For the James Bond Nightmare Fuel index, see here.
Even though the film contains some of the most ludicrous moments in the entire series, it also has some jarring Mood Whiplash to make up for it. The novel is no slouch either.
The Film
- Jaws' carnival mask
◊ might qualify all by itself, even if he weren't stalking slowly down a dark alley towards his victim while wearing it, and he would have killed his victim if not for the accidental intervention of the oblivious carnival-goers twice.- When it first appears, it's a tad unsettling but goes along well as an innocuous party mask. But then Bond and Manuela make their way out of the festivities... and the mask, while still in the background, looks directly at the camera and follows them.
- Not to mention how unnerving it is to realize that Jaws has been there the whole time watching them.
- The centrifuge scene, partly because it's one of the few scenes in the films where Bond looks authentically and absolutely terrified.
- For added flavor, there's some O.O.C. Is Serious Business mixed in; after Bond uses the wrist dart launcher to shut down the centrifuge, he is so frazzled that he doesn't even fire off one of the one-liners that defined the Moore Era.
- Drax sending his rottweilers to rip apart Corinne as she desperately tries to run through the forest, a grisly scene that still shocks to this day. The Soundtrack Dissonance of the hauntingly beautiful music and equally lovely forest scenery doesn't help.
- An added bit of Fridge Horror to this scene is the fact that Bond likely was never aware of the fact that him getting information out of her would get her killed, and made no effort to whisk her away before she could come to harm at Drax's hands.
- The deaths of the scientists who accidentally knock over a vial of nerve gas is horrifying, especially the music during that scene. The scene building up to it is tense as well, with no Background Music while Bond sneaks into the lab. An added bit of horror to this scene is the fact that Bond looks disturbed when witnessing the scientists die. It's likely that he actually had no idea the liquid in the vial would turn into deadly gas when exposed to air. Further, there was nothing he could do to save them.
- Later, Chang bursts out at Bond so suddenly even he is taken aback, but the fight quickly turns to Bond's favour.
- And Bond still had a vial of the gas in his shirt pocket. Suppose it had been broken during the fight...
- Bond's fight with Drax's python can be quite unnerving, considering that a python that size is easily capable of killing a full-grown man.
- The astronaut / space soldiers on both sides that got their navigation equipments destroyed and drifted into space, screaming!.
- While he definitely had it coming, Drax's fate. Let's hope Bond's dart's poison kills him before outer space does.
- As the station begins to turn into a full-on Collapsing Lair, we can see one of Drax's henchmen desperately trying to make his way to safety through a rapidly destabilizing corridor. In the next shot we see the corridor in question breaking away from the station completely, and it's just about possible to make out the henchman being ejected into space, with zero protection. He doesn't even have one of Bond's cyanide darts to deliver a quick death.
The Novel
- The terrifying Nightmare Sequence that Gala has when she realizes that Drax is going to drop a live atomic warhead right in the middle of London:Through the ceiling, through this chair, into the ground. The thin needle of the rocket. Dropping fast as light out of a clear sky. The crowds in the streets. The Palace. The nursemaids in the park. The birds in the trees. The great bloom of flame a mile wide. Then the mushroom cloud. And nothing left. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
- When Bond and Gala are caught in an "accidental" cliff collapse.'I suppose Gala's not too bad. I've almost forgotten what I'm called. I'm always having to change my name now that I'm in the Special Branch.'
'In the Special Branch.' 'In the Special Branch.' 'In the … '
When the bomb falls. When the pilot miscalculates and the plane hits short of the runway. When the blood leaves the heart and consciousness goes, there are thoughts in the mind, or words, or perhaps a phrase of music, which ring on for the few seconds before death like the dying clang of a bell.
Bond wasn't killed, but the words were still in his mind, several seconds later, after it had all happened. - Drax proves how evil he is by casually ramming a passing Alfa Romeo off the road when it passes his car, with Bond watching in horror as the driver is hurled into the air while his car comes to a fiery end. Even worse, the driver's only nineteen; a very young man who was only taking his customized car out for a ride.
- Drax's New Era Speech to the British public is deeply, deeply unsettling and fitting for a former Nazi.
- The news commentary turning into an Apocalyptic Log near the end, as the Moonraker smacks into Drax's escaping submarine, with the reporter screaming in terror before he gets killed by the resulting tidal waves.GOD! What's that? Look out! Look out! Terrific explosion. Black cloud going up into the air. There's a tidal wave coming at us. Great wall of water tearing down. There goes the submarine. God! Thrown out of the water upside down. It's coming. It's COMING …
- Hugo Drax, full stop. The idea that a beloved, seemingly patriotic working-class boy made good is secretly a fanatical Nazi out for revenge is blood-curdling enough. Then, when Bond and Gala are captured and Drax is finally able to drop the facade, we start to see what a truly deranged sadist he really is as he cheerfully recounts his various crimes with great pride, taking enormous pleasure at the thought of the huge death, destruction and misery his Moonraker missile will cause.
- While Drax is in league with the Soviets, what's to stop him firing the Moonraker eastward instead?
