"1949" puts a darker spin on the game's iconic game over line.
Sometimes, Pump It Up features much, much scarier things than just difficult charts - especially in the background animations.- The title card and BGA for Crash's "Dignity" from Exceed, in both its classic version and the new version made by Lyrebird Ferdinant for XX. The death metal music is already scary enough, but the BGA is somehow even more disturbing. The video shows a fanatically crazed man and woman with Mind-Control Eyes staring at a disembodied eyeball, and their eyes are rolling randomly. From time to time, one can see the figures' skeletons flashing by. And while there is a reprieve in seeing the cute bat-winged sheep that became the video's mascot, it's quickly crushed when the aforementioned eyeballs begin chasing it. Terrifying doesn't even begin to describe this video.
- "Achluoias" by D_AAN from Prime gives "Dignity" a run for its money. The video is rife with graveyard imagery, complemented by a panorama of an abandoned house invaded by bats. At the end, the video zooms in on a woman sitting on a rocking chair... who turns out to be a Creepy Doll. Mercifully, the BGA cuts just before she reveals her face in all its creepy glory, but the rest of the video is still disturbing to look at.
- Any BGA with a Stylistic Suck art style will more often than not turn out creepy. Notable examples include "Jump", "Hate", "Fire Game", "Ugly Dee" and "Hello William" by BanYa, "We Are" by Deux, "Go Away" by BMK and "Typhoon" by Lee Hyun Do, among others.
- If the art style wasn't enough, BMK's "Go Away" also adds in the bonus of the protagonist being a disturbing-looking Stalker with a Crush to a young woman who desperately wants him gone.
- "Phantom" from Zero is a remix of the titular theme from The Phantom of the Opera, and it sounds as scary as you would imagine. Its BGA, furthermore, features a group of evil alien creatures taking over the Earth, complete with a TV broadcast from their leader: "I AM KING OF THE WORLD. I HATE THE EARTHLINGS. BE MY SERVANTS." To add to the creepiness, the video ends with the leader laughing maniacally at his conquest.
- Its sequel song of sorts, "Phantom ~Intermezzo~" from Fiesta, isn't any less creepy. Its BGA adapts the plot of the song's origin musical... in a 3D art style that makes the characters look like creepy dolls.
- "Hypnosis", "Extravaganza", "Final Audition Ep. 1" and "Will O’ The Wisp" by BanYa all have videos full of strange abstract imagery and Epileptic Flashing Lights. The latter, mind you, could not be turned off until Fiesta at the earliest.
- The Pro series has also has its own fair share of unsettling BGAs:
- "!" (pronounced "bang") from Pro acts as one of the game's boss songs, true to its original appearance in ITG2. However, what makes this song stand out is its BGA, which many players agree is extremely unsettling. Throughout the BGA, various quotes can be seen. The intro contains text such as "Tonight the breeze is warm, but I feel cold", but as the BGA progresses, the quotes get even more disturbing. In the middle, the quotes follow the template "What do you say when someone tells you they don't like ____?". It starts with "your music" and "your arts", before turning into "your looks" and finally "you". And it doesn't stop there, as near the end of the song, the quotes get even more disturbing, basically telling you that "What if everyone who's close to you suddenly said that they didn't like you?", and the relatives go from friend, sister, mother, and finally father. The video ends with "They were never there for me. Were they there for you?". One may interpret this entire BGA as a perspective from someone who has depression or anxiety, being made fun of by everybody, including their friends and family, to the point that they considers that they have never had any loving relatives to begin with. It's sad, yet disturbing at the same time.
- Pro 2's BGAs are a reference to In the Groove BGAs, meaning that they would use a sequence of background videos titled "Jump Backs" synced to the music. One of those Jump Backs, labeled as number 628 in the files, depict a blue background and falling binary numbers... accompanied with a 3D face that sticks out of a plane with blank yellow eyes. The face moves slowly, to various directions, and even sometimes looks at the player as if it's staring into the player's souls. This Jump Back is present in the current BGA for "Rave Until The Night Is Over (Cyber Trance Mix)" as well as "Take Me Back" from Pro/Fiesta 2, albeit an edited version.
- "Black Maria" from Infinity. The song has no proper BGA; instead, a distorted female figure
pops out of the blue to scare unknowing players, obscuring the game's interface for a few seconds. Sheesh. - Infinity also gives Doin’s "Says", which uses a generic BGA in the main series, its own scary background animation. Among all the strange animations, what stands out best is the oddly creepy doodled face that appears right after the title opening.
- Prime 2 brought DreamCatcher's "Chase Me" and "Good Night", complete with their already freakish music videos. XX continues the trend by bringing Fly High and You and I, which complement the videos' story.
- "1949" from XX tells the player to DIE and references the game over 'Why Don't You Just Get Up And Dance Man' quote, albeit distorted. The BGA includes references to Hell and death, and among the song's charts is a D28, making this the hardest non-long song chart in the game. No, literally Have a Nice Death...
- In the update 1.02.2, however, this song got a Bowdlerization update where it removes the visible word DIE as well as changing the sung lyric to RUN. It still doesn't make the song any easier or less deadly though.
- XX crosses over possibly the greatest contender for creepiest background animation - none other than LeaF and Optie's "MopeMope". Sure, the video was altered to appeal to a more general audience, but both the song and its accompanying surprisingly creepy animation remain as terrifying as ever.
- Just as the BanYa songs above, some of the harder charts for this song contained Epileptic Flashing Lights that matched those in the original video. Thankfully, they were patched away due to the risk of seizures they posed to players.
- "Barber's Madness" from M. Despite the song being a remix of the Overture from The Barber of Seville, its title card, which displays scissors and a razor with Symbolic Blood around them, brings to mind another barber entirely.
- Mitsugame brings this song's Sweeney Todd theming to life with the BGA for this song's appearance in Phoenix, starting from version 1.04.0. Aside from the BGA being predominantly red, there are some indicators that the barber in the BGA is a Shout-Out to Sweeney, such as the floating scissors and razors, the sheets of paper with hands and possible blood prints, and the syringe near the end of the BGA. Even the fans agree, this BGA is indeed unsettling.
Hey! Why don't you just get up and dance, man?!
