Nightmare Fuel / Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)

• Shou Tucker's reappearance as a chimera. His spine was fused to whatever animal he was combined with in a way that makes his head look upside down. Also the fact that he talks entirely in a WHISPER after this event.
• Nina's death: "Edward, why does it hurt here?"
  • Not to mention the death itself is graphically shown on-screen, as opposed to cutting away after in the manga. We get to see all of the beautiful images of Scar blowing up Nina/Alexander, as well as her/their bloody remains on the wall.
• When Edward comes across the crime scene of one of Barry the Chopper's victims. Upon accidentally having the cover taken off her body, its position reminds Ed of the transmutation attempt on Trisha, and he gets a flashback of its horrible, pulsating face, causing him to (understandably) pass out from remembering it.
• The scenes in the decaying, bombed out shell of a city. That's WWI era London. While that may not seem so disturbing, bear in mind that in Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), it is said that every time alchemy is performed, some dead soul from that world will have to lend its energy to make it happen. Even if the manga/Brotherhood 'verse works differently, it's still creepy.
• All the freaky shit from the first episode. When Al and Ed are in the Gate and Al is being forcibly pulled in, screaming for his brother to help him while Ed reached for him. Their hands barely touch for an instant and then Ed is screaming in disbelief, anger, and then bloodcurdling pain as he clutches the bloody stump of his leg.
• The bird chimera that Cornello put together to resemble Rose's lover. Its repeated agonised cries of "ROSE" make it seem like the thing is in pain and Cornello created it by murdering various birds and using their soul, Al punches it out of its misery but even its death(although its unconfirmed if it died or if Al just knocked it out but if its dead then its a Mercy Kill) with it twitching and making horrible noises is pure Nightmare Fuel.
  • Cornello in general, while he's a joke villain in the Manga and Brotherhood, here he's a genuinely creepy antagonist who commits some utterly vile acts all while wearing a massive smile on his face throughout.
• The time when Wrath, pre-"awakening", accidentally fused himself with a bed. It's a bit like the Tele-Frag article when you think about it.
  • When he fuses himself with Sloth and she is literally evaporating because Ed transmuted her into ethanol. The reaction with his body causes his skin to become permanently burned, and he tears free of her while screaming in pain.
• Envy killing Ed via a blade through the chest with blood spewing everywhere. Top that off with a closeup shot of Edward's pupils dilating as he finally dies. And Envy's freaking huge Slasher Smile as he was doing so.
• The Mind Screw moment when you see the flashback of Izumi trying to bring her baby back to life: It looks like the transmutation worked because her baby's body swells and actually starts crying, but it failed, and she hands her child to the Gate. The creepy shadow arms grab it and yank it back through the Gate while it's still crying. Izumi is shown remorsefully reaching out to her helpless baby as it is pulled away from her. When the Gate closes, she lets out a bloodcurdling scream.
• Kimblee's method of dispatching his foes or just people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Plus unlike the Brotherhood version, this version of Kimblee forgoes any charm or etiquette, relishing causing death and pain out of ruthless nihilism and slowly turning human beings into bombs or mutilating them for kicks.
  • Speaking of Kimblee, like Barry the Chopper mentioned below, he is much more horrifying in the first anime and considering the Blue-and-Orange Morality of the Brotherhood counterpart, that's really saying something. In the Ishval flashback early on in the series, Kimblee is seen blowing up entire buildings with a Philosopher's Stone and laughing maniacally. And remember, this guy actually influenced Barry to become the serial killer he is now.
  • Kimblee's death deserves a special mention. He is first impaled by Scar in a duel at Liore and just when you thought he was already done, Kimblee crawls with the last of his remaining strength towards Al and transforms him into a walking time bomb. All while literally having his intestines blown apart, spewing blood from his mouth, and unleashing one of the most disturbing Nightmare Faces in the series. The man was so nihilistic and hell-bent on turning Alphonse's hollow armor into a bomb that he didn't even care what would happen to himself. And just to add more nightmarish undertones into his twisted philosophy on humanity and its pointlessness, Kimblee deliberately makes his armor react slowly with oxygen, just so Al can realize with time how pointless his efforts have been. And then he dies believing that no one could ever save him. Holy shit.
