Charmed (1998), a show about witches and magic. Where could there possibly be Nightmare Fuel in that?
Spoilers below.
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Season 1
- The first episode had Jeremy, the first bad guy of the series. He kills female witches so he can get their powers so he can fight the Charmed Ones. After revealing this to Piper, he proceeds to try to kill her, and they are trapped in an freight elevator. Piper was absolutely terrified.
- After the sisters cast the spell to make Jeremy forget Piper, the spell backfires and we see rose thorns growing out of his body, and Jeremy is screaming in pain.
- We have The Wendigo, pretty much a nastier version of the common werewolf that eats people's hearts. It attacks Piper while she's broken down in the middle of nowhere. And yes, if you don't get killed you'll turn into one instead. And no, chaining yourself to a water pipe will not be enough.
- Anyone who is not afraid of Barbas must be made of stone. He is the Demon of Fear and will torture you by making your worst fears come to life in front of you, and you will believe they are real.
- He caused a woman to die of shock by provoking her fear of earthquakes.
- He provoked Prue’s pre-existing fear of drowning when he trapped her alone in the shower.
- "Is There a Woogy in the House?" presents Phoebe's childhood monster as being real.
Season 2
- Phoebe's execution by fire in "Morality Bites". She's seen screaming in pain as the flames consume her.
- The demon Masselin (the only one to look nothing like a human) has a slightly transparent stomach with all of his victims screaming and moving inside. The thought that they are eaten, but still alive inside is enough to give one the chills.
- In 'That Old Black Magic' evil witch Tuatha shrinks a pair of treasure hunters down to size then feeds them alive to her pet snake. She later rips the heart out of a hiker's chest whilst telling him precisely how long it will take him to die without it.
Season 3
- The Seekers. Demons that read your thoughts to find out everything you know. How do they do it? By biting into your skull and literally sucking your brains out. The scene with Cole's landlady...
- The banshee, a demon that preys on people who have suffered heartbreak. You're grieving for some big reason and you hear a wailing in the distance. The things in the room start to rattle and suddenly the windows shatter and she jumps in through the window. She proceeds to scream as loudly as she can, so loudly that it makes all your blood vessels burst which is what kills you. Oh, and if you happen to be a witch, instead of being killed you'll become a banshee yourself.
- Don't forget the scene from the same episode where the banshee attacks a little girl in a phonebooth who is already terrified.
- "The Good, the Bad and the Cursed": Phoebe gets psychically linked to a Native American man stuck in a time loop. That means that when he gets hurt, she feels it and gets the same injury. Near the end of the episode there's a scene where he's being tortured in the middle of the village. Every time he gets whipped it cuts back to a shot of Phoebe screaming in pain as she feels it. If the day hadn't been saved, Phoebe would have been killed along with the man. Oh and Leo wasn't able to heal her.
- All Hell Breaks Loose, Charmed's biggest Wham Episode ever. plot is the whole world finding out that the Halliwell sisters are witches, and a whole lot of crazy starts to happening...
- How the Halliwells were exposed, they were trying to vanquish Shax, the source's assassin, which was caught by a news crew. Shax himself is a very scary demon to look at. His growls are very unnerving and his grey body is menacing. he arrives in a tornado, which would knock whoever is near off their feet.
- A woman named Alice, who claims to be a witch wants to enter the Halliwell house, but she is thrown out, the she then grabs one of the sniper guns and shoots Piper in broad daylight. Piper's gunshot wound is not pleasant to look at, with all the blood coming out.
- Phoebe makes a deal with The Source of All Evil to save Piper and reverse time so that nobody finds out about the Halliwells. Afterwards, the Source orders that Phoebe is to be killed along with Cole, and that's the last we see and hear of Phoebe in the third season.
- JUST as soon as time is getting reset, the SWAT team just shot Prue through the hospital room wall. Imagine if the Source didn't keep his word and killed Phoebe. Piper died on the operating table, and Prue would have died, then the Power of Three would have been truly broken to the point of no return.
- Even Prue's behavior after Piper is shot. Desperately having to drive her to the hospital because Leo can't hear their calls in the Underworld, the news crews and pedestrians crowd her driveway and she screams for them to move out of her way. When they won't, she completely snaps and uses her powers to throw them out of the way. While some just land on the lawns, we see one smashing into windshield and others falling off car roofs. It's entirely possible Prue killed a bunch of people, and we see just how terrifying she could be if she made a Face–Heel Turn. Prue basically turns into Carrie White.
- When the Elders find out about Piper and Leo's secret wedding, they remotely orb Leo in a extremely frightening and painful way.
Season 4
- The episode with the Collector (played by none other than Robert Englund) who shrank witches and turned them into stone in general feels a lot like a horror movie. The 'turning into stone' process is slow with the victim getting covered in clay, unable to move, and then burned in kiln all the while staying conscious. At one point his collection of figurines is shown. There are at least a dozen of them, all with a very clear look of terror on their faces...
Season 5
- The Auger Shell from "A Witch's Tail" is an Artefact of Doom that can drain the life force from an immortal being. Creepy tentacles snake out from the shell and clamp over the heart of whoever puts it on. The Sea Hag was turned to dust within minutes!
