History NightmareFuel / SuperMarioGalaxy

* Ghostly Galaxy's background isn't too pleasant, being a dark sky filled with misty streams of what look like ghostly faces, presumably meant to be souls of the dead. It also starts off with a rather creepy and quiet rendition of the underground theme, which gets used in a few other unsettling places in the game.

* Drip Drop Galaxy, having just one short mission, also has a small world filled with Torpedo Teds, [[SeaHurtchin Urchins]], two hidden [[PainfulPointyPufferfish Spiny Cheep Cheeps]] and some penguins that ask you to get rid of some aforementioned [[SlipperyasanEel Gringills]], which are scary enough. Thing is, the planet itself could be considered a bit...off in some ways. It's a place mostly abundant with water and just two pieces of land to stand on; not to mention [[https://youtu.be/b-Yv6x_DIkI the eerie mysterious music of the level per se]]. Doesn't help the fact that this track is only played in this specific level...

** The pipe interiors themselves can be rather unsettling. They're three-dimensional geometric brick structures floating in a void of endlessly shifting dark matter, with no occupants aside from the occasional enemy. This, combined with the music, can give a rather oppressive and lonely feeling to an otherwise innocent-looking area.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feoYJwnJkfM&list=PL7CFEF478E3980B62&index=14 Pipe Interior]] is a surprisingly offputting song for something as quintessentially ''Mario'' as a bonus Warp Pipe room. It's an unsettling ambient song with an ethereal but ominous choir, accompanied by deep instruments and weird "sci-fi" noises. ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'', being a generally LighterAndSofter sequel, vastly reduces the use of this song, with most pipe rooms now having a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGSPMBea79c Muzak-style remix of the main theme]]. YMMV as always, as many players find it peaceful and relaxing rather than offputting.

*** The worst part is that even if you ignore that fact, and even if anyone can get out of there (considering all the creatures from other galaxies going back and forth from one planet to another), the only thought of being in that planet in the first place, for the purpose of fishing or not, [[SeaMonster wouldn't be]] [[PrimalFear very pleasant]] [[NothingIsScarier in the first place...]]with or without somebody with you. Good thing that Mario went there and destroyed every Gringill, at least.

* Drip Drop Galaxy, having just one short mission, also has a small world filled with Torpedo Teds, [[SeaHurtchin Urchins]], two hidden [[PainfulPointyPufferfish Spiny Cheep Cheeps]] and some penguins that ask you to get rid of some aforementioned [[SlipperyasanEel Gringills]], which are scary enough. Thing is, the planet itself could be considered a bit...off in some ways. It's a place mostly abundant with water and just two pieces of land to stand on; not to mention [[https://youtu.be/b-Yv6x_DIkI the eerie mysterious music of the level per se.]]
** What's more is the fact that the place itself is called [[IDontLiketheSoundofThatPlace Tear Drop Planet]], which it [[FridgeBrilliance could be a reference to]] [[MeaningfulName its similarity to a tear drop]] because of all the water. However, [[FridgeHorror if you watch carefully]], you can also spot a sunken airship and Starshroom and a volcanic vent on the sandy core underwater, and you find that the strange background music isn't just for decoration, and we're talking about a little planet with a short simple Hungry Luma level!!! Just...what happened in this place?

*** The worst part is that even if you ignore that fact, and even if anyone can get out of there (considering all the creatures from other galaxies going back and forth from one planet to another), the only thought of being in that planet in the first place, for the purpose of fishing or not, [[SeaMonster wouldn't be]] [[PrimalFear very pleasant]] [[NothingIsScarier in the first place...]]with or without somebody with you.

** What's more is the fact that the place itself is called [[IDon'tLiketheSoundofThatPlace Tear Drop Planet]], which it [[FridgeBrilliance could be a reference to]] [[MeaningfulName its similarity to a tear drop]] because of all the water. However, [[FridgeHorror if you watch carefully]], you can also spot a sunken airship and Starshroom and a volcanic vent on the sandy core underwater, and you find that the strange background music isn't just for decoration, and we're talking about a little planet with a short simple Hungry Luma level!!! Just...what happened in this place?

* Drip Drop Galaxy, having just one short level, is also a small world filled with Torpedo Teds, [[SeaHurtchin Urchins]], two hidden [[PainfulPointyPufferfish Spiny Cheep Cheeps]] and some penguins that ask you to get rid of some aforementioned [[SlipperyasanEel Gringills]], which are scary enough. Thing is, the galaxy itself could be considered a bit...off in some ways. It's a place mostly abundant with water and just two pieces of land to stand on; not to mention [[https://youtu.be/b-Yv6x_DIkI the eerie mysterious music of the level per se.]]

