In a Deleted Scene on the premium area, he tries to hang himself. Sounds like his usual, right? Wrong. Unlike the gunshots where you see a little hole and some blood, the rope is actually tight around his neck and it really looks like Doug is in pain.
His Halloween Special with Teddy Ruxpin, especially the ending. Critic is forced to give a positive review, tries while terrified, and then screams for help. Then the lights go out. "Come dream with me tonight..."
Also the moment when Teddy forces the Critic to do a more proper review of him. When the Critic nervously agrees, he asks Teddy who he really is...
The end of his Full House review features a demonic growling version of the Olsen twins, who show up in one jump scare after another. Odds are you'll be caught off guard by at least one of them.
The bit from his look back on Nicktoons, where he's remembering all the torment he got about Doug. He starts off Stepford Smiler about it, then the voices start, and he snaps out of it with his hands covered in blood.
"You're Doug Funnie! You're Doug Funnie!"
Rob finds Critic dead in his bathtub at the end of It (1990), with "BALLOONS" scrawled in blood on the bathroom wall, and the high piano melody from the film skips like a Broken Record.
In Alaska, whatever his dad did to him to get him never mouthing off again and still be shaky and traumatized over it years later.
His "Return of Nostalgic Commercials" review, when he looks at the Corn Pops commercials and puts in quick, half-second clips from various horror movies mixed in with the kids's mental breakdowns. And then he goes and puts in some Evil Dead clips during the Fun Fruit Trees commercial!
The end of his review of The Haunting (1999), which is a long, ranting imitation of the writer having some kind of mental breakdown while insisting that his version is much more mature and grown-up than the original. It starts out funny, but it goes on for a really long time and gets pretty disturbing after a while. Even he seems terrified about where his mind went to.
The end of his He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special review. A clip of Yoda saying "You will be. You will be." plays, and when Critic wonders why he keeps saying that, the sound of Yoda's disembodied laughter plays while Critic looks around in slight fear and confusion. And the laughter keeps going, even picks up a bit more, even as Critic leaves.
Made all the creepier when you hear a dark reprise of The Imperial March on the background.
And then there's the end of his Next Top Eleven Christmas Specials. Usually the Critic crying and begging not to do something is great fun, but when he inserts the Star Wars characters laughing manically at him it gets a bit freaky.
The ending to James and the Giant Peach. He gets massacred by all the guns when the screen goes black, but then there's a moment or two of silence followed by another clear-sounding shot.
When he appears in Star Trek: Insurrection, his hateful expression, stern voice, Critic breaking into tears and the Kill Bill music to top it off, makes Linkara seem far darker than the Parody Sue he's usually portrayed as.
The Red Dragon video features his take on Hannibal Lecter's most famous line, almost as disturbing as Hopkins'. Subverted and turned into a Funny Moment when after this, we cut to him indulging his posh side and ordering the food from a takeaway.
A few moments from Bennett the Sage in the Starchaser: The Legend of Orin review make his guest appearance in Ask That Guy look like he was giving out candy, with him being dressed in a black and red robe, telling the Critic not to die as he can't play with that way, and getting way too turned on by Critic crying.
The robot thing with human eyes was already creepy in the movie, but they just had to make it pants-shittingly terrifying by dubbing it with Judge Doom's "when I killed your brother" line. Thanks for the nightmares, boys.
In the The Transformers review, the domestic violence joke between Starscream and Megatron is really uncomfortable. Even the Critic acknowledges it being dark.
Going back to the early days: Doug's impersonation of the Joker's "why so serious" speech, especially after four minutes of goofing around, makes you want to hide behind a blanket.
The effect of his teeth shattering at Mara Wilson's cutesy child acting.
Not to mention...DON'T FUCK WITH MARA WILSON!!!
How about when he opens the 'supposed' door where the dead and decayed godmothers sit?
His getting attacked by a Facehugger. Even if he just flicks it off, those things are just as creepy in poorly animated form.
His take on Mr. Magoo. He's actually a self-described psychopath who fakes blindness so that he can keep his handicapped parking permit.
This bit from "Revenge Of The Commercials".
Teacher: Lindsey, why are you late for class?
Lindsey(with her face melted) POP TARTS!!!
The return of the demonic Teddy Ruxpin, including a Jump Scare during an Alpha-Bits commercial.
Both Baby Geniuses movies caused Critic to go into a coma. In the sequel, what is the last resort brentalfloss and Uncle Yo take to snap the Critic out of his supposed coma? An ironto the FACE!
The sound-bite he sometimes uses of gunshots and children screaming.
The Shining reference in his review of Twister. "Heeeere's Twisty!" Holy shit, that look was creepy.
Even if you're not an animal lover, the squishy noises after he kills two pets for funsies in Jungle 2 Jungle are just nasty.
