History NightmareFuel / Gorillaz

** "Fire Coming Out of a Monkey's Head." The freakishly emotionless Creator/VincentPrice-esque narration. The ominously droning background music. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nxMrRXHqpo The twisted storybook-style music video/animation]]. But without question, the crown jewel of everything spooky this song brings to the table is the last bit of narration.

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** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lrvdbQFI2w This]] ad for the album. What the hell is 2D looking at?

--> ''By Mercury''
--> ''By the sea...''

---> "NOW ENTERING... THE HARMONIC DOOR..."

* A massive studio with a long-running history of death, hauntings, occult meddling and other disturbing shenanigans built atop a gigantic landfill is guaranteed to be full of nightmare fuel. And Murdoc bought it for ''free.'' The owners were looking for an off-season caretaker to look after the building during the winter, but when Murdoc arrived, the owners threw the keys at him and ran away screaming, never to be seen again.

** The video for "The Lost Chord" has the band unexpectedly return to the abandoned Plastic Beach, and right from the beginning, it's a surreal experience. Murdoc finds himself wearing the Boogeyman's mask, Russel briefly turns back to giant size (with Noodle emerging from his mouth), and 2D ''barfs up a small sperm whale''. A quick glance around the island reveals features such as the skeletons of Daley (the singer from "Doncamatic") and one of the airplane pilots from the cancelled "Rhinestone Eyes" video, [[CallBack Noodle's old cat mask]], [[NothingIsScarier the abandoned pirate ship]], Big Rick Black's Record Shack, and the submarine Murdoc used to escape the island, with none other than a dormant ''Cyborg Noodle'' inside. And then a giant sea monster (portrayed by featured artist Leee John) emerges from the ocean and blows the whole island up with {{Eye Beams}}, causing the submarine with Cyborg Noodle to sink to the bottom of the ocean. The four band members barely escape the sinking lighthouse through the portal that brought them there in the first place.

* Murdoc's father, Sebastian Jacob Niccals (or Jacob Sebastian Nicclas depending on who's asking), was an absolute bastard "whose collection of dubious vices would put Bill Sikes to shame" that based his life around avoiding work, [[WouldHurtAChild using poor Murdoc]] as his weapon of choice in his unending quest for a cheap buck. The worst way in which he did this, which incidentally inspired Murdoc to found Gorillaz in the first place, was when he forced the poor kid into a Pinocchio costume and make him sing "I've Got No Strings" in front of his drinking buddies at the pub for a talent contest. The prize? ''Two pounds fifty and the chance for further humiliation in the bi-annual county finals and on national television.'' Looking back, Murdoc remarks that if eBay existed back then, his father would have sold him there ''more than once.''

* A massive studio with a long-running history of death, hauntings, occult meddling and other disturbing shenanigans built atop a gigantic landfill is guaranteed to be full of nightmare fuel. And Murdoc bought it for ''free.'' Originally, Murdoc was only supposed to temporarily rent it, but when he arrived, the previous owner threw the keys at him and ran away screaming.

** The video for "The Lost Chord" has the band unexpectedly return to the abandoned Plastic Beach, and right from the beginning, it's a surreal experience. Murdoc finds himself wearing the Boogeyman's mask, Russel briefly turns back to giant size (with Noodle emerging from his mouth), and 2D ''barfs up a small sperm whale''. A quick glance around the island reveals features such as the skeletons of Daley (the singer from "Doncamatic") and one of the airplane pilots from the cancelled "Rhinestone Eyes" video, [[CallBack Noodle's old mask]], [[NothingIsScarier an abandoned pirate ship]], and the submarine Murdoc used to escape the island, with none other than a dormant ''Cyborg Noodle'' inside. And then a giant sea monster (portrayed by featured artist Leee John) emerges from the ocean and blows the whole island up with {{Eye Beams}}, causing the submarine with Cyborg Noodle to sink to the bottom of the ocean. The four band members barely escape the sinking lighthouse through the portal that brought them there in the first place.

* Murdoc's father, Sebastian Jacob Niccals (or Jacob Sebastian Nicclas depending on who's asking), was an absolute bastard "whose collection of dubious vices would put Bill Sikes to shame" that based his life around avoiding work, [[WouldHurtAChild using poor Murdoc]] as his weapon of choice in his unending quest for a cheap buck. The worst way in which he did this, which incidentally inspired Murdoc to found Gorillaz in the first place, was when he forced the poor kid into a Pinocchio costume and make him sing "I've Got No Strings" in front of his drinking buddies at the pub for a talent contest. The prize? ''Two pounds fifty and the chance for further humiliation on television.'' Looking back, Murdoc remarks that if eBay existed back then, his father would have sold him there ''more than once.''

** Worst of all, Murdoc mentions that when he was 9, he was raped a lunch lady. ''[[{{Squick}} A grown woman]]'' ''[[PaedoHunt had sex with an underage Murdoc.]]'' Murdoc's childhood was pretty terrible in general, but this has to be the most horrifying and disgusting part of it.

** Worst of all, Murdoc mentions that when he was 9, he had sex with a lunch lady. ''[[{{Squick}} A grown woman]]'' ''[[PaedoHunt had sex with an underage Murdoc.]]'' Murdoc's childhood was pretty terrible in general, but this has to be the most horrifying and disgusting part of it.

