Nightmare Fuel / Survivor

WARNING: Spoilers ahead are unmarked. You have been warned.

Multiple Seasons/General

• The infamous Last Gasp challenge which is essentially a drowning simulator. This is one of the few challenges that are pure stress for the players and viewers alike, as players have to stay underwater for as long as possible whilst under a metal grate, oftentimes with the tide slowly rising as well.

The Australian Outback

• Early into the season, Mike Skupin finds a pig and stabs it to death on camera, smearing its blood on his face in a shockingly graphic display.
• Elisabeth having undiagnosed Celiac Disease and on a steady diet of rice. By the end of the game her body had literally begun the process of dying and her hair was falling out in clumps. No wonder she didn't want to come back for All Stars.
  • While her hair falling out was disconcerting, the basis of this horror isn't true, for several reasons. Rice is naturally gluten free, unless it has been cross-contaminated with wheat, barley, or rye. While it's possible that the cast was mixing gluten-containing foods into the rice (such as spices, soy sauce, or soup mix) and thus exacerbating her condition, subsisting on a diet of little else but rice would be no worse for a person with Celiac Disease than anyone else. Additionally, according to Elisabeth's own book, this is not what happened. Based on what she shared in her book, she had been struggling with mysterious gastrointestinal symptoms for years and actually felt BETTER in the Outback than she did at home. When she returned home, so did her symptoms, and she determined it was because she hadn't been eating gluten during her stint on Survivor, and this played a significant role in her finally being diagnosed.
• Tina fording the river during a storm at night to get their rice is a terrifying moment as much as it is an awesome moment for her because she managed to get the rice back but there was a very real chance of her getting swept away.
• Skupin falling into the fire. The first thing people hear is a scream and the camera shows a closeup of the skin melting off of his hands.

Africa

• The Boran tribe had to deal with lions circling their camp on a near nightly basis and thus required players to take night watch shifts. The castaways repeatedly make comment on how the lions are so close they can hear their breathing and how the lions could easily get in if they really wanted to.
  • To reiterate how much the lions were not a laughing matter, Mark Burnett himself personally came to the Boran camp on day 1 to yell at the tribe that if they didn't improve their halfhearted attempt at a fence that they and even the crew could legitimately go home in a body bag.
• The conditions the players had to endure are nightmarish enough alone. This was the only season where the players were unable to hunt or fish and the area they were in legitimately had nothing for them to forage so they were entirely reliant on bare rations which is why players like Big Tom lost an average of two pounds a day. Their water source was what most survival guides would deem a last resort prompting one of the rewards to simply be potable water. The first two eliminations were motivated by health concerns and if this had been a modern season multiple players likely would have been medivac'd. The heat was so severe that even a crew member came down with heat exhaustion and needed medical. Supposedly there were armed guards to protect them from the lions but none of the castaways ever saw them.

Marquesas

• Kathy, Pascal, and Neleh find a human skeleton. As if that isn't terrible enough Pascal points out that the skull has trauma to it which opens up a whole new can of nightmarish worms. Suffice to say that they are sent to live on Rotu beach despite the higher sustainability of their own.
• Paschal's weight loss is one of the most brutal of the whole show, as one sees them practically disintegrating each episode. So then Paschal is eliminated from the game due to a tiebreaker, which is all well and good... but when the Survivors next head to tribal council, they learn that Paschal was apparently in such bad shape that he collapsed and couldn't even watch the events at tribal council.

Thailand

• Brian is at times a Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant with how he acts to the other players versus how he's alone. One scene in particular is after a night of drinking, Brian tells the camera that him throwing up was intentional (or so he says) and that last night was an act to make the others see him as human, all while eerie music plays in the background.
• During the Attack Zone challenge, Robb starts outright choking Clay when the two have to face off.