The opening rant of Scooby-Doo. The Despair Speech in the commercial special was bad, but at least that was pretty passive. This one makes you scared that he's going to take his gun and shoot himself to make the pain go away.
Roger. Especially his cheerful goodbye just before Critic blows himself up. Never let it be said that Orlando isn't good at acting scary.
Speaking of Roger, didn't anyone else feel creeped out by Spoony's part of You're A Rotten Dirty Bastard? I know he isn't supposed to see them, but the thought of him laughing like a maniac while the Nostalgia Critic shoots him. Plus the brief moment the camera shows his crazed face laughing while bullets bounce off him.
Not to mention, imagine the Spoony(!)Critic's video on it's own. Imagine you live in that universe where Doug never existed. Spoony starts the video by casually saying he likes a few movies NC tore apart, having a discussion with Douchy then the hell out of nowhere immediately goes Batshit insane and laughs like a lunatic for a good entire minute with his face right up close to the screen. But then again... seeing what Angry Joe did...
When the present Critic's about to blow himself up, with grenade in hand, and with his copy of the movie, he says this line:
Nostalgia Critic: Hey, Scooby-Doo, where are you? I'll tell you where! IN HELL!
The Review Must Go On. Whether he was a hallucination or not, Critic acted threatening and confident instead of his usual lovable loser self, pressuring/stalking Doug into bringing him back.
After everything he's said IRL about Accentuate the Negative, it's creepily surreal to watch Doug going crazy all on his own, screaming into his hand and flailing around at The Odd Life of Timothy Green. That it's followed by viewing Critic's shadow just around the corner signifies the Genre Shift.
Killing the cat in The Odd Life of Timothy Green and apologizing with a smile on his face. And unlike the Doug joke, there is much more blood, and we see his hands for longer.
He gives an epic rant about how disgraceful Pearl Harbor is to the real event, ending it by shrieking "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" at a volume and pitch human speech was never meant to reach.
In the joke about how Affleck's such an asshole he takes kids to a war zone, there's an awful shot of a crying girl with a good chunk of her arm gouged out. Yikes.
At the end of Paranoia, Brad with scary angry eyes promises Critic that a person with a horse's head will rape him. Was that needed?
In the Son of the Mask the devil refuses to grant the Critic's request to be killed in order to relieve him of the suffering caused by the memory of watching the film. While such a decision is not surprising in and of itself, it is remarked that "death" didn't work out so well for the Critic the last time, implying that the Critic will never be permitted to die, no matter how great the suffering.
The Ominous Music Box Tune soundtrack playing over the scene doesn't help, nor does Critic's reaction to the begging getting refused.
When the Critic briefly contemplates showing the baby with Loki's face and the "Schwarzenegger-Baby from Junior" back-to-back, you know trouble is coming... and sure enough, he suffers a prolonged heart attack to the tune of a blaring klaxon and flashing red letters as he struggles to take his medication after seeing the results.
Hell. It would have been acceptable to just show fire, skulls and brimstone along with screaming, but Doug had to go one step further with naked tortured corpses hanging around everywhere and skinless minions.
The preview screen for The Cat in the Hat review is creepy, with the Cat's decapitated head. And the expression... Not to mention Critic's cold dead eyes and the nightmarishly dark background.
The double-suicide of the executives. They flail around actually upset, and Critic has a brief moment of looking guilty until Evilina calls it funny.
While watching A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Critic imagines how David would appear if Stanley Kubrick had been directing the film. Cue incredibly creepy shot of David appearing in the place of the little girls in The Shining.
Nostalgia Critic recalling his experience of Teddy Ruxpin A.K.A The Devil, while singing "This is the end, my cuddly friend, see ya this is the end" Especially the fearfully pawing the mirror bit. Don't forget the last time we saw him have anything to do with mirrors was "The Review Must Go On", and despite it being karma, Critic just looks like he has no idea what he is.
Doug (in Doug clothes so you know it's him) playing an abusive father who smashes furbies and makes his son need therapy (which he thinks is stupid) is soul-scarring.
The post-it-reminders on the Critic's desk area. There's standard things like "don't look them in the eye" or "they're not human", but then there's slightly more crazed pleadings like "don't fear death" or "it'll be over soon".
His breakdown in the middle of The Master of Disguise, which starts with him laughing uncontrollably before escalating into his beating two people to near-death with a baseball bat. He then goes after a third person where we get a POV scene of him pretty much beating up the viewer. During the part where he goes Laughing Mad, it quite literally sounds as though he's about to die of laughter. Then it turns out that he blacked out during that period, and has no idea what happened.
Several times Critic winds up Tempting Fate leading to Rachel to come in and nearly kill him via the methods he's half-jokingly described (death by injection, death by decapitation) and is just barely Genre Savvy enough to realize she's creeping up on him and stop her in time.
