History NightmareFuel / CriminalMinds

* "True Night": Frankie Muniz's character, Jonny, suffers a catastrophic mental breakdown in response to witnessing the brutal rape and murder of his girlfriend by a group of gangsters just after she informed him that she was pregnant, and being left for dead [[{{Squick}} with his intestines hanging out]]. As a Creator/FrankMiller-style comic-book writer and artist (Miller is in fact quoted by Garcia at the end of the episode), he begins drawing some horrifyingly dark comics about a shadowy warrior that kills evil demon creatures by disemboweling them and slicing them up. The plot twist of course being that members of the gang are turning up [[OhCrap in suspiciously similar poses to those that appear in Johnny's art]]. In the end, it turns out Jonny's character has gone out and slaughtered every single one of the bastards that ruined his life -- whether this is a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome or not is for the viewer to decide -- with the agents finding the final body so gored it's not shown onscreen. Prentiss is visibly shaken by the whole thing, which leads to some ParanoiaFuel -- any one of us could end up as hopelessly insane as Jonny did. Jonny is now locked up in a padded cell with his girlfriend's mobile phone, [[TearJerker incessantly listening to her voicemail, hoping one day she'll pick up]]. End episode. [[INeedAFreakingDrink Have some Kleenex and/or vodka ready.]]\\\

* "Compulsion": The university student who got burned alive, caught on film by his roommate. The screams from both the victim and his friend are ''horrifying'', coupled with the footage of both desperately trying to put it out. To make it worse, the boy on fire is only ever referred to in the past tense, making it clear that he died. For bonus fridge horror, the team never speaks to the roommate, or mentions him again, and considering that the dorm was on the third floor and the body of his burning friend would have been blocking the door... that means that he either died in the fire alongside his friend minutes later, or was trapped by the burning corpse until firefighters could get in and rescue him. Both scenarios are equally horrifying.

** in a bit of meta FridgeHorror, the father and uncle are played by real life identical twins, so the poor girl has to live with someone who looks exactly like the man who molested her.

** The episode opens with the [=UnSub=] locked away safely in a mental institution with the head of the asylum begging the board of directors to keep him in.
** During the raid on the [=UnSub's=] house, they find industrial cookware, a freezer full of bodies which have been dismembered and had their throats slit, and ''a demonic altar'', the walls of which are covered in blood, disturbing paintings, and shelves crammed full of books on the nature of evil and homemade cookbooks about how to properly prepare human limbs for consumption.

** What the [=UnSub=] makes Hotch do. What makes it scarier is that the hallucination seems ''very'' real.
** Remember the "Poison" moment back in Season 1? Well, this [=UnSub=] copies it '''''repeatedly'''''. And these times, there aren't just '''''near'''''-deaths.
** The blackout scene in the BAU HQ deserves special mention as well.

** Floyd's BornLucky nature makes Morgan wonder if perhaps [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane there really IS someone or someTHING]] watching over the killer. Look at Floyd's track record; released at the age of 18 from the asylum because he couldn't be legally detained anymore, his records were destroyed in a fire in 1998 (making it almost impossible to track him), his murders went completely unnoticed until he wanted people to know about them, and a police officer literally had him dead to rights with his latest victim in the trunk of his car, only to be called away by his radio before he could notice anything suspicious. There's never any sort of supernatural events in the entire series, but this episode does make you wonder...

** Floyd's BornLucky nature makes Morgan wonder if perhaps [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane there really IS someone or someTHING]] watching over the killer. Look at Floyd's track record; released at the age of 18 from the asylum because he couldn't be legally detained anymore, his records were destroyed in a fire in 1998 (making it almost impossible to track him), his murders went completely unnoticed until he wanted people to know about them, and a police officer literally had him dead to rights with his latest victim in the trunk of his car, only to be called away by his radio before he could notice anything suspicious. There's never any sort of supernatural content in the entire series, but this episode does make you wonder...

** The M.O. of the [=UnSub=] is taking street people and dumping them in a slaughterhouse/meat plant he converted into a DeathCourse for a few hours, before recapturing and vivisecting them while in surgical/butcher garb and with absolutely nasty-looking tools.

* "Supply and Demand": The [=UnSub=], only known as "Lucy" is the leader of a human trafficking ring and despite her youthful appearance, is a horrific criminal that looks like she came straight out from something like the [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Slaneeshi and the Dark Eldar]]. She and her ring abducts troubled students from carefree backgrounds and hold events where her ring offers the victims to rich customers to be raped and used as outlets for depraved sexual fetishes have like ''throat slitting and fatal strangling''. There are at least '''63''' dead and even more raped and tortured over this. It's implied that they're not only local, but '''international'''. At least we don't get to see what their "shows" are.

* "Supply and Demand": The [=UnSub=], only known as "Lucy" is the leader of a human trafficking ring who abducts troubled students from carefree backgrounds and hold events where her ring offers the victims to rich customers to be raped and used as outlets for whatever their depraved sexual fetishes have such as ''throat slitting and fatal strangling''. There are at least '''63''' dead and even more raped and tortured over this. It's implied that they're not only local, but '''international'''. At least we don't get to see what their "shows" are.

