Nightmare Fuel / Rock-A-Doodle

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• The Grand Duke of Owls is one of the most frightening creations to come out of Don Bluth's imagination. He is a menacing owl who towers over everyone, including the other owls in his employ, and is able to warp reality by unleashing unnatural energy covered in deceptively innocent shapes that makes others forcibly shape-shift into anything he wants, grow in size, have limited telekinesis and become a tornado. On top of this, his veneer of politeness seems to be barely containing a psychotic and truly sadistic side to himself shown through how he shape-shifts others into helpless animals for him to eat or psychologically/physically abusing his nephew. Whenever he's allowed to not be bumbling, the film immediately gets darker.
  • How the Duke gets introduced outside of the story. He uses his dark magic to enter into our world via a lightning spark, which generates the signature energy that give the immediate impression that whatever is happening is not natural as the branch crashes into the room like an enlarged owl claw. The Grand Duke introduces himself, explains why he's going to kill Edmund and that he's going to eat him—by turning him into a kitten because they're more digestible as he turns Edmund's room into an animated one.
    • While not the same type of fear like Judge Doom that an animated villain could disguise as a human and you wouldn't even know until it was too late, the fact that the Grand Duke can cross over into our world adds another layer of terror to the character in that he's an dangerous entity cross dimensions with apparent ease just to kill someone he doesn't like, makes it possible he could do that to anyone.
    • And the reason that he knew Edmund's location? Because the boy broke his monocle and it being partially a reason that he wants the boy dead—aside from ruining his plans—somehow being aware that the boy had only touched the image of him in the illustrated book detailing his journey.
  • The Grand Duke of Owls might be responsible for some kids' deep and abiding fear of organ music due his particular organ is able to release electricity while he cackles like a lunatic and create rainclouds meant to drown the earth in flooding rains.
    • Aside from the standard weakness of intense light being a weakness to owls in this universe, the ultimate reason he had Chanticleer be cast out from his farm as a mocked and hated pariah while also destroying the rooster's pride and purpose in life? Because he hates the rooster's passion for rock and roll.
  • The Grand Duke's breath is deceptively cartoonish with all the shapes adorning it, yet hides its truly aberrant and unnatural nature. With it, he can turn you into a little animal that he can eat or degrade a certain failure of a nephew even further by turning into increasing warped forms like an exaggerated caricature of a bird or a horrid mix of alien and green, obese sickly looking bird. He can enlarge himself to make himself an even bigger threat, become a cyclone that would either shred or crush those in his way, or become bats, a hammer or a pair of hands to strangle a child. Put it all together, and the Duke comes across as less of an anthropomorphic owl tyrant and more of a nocturnal avian Bogeyman.
  • The part where the Grand Duke drops his hamminess and strangles Edmond with his magic. Even if Edmond didn't die, it's still frightening, especially when the Duke's eyes suddenly become reptilian slits.
  • The following line:
    Grand Duke of Owls: (after stealing a phone from the animals) Hello, kitty? It's the Duke. I have some rather bad news I'm afraid. *Ahem* When the batteries expire, so will your friends. Toodle-loo, cheerio, bye!. (bites the cord of the phone while grinning like a psychopath)
    Edmond: (sounding appropriately frightened) Oh no...
  • For some, the kitchen scene can be eerily reminiscent of real life child abuse situations, especially when you consider that Hunch IS his nephew. Perhaps this was the scene that they initially wanted to delete rather than the "Skunk Pie" scene.
  • The "Skunk Pie" scene itself seems to invoke a kind of uncertainty that one usually does NOT have in kids movies that death is not going to happen to a cute and innocent character and yet we have this scene where the Grand Duke of Owls slowly prepares a skunk for dinner while humming to himself and doubt slowly creeps about the fate of the little fellow until the moment when the Duke opens the oven and the flames start to engulf it... It's suspenseful to say the least. The skunk does seem to escape when Hunch causes him to flip the pie, though.
• The soundtrack version of "We Hate the Sun" has these extra lyrics that the movie left out:
  Grand Duke of Owls: I took the kitty by his throat and I squeezed him! I tried to choke him 'til his brains came out his ears! Uh, you know, the usual.
  • The song itself also counts as it establishes on top of being a fiendish sadist, he's very much insane underneath the regal demeanor he puts on.
• Snipes' panic attack in the chest is disturbing, as he pecks holes in it causing water to gush in while it's underwater, which would've drowned everyone inside if they didn't leave in time.
• The water itself, oddly enough, is scary. For small children who watched this movie, the idea that their homes and parents could be impermanent is disturbing enough, without a veritable biblical flood swamping Edmund's town. It doesn't help that the water is colored black.
• Pinkie the Fox, while not a supernatural monster like the Grand Duke, is someone that's more realistically unnerving, being a Corrupt Corporate Executive deliberately lying or blackmailing Chanticleer into remaining in his career while being fully aware that his actions would lead to a watery, eternally dark apocalypse due to being aligned with the Grand Duke causing it.
  • Also the way he threatens Goldie heavily resembles physical abuse, even with the film editing.
• The opposing rooster that fights Chanticleer on the Grand Duke's employ who attacks with sickles on the back of his taloned feet with the intent to kill. And unlike the Grand Duke, Hunch, the owls, and Pinkie and his goons, he's neither shown to be bumbling or silly. He's a straight up assassin that almost kills Chanticleer, setting up the darker tone of the movie.
  • What's worse is that all we know is that the Duke hired him without knowing the reason why this rooster took the job in the first place, leading to grim possibilities like either willingly doing the deed for money or sadism to rid the world of a rooster that would like to see a wet world of darkness while knowing the aftermath of the deed would leave Chanticleer dejected and humiliated, or being a mercenary thinking it's another job, unaware of the horrific ramifications of his actions because the Grand Duke deliberately withheld the information.
    • The aftermath of the battle begins with Chanticleer looking up at the sun rising without him, psychologically destroying his pride in his purpose and belief himself and leading to him being in a state of depression throughout the entirety of the movie. Not helped by the fact that his fellow farm animals, the ones he protects and are deep friends with, mock him for it. The lighting and exaggerated expressions the animals escalated the psychological terror that Chanticleer felt at that moment.

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