Critic's pretty cruel (even nastier in view of her call-out of him in The Shining) punishment for Rachel. He lulls her into security laughing with him, then elbows her in the stomach and back, and when she's on the ground tells her she's fired before tossing off the 'happy birthday' she wanted in the first place. Pause at the right places and you can tell Doug looks so guilty about it.
At the end of his Sailor Moon review, a joke about Demo Reel is made, and Critic hits Dr. Hack violently with a look of abject anger on his face.
The end of the Les Misérables (2012) review where Katara uses bloodbending on the Critic, forcing the bones in his arm to snap creepily.
In the beginning of "Top 11 Adult Jokes We Never Got as Kids", he explodes the guy behind him with firebending and his only reaction is to run away out of embarrassment.
Critic screaming as "what's left of" his talent is bended away.
Critic as an Empty Shell. It's not just that the camera is too close to him and he's Dull Surprise like the stereotypical Shyamalan actor, but that he seems completely devoid of any brain capacity, is an Extreme Doormat who just does what he's told, and Shya-Amon is clearly into past victim showcases.
In the Bridge to Terabithia review, we have a cutaway gag to show what if Leslie survived the rope incident and grew up and reunited with the grown up Jesse. When Jesse reminds her about when they pretended that Terabithia was a real place when they were younger, Adult!Leslie creepily stated that she was still in Terabithia. Adult!Jesse immediately left out of fear, and the gag ended with Leslie asking Malcolm, who's strapped to a chair, if he could see Terabithia. In reality, She's showing Malcolm blank slides, forcing him to pretend he sees something. Then she tells him she's glad he can, unlike the others. Cut to a bunch of skeletons.
The title card for the review of The Shining Miniseries, it's a massive close up of his face parodying Jack Nicholson. On blip the title card is zoomed in, his face taking up practically half your entire monitor screen.
Critic hating having to give some credit to King so much that he actually wanders off into the forest to be catatonic.
Doug as Adam in the Mythbusters segment of Sharknado looks like he's having a seizure. In her BTS video, Rachel agrees that he's more creepy than he should be.
In the Devil review, while subverted in that Devil!Malcolm is the one who 'dies', the Drone of Dread that plays while Critic mixes both stupidity and being suicidal, goading the devil into killing him and nearly succeeding, is still a nerve-wracking moment.
In "Dawn of the Commercials," when talking about Ronald McDonald's creepy overtones, Critic pulls off that creepy smile a little too well, complete with dramatic chord.
The live action version of Count Chocula is a great example of the Unintentional Uncanny Valley and his wide eyes are eerily similar to Judge Doom's eyes.
A realistic take on the "Got Milk" ad involving kids growing up into more beautiful versions of themselves. It starts off innocently enough with a little girl drinking milk in order to be beautiful, but shallow with the brother not noticing. However, it takes a dark turn when she realizes that she has an empty existence so she begins to take drugs that driver her further down the Despair Event Horizon line till she's nearly Driven to Suicide. She reforms, thankfully,only to relapse and return to her paranoia resulting in severe Sanity Slippage involving her becoming poor and attached to her milk glass. The brother's reactions make it worse; at first he's not interested in her up till she starts taking cocaine, and it escalates till she finally becomes an insane bum that makes Chester A. Bum shrink in terror. The logo outright states "Milk — what the fuck"?
The frozen, borderline Slasher Smile on the Critic's face when he realizes that the Canadian commercial depicting a baby shower turns out to be a PSA about rape.
Critic: (smiling throughout) What the fuck, Canada???
In Man of Steel Critic's creepy smug smile after "proving" Joe is a hypocrite for calling him out on Male Gaze. Not helped by a reveal later that he's still being gross towards EmiliaClarke.
Zod and Joe's not-helping-ness is played comedic, but Critic has every right to be scared of torture threats considering everything that happened in To Boldly Flee.
Zod: If you don't hate it, I will make sure the corpse they find of you they will never be recognized as a corpse.
His love for Christmas in "Top 12 Santa Clauses" takes on a slightly more Nightmare Fetishist note than usual, as even though he after decides going that far would be gross, he wants to kidnap it, tie it up in his basement, visit it every night and chop off pieces of it so he could eventually become Christmas.
Him starting the countdown with a Jump Scare in the form of him transforming into a human rocket and shooting himself into space.
The title card for his Eight Crazy Nights review features him holding the decapitated head of Whitey with an extremely deranged Slasher Smile on his face.
The rapey screaming sounds made when he takes the movie offscreen to have violent sex with it.
Critic trapping the "Happy Madison Audience" in a bathroom, exploding them and walking off with no regret. There's Fan Hater and then there's that.
