Nightmare Fuel / Digimon Adventure

• It's easy to forget that Kuwagamon, the first Digimon the group faces, is a giant stag beetle with razor-sharp pincers that, as Koromon put it, can "chop through anything". And the worst part is that, the first time fighting him, the kids' Digimon were still in their In-Training forms until they Digivolved, essentially being sent right up sludge's creek without a paddle.
• Honestly, when Devimon reveals that the mansion and banquet was just an illusion, it's freaky as hell. The entire building disintegrates with a snap of his fingers. Matt wakes up to this sight, and he and the others are immediately sent flying into the air. The children were mostly safe wherever they were able to find shelter before, but here they were attacked where they're most vulnerable.
  • A bit of Fridge Horror. After delivering a threat, Devimon sends the beds crashing downwards, and it's only thanks to Leomon that they get scattered. Devimon was going to kill them just by dropping them from the air! The flying Digimon like Biyomon and Tentomon (and possibly Palmon if she managed to hook her Poison Ivy onto something) might have been able to help if they'd acted quick enough - but Yamato/Matt, Gabumon, Takeru/T.K., Patamon, Jō/Joe and Gomamon would have easily been killed from such a fall.
• The forced Digivolution. The fact the Transformation Sequence just didn't feel right didn't help toning down the audience's reactions.
  • It's worse in the official novelization of the anime. The moment SkullGreymon has evolved, he jumps onto the frightened enemy Greymon and crushes it into a bloody pulp, BONES AND ALL.
  • SkullGreymon itself. According to lore, it's a Greymon skeleton that hung onto its battle instincts even after death, but doesn't have a scrap of intelligence left to suppress its desire to fight, and has thus become a nearly unstoppable threat to the Digital World that destroys friend and foe alike. That's basically what we're getting with this digivolution; as soon as it evolves, it not only curb-stomps Etemon's Greymon minion, but proceeds to go after Garurumon, Birdramon and Kabuterimon who can't do anything to stop it until it tires out and reverts to Koromon, leaving Tai in a Heroic BSoD for the next couple of episodes. Oh; and as if it wasn't enough that we have a berserk skeleton dinosaur on our hands, it also has what's essentially a prototype Giga Destroyer in the form of the Ground Zero missile on its back.
• Tokomon, Patamon's previous form. A Ridiculously Cute Critter with More Teeth than the Osmond Family.
• Ogremon in "Home Away From Home". Even though it's not the real Ogremon, those eyes will stare into your soul.
  • Every Digimon appearing in that episode. They look like phantom versions of the originals, with soulless eyes and invisible to all the people except for Taichi/Tai and Hikari/Kari. And when they attack, people think of meteors or terrorist attacks, because they cannot see them. The whole episode feels more like a creepypasta than a regular Digimon chapter.
• You know the truth but take the position of a normal human. In 1995, Parrotmon and Greymon had a battle in Hikarigaoka/Highton View Terrace but no one could see them. The explosions of their attacks were attributed by the police to a terrorist attack but they couldn't see any traces of bomb materials. Also, imagine the horrified parents who decided to move for the safety of their kids.
• Raremon could easily come off as this. If Mr. Face had sex with a bionic manatee, this would be the result. Imagine being a boat pilot and encountering this in the middle of the night. What's worse is that his lore states that he's basically a living hunk of rotting meat that kept from dying due to his excessive cybernetics.
• Vamdemon/Myotismon goes Dracula in the middle of a misty night and abducts young women to his self-driven carriage to drink their blood, inflicting anemia (lack of iron in bloodstream) on them.
• Mixing both Tear Jerker and this. Tailmon/Gatomon's life under Vamdemon/Myotismon qualifies, as Vamdemon/Myotismon whipped her because of all the looks she gave to him.
  • Her friend Wizardmon getting shredded by Vamdemon/Myotismon, even in the edited version.
• The villains have to be some of the scariest and horrifying villains in anime history. Lets study them in finer details:
  • Devimon, a cunning, devil-like monster who had the power to brainwash friendly and peaceful Digimon, turning them into rampaging, savage berserkers.
  • Etemon, a super-strong killer monkey who looks like a man merged with a monkey costume, whose jovial and hammy personality simply - and barely - hides a psychopathic and narcissistic megalomaniac, and who controls a world-wide surveillance network system that allows him to find the Digidestined no matter where they are or hides.
    • Even worse? His Etemon Chaos form after falling into Nanomon/Datamon's gigantic mass of cable. Etemon literally merges with it and takes the form of the damn mass with his own upper body coming out on top, with bulging muscles and all.
    • Still not worse enough? The baddie returns as MetalEtemon, his Mega level evolution, and now he's stronger than ever and pure Paranoia Fuel. And he proceeds to start a tradition by killing Leomon.
