High Octane Nightmare Fuel - Television Tropes & Idioms

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alt title(s): Nightmare Fuel Unleaded; Unleaded Nightmare Fuel; HO Nightmare

"Listen, if a book is going to give me night terrors right out of a Freud textbook involving me running through a Stockholm red-light district being chased by ravenous toothed genitalia all wanting me to pay them for the privilege of devouring me alive, you have to fucking tell me."

—-Lothar Hex on Neil Gaiman's American Gods, in Exterminatus Now

"Sometimes fear is the appropriate response."

—1 on dealing with horrific steampunk nightmares in a post-apocalyptic Earth in 9.

There's Nightmare Fuel. And there's this... The high-octane variety, for that extra "oomph". It's not just The Same But More though; even the adults are frightened of this stuff. Unlike normal Nightmare Fuel, which can be unintentionally scary, these scares are often deliberate.

For most horror films, that's the whole point. For some reason, many of us like to be scared on purpose, there may be a euphoria generated by surviving something that seems scary, or maybe we know that fiction can't hurt us and the idea of choosing to be scared without the danger is fun. In any case, this is normal. Others are fascinated by the very things that others avoid. Occasionally, it overlaps with Squick.

Specific types of High Octane Nightmare Fuel include:

Surreal sequences, usually animated.
Extreme violence and deaths which cross the line.
Public Service Announcements which employ terrifying imagery in a misguided attempt to keep people's heads on straight.
Nightmare Dreams, dream sequences and hallucinations straight out of nightmare.
Spawn of Uncanny Valley, anything that has crawled out of the valley.
Paranoia Fuel, when things that should be harmless, or on your side, turn nasty.
Primal Fears: possibly the most universally frightening of the mix; the dark, snakes, being buried alive with rats gnawing on your toes...the last part, being an aspect of cannibalism/being eaten alive, something in turn existing as potential addendum to extreme violence. Stuff your entire species gets the creeps from.
Adult Fears. Those things children seldom worry about: economic failure, romantic failure, watching helplessly as your children die, or possibly even The End Of The World As We Know It.
Transformation Trauma, Transformation Sequences with plenty of Body Horror, including Chest Bursters. Nothing like people exploding as monsters emerge.
Corpses... DEAD ROTTING CORPSES. Remember kids, it's not the zombies that scare us, it's what they are.
Viruses. Even the name is frightening.

In short, if a work is A. not intended specifically for children, B. intended to be scary, and C. it turned out to be scarier than planned, then it's High Octane Nightmare Fuel.

For unintentionally terrifying work targeted for children, see Nightmare Fuel. If it is meant to scare but fails to deliver, and becomes hilarious instead, it devolves into Nightmare Retardant.

Just like its cousins, High Octane Nightmare Fuel can be broken up into several categories. Only the brave dare go on...