The deeply painful image of Sandler chained to a flaming menorah in what looks like hell, and how it actually seems to make Critic feel better.
The beginning of his review of "The Worst Christmas Special." He starts to hallucinate before the theme song, and it gets worse before the introduction to the flick. His face is twitching, and ominous chanting begins to play.
His initial Talkative Loon reaction to the tacked on moral “you always win when you are good," getting more and more high-pitched until he ends up screaming a loud “fuck you!”.
Also the ending. Until Critic stops her, when after leaving Critic alone, Tamara is next seen trying to get Spoony and The Cinema Snob to do a crossover of the film, intending to do to them what she did to Critic, all done like the ending of the film itself. And scarier than the film itself.
The Imagine Spot with Rob's head in a noose, Malcolm Laughing Mad, and the walls covered in blood.
It doesn't help that Doug in the commentary admits he has "sick specific fantasies of seeing [Rob's] head in a noose", then realizes how gross that sounds so there's a few beats of awkward silence and then he quickly changes the subject.
Their version of the beating scene is surprisingly hands-on, with Critic screaming realistically (because Doug was all too happy not to wear proper protection) and throwing slurs everywhere (Doug felt bad but not enough to stop), Tamara holding him up and deeply enjoying it, Malcolm also having far too much fun (even if it is deserved) and, as a bonus to make it even more uncomfortable, the twisting of Demo Reel. Malcolm beats Critic in the same way Rebecca had her badass queen moment of killing the turkey, and the Ethereal Choir from "The Dark Knight Begins Rising" is scary.
During NC's review of Ghost Rider (2007), there's a commercial involving Tamara scrubbing the floors with the Sam Wow, a cloth in the shape of a mustache. Of course, it turns out you're not supposed to have it come in contact with latex, otherwise it'll burn human skin. She pulls off the gloves she's wearing and her hands are very much burned to hell!
It gets worse when Doug as Sam Elliot grabs her threateningly, makes her cry, and then shoots her. And then he shoots the cameraman.
Character-based horror in "The Strangest But Best Couples". After all the Spooning abuse, Critic apparently thought it best to try and act like Spoony. It's horrible yet believable that he thought that would work.
During his review of Ghost Dad he wonders if it wasn't actually supposed to be a comedy and then shows a trailer for it recut as a horror film. It's surprisingly very effective at being scary.
We also get to see Critic soaking himself with gasoline and actually lighting the match, setting himself on fire. The fact that he didn't die from that makes it even more horrifying.
In “The Uncanny Valley” he shakily mentions sneaking into a woman's bedroom, watching her sleep and it going so wrong that it was the last time he did. The way he says it, something bad clearly happened to either him (which would be deserved) or the woman.
The jump scare of the Black Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland (2010). Critic's actually doing something mundane for once (spring cleaning and then wanting to destroy his home videos), and he pops up out of nowhere with a Slasher Smile and crazy eyes.
Malice kills Danny Elfman because he's singing annoyingly instead of giving them directions. It's offscreen, but the gruesome sounds of the blood splattering, Elfman screaming, and Critic's horrified reaction make it quite unpleasant. Even worse when Malice comes back totally covered in blood and inappropriately cheery.
In the Disney Afternoon review, Critic physically abuses Malcolm, both for mentioningDoug and for getting the DuckTales theme stuck in his head again. Pretty typical slapstick, right? Except Malcolm is shown with bruises after this, is visibly shaken, and is knocked unconscious the second time. That's not even going into him pulling out a gun on him and Tamara over Darkwing Duck, or snapping at them in general. Overall he gives off major vibes of a Psychopathic Manchild even more than usual here.
Tamara being scared of Critic enough that unlike previous episodes she doesn't even try to punish him back when he abuses both of them, just worries that Malcolm should be in the hospital, is a big part of why he's so creepy in the episode.
In Maven's “Monster Mash”, he laughs about how he beat an “adorable little girl” to death because she thought he was the Nerd.
In Food Fight, you have the character of Mr. Clipboard, with an unusual walk, disturbing facial expressions, and flailing arms. Then there's the sketch in which Doug adapts Clipboard's tics and tries to solicit Tamara, which ends with her kneeing him in the crotch twice. Doug's "Clipboard" face looks akin to a junkie, and the fact that his audio is deliberately out-of-sync with his mouth ups the uncanny level a lot.
While it's parodying Selina Kyle's breakdown in Batman Returns and so it has that element of amusing, Critic's meltdown at the beginning of the video. A lot like his copying Jack Nicholson in The Shining, Doug is just a little too good and realistic at acting like a woman losing her mind.
His speech at the end of his review, in which he sounds like he went through the worst torture imaginable while quivering in fear, complete with inhuman rasping at the end which made him sound as if he was possessed is enough to bring chills.