The Amazon

• There's a reason why Matthew Von Ertfelda was given the nickname "Crazy Matt". His collected demeanor, odd manner of speaking, and vacant stares had people comparing him to Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. He seemed to lose it as the season progressed, spending hours out of the day sharping his machete and promising not to murder everyone with it.

All Stars

• There's a moment during the Attack Zone challenge where Ethan hits his head against the barrier and you can see him slipping into the water either unconscious or too dazed to move and isn't shaken from it until his mouth and nose are underwater.

Palau

• Stephanie becomes the last remaining member of Ulong... which means she has to survive everything herself. This doesn't sound too bad, but it quickly becomes apparent how much of a toll this takes as she's barely able to get any food by herself despite perseverance, and is actively afraid of falling asleep and letting the fire go out.

Guatemala

• The eleven mile hike, causing multiple severe injuries to players and one to faint. This was the start of the season.

Panama

• Bayoneta finding a dead turtle on their beach.

Micronesia

• At a reward challenge, Johnathan Penner's knee is impaled on a spike, causing his evacuation.

Samoa

• Russel Swan going from fine to collapsed. Even after medical there's a moment where he seems like he's going to recover but then his heart rate drops again and he loses what little consciousness he had regained.

Nicaragua

• Spit It Out/Spin Cycle takes the concept of Last Gasp and somehow makes it even more nightmarish. Three tribe mates are strapped to a wheel that is spun around to collect water with their mouths, which they have to spit it out into a cup. Not only can the three people on the wheel not really hold their breaths while underwater, they barely get any time to recover before being dunked again. Brenda even nearly drowns.

Caramoan

• Philip Shepherd actually sits an immunity challenge out the day he gets eliminated because it reminds him too much of a traumatic childhood experience. Were this any other challenge, Philip would have gotten tons of flak for it but given the challenge in question involves running along a wet surface and pulling yourself vast distances underwater without breathing, many viewers feel they would do the same thing.
• Like Elizabeth before him, Erik learned about an undiagnosed condition in the worst way possible. He collapsed out of nowhere and keeps talking about how everything is spinning. He had been done in by a triple threat of starvation, infection, and an allergic reaction that was causing him to black out and become less coherent as the minutes went by.

Worlds Apart

• In the episode 4 reward challenge, Dan accidentally drops a platform onto Kelly, causing her face to open and bleed heavily through her buff. It's fortunately not a life-threatening injury, but it certainly looks like one◊.
• Infamously, Shirin accuses Will of being deceptive with food in a game about deception. In response Will launches into an extremely personal tirade, talking about how no one loves her back home, or anywhere else, that she has no one, and calls her Mike's little b*tch among many other things, made even worse by the fact that Shirin is a victim of domestic abuse and that no one present at camp bothers to intervene or object. After this he is shown to be completely unremorseful, even after learning about her situation, and suggests that they keep Shirin around only to "make her life hell". Unsurprisingly, many fans consider Will to have crossed the Moral Event Horizon after this.

Cambodia

• It's pure fear when Jeff arrives at their camp in the middle of the night to tell Terry that his son has been hospitalized and that he's needed back home.
• Tasha's drowning scare during one of the challenges. She starts fine, but suddenly can't make it back to the platform and divers have come save her.

Kaoh Rong

• Jennifer getting a bug in her ear. She's in clear agony and it's too small for anyone to easily get out, meaning that they had to let it crawl out on its own. It's hard to notice, but by the time it does, there's dried blood on her ear.
• The challenge where three players are brought down by heat stroke. This is easily the most severe medical emergency that the show has ever had. First Debbie needs medical after getting heat exhaustion, stressful but she recovers quickly with shade and water and reaffirms to Jeff that she'll be okay. Then Caleb collapses and the medical team has to rush over to help him. His case is much worse and he has to be put on ice, oxygen, and IV. Then Cydney collapse but stays conscious, shaking and crying, and medical is forced to divide their attention between the two of them. It gets so serious that Jeff makes all crew members essential personnel to help the players. They spent over twenty minutes trying to wake Caleb up and even then, he's drifting in and out by the time he's actually pulled. And unlike other medivacs who are fine after a day in the hospital, Caleb was affected by what happened for months.
• The beach the tribes live on was a cesspool of parasites. Almost every player got an infection at some point. It was so bad that they had to send a doctor to check out each player. As if the thought wasn't bad enough we get plenty close ups of open and oozing sores before Neil gets pulled at risk of losing his leg.