• The death of Basque Grand at the hands of Scar. After Scar deconstructs his gray matter with alchemy, blood shoots out of his ears, nose and eye sockets in slow motion. Even creepier is how fragments of Red Stone shards fuse with the flesh on his tattooed arm upon contact.
• What happened to Rose after she was captured during the raid on Liore.
• In the video game Curse of the Crimson Elixir, the Elric brothers are sent to investigate the village of Bord'wan with Riza. You find the place in complete shambles — all the houses are blown out and many are covered with bloodstains (even the path you're walking on). It's dark as night, infested with scores of inky-black Golems, and has some suitably creepy music in the background.
  • An early chapter has the brothers investigating Shou Tucker's house. Know Resident Evil? You'll be getting familiar vibes walking through the mansion, but not because of zombies. When you look at Tucker's diary, it's clear that he's lost it. And then you find his glasses.
  • Near the end of the game, Ed's contact with the Crimson Stone causes him to end up in a blank white void. His only guide are blinking red lights, and touching them allows him to see Crowley's memories of his slow and steady descent into complete madness after failing again and again to create the perfect Golem body to place his lover's soul into.
  • In The Broken Angel (of which Elixir is a prequel to), Carmilla melting into a human-shaped mass of inky-black goo. Her screams of pain and rage don't help matters.
• "Can I... eat him??"
• The episode where people in a town are infected with a disease that slowly kills a person by turning their skin into a stone-like substance. Made all the worse with the closeup of one of its victims: Lydia, an innocent young woman, has her face disfigured so it resembles rotted, stony bark.
  • Lujon attempts to save a small boy from the disease with alchemy at one point. The poor kid pretty much exploded. While screaming in agony.
  • Also something of a Tear Jerker, but, at the end of the episode, the entire town has become infected with the illness. Their bodies are shown on-screen, and seeing all of them with the rocky skin is just flat-out horrifying.
• The whole thing with being stuck inside the Gate. Wrath described it pretty well: Stuck there. Sentient. No way to escape. And now let's think about Al's body being there, surrounded by all those eyes...
• Envy's final form in Conqueror of Shamballa. To put it into simple terms, the movie has Envy as this enormous dragon-like serpent, with razor-sharp fangs, that can move at lightning-quick speeds and more or less relies on the single emotion of envy. This, and witnessing dragon!Envy chomping down on Hohenheim, all of Hohenheim's blood gushing out and then dripping out of dragon!Envy's mouth... Brrrr....
• Envy and Hohenheim in the movie. Hanging up there, having something pierced through your body, waiting for something finally to happen... Highly unsettling, especially considering the time period Hohenheim hung there in Envy's mouth!
• The expression on Mustang's face as he is ready to kill himself in the Ishbal flashback episode is nothing short of haunting. What's worse is that unlike the Brotherhood incarnation, Mustang was the one who killed Winry's parents under orders from the military!
• Barry the Chopper. Unlike in the manga/Brotherhood anime, his sadism is not only played seriously, it's also terrifying. In episode 8, he kidnaps both Winry and Ed, with Ed tied to a chair with his automail arm taken off and Winry Bound and Gagged. He graphically talks about how he likes slicing people into pieces, makes several nightmare faces, slices Ed's arm, and mentally tortures him before finally trying to murder him.
  • There's also Ed's reaction during this scene. Keep in mind, he was twelve when this happened, and he reacts the same way anyone, especially a preteen boy, would. Not to mention he was all alone. Ed manages to escape his bondage by turning the chains into a spear; that's when Barry starts swinging, and Ed starts screaming. He's completely terrified. The only other time we've seen him so scared was when he and Al tried to bring their mother back. After Al and a few State Alchemists arrive to save them, Ed breaks down sobbing.
    Ed: I thought he was going to kill me. I honestly thought I was gonna die. I was so scared... so scared...
  • Much later, Al meets Barry again, now as a disembodied soul attached to armor just like him, and — also unlike the manga — there is absolutely no humor attached to this. Al is terrified to see that the serial killer who almost murdered his brother and their friend is not only still alive, so to speak, but is more dangerous than ever before, and now the skull-faced psychopath has the government's blessing to kill as much as he pleases so long as he does it on the grounds of Lab 5.
• Martel's death. It's roughly the same as in the manga, but the most major difference is that the actual killing is shown from Al's point of view. Also, Al told her to hide in his armor to get away from Bradley/Pride.