The title card for The Lorax, which features the Critic's faced merged with the Lorax, which is outright bizarre and disturbing.
The opening scene, which is probably the most disturbing parody of The Giving Tree ever. A little boy chats with the tree, and then as an adult cuts her down to make posters for The Lorax. This is not helped by the tree horrifically screaming and pleading for him to stop the entire time, even as she goes into the shredder.
If you hate or get anxious at screamers (and Critic's on the "admit you liked them once" train), there are three in a row at 3.15 of "Why Do We Love Stupid".
The (pre-stinger) ending of "Old vs New: Spider-Man". The Hyper Fangirl's split personalities convince her to go against the Critic's wish to be friends and continue stalking him, the threatening Ethereal Choir plays while she puts on his hat and coat like he did in "The Review Must Go On", and the camera goes skewed as she does the most deluded Slasher Smile face ever.
Tamara taking the "Fuckitall" drug in the fake commercial during the Blue Brothers 2000 review. She starts off as Empty Shell mindlessly talking about how she's no longer angry about bad movies, then collapses and starts foaming at the mouth. Malcolm begs Critic for help, but he's too distracted ranting about the movie. Eventually, she ends up dying, with Malcolm covering her body up in the background.
In Hyper Fangirl's fourth vlog, the titular fangirl's complete glee at the thought of mind raping Critic into loving her.
Until he becomes pathetic at the end, Film Brain in The Purge review is actually creepy and threatening. He's a direct parody of the main villain in said film, and employs the same large unblinking eyes and Slasher Smile, gleefully threatening to blow up the studio because Critic wouldn't do a crossover with him.
The end of Small Soldiers, with Hyper Fangirl in the Critic's bedroom, with a Slasher Smile and holding The Princess Diaries sequel. "What You Never Knew About TMNT" makes it worse, as he's coincidentally "missing until further notice, presumed to be fucking terrified".
Hyper Fangirl kidnaps Critic and forces him at gunpoint to be her boyfriend in The Princess Diaries 2 review. Given how vehemently he's rejected her before, it's deeply unsettling to see her threaten his life and then manipulate him into basically being her property. Even Tamara thought she was really creepy this time around, and later episodes show that Critic is so terrified of her he freaks out and hides as soon as she arrives.
Critic got scary towards the end, hissing to Fangirl that he sees what she's doing, and the camera angle making him look even taller and her tinier while he yells at her.
In That SciFi Guy's review of The Sixth Day, Critic tells him that if he doesn't do most of the work, the next time they'll meet up at a con, Critic will slit Guy's wrists and leave him in a bathtub.
Up until The Reveal of JonTron getting back at Critic for re-reviewing Food Fight, the Nostalgia-Ween 2014 opening, first seen in the Maximum Overdrive review: a first person POV in a mask stalking through Doug's dark house and stabbing Critic. The fact that it's a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment doesn't actually help, given Critic's tendency for hallucinations. The behind the scenes has it be Rob with the knife, and he jokily scares Doug by pretending to raise it to stab him again.
The "Top 11 Halloween Classics" list, a discussion of some seriously scary movies that digs deep into just why they're so effective.
"Rise of the Commercials":
In the segment on the Apple "1984" commercial, Critic remarks on how Apple is totally not a dystopian society where people line up for hours on end to worship a controversial leader, turning into "brain-dead, lifeless zombies who plug ourselves into the machine of life we can also call 'The System'." Then Critic thanks Apple, and stares menacingly into the camera as an Apple logo comes up, quoting the "You Cannot Beat Us" Nintendo commercial that had scared Critic earlier in the episode as creepy music plays.
The Campbells commercial section where Uncle Lies brings his daughter in from the cold, even though she's been out so long she's nearly frozen to death. At one point, he breaks off her hand because she's so badly frostbitten.
After Tamara gives a speech about how Critic should be free to celebrate Christmas the way he wants in Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, he grabs her in Riddler make-up and screams in her face. Now that's a Jump Scare. This is followed by a song about how Ax-Crazy he is about loving Christmas that terrifies both her and Malcolm. Here's some, ahem, highlights:
"If Christmas was a person, I'd fuck it to death, and then consume its body for its Christmas bread!"
"And I'll play those Christmas carols 'til my ears will bleed with Christmas cheer!" (turns head to show blood running from his ears)
"I want to smash it open 'til it's deaf and cold and then search its brains for its Christmas gold, and then drink its blood 'til I lose control, and the Christmas madness will take its toll!"
The very end of the song. After Malcolm shoots him down with the tranquilizer dart and he and Tamara walk away, Critic starts to sing again on the ground, this time slow and subdued:
Critic: It's snowing, I love shopping, and I fu-fu-fu-fu-fucking love Christmas / Enough to build tranquilizer immunity / I must be fucking batshit crazy about...