* "Supply and Demand": The [=UnSub=], only known as "Lucy" is the leader of a human trafficking ring who abducts troubled students from carefree backgrounds and hold events where her ring offers the victims to rich customers to exert their depraved sexual fetishes, of which included ''throat slitting and fatal strangling''. It's implied that they're not only local, but '''international'''. At least we don't get to see what their "shows" are.

The entire episode feels like an homage to James O'Barr's comic book ''ComicBook/TheCrow'', which is about a murder victim becoming a spirit of vengeance going on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge after he and his girlfriend are captured and murdered by the side of the road by gang members. The episode seems to have conflated Barr's reason for writing the comic (his girlfriend was killed by a drunk driver) with The Crow's modus operandi, and combined them together to create a ''seriously unhinged'' comic book artist who illustrates his murder scenes.

* "Catching Out": The solvent-sniffing scene is definitely one for the books, but towards the end where the UnSub is at the woman's window is scary for anyone.

* "Amplification": The very last scene with the anthrax strain being locked away in containment "With all the other bioagents people don't know about". A soldier in a hazmat suit locks a small metal box into a vault in the wall. As he closes the door the camera moves back and shows that there are more vaults in the wall. The camera just keeps panning out and it's a huge facility filled with possibly thousands of other bioweapons.

* The Unsub in ''Unforgettable'' is a psychopathic former nurse randomly injecting federal government employees with radioactive material stolen from the hospital where she worked that slowly kills them...and what makes it worse is they were all collateral damage. [[SerialKillingsSpecificTarget The Unsub merely killed them as a cover for her plan to murder her husband and claim his life insurance policy, while disguising the murders as assassinations carried out by the Russian government.]]

* "Catching Out": The drug-sniffing scene is definitely one for the books, but the end part where the UnSub is at the woman's window is scary for anyone.

* "Mosley Lane": This one isn't as gory as other episodes but has a high creep-out factor. The [[EvilMatriarch female [=UnSub=]]] (creepingly portrayed by Beth Grant) is enough to give you goosebumps. If that's not enough, there's child abduction, heavy abuse, a nightmare-like setting, and the young victims being '''burned alive!!!''' It tells about how viscerally horrific the [=UnSub=] is when she's one out of the 15 who manage to qualify as a CompleteMonster despite having "only" a measly 9 kills while the rest who did have double or triple-digit victims. And the cherry on the cake is the suicide-by-hanging. The song "Illabye" is used once again after "The Fox", and it's terrifying once again.

* "The Performer": Imagine you're a goth rock star who really doesn't even like his persona anymore, and people (including some of your fans) start dying in ways that point right to you. You're innocent and have no clue what's happening... and then the [=UnSub=] is your close friend and manager, who's manipulating a mentally ill fan of yours that's obsessed with your persona, killing people to get you publicity that you ''don't even want'' since you're sick of making events instead of music anyway. Poor guy...

* "Catching Out": The drug-smelling scene is definitely one for the books, but the end part where the person is at the woman's door is scary for anyone.

* The [=UnSub=]'s sociopathic apathy after she's found out in "Seven Seconds".
** The fact that when she learns her husband is a pedophile who abused their niece, what does she do? Instead of trying to stop the abuse or report her husband, she tried to ''kill her niece''.
** The girl's parents are frantic about her whereabouts, her mother even pleading for the safety of her daughter, but the [=UnSub=] remains set in her plan, even though she's a mother herself.
** Also, the fact that the [=UnSub=]'s son now has to live with the reality of having a child molester who abused his cousin as a father, and a mother who tried to kill the aforementioned cousin. Both the kid and his cousin are going to be in therapy for a long time.
* In "In Name and Blood" the killer is [[CreepyChild using his young son to lure in victims.]] The last would-be victim is the school nurse and as he's arrested, the killer reveals ''he didn't even ask his son to bring her home.'' The boy reappears as a new [=UnSub=] in Season 14.

