History NightmareFuel / Metallica

* Try listening to "One" and not imagining yourself [[AndIMustScream in that situation]]. Watching the video is even worse. In [[Literature/JohnnyGotHisGun the book it's based on]], the soldier doesn't want to die, but, in a CMOA and CMOH, to go on a speaking (well, signalling) tour to show the inhumanity of war.

* "Harvester Of Sorrow" is about a substance-abusing man who regularly pummels his family.

* The cover to ''Hardwired... to Self-Destruct'' is complete FacialHorror and more. [[http://ultimateclassicrock.com/files/2016/08/metallica-hardwired-self-destruct-full.jpg?w=630&h=630&zc=1&s=0&a=t&q=89 Here, have a look!]]
** [[http://www.herringandherring.com/projects/metallica-2/ The entire artwork campaign for that album]] is nightmare]]-inducing.
*** And then we have [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlF4rhAbwyc the video for "Now That We're Dead"]] where the band plays in a white room like normal; [[FacialHorror until the lights go red, the walls goes black and the artwork takes over them...]]

** The [=S&M=] versions up the ante of this already horrifying song further with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra's chillingly dark symphonies. If that wasn't enough, James also ends the vocals in the version from ''[=S&M2=]'' with a bone-chilling desperate scream of RapidFireNo.

** The S&M version ups the ante of this already horrifying song further with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra's chillingly dark symphony. If that wasn't enough, James also ends the vocals with a bone-chilling desperate scream of RapidFireNo.

** The S&M version ups the ante of this already horrifying song further with the chillingly dark symphony accompanying them. If that wasn't enough, James also ends the vocals with a bone-chilling desperate scream of RapidFireNo.

** The S&M show ups this already horrifying song even further with the chillingly dark symphony accompanying them. If that wasn’t enough James ends the vocals with a bone chilling desperate scream of RapidFireNo

* "Call of the Ktulu." Without lyrics, it invokes sheer Cosmic Dread. If you've read your Creator/HPLovecraft, you can picture the stars lining up...and ancient doors opening...
* "The House Jack Built" is quite possibly the most harrowing song about alcoholism ever written. Hetfield wrote the song about his own battles with alcohol addiction and the slow, plodding snails pace of the song perfectly emulates the feeling of being drunk and lethargic all the time.
* "Spit Out The Bone" is a horrific insight into the ever-increasing reliance and dependence on technology. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m46Z0-HXySo The video doesn't make it much better,]] as various slips of [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TransformationHorror people transforming into robots and/or androids]] and horrifying imagery plagues the video.

* In addition to "Call of Ktulu" mentioned above, the album ''Hardwired to Self-Destruct'' contains the song "Dream No More" which details what happens when Cthulhu awakens "he wakes as the world dies screaming, all horrors arrive."
** Also has a very... [[SurrealHorror odd]] music video where footage of the band interrupted by TV static and other random images is seen through a ''moving, humanoid hole'' which [[AlienGeometries appears totally flat yet is still able to interact with its environment like a three-dimensional human]] leading to all its movements being [[UncannyValley just plain uncanny]]. At various times the footage of this entity walking through a city and engaging in everyday activities suddenly cuts to scenes of it moving its arms frantically or striking odd poses, crawling along the ground and [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou placing its "face" uncomfortably close to the camera]] or kissing ceramic mannequin faces, [[NothingIsScarier with none of this imagery being explained in any way]].

* "For Whom The Bell Tolls", based on [[{{Creator/ErnestHemingway}} Ernest Hemingway's]] [[Literature/ForWhomTheBellTolls eponymous novel]], describes in excruciating detail the scene where the anti-fascist rebels are surrounded on a hill and bombarded into oblivion by the Falangist Air Force.
* "Until It Sleeps" sounds like it is about someone suffering from PTSD or some other traumatic event, or someone who has seen an EldritchAbomination. [[SarcasmMode Better yet]], it's actually about [[TheTopicOfCancer having cancer.]]
* "Fixxxer" is about a God that playfully tortures his subjects, and the clamor of those who suffer begging him to stop, as he's the only one that can.

* "Blackened". Everything about it, from the relentless nature of the music to its terrifying lyrics about a natural disaster and the destruction of planet earth. The intro scores some points for creepiness too; as if the fact that it sounds mournful and even funerary in nature, it gets even worse when you realize ''it's a backwards recording''. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKqTPDMHeoE&feature=youtu.be un-reversed version]] is just as chilling.
* The cover to "Hardwired...To Self Destruct" is complete [[FacialHorror facial horror]] and more. [[http://ultimateclassicrock.com/files/2016/08/metallica-hardwired-self-destruct-full.jpg?w=630&h=630&zc=1&s=0&a=t&q=89 Here, have a look!]]
** [[http://www.herringandherring.com/projects/metallica-2/ The entire artwork campaign for that album]] is [[FacialHorror nightmare]] [[NightmareFace inducing]].
*** And then we have [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlF4rhAbwyc the video for their fourth single "Now That We're Dead"]] where the band plays in a white room like normal; [[FacialHorror until the lights go red, the walls goes black and the artwork takes over them...]]
* EvilLaugh: Master of Puppets.
* ''St. Anger''. In its entirety, if you think of it as a [[ConceptAlbum concept album]] about someone slowly losing their sanity until the last track, "All Within My Hands". They go completely insane after two failed suicide attempts, those being "Purify" and "The Unnamed Feeling". The effect of this is that they violently murder their loved one and then the only thing they think about....is '''KILL.''' It's genuinely disturbing.
** Just that final line of "All Within My Hands": '''''KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL!!'''''