Critic: (jumps back up with Jesus behind him)I'll kill anyone not celebrating with me! / Your resistance is feeding my insanity!
Before all of that, his "Chill Pill Patch" that made him creepily pleasant.
After the lyric “I'll let it ruin my life”, he creepily turns his head to the camera and hisses “making it the best Christmas yet”.
Making it worse, Doug was asked at Midwest Media Expo what his inspiration for the demonic ending was, and he replied he didn't need any, he just really is that batshit and violently excited about Christmas.
While the punchline is his ambiguously convenient electric powers, seeing his eyes replaced with crackling electricity during the Transformers: Age of Extinction crossover is still disturbing.
Even though he's a transformer, Michael Bay's gruesome death, being both electrocuted and stabbed in the chest. And how both Erod and Critic react as if this personification of a real person deserved to be destroyed just because he makes bad movies of the franchises they like.
In Demolition Man, as silly-diabolical as it is (he's petting an Appa doll for example), threatening both Tamara and Malcolm with spinal cord removal machines and fact that he has one for each of them, is still disturbing.
At a con (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVtfth5eyFg 21 minutes in), and while also interesting Fanfic Fuel, there's something disturbing about Malcolm-as-Devil and Tamara saying that if Hyper sold her soul, he would hand Critic over to her.
In Hocus Pocus, while the build up is funny, the sudden Shadow Discretion Shot of the three witches being hanged still manages to be creepy.
"Conquest Of The Commercials", so much so that even the tagline for the behind the scenes shoot is "How creepy can we be while filming innocent kids’ commercials?".
Doug's creepy, puppy-murdering, heart-eating father character with the slowed-down tape-recorder voice. Special mention should go to his terrifying face right up close to the camera. As kid!Tamara says, “I think I need to be potty trained again”.
In the Frosted Mini Wheats adult-shouting-at-his-younger-self skit, the adult starts to pull a noose around his neck, and it falls around the kid's neck, making her scream and run off. Doug also adlibbed the shouting at his younger self, even freaking out people behind the scenes.
Don Bluth's piercing gaze is both awesome and intimidating. It becomes particularly creepy when Critic keeps trying to change the channel away from Bluth's face, but no matter what, he can't escape him, and Bluth is deliberately unclear about what he wants from Critic that it can make the audience fear the worst. The next episode reveals he just wanted Critic to play Dragon's Lair and promote its sequel, though.
In the TMNT Christmas Special, Critic's giant head popping out of the studio's roof, slowly turning to Malcolm and Tamara, and saying “Christmas” in a slow Evil Sounds Deep voice. It's almost Surreal Horror.
Not to mention the critic's head freaking exploded and nuked the world, because he was filled with that much holiday spirit. The whole episode takes place in a nuclear wasteland, where Malcolm and Tamara beg Critic to help them as they're suffering massive injuries, but he just shrugs off that he can make it non-canon and uses Tamara as a footstool.
The Critic throws Tamara to the newly-zombified Malcolm, and while Critic gives a heartfelt speech about the holiday season, Malcolm hungrily attacks Tamara in the background.
In the Labyrinth review, the scenario in which Sarah is hallucinating the events of the entire movie and is really lying on the floor and foaming at the mouth singing "Dance Magic Dance."
The gore in the comic of The Mask is so extreme that he puts a trigger warning early in the video. How he proves his point, while somewhat hilarious towards the end, can still be somewhat nightmare inducing, even for adults.
The first appearance of the Fandumb Ghost in The Phantom of the Opera (2004): Doug appearing in the mirror, surrounded by fog, hissing his lines and with a very creepy expression on his face. In the Shark Jumping Prequel, he manipulates Beth to come to the studio by pretending to be the Critic mad at her.
The Critic's appearance in the Honest Trailers of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of their Shells musical concert tour, pointing out all of the terrible TMNT appearances, completely frightening the "Honest Trailer Guy" and giving a psychotic laugh at the end.
Critic's Sanity Slippage in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, from putting a gun to his head (and gladly taking the alternative that Malcolm gives him) to act like he's the Nostalgia Critic so has to destroy everything.
In Freddy vs. Jason where Critic testing crossover battle, one of the infamous part was Ash Ketchum with Pikachu is battle against Ash Williams when Williams chainsaw at Pikachu, later Critic heard that Ketchum is crying where he yelled at him to "Suck it up", but even worse that Ketchum is holding Pikachu's decapitated head and Ash Williams said "Pokémon Go Fuck Yourself".
Film Brain's impression of Mr. Grey is far more sinister than it is funny, making Damien Lewis' portrayal in Dreamcatcher look more like the parody. He possesses Tamara and Malcolm so they resemble creepy, brainwashed English versions of themselves, and Critic doesn't even catch on.
