Line #28 NightmareFuel/Anastasia


1	%%Image selected via Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1659896805000573000
2	%%Previous image kept via crowner in the Moments Images Cleanup thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php?crowner_id=gngq16j7
3	%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1642193091068711500
4	%%Please do not remove or change the image without starting a new thread.
5	%%
6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rararasputin.png]]
7	[[caption-width-right:350: "Go. Fulfill your dark purpose. Seal the fate of the Czar and his family once and for all..."]]
8	%%
9
10	'''As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
11
12	[[foldercontrol]]
13
14	[[folder: Animated Film]]
15	* Rasputin is a living, ''rotting'' corpse. A [[OurLichesAreDifferent lich]] essentially. He frequently [[BodyHorror breaks apart and has to have his pieces put back in place]]. Although it ''does'' explain ''[[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy why he was so difficult to kill in real life]]''.
16	* Rasputin's EstablishingCharacterMoment is where he returns to the palace to place his deadly curse on Nicholas II and his family. Dowager Empress Marie, while narrating the prologue, even describes him as someone they "thought was a [[SinisterMinister holy man]], but was a fraud. Power mad and dangerous".
17	-->'''Nicholas II:''' How dare you return to the palace?!\
18	'''Rasputin:''' But, I am your [[EvilChancellor confidant]].\
19	'''Nicholas II:''' Confidant? Ha! You are a ''[[TreacherousAdvisor traitor]]!'' [[GetOut Get out!]]\
20	'''Rasputin:''' You think you banish the great Rasputin? ''(pulls out his magic reliquary)'' By the unholy powers vested in me, I banish ''you'' with a '''''curse!'''''\
21	''(everyone in the palace gasps in horror)''\
22	'''Rasputin:''' Mark my words: you and your family will ''die'' within a fortnight! I WILL NOT REST UNTIL I SEE THE ''END'' OF THE ROMANOV LINE '''''FOREVER!!'''''\
23	''(he uses his reliquary to blast the chandelier down to the ground)''
24	* The scene where Rasputin as he watches sleeping Anya through his floating crystal ball. Right before he sends the floating green demons floating demonically into the room and literally into Anya's head. Creator/ChristopherLloyd's [[SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct delivery]] in that scene is probably the most chilling at any point in the movie.
25	-->'''Rasputin:''' Pleasant dreams to you, Princess. I'll get inside your mind, where you can't escape me.
26	** Then as he invades Anya's dream to make her sleepwalk and try to fling herself over the edge of the boat! Yikes! The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpE3iZElhlc music alone is scary]]! Good thing Dimitri awoke and saved Anya at the ''last second''!
27	** The demons turn into colorful butterflies that are both in her dream and in the real world. Though they are bright and pretty, their gestures are not so much.
28	** In context, Anya is dreaming that her little brother is beckoning her to come to a swimming hole, where her sisters jump in, and her father is already treading water. Nicholas gently tells her to jump in, and Alexei does an impressive cannonball. Everyone is laughing, even Anya in her sleep joins in as she prepares to jump into the stormy currents. What makes it worse? Anya doesn't ''know'' who these people are, only that they love her and she loves them back. When she wakes up, she only repeats about the Romanov curse and the faces she saw. Doubles as a TearJerker since Anastasia never saw her brother or sisters grow older.
29	** The tail-end where the dream turns into a nightmare was so scary it was actually edited out of some releases of the film. Anya hears Dimitri yelling for her to stop, and she hesitates, frowning because some part of her knew this wasn't right. Nicholas then turns into a demon and says in Rasputin's voice, "Yes, JUMP! Fulfill the Romanov curse!" He then tries to physically pull her over, while she's standing among demons on a tower of skulls. Anya screams, understandably, and grapples with him. If Dimitri hadn't woken her up, the demons would have killed her one way or the other.
30	*** The manner of how the false Nicholas transforms highlights this. He starts out sprouting a tail, then the ears, eyes, and lastly wings of the demon- with the intermediate state between the full-on RedEyesTakeWarning look is [[UncannyValley hyper-realistic, large eyes with wide red irises]]- all while it slowly encompasses the screen.
31	* The scene depicting the real-life revolution in the beginning of the film (even more so if you're aware of the actual history and know exactly what happened to the Romanovs that night...)
32	** The true story of the Romanov murders is chilling. The family was exiled to Ekaterinburg in 1918, put under house arrest, and eventually shot by a firing squad in the middle of the night.
33	** Whilst [[VillainSong ''In the Dark of the Night'']] may be an awesome number, there is the fact that at certain points, you can hear what heavily resembles a ''gunshot'' in the music...
34	** In the English version, while the royals are struggling to escape, Anastasia screams for her Papa while he cries for his children to hurry. In other dubs, you can hear Anastasia's older sisters (Olga, Tatiana and Marie) also screaming for their Papa. This leads to...
35	** While the rest of the family and palace staff are evacuating, Anastasia runs back to her room to retrieve her music box, and Marie follows her. As soon as Marie shuts the door behind her, she hears gunshots. ''The Bolsheviks got the jump on the Romanovs''.
36	** And when that sound is heard, Marie gives a panicked gasp. She ''knows'' what that sound is, and her face says she fears that her and Anastasia are moments away from experiencing the same fate.
37	** It's also quite shocking when Dimitri tries to hide the escape, and one of the soldiers just knocks him out with a rifle. An adult casually attacking a child.