Island of the Idols

• Dan Spilo was a bit of Realism-Induced Horror, or a Dirty Old Man who had no problems touching women without their consent even when they asked him to stop. To make matters worse, when warned to stop, he did it to a production member.

Winners At War

• The food situation on the edge was the most dire the players had ever experienced across multiple play throughs of Survivor. It was bad enough that several players were losing more than a pound a day with both Danni and Ethan being worryingly thin by the end.

42

• The third episode has an immunity challenge that involves players needing to free a latter from under the water and use it to get a key on a pole also in the water. Doesn't sound too bad? Well, the day the challenge was played happened to have massive water surges going on. Only one tribe was actually able to get back to dry land and finish the challenge correctly and even then, it was because Jonathan, who is built like a truck, had to drag several of them back to shore. It gets so bad that Jeff tells the tribes to get back to the beach and sends crew out to collect the keys, lest anyone end up drowning.

43

• During the merge challenge, Karla's hand is smashed by one of the heavy crates the teams have to move for the challenge. We get several close ups of it, where it's shown that it's bleeding and Karla literally cannot move it without causing herself more pain. Thankfully, she seems fine later, but you'd be forgiven if you believed that she shattered all the bones in her hand and it's later revealed she did, in fact, break a finger and apparently needed stitches.
• While subtle, watching Karla's body slowly break down as the game drags on is certainly unsettling, with her outright collapsing at a puzzle she desperately needed to win simply due to a combination of her past injuries, exhaustion, and lack of food.

44

• Three people go down in the first episode, a series first.
  • Bruce, the only one eliminated, bashes his head into a grate in the first challenge and is shown to be bleeding heavily. Even scarier is the fact that he seems fine at first after getting some medical attention, but later that night he is shown to have gotten worse, causing the medics to pull him from the games.
  • Mathew takes a brutal fall off a rock, dislocating his shoulder and cutting himself up. While he's not pulled from the game at the time (he would later be eliminated shortly before the merge), the medics force him to keep his arm in a sling for the time being.
  • Finally, Brandon collapses during the first challenge, implied to be due to still being exhausted from undertaking the strength challenge to earn his tribe a pot and flint. Again, he's fine, but it's naturally scary to see yet another person go down.

45

• Katurah's Dark and Troubled Past is utterly horrifying. When she was in fifth grade, her parents joined a religious cult that forced her to be homeschooled and work several jobs. Then, when she was only thirteen, the leader of the cult decided he wanted Katurah to be his next wife. Her family then escaped, but Katurah was then dumped into high school purely because of her age and then she realizes that as a black, poor, gay, woman, she was stuck in a massive uphill battle with no life skills or support of any kind.

46

• Bhanu Gopal gives a truly harrowing depiction of Sanity Slippage, Break the Cutie, and Manchild tendencies, in a four-episode long downward spiral that shows off just how volatile, unpredictable, and unstable he is, with him only getting worse as the game goes on. While Bhanu isn't violent, it becomes clear that his mental health leaves a lot to be desired, and serves as a cautionary tale of what Survivor can do to a person who is not prepared for it and does not have the emotional and mental capacity to justify getting off the couch and into the game.
• Kenzie has a frightening near-miss on a medical emergency at a tribal council when her torch lights one of her hair decorations on fire. Thankfully, the fire goes out very quickly and doesn't cause any damage, but it's still harrowing to see Kenzie come so close to such a serious emergency.