So many of the examples featured in "Battle of the Commercials" are so frightening that the Critic eventually figures that invoking Nightmare Fuel is the best way to sell a product.
The Critic was even convinced the ice cream wasn't made for little babies, but OUT of little babies, even showing the commercial again with the ice cream parts removed while disturbing music plays.
"I eat little babies. It keeps me young. It keeps me light on my feet. When you eat little babies, you'll wink and nod. This is a special time. Little babies is a feeling."
Once again, Critic watches a Canadian PSA, this time involving the House Hippo and expecting it to be as horrifying as the last three. It turns out to be completely innocent, much to the Critic's surprise and relief. Guard lowered, he then settles in to watch a British PSA... which shows two kids going to retrieve a football and getting ELECTROCUTED. Critic is so terrified he dubs England "New Canada".
The Frosted Flakes parody sketch has Malcolm's tiger fursona appear and force a little girl (played by Tamara) to eat his sugary cereal, even though it keeps making her sluggish and sick. When she develops diabetes, he stabs her with an insulin pen and makes her scream. The end of the sketch reveals the little girl died from all that sugar.
In the title card, Critic's hands are fading into static and he resembles a manic glitchy demon.
In Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas Critic destroying an entire planet with his Christmas love. And his reaction? An Ask That Guy smirk and "I win".
Cree Summer playing Penny as an evil mad-woman who is going to destroy the world. Even Critic is terrified and he'd destroyed a planet.
The movie clips in "Old Vs New: Evil Dead" have a whole section discussing which film has the better gore, delving into the horror of an excess amount of gore versus the horror of gore that feels realistic and makes the audience feel the pain (Critic points out that this is because some actors were actually getting hurt on the set of the original). It's a discussion that can leave an audience member feeling squeamish.
In this episode, Hyper Fangirl and Devil Boner kidnap Critic, implying it's a regular bonding activity for them, and each threaten to mutilate him if their favorite film doesn't win the match.
Devil Boner: That's two that went to not-my-side. The next one better go to the remake, or everyone's gonna ask what's that bowl of Spaghetti-O's that used to be the Nostalgia Critic's FACE!
Devil Boner is also a little too into making Critic feel helpless, bragging before attempting killing him that he'll be shot dead in his own studio.
In her Question and Answer video, Hyper still having no regret about Critic, watching him in the shower from outside his window, initially advising to just take kisses from him, assuming he wants her to stalk him and still never wanting him to date anyone else ever.
The title card for "Is This The Joker's Best Death", with the top half of his face in shadow and only a Slasher Smile showing, in homage to the Joker and Tim Drake. If you look closely, you can see the tiny white spots in his eyes.
In Suicide Squad (2016), Critic's red-faced rant about Amanda Waller is more unsettling when he's actually screaming at her instead of being in front of a wall.
Tamara as the creepy laughing girl in the review of The Sorcerer's Apprentice. She does nothing but laugh loudly and insanely until she runs out of steam and just stares at Critic and Tony with an evil grin. Even worse, she's impervious to any attacks and pops up at random times just to freak everyone out more.
Critic's duck-billed face in the title card of the DuckTales (2017) review unsettled a lot of viewers.
During his review of the It (2017), the Critic admits he has no jokes to make about the flute-player scene; it was that scary.
For A Muppet Family Christmas he keeps showing supposed clips of The Muppet Christmas Carol, actually clips from an acting seminar Michael Caine hosted which out of context make him seem completely unhinged, while Kermit listens in increasing bemusement, including quietly saying "I'm afraid of you" just before the video silently goes to commercial.
The ending to My Pet Monster shows the Critic suffering an existential crisis, but what really makes it unnerving is how this faint music can be heard randomly drifting in and out.
It should be noted that the original video had the ending theme to The Incredible Hulk (1977), which was removed in the official Channel Awesome upload due to copyright. It can still vaguely be heard throughout the end credits.
The start of the Jack and Jill review has Malcolm and Tamara find Critic in his house and they pin him down to make him do the movie while he struggles and cries.
That horrible movie in the previous section happened to be Freddy Got Fingered. To illustrate how conflicted he felt about it, he does several impersonations of Anton Chigurrh, killing off his co-stars while making speeches in a raspy growl. In the review itself, instead of reacting to the tasteless jokes with his usual over-the-top rage, he speaks in a calm tone about how much he dislikes it.
In Escape Of The Commercials, a non-Hyper stalker fangirl has one of the band members tied up in the other room, and she goes from perky and cheerful to ragefully burning him alive.
In Hop, Black Willy Wonka has caramelized Carrot Juice.