• The way Greed's body contorts when he dies. His eyes are bulging, his skin is dried up, and his mouth is agape as if he wants to scream but can't. Ed's scream of agony as his dissolving body sinks into the floor makes it all the more chilling.
• Hughes' death is only a little different in this version, but in a way that largely changes the atmosphere. The part with Lust is mostly the same, it's when Hughes goes to use the phone in the lobby. The random girl he runs into is replaced with the Fuhrer's secretary, who is the anime's version of Sloth and also tries to kill him. It gives it a kind of Paranoia Fuel feeling, like the homunculi can be anybody and anywhere, and there's nowhere to run.
• That horrible thing that Ed and Al made when attempting to revive their mother? It lives on and eventually becomes Sloth.
  • In a flashback, the thing can be seen crawling around... it was able to MOVE! And then, Dante got her hands on it...
• Gluttony's monster form in the movie.
  • The fact that they never revealed how he turned out like that in the first place.
  • In episode 50 of the series, Gluttony is unable to eat Alphonse in order to create the Philosopher's Stone due to his grief over Lust's death. Dante is annoyed with his inability to cooperate and erases the ouroboros tattoo on his tongue, reducing Gluttony to a mindless being whose only desire is to eat. This even shocks Envy, who seems scared of Gluttony's "pure" form.
  • The point in the movie where Gluttony chomps down on poor Wrath. We're treated to a horrifying closeup of him caught between the monster's jaws with thick globs of blood oozing from his mouth. A sickening crunch is then heard as Gluttony pulls Wrath further in and he screams out in pain. By the time Al transmutes them both, Wrath appears to already be dead. It's especially horrifying in the dub, where Luci Christian actually sounds as though she's in horrible agony as she speaks.
• Scar's older brother is revealed to have suffered Sanity Slippage. The combination of his lover's death, failing to revive her through human transmutation, and the imposing threat of a war on his home eventually pushed him over the edge. Using his own body, he misguidedly planned to create a Philosopher's Stone out of Ishval's people during the massacre to resurrect his dead beloved. He wandered out onto the battlefield completely tattooed and naked with Ax-Crazy eyes and tears streaming down his face as Scar watched in horror. It didn't end well.
  • Not to mention the reason he was naked; the sacrifice he made for human transmutation to bring back his lover/Lust? It's strongly implied to have been his own genitals. OUCH.
• Eckhart and her Thule Society mooks in the movie crossing the Gate over into Amestris... and subsequently getting themselves transformed by whatever the hell's in there. The viewers can even see said mooks practically screaming as the Gate morphs them. When Hughes shoots a heavily mutated Eckhart on the return trip, it comes across as a blessing.
• Lyra's death. We never see it happen, but we do see the end results. They're NOT pretty.
• King Bradley revealing himself to be a homunculus is way more chilling and foreboding in the 2003 anime, certainly helped by the fact that in this version, The Reveal is much later in the series, and Bradley's true identity as the homunculus Pride had not even been foreshadowed. It's a much more terrifying version of the above mentioned change to Hughes' death, as it not only gives the idea that the homunculi can be everywhere and nobody is safe... but they also have so much hidden influence that ''the leader of the country'' is one of them.
  King Bradley: (to Marta) Your agile moves won't work against me, snake chimera. I have the Ultimate Eye!
• Lust attacking Scar in the Central Library. The difference here is, instead of sporting her usual smirk, Lust instead goes into an almost doll-like, wide-eyed Slasher Smile, and it is unsettling◊.
• The lifeless Nina dolls that Tucker has created in his attempts to revive her.
  • They just... stare blankly at everything, don't react at all, and seem unable to move or speak. Even after Tucker attempts to use Al's Philosopher's Stone to "finish" them, they're still Empty Shells. It's even more wrong considering how cheerful the original Nina was.
• Dante's death, as cathartic as it is, is also pretty creepy - she's escaping in the elevator when Gluttony suddenly chews his way through the floor and grins at her hungrily. She tries to talk him down only to realize that he doesn't even remember who she is because she alchemically destroyed his mind, meaning that she can't control him anymore. He then lunges at her and she tries to defend herself with alchemy. We never see what happens next, as the elevator is empty when it opens, but Word of God confirmed that Dante didn't make it out alive.