* "All Nightmare Long" from the album ''Death Magnetic'' is about being chased by Literature/TheHoundsOfTindalos, time-traveling hunters that never give up and can emerge from any corner of any room. The video is about an AlternateUniverse where the UsefulNotes/SovietUnion takes over America by using a zombifying creature found at Tunguska to cause a ZombieApocalypse. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFqjDXy9s5A Here's the video.]]

* "The Memory Remains". You're lying if you say that the old woman ({{Music/MarianneFaithfull}}, a famous English singer and actor) singing and playing the barrel organ isn't going to keep you up at night. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnJcB2NvOYU Something like this]].
** ''Just'' Marianne Faithfull? The song's lyrics are disturbing as fuck as well, about a once-relevant pop star living on their glory years to delusional extremes, even locking themselves in a room and reminiscing unhealthily on past glories ("Hear the nowhere crowd cry nowhere tears of honour"). Faithfull's bits get even creepier when you realize it's meant to resemble said washed-up pop star singing said song. Even worse when you realize [[WordOfGod according to the band]] it's loosely based on the equally disturbing movie ''Film/SunsetBoulevard''.
* The music video for "Unforgiven II" features disturbingly nightmarish imagery. Set in a monochrome void world where a young boy grows to adulthood with his arm permanently sealed within a massive concrete wall which collapses around him as the song progresses but leaves him trapped. Highlights including the wall transforming into a giant book that sucks the young man in and snaps shut, the young man trying to get away from the wall by stretching his arm out into a long tentacle that reels him back in again, and raging fires, fountains of water and a whirling tornado emerging from the top of the shattered wall, ending with the wall transforming into a topless woman who still has the man's arm thrusting through her body. James Hetfield in particular looks absolutely ''demonic'' with his face lit from below by flickering light. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-Bn_kD6QN4 Once you see it, you'll never forget it.]]
* The video for “The Unforgiven” is also very disturbing, shot completely in black and white, depicting a boy crawling into a small space to enter a strange, dirty concrete room, where he stays for his entire life until he’s an old man. He carves a square hole into the wall where a bright light shines through in the end, seeming to overwhelm and blind him until he finally slumps over and dies. There is even one point where the old man slices his hand and smears his blood on the wall…
* "Fight Fire With Fire" can also be pretty terrifying. It's a song about a nuclear holocaust. The sound of a bomb going off at the end doesn't help.
** "Blackened" is pretty much the same thing.

--->James: “''''NO NO NO NO NO!!!''''”
* "The Thing That Should Not Be," with the unsettling chorus guitar and Kirk's lead giving the impression of a wailing beast, also fits in this category.
* "For Whom The Bell Tolls", based on [[{{Creator/ErnestHemingway}} Ernest Hemingway's]] [[Literature/ForWhomTheBellTolls eponymous novel]], describes in excruciating detail the scene where the anti-fascist rebels are surrounded on a hill and bombarded into oblivion by the Falangist Air Force.

* "Until It Sleeps" sounds like it is about someone suffering from PTSD or some other traumatic event, or someone who has seen an EldritchAbomination.
** [[SarcasmMode "Better" yet]], it's actually about [[TheTopicOfCancer having cancer.]]

* St. Anger. In its entirety, if you think of it as a [[ConceptAlbum concept album]] about someone slowly losing their sanity until the last track, "All Within My Hands". They go completely insane after two failed suicide attempts, those being "Purify" and "The Unnamed Feeling". The effect of this is that they violently murder their loved one and then the only thing they think about....is '''KILL.''' It's genuinely disturbing.

-->James: “''''NO NO NO NO NO!!!''''”

** ''Just'' Marianne Faithfull? The song's lyrics are creepy and disturbing as fuck as well, about a once-relevant pop star living on their glory years to delusional extremes, even locking themselves in a room and reminiscing unhealthily on past glories ("Hear the nowhere crowd cry nowhere tears of honour"). Faithfull's bits get even creepier when you realize it's meant to resemble said washed-up pop star singing said song. Even worse when you realize [[WordOfGod according to the band]] it's loosely based on the equally disturbing movie ''Film/SunsetBoulevard''.