* Drip Drop Galaxy, having just one short level, is also a small world filled with Torpedo Teds, [[SeaHurtchin Urchins]] and some penguins that ask you to get rid of some aforementioned [[SlipperyasanEel Gringills]], which are scary enough. Thing is, the galaxy itself could be considered a bit...off in some ways. It's a place mostly abundant with water and just two pieces of land to stand on; not to mention [[https://youtu.be/b-Yv6x_DIkI the eerie mysterious music of the level per se.]]

* Drip Drop Galaxy, having just one short level, is also a small world filled with Torpedo Teds, [[SeaHurtchin Urchins]] and some penguins that ask you to get rid of some aforementioned Gringills, which are scary enough. Thing is, the galaxy itself could be considered a bit...off in some ways. It's a place mostly abundant with water and just two pieces of land to stand on; not to mention [[https://youtu.be/b-Yv6x_DIkI the eerie mysterious music of the level per se.]]

* Drip Drop Galaxy, having just one short level, is also a small world filled with Torpedo Teds, Urchins and some penguins that ask you to get rid of some aforementioned Gringills, which are scary enough. Thing is, the galaxy itself could be considered a bit...off in some ways. It's a place mostly abundant with water and just two pieces of land to stand on; not to mention [[https://youtu.be/b-Yv6x_DIkI the eerie mysterious music of the level per se.]]

* Drip Drop Galaxy, having just one short level, is also a small world filled with Torpedo Teds, Urchins and some penguins that ask you to get rid of some aforementioned Gringills, which are scary enough. Thing is, the galaxy itself could be considered a bit...off in some ways. It's a place mostly abundant with water and just some floor to stand on; not to mention [[https://youtu.be/b-Yv6x_DIkI the eerie mysterious music of the level per se.]]

* Drip Drop Galaxy, having just one short level, is also one small world filled with Torpedo Teds, Urchins and some penguins that ask you to get rid of some aforementioned Gringills, which are scary enough. Thing is, the galaxy itself could be considered a bit...off in some ways. It's a place mostly abundant with water and just some floor to stand on; not to mention [[https://youtu.be/b-Yv6x_DIkI the eerie mysterious music of the level per se.]]

* Drip Drop Galaxy, while having just one short level, is also one small world filled with Torpedo Teds, Urchins and some penguins that ask you to get rid of some aforementioned Gringills, which are scary enough. Thing is, the galaxy itself could be considered a bit...off in some ways. It's a place mostly abundant with water and just some floor to stand on; not to mention [[https://youtu.be/b-Yv6x_DIkI the eerie mysterious music of the level per se.]]

** Ghostly Galaxy is also home to the page image, [[DishingOutDirt Bouldergeist]], who is also perhaps the most unnerving boss in the game. Imagine walking down a dark pathway and suddenly a giant shadowy creature with complete telepathic control of the rocks and ground around you [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere appears right in front of you]] with a ghastly roar. Bouldergeist can block your path by making rock spikes shoot out of the ground from shadowy pits. And it becomes [[UpToEleven even worse when it gets]] [[TurnsRed pissed off]] and generates two giant rocky hands it can use to crush Mario, killing him instantly. When you blow up its stony armor, Bouldergeist is reduced to a floating black shadow with a giant, dangling red ''uvula'' as its weak point that have to hit with Bomb Boos to damage it, and when its uvula is hit the creautre makes a ghastly high-pitched wail. When you finally finish it off, the uvula pulsates, its head shrinks, and its eyes triple in size while it wails one more time before it explodes. *** Bouldergeist also gets [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJBOxECtSoQ a unique boss theme used for only one other fight in the game]], and it's suitably more menacing than the game's other boss music and increasing in speed in the second phase of the fight.

* The game's ending features [[spoiler:the entire universe being destroyed]]. More specifically, [[spoiler: Bowser's Galaxy Reactor implodes into an ''enormous'' black hole which begins swallowing everything, pulling Mario, Peach, and even the entire Comet Observatory and Bowser's fleet in until all of the Lumas dive into it to neutralize its power in a {{HeroicSacrifice}}. Everyone survives and Rosalina explains that Lumas' lives are a cycle of rebirth, but it doesn't change the fact that the destruction of Mario's universe was shown in some form at all.]]
** Also, unlike with the game's other [[spoiler: black holes, the cutscene actually shows objects such as Airships being broken down by its force. It's a rather unsettling and subtle reminder of just how powerful they really are.]]

%%* The sky of the Bubble Breeze Galaxy shows that most of the planet is on fire. The accompanying music doesn't make this any less horrifying. (Possible FridgeHorror.)