38	* When Rasputin corners the empress and Anastasia on the frozen Neva River--first he simply tries to [[WouldHurtAChild kill a terrified little girl]], while her grandmother can only struggle with him in horror; then, when the ice breaks beneath them, he tries to pull Anastasia in with him until eventually they break free, allowing him to drown (but not die)...
39	--> '''Young Anastasia:''' Let me go! Please!
40	--> '''Rasputin:''' You'll never escape me, child, never!
41	** Where he resides for most of the movie, is apparently this hellish purgatory of a vaguely ocean like space with rounded cells composed of visceral skeletal material where sentient insects reside. It's eerie due to never being made clear how it exists.
42	* [[VillainSong "In The Dark Of The Night"]] is one of the most famous songs from the film [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic and it's little wonder]] but it's chock-full of this.
43	** The song begins with Rasputin clutching his now reclaimed reliquary and proclaiming "Now my dark purpose can be fulfilled! And the last of the Romanovs will DIE!" as lighting flashes.
44	* Now what exactly happened to the engine drivers? Whatever that was, the movie's authors [[NothingIsScarier did not consider this to be pleasant enough to show their target audiences]].
45	** The ice show adaptation offers a NightmareRetardant, where Rasputin pulls off the driver, who skates behind the curtains.
46	* The [[EldritchAbomination Dark Forces]] Rasputin sold his soul to are a rather frightening concept in and of themselves, as some mysterious [[GodOfEvil Gods of Evil]] and the GreaterScopeVillain of the story.
47	* How Rasputin reveals himself to Anastasia at her debut ball. He lures her and Pooka into the palace maze, closes the way back with hedges, and calls for her eerily. Anastasia panics as spiked vines try to impale her, and she ends up at the exit. Rasputin approaches her saying, "Look how the years have changed us. You, a blooming flower. Me, a rotting corpse." When Anastasia can't remember him, while cringing in dread, he covers the area in ice to trigger her memory. Once she shouts his name, he uses the demons to attack her and tear her dress. Yeesh.
48	** Rasputin then reveals that he remembers Marie and Anastasia left him to drown in the ice. He decides to return the favor, destroying the part of the bridge where Anya's standing, so she'll fall into the freezing water below. Anya is normally tough, but the force causes her to slip and she's screaming at the top of her lungs. If Dimitri hadn't shown up and helped her climb up, she would have fallen and died.
49	** A scene that was cut from the movie but still exists in the storybook adaptations has the topiary animals inside the hedge maze come alive and chase after Anya and Pooka. They are drawn in an intimidating manner, with red glowing eyes and feral dispositions.
50	* The stone Pegasus statue Rasputin animates to kill Dimitri. Dimriti fights back, but eventually, the horse knocks him out with a stray rock.
51	* Rasputin making his DealWithTheDevil in the opening sequence, involving him ''having his skin torn off'' so that he briefly became a skeleton that is glowing bright blue! He was stripped all the way to the bone; that means his ''skin, muscles, and organs'' were ripped from his skeletal frame. Maybe the Dark Forces were kind enough to make it painless, otherwise...
52	** Rasputin is not so lucky at the climax, when Anastasia destroys his SoulJar and his power is stripped from his flesh. He falls to the ground, and his robes rot away to reveal him as a skeleton once more. But the skeleton is ''moving under its own power'', as though even in this state Rasputin is still aware and in great agony and terror. He's still writhing even as the bones crumble to dust. Whatever fate was waiting for him in the next life was not pretty.
53	* Anastasia ''purposely killing Rasputin'' by destroying his SoulJar under her foot. It's probably one of the few example where a main character in a children's film murders someone deliberately, even if it is in self-defense. It's also a little unsettling how ''casually'' she stops it with her shoe, and then ''slowly applies pressure to it'', basically telling Rasputin: "I know this is going to kill you, and I don't care". Rasputin meanwhile struggles to get the reliquary back but Anastasia manages to hold him off. BewareTheNiceOnes indeed.
54	--->'''Anastasia''': This is for Dimitri! This is for my family! And this? This is for you! [[PreMortemOneLiner Das Vidaniya...]]
55	[[/folder]]
56
57	[[folder: Musical]]
58	* The scene where Count Ipolitov is dragged off the train and shot for having the right papers, but the wrong name.
59	* Anastasia's family appear around her bed, as either ghosts or dreams, and Alexei provides a bit of NightmareFuel that's made even creepier because it's said by a little boy.
60	--> '''Alexei:''' ''[[[DissonantSerenity cheerfully]]]'' Can you keep a secret? I'm going to die soon. We all are.
61	* Gleb's chilling recollection of the night the Romanovs were killed in "The Neva Flows".
62	--> '''Gleb:''' I heard the shots. I heard the screams. But it's the silence after I remember most.
63	[[/folder]]
64
65	[[folder: Other]]
66	* There was a PC game where you played as Pooka, exploring Russia and helping out Anasastia and co. or random strangers; however, for a good chunk of time, you're alone. This can be slightly off-putting to a young child, but by itself it's not too bad...until you search the wrong spot and trigger an unwelcome visit from a minion who teleports you to the Underworld. All you have to do to escape is win one of the minigames, but oftentimes there's absolutely no indication of what's safe and what's not. Bartok will warn you that there's a trap in the room you've entered...sometimes.
67	[[/folder]]

Context NightmareFuel / Anastasia