So the stuff Critic reviews can totally be scary, but usually it’s terror in a kid’s film or fun gore for adults. Not so much in Best F(r)iends (2017), as there’s suddenly a scene where a guy drags a screaming girl to a room and holds a knife against her. Critic reacts accordingly, uncomfortably freaked.
Aiyanna as the reboot Mary Poppins Returns is honestly terrifying, dusting the original Mary and telling Critic to be a good boy and do the review or she’ll dust him too.
In the review of Barney & Friends, Barney only displaying one emotion (happiness all the time) is played up for maximum creepiness.
Barney: Come on, don't make me quote other serious subjects that shows better than me covered.
NC: Oh, come on, it can't be that awkward...
Barney: You mean Mr. Hooper died and he's never coming back? Ever? Why not? Ho-ho-ho-ho! Why won't he ever come back?
NC: Okay! God! Your lack of emotional diversity is terrifying!
Barney: Oh, good! Ho-ho-ho-ho!
NC: I weep for you.
Barney: Good, because I can't!
(beat)
Barney: Ho-ho-ho-ho! Kill me.
Critic noting how the opening of the movie where Barney and friends are talking over a black screen makes it look like they've kidnapped and blindfolded the viewer.
The review of The Wall features a number done by Sattelite City's Kivouachians, many of which have designs which can be unsettling to those who haven't seen them before.
Lucy is lurking around the video beforehand, notably appearing in a menacing shot only a few minutes before the above.
Doug’s Voice of the Legion-like screaming “PUT THEM IN THE WALL!” in “In The Floyd (again)”.
Critic doing a wall review and then smashing the “glass” fourth wall he’s behind, is a bit of a shock as well as fun.
With the leather, black clothes, shaved head and no glasses, Doug makes for an effectively creepy skinhead leader.
The NC title card for Venom (2018) is actually scarier than the movie poster, because while Eddie Brock is being taken over he’s doing that badass squint thing, while Critic looks scared.
Much like the 2016 special, the 2019 commercial special has a recurring theme of Critic being scared shitless by the ads.
Critic illustrates how a parent might get annoyed at a child's constant clapping and shouting to alert their toy Petster by suddenly showing off a bloody Nightmare Face after too much clapping and shouting.
The Panda Cheese commercials from Egypt, featuring a panda bear randomly appearing behind people with a slow song playing in the background and gets back at them for not wanting to eat his product. While usually he just makes a mess of the place, Critic points to a commercial where he unplugs somebody's IV machine as attempted murder. Edits of several horror movies then follow with the panda edited in to highlight how eerie the character is.
The Charger Tron parody where Tamara plays a Stalker with a Crush who kills and buries her date.
Critic watches a commercial for a banana-flavored nutrition drink that's clearly parodying The Ring, and scoffs that he's so used to those parodies that they can no longer scare him. Then we get to see the "girl's" face...a dead-eyed monkey staring right at the camera. Cut to a prolonged clip of Critic shouting as the image "downloads into his soul." The image apparently stays even as he closes his eyes. And for a while he's unable to switch the commercial off, just waiting for the commercial to end itself.
And then we get our traditional PSAs, all themed around children getting run over by cars. The first two (both from Great Britain) are simply brushed off as creepy and have Critic's deadpan comments as sufficiant Nightmare Retardant, but then we get to the third one...the infamous Irish "Shame On You" PSA. Critic is so horrified at the tone shift that he declares Ireland as the "new Britain." Also wondering which country will eventually become "new Ireland."
The end of the episode has Critic realize that Michael Salvatori, the composer of the Flintstones Gummies ad who he's been treating terribly this whole episode, is actually an esteemed video game composer and try to run back to apologize. His path is blocked by the aforementioned panda. He screams and runs back, only to come face to face with the Gainomax monkey. Cue sudden Smash to Black.
The 2020 commercial introduces us to another scary moment: Wilkins from Wilkins Coffee. If you don't get Wilkins Coffee, he will kill you just like in the real commercials.
Blowing up Happy Madison Productions, killing all the people inside over a bad movie. It's shocking and scary.
The infamous “I thought they were in college or at very least late high school! Wouldn’t you have made that guess? C’mon! Look at the way they’re showing them off! I swear officer– I mean– audience! I had no idea their real age!” rant, especially for people who have suffered abuse like that in the past.
One from Critic's review of Superman Returns: Malcolm staring creepily at Critic, even into the commercial break. And when Critic exits his house, there's Malcolm staring at him.
His review of Who Framed Roger Rabbit sees the Critic do his take on Judge Doom's infamous voice. Although not as terrifying as the original, it's still pretty damn scary. It also doesn't help that he used the same uncannily, hyperrealistic yet exaggerated, red iris eye effect to go with the effect- show that the effect is scary when used over anyone's eyes, especially Doug Walker's.
video, Rachel agrees that he's more creepy than he should be.