* The game's space theme, while often beautiful and atmospheric in a relaxing way, also comes with its own sense of isolating scale that can definitely feel creepy or claustrophobic at some points.
** Keeping in line with the setting and taking place of the series' usual bottomless pits, there are black holes in almost all of the levels waiting to suck you in if you fall, which make a [[HellIsThatNoise warped sound]] when they pull Mario in that doesn't help at ''all''. And you don't get sucked into a black hole, going out of a planet's gravitational pull will result in Mario simply drifting off into deep space - endless falls are certainly nothing new to Mario, but it's quite a bit worse when you actually see him tumbling helplessly into a vast expanse.

* Continuing the tradition from [[VideoGame/SuperMario64 Unagi]] and [[VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine Eely Mouth]], this game introduces its own inexplicably creepy eel in the form of enemies named Gringills, [[https://www.mariowiki.com/File:Starshine_Beach_Comet_Medal.png easily the most conventionally scary looking eels in the series]] with incredibly sharp teeth and freakishly huge eyes with a lifeless stare that puts the original Unagi's to shame.
* Ghostly Galaxy's background isn't too pleasant, being a dark sky filled with streams of what look like ghostly faces, presumably meant to be souls of the dead. It also starts off with a rather creepy and quiet rendition of the underground theme, which is used in a few other unsettling places in the game.
** Ghostly Galaxy is also home to the page image, [[DishingOutDirt Bouldergeist]], who is also perhaps the most unnerving boss in the game. Imagine walking down a dark pathway and suddenly a giant shadowy creature with complete telepathic control of the rocks and ground around you [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere appears right in front of you]] with a ghastly roar, which can block your path by making rock spikes shoot out of the ground from shadowy pits. And it becomes [[UpToEleven even worse when it gets]] [[TurnsRed pissed off]] and generates two giant rocky hands it can use to crush Mario, killing him instantly. When you blow up its stony armor, Bouldergeist is reduced to a floating black shadow with a giant, dangling red ''uvula'' as its weak point that have to hit with Bomb Boos to damage it, and when its uvula is hit the creautre makes a ghastly high-pitched wail. When you finally finish it off, the uvula pulsates, its head shrinks, and its eyes triple in size while it wails one more time before it explodes.

* Bigmouth Galaxy, the galaxy you're taken to by the Bedroom's Hungry Luma, takes you through a dark, underwater cave filled with a gigantic ElectricJellyfish you first see ''above your head'' while trying to swim up and around it, the above-mentioned Gringills, and a very creepy theme that puts you on edge. Not exactly the kind of music you'd want to be swimming to, especially in a dark space.
* Bonefin Galaxy's only Star is a boss fight against Kingfin in a dark, spiky planet filled with nothing but water. Kingfin himself [[ThreateningShark is a massive skeletal shark]] ([[ArtisticLicenseBiology wait a minute...]]) with [[GlowingEyesOfDoom yellow pupils that shine at you like headlights]]. This would already be terrifying in itself, but the fight's atmosphere escalates it far beyond, with Kingfin and his lackeys (metallic fish with glowing red eyes and sharp teeth that home in on you and explode) chasing you around a body of water filled with hot gas, and the music (itself an already dramatic and haunting theme reserved only for Kingfin and the aforementioned Bouldergeist) grows more tense when the boss is near. The fight itself feels less like a battle and more like being hunted by a predator that you're dangerously outmatched by.

* The Hungry Lumas' cycle of gorging themselves, and then exploding into a new celestial object. They are eventually being reborn somehow, but [[SuicideIsPainless these guys are happy, if not outright ''excited'' that they are exploding]].

* Most players were were scared when [[spoiler:the universe was destroyed]]. If they understood the GainaxEnding quickly enough for the repercussions to take you by surprise, that is.
* Kingfin is a boss you find in the Bonefin Galaxy, where he resides in a planet that is nothing but water and jagged rocks. The boss itself is a giant skeletal shark( [[ArtisticLicenseBiology wait a minute...]]) with eyes shining like headlights which is unnerving in itself, but he also summons skeletal fish that home in on you and explode. Also, closer inspection of the music reveals it's the same dramatic, haunting theme that plays against Bouldergeist, which grows more tense the closer he gets to you...
* The NPC bees are cute, but taking a close-up look at their faces reveals they have sharp teeth that make them look like they have {{Slasher Smile}}s.
* The Lumas' cycle of gorging themselves, and then exploding into a new celestial object. They are eventually being reborn somehow, but [[SuicideIsPainless these guys are happy that they are exploding]].
* There's a gigantic ElectricJellyfish you first see ''above your head'' while trying to swim up and around it in the Deep Dark Galaxy.