** Also has a very... [[SurrealHorror odd]] music video where footage of the band interrupted by TV static and other random images is seen through a ''moving, humanoid hole'' which [[AlienGeometries appears totally flat yet is still able to interact with its environment like a three-dimensional human]] leading to all its movements being [[UncannyValley just plain uncanny]]. At various times the footage of this entity walking through a city and engaging in everyday activities suddenly cuts to scenes of it moving its arms frantically or striking odd poses, crawling along the ground and [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou placing its "face" uncomfortably close to the camera]] or kissing ceramic mannequin faces, [[NothingIsScarier with none of this imagery being explained in any way]].

* "The Memory Remains". You're lying if you say that the old woman (Music/Marianne Faithfull, a famous English singer and actor) singing and playing the barrel organ isn't going to keep you up at night. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnJcB2NvOYU Something like this]].

* "The Memory Remains". You're lying if you say that the old woman (Marianne Faithfull, a famous English singer and actor) singing and playing the barrel organ isn't going to keep you up at night. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnJcB2NvOYU Something like this]].
** ''Just'' Marianne Faithful? The song's lyrics are creepy and disturbing as fuck as well, about a once-relevant pop star living on their glory years to delusional extremes, even locking themselves in a room and reminiscing unhealthily on past glories ("Hear the nowhere crowd cry nowhere tears of honour"). Faithful's bits get even creepier when you realize it's meant to resemble said washed-up pop star singing said song. Even worse when you realize [[WordOfGod according to the band]] it's loosely based on the equally disturbing movie ''Film/SunsetBoulevard''.

* "Unforgiven II" features disturbingly nightmarish imagery. Set in a monochrome void world where a young boy grows to adulthood with his arm permanently sealed within a massive concrete wall which collapses around him as the song progresses but leaves him trapped. Highlights including the wall transforming into a giant book that sucks the young man in and snaps shut, the young man trying to get away from the wall by stretching his arm out into a long tentacle that reels him back in again, and raging fires, fountains of water and a whirling tornado emerging from the top of the shattered wall, ending with the wall transforming into a topless woman who still has the man's arm thrusting through her body. James Hetfield in particular looks absolutely ''demonic'' with his face lit from below by flickering light. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-Bn_kD6QN4 Once you see it, you'll never forget it.]]

* "Spit Out The Bone" is a horrific insight into the ever-increasing reliance and dependence on technology. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m46Z0-HXySo The video doesn't make it much better,]] as various slips of [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TransformationHorror?from=Main.TransformationTrauma people transforming into robots and/or androids]] and horrifying imagery plagues the video.

* In addition to "Call of Ktulu" mentioned above, the album ''Hardwired to Self-Destruct'' contains the song "Dream No More" which details what happens when Cthulhu awakens "he wakes as the world dies screaming, all horrors arrive."

* "Harvester Of Sorrow" is an substance-abusing man who regularly pummels his family.

* "All Nightmare Long" from the album ''Death Magnetic'' is about being chased by Literature/TheHoundsOfTindalos, time-traveling hunters that never give up and can emerge from any corner of any room. The video is about an AlternateUniverse where the UsefulNotes/SovietUnion takes over America by using a zombifying creature found at Tunguska to cause a ZombieApocalypse. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFqjDXy9s5A Here's the video.]]

* "All Nightmare Long" from the album ''Death Magnetic'' is about being chased by the Hounds of Tindalos, time-traveling hunters that never give up and can emerge from any corner of any room. The video is about an AlternateUniverse where the UsefulNotes/SovietUnion takes over America by using a zombifying creature found at Tunguska to cause a ZombieApocalypse. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFqjDXy9s5A Here's the video.]]

* "All Nightmare Long" from the album ''Death Magnetic'' is about being chased by the Hounds of Tindalos, time-traveling hunters that never give up and can emerge from any corner of any room. The video is about an AlternateUniverse where The UsefulNotes/SovietUnion takes over America by using a zombifying creature found at Tunguska to cause a ZombieApocalypse. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFqjDXy9s5A Here's the video.]]

* "Spit Out The Bone" is a horrific insight into the ever-increasing reliance and dependence on technology. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m46Z0-HXySo The video doesn't make it much better,]] as various slips of [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TransformationHorror?from=Main.TransformationTrauma people transforming into robots and/or androids]] and horrifying imagery plagues the video.

* "Spit Out The Bone" is a horrific insight into the ever-increasing reliance and dependence on technology. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m46Z0-HXySo The video doesn't make it much better,]] as various slips of [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TransformationHorror?from=Main.TransformationTrauma people transforming into robots and/or androids]] and horrifying imagery of plagues the video.

* "Spit Out The Bone" is a horrific insight into the ever-increasing reliance and dependence on technology. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m46Z0-HXySo The video doesn't make it much better,]] as various slips of TransformationHorror plagues the video.