- The wolf from Red Riding Hood is portrayed as an actual wolf that leaps on Penny and devours her whole - which we only see through creepy silhouette. Then when it turns on Piper, Jennifer Rhodes can be surprisingly frightening when she growls "the better to eat you with my dear!" and Piper can only scream as we see the shadow of the wolf's head across her face.
- Orin and Cree from "The Eyes Have It". They attack helpless gypsies and gouge their eyes out with lasers.
- Barbas the Demon of fear returns, and he caused Phoebe to kill Paige, under the illusion that Paige was Barbas.
- From the Underworld's perspective, Piper's Mama Bear tendencies are this. When a demon kidnapped Piper's son, her answer was so brutal and extreme that the Underworld leaders pretty much swear to Piper that they're going to deal with the threats against Wyatt themselfs, just to avoid suffering a rampage that brutal again. Yeah, a wrathful Piper in Mama Bear mode is that terrifying.
- "Sense & Sense Ability" is a straight-up comedy episode but, while Phoebe and Paige losing their hearing and voice are played for Cringe Comedy, Piper loses her eyesight while driving. The Crone even arranged the spell to take effect when the sisters would need their senses the most - and Piper crashes her car right into a pole. Leo was obviously able to heal her afterwards, but it begs the question of how nasty the offscreen accident was.
- The Crone herself uses the monkey totem to sing to Wyatt with Paige's voice. What had been a sweet lullaby at the beginning of the episode becomes incredibly creepy, as she tricks Wyatt into thinking she's his aunt. Luckily all she wanted to do was get a vision from him, but it's freaky how easily she was able to trick him into letting his forcefield down.
- Chris reveals that a large number of statues in museums aren't carved pieces of art, but people turned to stone.
Season 6
- One of the properties of Magic School is that you cannot truly die on the premises. Considering we later see people killed on site, this may have been lifted at some point, otherwise, it's entirely possible these people are still alive. In the case of demons vanquished or people like Sigmund who suffered molecular dispersion, this may mean they are trapped as conscious particles in the air.
- Manticore rape. EEK!
- The Unchanged future is an example of this and Nothing Is Scarier. While there are only a few flashbacks in ""Chris-Crossed"" and Chris incredibly tight-lipped about the future, magic is exposed with demons walking freely and witches are being hunted. It's never explained what would've happened if Chris and Bianca were caught by the probe, but by their reactions, it wouldn't have been good.
- Leo killing Gideon might be Awesome for both the act itself and Brian Krause's performance, but the build-up to it is quite startling. Leo has an exchange warning his evil counterpart to let him do "this alone".Gideon: (starting to look terrified) Do what?Leo: A great evil.
- He says the above without any quips or gravitas. Just unnerving Tranquil Fury as his eyes then turn white and he unleashes lightning bolts that raise Gideon off the ground and electrocute him to death. And as the act has to be a "great evil", it's no Mercy Kill. It's long, drawn out and very clear that Gideon is being tortured as well.
Season 7
- Leo is so unstable thanks to Barbas's manipulation that he actually kills another Elder, mistakenly thinking he's Barbas or an enemy.
- In "Cheaper By the Coven", he's gone so dark that he even threatens Kyra the seer with a Neck Lift. While she is a demon, it's disturbing to see Leo go so violent.
- The Elders trying to kill Leo with a gang attack of the same lightning he unleashed on Gideon. While they'd been an example of Good Is Not Nice at the worst, this is the first time we've ever seen them try to kill someone.
- Sirk's Wham Line in "Styx Feet Under". We think because of Death's list that Phoebe is the one in danger, and then he malevolently says "I'll just have to kill...her!", and hits a hiding Paige with a blast of lightning that kills her instantly.
- Zankou revealing himself disguised as Phoebe just to torture Kyra before killing her painfully.
- Zankou resurrects Inspector Reece Davidson to torture Phoebe with guilt over how she let him die. He does this with Jump Scares that make Phoebe unsure if it actually happened or not.
Season 8
- How Christy was taken; kidnapped from her bed in the middle of the night. Billie just sees the demon's talons cutting through the mattress, and it flying out the window as her sister screams. No wonder she repressed it!
- Just how bloodthirsty Christy is after years of the Triad conditioning her. She vanquishes the last of them by plunging her hand through his heart and letting her pyrokinesis burn him alive. She's willing to use a three-year-old child for her spell, and even drains his magic. And then of course when her own sister makes a Heel–Face Turn, she conjures up a fireball to burn her alive.
- The first time she demonstrates how to use her magic. She flashes a Kubrick Stare at the demons who took her and sets them on fire from the inside!
- She talks to Billie via telepathy and they combine powers to vanquish the Noxon demon with a huge fireball, killing an unkillable demon.
- Billie and Christy use Wyatt - who is three years old at this point - to summon the Hollow. While Billie only reluctantly goes along with it and doesn't want him hurt, once she and Christy are possessed, they adopt Black Eyes of Evil and steal Wyatt's powers when he puts up his forcefield to protect himself. Thankfully Chris is able to orb him back to Victor's, but it begs the question of what else the sisters would have done.
- Christy nearly kills Dumain with fire from her eyes, barely even moving. That's how powerful she's now become.
