Being a Horror podcast, Malevolent has no shortage of Nightmare Fuel. All spoilers are unmarked; proceed with caution.
General
- Just the very base premise is fairly horrifying! Imagine you start coming to, and you discover you are now blind and you hear a voice in your head. You start groping around to find a dead body. It's no wonder Arthur panics in those first few moments!
Season 1
- The violent way the Cult of Shub Niggurath and Emily MacFarland were dismembered. Especially horrific in Emily's case, as she was just a child.
- Arthur asking for a ride from a stranger, unaware that the stranger he's asking is even wearing a gasmask since he's blind. Then it turns out this man is a madman who is potentially violent. The whole ride with him is tense, with Arthur trying very hard not to say anything to set this man, Kellin, off. Then instead of being brought to Harper's Hill, he's brought to a half-finished cabin deep in the woods, and taken down to a basement with a cot and a chain on the floor, and he's not the first person to be brought there. Kellin hears voices, and claims he knows about the voice in Arthur's head. He has his sister's head chained to a dock and submerged in a lake, claiming to hear her talking to him. She tells him what John said, confirming that even if the other voices may be a result of his madness, this voice is very much real. He then turns violent, hunting Arthur, in a way not dissimilar from the villain of a Slasher flick chasing their victims. Arthur barely makes it out alive.
- In The Caves, we find an underground system of caves, caverns, and tunnels, and we discover that The Widow and the previous lighthouse keeper, Antoine had used these tunnels for cultish practices, including graverobbing. We never learn exactly what they were doing with these corpses. Then there's The Widow herself, who was somehow turned into some sorta barely human monstrosity as a result of the cult's activities. Worse yet, it's implied she was manipulated and transformed by Antoine, who seduced her for his own ends.
- How the King in Yellow manipulates people. He reaches out to people who's minds are already damaged in some way, from the mentally ill to people who recently experienced a traumatic event. Through these people, he can follow and watch Arthur and John wherever they go, and John outright mentions that if they go to jail, the King will have his pick of people he can influence, including Arthur's potential bunkmate. Amanda outright states in her letters that the King can turn the whole population of a town onto a person, and that he essentially lurks behind every corner, making escape nearly impossible.
- In episode 11 The Sect, Arthur and John are given a test by some cultists who worship the King in Yellow. It is revealed that these cultists have some kind of folio that not only knows everything they've done up until that point, but also what they will do. How must it feel to know that everything happening to you and the choices you made are pre-destined?
- As mentioned under Fridge.Malevolent, the underground city beneath the hotel seems to be a place where people go to die, likely taking their own life while there.
Season 2
- The Moss in the dreamlands seems to lure victims and hypnotizes them, and it's implied said moss has claimed numerous wayward travelers over the years.
- The prison pits; You find yourself, for whatever reason, a prisoner of The King. He has you tossed into a pit and starves you, and when he does feed you, more often than not the meat is raw. You may or may not be given water. All in all you are kept alive, but just barely. You're starving, and the isolation (assuming you aren't so lucky to have a passenger with you like Arthur did) is likely taking a toll on your mind. Then they toss in another prisoner, and soon after they stop feeding you...
Season 3
- The Larsons evidently can do whatever they want within the town of Addison with full impunity, imprisoning and torturing people, and sacrificing people to the invisible creature that lives within the mines. Considering how wealthy they are, it's likely that had Arthur not come by they would have continued to get away with what they were doing for a long, long time.
- As mentioned under Fridge; what exactly was Uncle doing with the woman they had imprisoned? When Wallace mentions that he tries not to learn their names, does that imply he simply looks the other way at what's happening, or does he actively encourage it?
- Arthur briefly loosing his compassion is honestly terrifying. While it's understandable that his experiences might have drained his patience, the fact that he could become so cruel and even bloodthirsty raises the question of what really makes him different from say...Larson? Fortunately, John was able to bring him back to his senses, but then...What if John hadn't returned? Or, what if he was unable to get through to Arthur?
- The invisible creature possesses only living people. All of those people were likely once normal humans, most of them were likely miners and people working in the nearby town, only to find themselves taken over by some unspeakable creature living inside the mines.
Season 4
- Fittingly for an episode named The Nightmare, episode 31 uses dream logic to great (and horrific) effect, starting with Arthur seemingly waking up only for Kellin's voice to be the one guiding him instead of John. All seems well enough until Arthur starts catching on that something is wrong, after which he is tormented with horrors and regrets, being thrown into an open grave, revisiting some of the beings he's killed, finding Kellin's dead body for a shovel to manifest in his hand to bury him. All of this culminates in Arthur dreaming of being disemboweled. It's then revealed that Arthur was sleepwalking through it all, and he was tricked into unleashing the demon that was chained up in the room next to his.
