide cloud at him. Said cloud eventually manifests itself as the rhino, which then pursues a frightened James. The dream ends with the rhino cornering him underneath a bridge, and just as [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou it rushes into the camera for the kill]]... James awakes in the nick of time. The whole thing is rendered in creepy cut-out animation that looks more resembles some twisted sketch from ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' or an episode from ''WesternAnimation/AngelaAnaconda''.

* The Aunts.

** Right when James and Miss Spider dive underwater to rescue the Centipede, they encounter another sunken ship on their way down, with a frightening depiction of ''James' aunts'' on the bow of the boat (in the place of the traditional mermaid). It's not only excessively creepy, but it's given ''no'' explanation whatsoever and -- worst of all -- [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment it's never brought up again]].

* The Old Man is ''extremely'' creepy in the book. His first spoken line is: "Come closer to me, little boy. Come right up close to me and I will show you something ''wonderful''." Throughout his meeting with James he acts rather unhinged and slightly sinister, and it's impossible to guess his real motives for giving James the crocodile tongues -- when James loses the bag so the magic works on the peach tree and the bugs instead of on him, there's the sneaking suspicion that he may have escaped a fate more horrible than anything Sponge and Spiker could have done to him.

** Even in the book -- considering what the crocodiles tongues did to both the tree and the insects -- it is implied that the magic potion would transform James into a giant which would obviously enable him to escape from his monstrous aunts.

* The Cloud Men after the Centipede mocks them. First they throw their trash at the peach, then they make it hail, then the Centipede gets stuck in place after one Cloud Man dumps quick-drying purple paint all over him. The good news? It's not water-proof.

** The scene at the end where they show up to try and take James and the peach back to England. Besides the fact that they've caught up to him and the dream he's come so close to achieving is danger of being destroyed, during the whole scene, they're both so pale and sickly looking from being underwater for so long and makeup so badly soaked and smeared that they look like deranged clowns. You can practically ''feel'' his fear!
** [[MoralEventHorizon They actually try to]] ''[[MoralEventHorizon kill]]'' [[MoralEventHorizon James at the end!]] When he finally calls them out for all of the abuse they've inflicted upon him, the aunts take a swing at him with fire axes (complete with [[SlasherSmile slasher smiles]])! And of course, [[PoliceAreUseless all the police do is take care of crowd control and never come to James' side]], leaving him on his own to deal with his aunts' wrath.

* One of the more unsettling sequences in the film is James's [[NightmareSequence nightmare]]. He dreams that he's a caterpillar, peacefully biting a peach growing from a branch. [[MoodWhiplash But suddenly the music goes from whimsical to ominous]] as James' aunts appear in their car, launching a pesticide cloud at him. Said cloud eventually manifests itself as the rhino, which then pursues a frightened James. The dream ends with the rhino cornering him underneath a bridge, and just as [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou it rushes into the camera for the kill]]... James awakes in the nick of time. The whole thing is rendered in creepy cut-out animation that looks more resembles some twisted sketch from ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' or an episode from ''WesternAnimation/AngelaAnaconda''.

** And then of course there's the fact that the aunts mockingly chant "The rhino will get you..." in the background. It starts out as a barely audible whisper, then gets progressively louder until the end, where it sounds as though the are screaming it as the rhino manifests.

** And then of course there's the fact that the aunts mockingly chant "The rhino will get you..." in the background.

* If there's one thing that can strike terror into the hearts of young children -- just like James -- then it would be ''the rhino''.
** The book at least explained the rhino as one that had escaped from the London Zoo, but in the film adaptation it's portrayed as some sort of ghastly, nightmarish EldritchAbomination that tragically killed James' parents ''and'' remains his greatest fear. And this actually ends up being one of the reasons why it's so scary -- [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere the rhino's origin is left unexplained]], to the point that it could be ''anything'' that your twisted mind can make up.

** Even when the rhino isn't on screen, there's always a ''horrible'' feeling of dread that's built up around it; outside of flat-out abusing him, James' aunts torment him by promising that -- just like what it did to his parents -- the rhino might come out to get him, too.

*** You don't even have to interpret it as a monster for it to be scary. It may very well have been a storm with winds strong enough to swallow to adult people and orphan their child, [[DoNotTouchTheFunnelCloud which isn't even a concept of fantasy.]]