* "Profiler, Profiled": The [=UnSub=] is one of the vilest ones of all time, being a "pillar" of his black community who raped '''55 children''' (!!) after intoxicating them with alchohol, of which included [[ItsPersonal Morgan]] himself. Very few {{Serial Rapist}}s in a criminal procedural show take sexual crimes to this level. It's a [[RealismInducedHorror disturbingly realistic portrayal]] of a horrible SerialRapist who hides behind a veneer of good publicity and nobody dares go against because of his high social standing.
* "No Way Out":
** Crazy Jane has those wind chimes outside her house. They were made out of the rib bones taken from Frank's victims, because he claims to love her, and flowers just aren't his style. Then there's the rib bone she used as a whistle.
** Every single thing that came out of Frank's mouth was pretty creepy.
** Frank Breitkopf is one of the vilest [=UnSubs=] of the show who combines CruelAndUnusualDeath with triple-digit kills and personal crimes. The way he kills his victims? He injects them with a drug that leaves them immobile and numb, but still aware, invokes OrganTheft on you antemortem, usually under a mirrored ceiling, and essentially makes you basically see '''''your own autopsy'''''. Oh and the number of people he killed? ''At least 176''. There are very few {{Serial Killer}}s who take murder to this level, and the only reason why he's not declared a CompleteMonster is because he's legitimately mentally ill.
* "No Way Out Part II: The Evilution of Frank": Frank's return is pretty much the most horrifying thing ever. There are victims that come back from previous episodes only to be killed. The victim from the "Fisher King" two-parter had a rough life. [[labelnote:Long and spoilered rotten explanation]] First, when she was a little girl, her family died in a fire. When she was about sixteen and just getting adjusted to this whole adoption thing, she got kidnapped by a psychotic, horribly disfigured man with an obsession with Arthurian legends and kept chained to a bed in the basement. Then he committed suicide by bomb, setting the house on fire. Oh, and he was her father, who was just driven insane by the fire that killed the rest of the family. Although she was rescued by the FBI at the last minute, barely a year later she got kidnapped by ''another'' psychotic freak, only instead of keeping her chained up in the basement, this one injected her with ketamine, which left her conscious, aware, and totally incapable of movement while he eviscerated her. Because he wanted to prove a point to an FBI agent she had never met.[[/labelnote]]
* "Ashes and Dust":
** Pretty scary episode overall, but one of the murders is up there as one of the scariest in the whole show. A father and his two kids are leaving their house and get into their car, where the [=UnSub=] appears and begins pouring petrol over the vehicle. We see the father and kids screaming for help as they realize they're locked inside, and the [=UnSub=] sets the car on fire and leaves. Cut to outside, the entire garage explodes in a fireball. NothingIsScarier indeed.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-Hd5-SXVLk The cold open of the episode]] is just as scary. We see the fire being set in the house, and the family trying to escape but failing to as the [=UnSub=] blocked all exits. The bizarrely peaceful Enya track Boadicea behind the whole scene gives it both a terrifying and eerie atmosphere. Youtube and Reddit commenters have shared that they think this is one of the best cold opens Criminal Minds ever did, and it's hauntingly scary.

* The [=UnSub=] in "The Tribe" is a bigoted man who tries to start a literal ''race war'' between Apache Indians and White supremacists with 60+ dead and most of the victims being ''skinned and impaled alive''. When the BAU qiestions him, he said that he only started the race war because he wanted to show the world that Apache Indians are "savage animals". This is at ''the first season'' and the [=UnSubs=] just go more unhinged from there.

* Creator/TimCurry as "Prince of Darkness" Billy Flynn, the [=UnSub=] in "Our Darkest Hour/The Longest Night" falls squarely into this. It's a far cry from his [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow more popular roles]], and it ''works''. To put short, he's a ''mass murderer'' who kills, rapes and loots entire families in the dead of night or during blackouts, killing ''more than 200 people'' before being stopped. Oh, and he rapes everyone he's about to kill '''regardless of gender and age!!''' The Fox is childplay in front of this utterly insane man. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7zChujbA-U This is only one of the most horrific scenes he's in.]]

* Creator/TimCurry as "Prince of Darkness" Billy Flynn, the [=UnSub=] in "Our Darkest Hour/The Longest Night" falls squarely into this. It's a far cry from his [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow more popular roles]], and it ''works''. To put short, he's a ''mass murderer'' who kills, rapes and loots entire families in the dead of night or during blackouts, killing ''more than 200 people'' before being stopped. The Fox is childplay in front of this utterly insane man. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7zChujbA-U This is only one of the most horrific scenes he's in.]]

* Creator/TimCurry as "Prince of Darkness" Billy Flynn, the [=UnSub=] in "Our Darkest Hour/The Longest Night" falls squarely into this. It's a far cry from his [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow more popular roles]], and it ''works''. To put short, he's a ''mass murderer'' who kills, rapes and loots entire families in the dead of night or during blackouts, killing ''more than 200 people'' before being stopped. The Fox is childplay in front of this. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7zChujbA-U This is only one of the most horrific scenes he's in.]]

* Also, in "Awake": Garcia learning that [[spoiler:the Dirty Dozen is targeting her, with the name being a reference to the computers she uses to run for data.]] A group of hitmen are targeting the FBI.

* Creator/TimCurry as "Prince of Darkness" Billy Flynn, the [=UnSub=] in "Our Darkest Hour/The Longest Night" falls squarely into this. It's a far cry from his [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow more popular roles]], and it ''works''. To put short, he's a ''mass murderer'' who kills, rapes and loots entire families in the dead of night or during blackouts. Your home is ''not'' a safe haven against this insane man. Oh, and he killed ''more than 200 people'' before being stopped. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7zChujbA-U This is only one of the most horrific scenes he's in.]]

* "Proof": The [=UnSub=] is a mentally ill serial killer fixated on his sister-in-law, with the mentality of a child. He narrates all his thoughts into a camera, talking cheerily about scarring, raping, and killing women. He then kidnaps his niece, who has recently dyed her hair to look like her mother and threatens to rape her. He gleefully confesses to burning her hands and wanting to blind and burn his brother so he could hear his daughter scream. The disconnect between the cheerful side of him and the fact that he gouges out eyes, rips out tongues, and pours acid in the mouths of women is just chilling.