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Nightmare Fuel / Hulk

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Puny human.
  • The film's surrealistic style results in plenty of nightmarish imagery: Bruce violently playing with a dinosaur toy as a toddler and Betty dreaming of herself as a child witnessing a gamma radiation explosion, among others.
  • Unlike his other works, Danny Elfman's overall score is chilling and psychologically intense.
  • The Hulk is pretty scary in this film; his roars and growls practically sound demonic.
    • There's also Hulk and Bruce's relationship. The page image comes from a scene that genuinely sells how much the Hulk hates his alter ego. It starts slow and eerie, only to show Bruce's tiny hand wiping off the steam from the mirror and the Hulk's comparatively giant finger on the other side—then he grabs and attacks Banner. The earlier script and Peter David's novelization take it further. The Hulk smashes Bruce's face into the mirror after grabbing his neck. While staring at his face, a bloodied but unyielding Bruce slowly and gently unfurls the Hulk's fingers from his neck. After seemingly calming down, the Hulk turns on a dime. He forms a fist, swiftly punches Bruce in the face, and breaks his neck, killing him.
  • The first half of Betty and the Hulk's first meeting is like something from a horror movie. Betty is sketching away in her cabin—oblivious of the danger coming for her—until she hears a rustling as if something huge just crashed into the woods. It's eerily quiet as Betty goes outside with a flashlight, looking for the noise's source. She walks toward some trees where the Hulk is watching her from the shadows—observant viewers can notice part of the Hulk's body when the beam from Betty's flashlight passes over him. Upon finding him, Betty becomes petrified with fear and unable to move; she can only stand and stare at the Hulk in shock, with her flashlight aimed at his partly concealed face and glowing green eyes looking at her. It's not until Betty's light shuts off that the Hulk steps out toward her, and Betty moves to retreat from him slightly before he fully reveals himself to her. Danny Elfman's score during this part also contributes significantly to the suspense. The novel version arguably builds the tension, making a better build-up to Betty and Hulk's meeting. Betty awakes from a deep sleep with a start, realizing all the animal sounds in the woods have suddenly disappeared before hearing the rustling noise. The local wildlife sounds return later when Betty takes Bruce into the cabin after the dog fight.
  • The Hulk-dogs and their attack on Betty qualify with their ferocity and twisted, mutated state combo. The sequence's novelization and original script versions feature more gore, mainly how the Hulk kills the dogs. He quickly kills the pitbull—Sammy—by leaping to a great height and landing on his back, crushing and driving Sammy's body into the ground. The Hulk tries the same method again, but the two remaining dogs wise up and barely dodge him. Then the poodle—Lily—latches onto the Hulk's ankle, and the mastiff—Smokey—gets his throat. Betty sees mangled flesh and oozing blood at the base of Hulk's neck after he gets the dogs off. The Hulk uses an uprooted redwood tree like a bat and smashes Lily's face against Betty's windshield. Then she performs a final lunge at Betty, bursting through the windshield as she pulls the seat release; Betty falls back flat as Lily crunches her jaws just above Betty before expiring. The Hulk partially smashes Lily through the windshield in the script instead of against it. While Betty tries to retreat from Lily, the poodle springs back to life and partly closes its jaws around Betty, lightly injuring her before dying and melting away. In the script, the Hulk finally kills Smokey by crushing Smokey's head with one hand; in the book, he grabs the dog around its throat and squeezes the life out of it in a "pulpy bursting of flesh and bone." In the book, after the Hulk turns back into Bruce and opens Betty's car door, she partially staggers out before noticing blood on Bruce and realizing it's hers from cuts she got from the broken windshield and Lily's claws during her final attack.
  • The Hulk riding a fighter jet into the atmosphere until he starts freezing, along with the pilot's scream, is highly unsettling. While the idea of the scene on its own doesn't sound so bad, it very much is the way the movie executes it.
  • It's rather creepy when David gets his absorbing abilities and becomes the Absorbing Man.
  • People can see David biting into the electrical cord and turning himself into electricity as this or Narm, especially the close-up of Lightning!Absorbing Man's face.
    • Rock!Absorbing Man. His echoing Big "YES!" while giving the Hulk an Energy Absorption bearhug is just eerie.
    • Water!Absorbing Man is probably the creepiest of all; after the Hulk throws Rock!Absorbing Man into the lake, the Hulk suddenly sees a reflection of David and slaps it, and a humanoid tidal wave Jump Scares out and pulls the Hulk underwater. He subjects the Hulk to a Mind Screw sequence that leads to the Hulk and Bruce collectively deciding to give it more energy, and Absorbing Man's resulting Power Incontinence makes him become what looks like a watery version of the Eldritch Abomination page's image.
      David: (Inside Bruce's mind) Sleep now, Bruce, and forget forever. Struggle no more, and give me all of your power.
      Bruce: You think you can live with it? Take it!
      Hulk: TAKE IT AAAAAALLL!!!
      David: (begins to swell like a balloon) Take it back!! I-It's not... stopping! TAAAKE IIIT BAAAACK!!! (lets out a roar of pain and anger)
  • The graphic exploding frog scene is disturbing; it could also count as Squick.
  • The novelization reveals the death of Lawrence Berkeley's original elderly janitor, Benny Goodman. David goes to Benny's house late one night with his dogs and tells him they're hungry. Benny says he has no dog food, followed by David saying they'll "improvise." Then he snaps his fingers, and the dogs are on poor Benny in a heartbeat, forcing him to the floor with the pitbull clamping on Benny's throat before he can scream. David casually jokes about loving Benny's 'orchestra' and closes the door behind him.
  • Talbot's alternate death in the novelization: with the Hulk trapped in the sticky foam, Talbot takes a handheld laser drill, stabs it into the Hulk's neck, and tears off some large chunks. After the Hulk escapes the foam, Talbot uses a rifle to shoot armor-piercing bullets at him—but they rebound off the Hulk's skin, with some riddling Talbot in a hail of bullets. Clutching his chest, Talbot feels something soft come out and tries shoving it back in before dying. Compared to the film version, it's another level of Hoist by His Own Petard and a more gruesome comeuppance for a thoroughly evil character.
  • David's death in the novel involves more Body Horror tied to his absorbing abilities. Bruce lets David have the Hulk, making David taller than the surrounding mountains. Then David sees swirling energy in his stomach that spreads throughout his body, further increasing his size. He realizes Bruce tricked him and demands he reclaim the power since it isn't stopping. It gets out of control, absorbing energy from David's surroundings until it seeks a new source—David himself. In agonizing pain, he continues growing as his body starts consuming itself. Then, the missile Ross shoots at David is too much for him, making his center shred and explode.

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