** The music video for "Aries," which ends with, after various shots of 2-D and Murdoc enjoying a motorcycle ride, Murdoc taking out a syringe filled with an unknown liquid clearly intending to use it on 2-D, while 2-D drives on, unaware.

** Hell, the location itself has a dark history. It was once a burial ground for Black Plague victims, and the mansion that would become the studio building was a place of demonic worship. But none of that compared to what happened to a biker gang who used the building to host a party. Bad wiring started a fire and...well...somebody conveniently locked the door before they could escape...

** Hell, the location itself has a dark history. It was once a burial ground for Black Plague victims, and the mansion that would become the studio building was a place of demonic worship. But none of that compared to what happened to a biker gang who used the building to host a party. Bad wiring started a fire and...well...

* A massive studio with a long-running history of death, hauntings, occult meddling and other disturbing shenanigans built atop a gigantic landfill is guaranteed to be full of nightmare fuel. And Murdoc bought it for ''free.''

* Murdoc's father, Sebastian Jacob Niccals (or Jacob Sebastian Nicclas depending on who's asking), was an absolute bastard "whose collection of dubious vices would put Bill Sikes to shame" that based his life around avoiding work, [[WouldHurtAChild using poor Murdoc]] as his weapon of choice in his unending quest for a cheap buck. The worst way in which he did this, which incidentally inspired Murdoc to found Gorillaz in the first place, was to force the poor kid into a Pinocchio costume and make him sing "I've Got No Strings" in front of his drinking buddies at the pub for a talent contest. The prize? ''Two pounds fifty and the chance for further humiliation on television.'' Looking back, Murdoc remarks that if eBay existed back then, his father would have sold him there ''more than once.''

** The video for "The Lost Chord" has the band unexpectedly return to the abandoned Plastic Beach, and right from the beginning, it's a surreal experience. Murdoc finds himself wearing the Boogeyman's mask, Russel briefly turns back to giant size (with Noodle emerging from his mouth), and 2D ''barfs up a small sperm whale''. A quick glance around the island reveals features such as a human skeleton, [[CallBack Noodle's old mask]], [[NothingIsScarier an abandoned pirate ship]], and the submarine Murdoc used to escape the island, with none other than a dormant ''Cyborg Noodle'' inside. And then a giant sea monster (portrayed by featured artist Leee John) emerges from the ocean and blows the whole island up with {{Eye Beams}}, causing the submarine with Cyborg Noodle to sink to the bottom of the ocean. The four band members barely escape the sinking lighthouse through the portal that brought them there in the first place.

* Hip Albatross. Just... ''Hip Albatross.'' Trippy, dream-like acoustic guitars and flutey keyboard notes beneath grungy audio clips of dialogue and zombie sounds from ''[[Film/DawnOfTheDead1978 Dawn]]'' and ''[[Film/DayOfTheDead1985 Day of the Dead]]'', layered over with the spaced-out echoes of 2D singing. The final stretch of the song after the crescendo is just [[NothingIsScarier instrumental]], as if humanity had finally been extinguished by the rampaging hordes of the undead.

* Faust. (No, not [[Creator/LaurenFaust that Faust.]]) Creepy, hauntingly melodic synthesizers like someone descending deeper and deeper into an old castle. The icing on the creepy cake are the vocals of Noodle and 2D reciting a haiku in Japanese and English respectively.

* Hip Albatross. Just... ''Hip Albatross.'' Trippy, dream-like acoustic guitars and flutey keyboard notes beneath grungy audio clips of dialogue and zombie sounds from ''Dawn of the Dead'', layered over with the spaced-out echoes of 2D singing. The final stretch of the song after the crescendo is just [[NothingIsScarier instrumental]], as if humanity had finally been extinguished by the rampaging hordes of the undead.

** And then Noodle found him hiding in Tibet with a yak as his only companion.

** "Strange Timez" is an immensely haunting track as aside from the off-kilter and quietly frantic instrumental, the lyrics detail the world at large during the year of 2020 as it was written, alluding to all sorts of current-day turmoil from the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, to political corruption in Belarus, to climate change. What makes it worse is the delivery; rather than hyperbolizing these as sensationalized terrors, [[DramaticDeadpan 2D merely drones these assessments as matter-of-factly as possible]], establishing that in the grand scheme of the world, these are "merely" "strange times" that we must live through, a concept that's interpretable as either [[AWorldHalfFull reassuring]] or ''even more terrifying''.

** "Strange Timez" is an immensely haunting track as aside from the off-kilter and quietly frantic instrumental, the lyrics detail the world at large during the year of 2020 as it was written, alluding to all sorts of current-day turmoil from the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, to political corruption in Belarus, to climate change. What makes it worse is the delivery; rather than hyperbolizing these as sensationalized terrors, [[DramaticDeadpan 2D merely drones these assessments as matter-of-factly as possible]], establishing that in the grand scheme of the world, these are "merely" "strange times," and we must live through them, a concept that's interpretable as either [[AWorldHalfFull reassuring]] or ''even more terrifying''.

%% ** Just what the hell are those monsters rising up from behind the hills in "Desole"?

** 2-D's eyes turning into the Pac-Man characters in "Pac-Man".