* [[DishingOutDirt Bouldergeist]] is easily the most unnerving boss in the game. Imagine walking down a dark pathway and suddenly a ghost with complete telepathic control of the rocks and ground around you [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere appears right in front of you.]] And it becomes [[UpToEleven even worse when it gets]] [[TurnsRed pissed off.]]
** Also, right before Bouldergeist explodes, his uvula pulsates, his head shrinks, and his eyes triple in size, and he explodes.
* Keeping with its space theme, there are black holes in almost all of the levels, just waiting to suck you in if you fall. And the [[HellIsThatNoise sound]] they make when you ''do'' doesn't help '''at all'''.
* If you're claustrophobic, the ending of Dusty Dune's 'Sunbaked Sandcastle' star feels a little scary since the sand has risen so much that you're trapped in a glass dome. You'd have no way to escape were it not for the Star at the end warping you out.
* In a similar fashion to [[VideoGame/SuperMario64 Unagi]], there's the Gringills. Shockingly, '''[[https://www.mariowiki.com/File:Starshine_Beach_Comet_Medal.png they're even more terrifying than the infamous Unagi]]''', with incredibly sharp teeth and overly huge eyes that emit a lifeless stare that rivals Unagi's.

* In a similar fashion to [[VideoGame/SuperMario64 Unagi]], there's the Gringills. Shockingly, '''[[https://www.mariowiki.com/images/a/af/Srarshine_Becah_Comet_Medal.PNG they're even more terrifying than the infamous Unagi]]''', with incredibly sharp teeth and overly huge eyes that emit a lifeless stare that rivals Unagi's.

* Most players were were scared when [[spoiler:the universe was destroyed.]] If they understood the GainaxEnding quickly enough for the repercussions to take you by surprise, that is.

* When your last point of health is taken away by electrical sources, Mario [[XRaySparks turns into a skeleton]], and it shows he didn't just [[NonLethalKO get hurt]], but he's ''completely and unmistakably dead.''
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c6OMkntbMM This music]] was always creepy and strangely downbeat.
* When Mario's hand rises up when he sinks in sand or toxic waste, all while hearing him drown.
* When Mario touches dark matter, he slowly disintegrates, and his life bar isn't empty until ''after'' Mario is completely gone, which means [[CruelAndUnusualDeath he feels the whole thing.]]
* The sound effects of the Pull Stars can be a little eerie with their theremin-esque tones.
* The sky of the Bubble Breeze Galaxy shows that most of the planet is on fire. The accompanying music doesn't make this any less horrifying.

* At the end of the race in Boo's Boneyard Galaxy, there are ''many'' human skeletons lying all around the floor. [[FridgeHorror What the hell could have happened??]]
** Even creepier, looking at the models, they're the exact same models used for Mario's skeleton.
*** Overlapping with FridgeBrilliance: The skeletons belong to other Marios who'd previously lost the race and failed the mission.

* Kingfin is a boss you find in the Bonefin Galaxy, where he resides in a planet that is nothing but water and jagged rocks. The boss itself is a giant skeletal shark with eyes shining like headlights which is unnerving in itself, but he also summons skeletal fish that home in on you and explode. Also, closer inspection of the music reveals it's the same dramatic, haunting theme that plays against Bouldergeist, which grows more tense the closer he gets to you...

* Keeping with its space theme, there are black holes in almost all of the levels, just waiting to suck you in if you fall. And the [[HellIsThatSound sound]] they make when you ''do'' doesn't help '''at all'''.

* Kingfin is a boss you find in the Bonefin Galaxy, where he resides in a planet that is nothing but water and jagged rocks. The boss itself is a giant skeletal shark with eyes shining like headlights which is unnerving in itself, but he also summons skeletal fish that home in on you and explode! Also, closer inspection of the music reveals it's the same dramatic, haunting theme that plays against Bouldergeist, which grows more tense the closer he gets to you...
* The NPC bees are cute, but take a close-up look at their faces...

* When your last point of health is taken away by electrical sources, Mario [[XRaySparks turns into a skeleton]]. That's right, he didn't just [[NonLethalKO get hurt]], he is ''completely and unmistakably dead.''

* [[DishingOutDirt Bouldergeist]] is easily the most unnerving boss in the game. Imagine walking down a dark pathway and suddenly a ghost with complete telepathic control of the rocks and ground around you [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere appears right in front of you.]] Scared yet? [[UpToEleven Wait till it gets]] [[TurnsRed pissed off.]]

* At the end of the race in Boo's Boneyard Galaxy, there are ''many'' human skeletons lying all around the floor. [[Main/FridgeHorror What the hell could have happened??]]