  • Vamdemon/Myotismon, a mass-murdering, sadistic, abusive, nigh-unstoppable psychopath of a vampire who puts even Alucard to shame. His digievolution VenomVamdemon/VenomMyotismon is even more due to his... eating habits...
  • The Dark Masters, a group of powerhungry tyrants who have reduced the Digital World into a dark and lifeless place, killing and destroying everything around them - enemies, innocents and minions alike - For the Evulz and/or with plans to Kill All Humans.
    • MetalSeadramon, a long, violent, hot-tempered, warmongering sea serpent clad in golden and spiky armor who, unlike his allies, prefers to reduce his enemies to fiery ashes instead of playing games with them and who's the Dark Master most in favor of attacking Earth and wiping out the human race.
    • Pinochimon/Puppetmon, a dark version of Pinocchio who thinks he can make friends by killing and enslaving everyone around him, even playing a cruel version of hide-and-seek with his victims there he'll outright kill them with a revolver when found; all with childish and Innocently Insensitive glee. Not to mention his Hair-Trigger Temper that causes him to impulsively kill anyone who upsets or annoys him for the pettiest reason.
    • Mugendramon/Machinedramon, a cold-hearted, brutal and gigantic Killer Robot who speaks, though rarely, with a growling, hateful and metallic voice and mostly acts like a lifeless machine, unless he's on a murder rampage, which is when his true sociopathic nature is shown, ordering a massive bombing over his own territory. It makes him one of the scariest villains in the show.
      Machinedramon: Just what I was looking for, victims!
    • Piemon/Piedmon, who is basically an Expy of Kefka, an extremely powerful and sadistic abomination of a Digimon. And his, ah, "key-chain hobby". What makes it even scarier is him hunting down the DigiDestined and their Digimon one by one in a methodical and sadistic manner. Except for the fact he doesn't actually kill them, it's almost like watching a slasher killer hunting down his victims one by one... He probably has the creepiest voice of the four, in both English and Japanese. While his voice sounds like Tim Curry in the dub, in the original, he talks in a raspy-sounding voice that makes him sound like an old pedophile. And he's even more terrifying in the novelization, which emphasizes his Ax-Crazy behavior; the keychain business is excised, with him instead pulling a chainsaw on WarGreymon and attempting to saw his legs off.
  • Apoclymon/Apocalymon, an Eldritch Abomination born from the anger and hatred of dead Digimon whose mere presence alone is enough to put the laws of physics out of balance. He's revealed to be The Man Behind the Man, and when he loses his fight against the DigiDestined, he tries to destroy all of reality as a last "fuck you" to them.
  • Diablomon/Diaboromon, a living, sentient computer virus who looks like a demonic grasshopper, who plans to consume all of the Internet, has the ability to clone himself into an army, and tries to nuke Tokyo just to get rid of a few DigiDestined. When that fails, he pulls a Godzilla years later and tries to stomp Tokyo into nothing by digivolving into an even more powerful form called Armageddemon.
• When Vademon was the monster of the week, he basically subjected Izumi/Izzy to Mind Rape and had removed his outer heart or curiosity (depending on the version). Izumi/Izzy is rendered an Extreme Doormat who does whatever Vademon tells him to, and Tentomon pleads with Izumi/Izzy to remember him.
• The penultimate episode, when Apoclymon/Apocalymon pretty much deleted the DigiDestined and their partners. That's got to be pretty traumatizing for a kid watching the show...
• Try to imagine Taichi/Tai's perspective from the time he nearly killed Hikari/Kari when they were younger. He had to be maybe the same age as Hikari/Kari is at the time of the show, so an eight year old kid nearly gets his sister killed and gets slapped by his mother and yelled at like he almost committed murder or something.
  • It would also be scary from their mother's perspective as well. While slapping her son in the face in public might not exactly be right, he still made a really stupid decision that could've easily ended up leading to her younger kid dying. What parent wouldn't be acting even a little irrationally and yelling at their kid for something like that?
  • Note that, she is the one who left a sick five-year-old alone, before the eight-year-old even got home, and as we see in both the pilot, and episode 21, it was neither the first, nor the last time. In fact, in the pilot, Tai is shown making sunny side up eggs for breakfast for both of them. He's roughly six in the short film.
• Episode 21 is an oddly eerie episode. The calm but haunting mood and slightly different animation style (it was directed by Mamoru Hosoda and his creative fingerprints is all over the episode) creates a spooky atmosphere. Then there is the newscast about climate disasters around the world were Taichi/Tai sees apparitions of Digimon and Tai realizing that what is happening in the digital world is threatening his world too. And the sudden message from Izzy on the computer. It justs start out of nowhere and plays a distorted video of Izzy telling Tai that everything is going to hell in the digital world. Children watching the episode when it first aired would have had to wait weeks to understand the context of the message and had to only imagen what was going on. Oh, to top it off as Tai is having a breakdown because he can't help his friends, ghostly Digimon attacks Tokyo like in a Kaijumovie.