Demon Head

Sōun is not happy.

"[Rosalyn's] eyes had turned red, fangs began to grow out of her teeth, smoke bellowed out of her nose..."

— Calvin & Hobbes: The Series

The sudden eruption of an enraged individual's head into that of a fauxdemonic monster many times its normal size, with bulging eyes, wagging tongue, pointed ears and teeth, and sometimes jets of steam or flame from its nostrils. Usually expected to cow the viewer into defeat or submission; usually does not work.

Rushing up to someone and getting in their face in a confrontational manner can have a similar effect.

Compare with Demonic Head Shake, Scary Flashlight Face, Game Face, Burning with Anger and Looming Silhouette of Rage. Close relative of Nightmare Face. Also see Comical Angry Face, where the character's head usually stays at a relatively normal size but still includes fangs or otherwise distorted teeth and bulging eyes. Not to be confused with "the Demon's Head". Or Clash at Demonhead. Or Succubi and Incubi.

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Examples

Advertising

• A seemingly-innocent little girl playing with her dollie in an Eggo Waffles commercial, when her brother tried snatching one of her waffles. "GET AWAY FROM MY EGGO!!!" indeed. Link to a video of that here. It proved to be too scary, so it was edited to this.

Anime & Manga

• This happens a lot beginning in the late 200s to early 300s of Case Closed when one character was yelling at another (usually in the more comedic episodes). It's usually Ran or Kogoro but could be anyone.
• Da Chief from Dominion Tank Police is in a near-constant state of rage, complete with Cross-Popping Veins and bloodshot eyes; it doesn't take a lot to push him over the edge into full-blown Demon Head mode.
• Fujimura Taiga positively terrifies one of her students this way in the first episode of Fate/stay night, reducing the boy to a state of Blue with Shock.
• In the FLCL episode "Brittle Bullet", Haruko gets one when she's wearing an Elvis Presley costume and talking with Naota in his room.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Dr. Knox stops Lan Fan and May Chang from trying to kill each other while both are injured and in his care. When May objects to him "trying to interfere with the affairs of their country", Dr. Knox does this, screaming that he doesn't care about the affairs of their country.
• In Gegege No Kitaro, Kitaro's otherwise nice and quiet Cat Girl friend Nekomusume would morph her face into a scary cat-monster when enraged or hungry for fish or mice. The version from Hakaba Kitarō is even worse, since it's less cartoony and more horror-like.
• Hanaukyō Maid Team
  • Episode 8. Head security maid Konoe Tsurugi's head grows large and angry while Taro is trying to get Cynthia to go to sleep.
  • La Verite
    • Episode 1. Ikuyo Suzuki develops a giant angry head when she admits that she was lying.
    • Episode 5. Konoe gains a large angry head again when Ryuuka asks to become one of the security maids protecting Taro. Konoe demands to know why they should hire Ryuuka, who is the leader of their enemies the Jihiyou family.
    • Episode 12. Two of Taro's personal maids get angry and have large heads when the third keeps Taro to herself.
• Yukino from His and Her Circumstances had an extended sequence of chasing down someone who angered her while in full Demon Head mode.
• Inuyasha:
  • You wouldn't expect Kagome to get to this point, but she does at least once.
  • Shippo tries to stand in for Sango.
  • Inu-Yasha himself does it at one point, too.
• Mob Psycho 100 anime episode #2 "Doubts about Youth - The Telepathy Club Appears". When Mob goes undercover to meet with clients at an all-girls' school, he encounters three girls who aren't his clients. They get angry at him and one of them has her head balloon up to large size as she yells at him.
• In the early chapters/episodes of Naruto, Iruka does this. A current theory on this is it's a combination genjutsu technique and some kind of technique that amplifies the users' voice and vocal pressure, since you can see Naruto's hair ruffling in the wind as he's doing this.
• One Piece: Nami and Sanji have a tendency to do this a lot. Later on, it is actually weaponized by Emporio Ivankov.
• Osomatsu-san: The Sextuplets do this to a Crossdressing Iyami, Dayon, and Chibita in Episode 10.
  Osomatsu: SHUT UP! Rental girlfriends? You guys are nothing but monsters! Look in the mirror, stupid.
  Choromatsu: My ass hair is on fire, you uglies!
  Karamatsu: Heh. I'm gonna barf.
  Ichimatsu: Begone. I won't be able to eat.
  Todomatsu: You're not even worth aroma planning.
  Jyushimatsu: (pointing at Iyami) One out! (points to Chibita) Two outs! (points to Dayon) Three outs! CHANGE!
  The Sextuplets: (all pointing, simultaneously) See ya, uglies! (walk away)
• Kyoya does something akin to this in the episode "Kyoya's Day Out" in Ouran High School Host Club. His head doesn't quite turn into a demon's or grow in size, but the comparison is made when he glares at a young child that had the misfortune of bumping into him when he was already enraged. As he glares, behind him can be seen a sign advertising a show with a picture of a demon's face on it.
• An effect common in the Pokémon: The Series:
  • "Leer" and "Scary Face", moves used in a battle, sometimes use this.
  • Jesse of Team Rocket sometimes does this when she gets angry at James and Meowth, e.g. in "One Trick Phony".
  • Misty occasionally does it when she gets mad at Ash.
• Sōun Tendō, and occasionally his daughters, from Ranma ½. Usually comes with an Art Shift that depicts the demon head in ukiyo-e style print, including spectral wisps and rolling flames, to explicitly reference traditional youkai artwork. It became such a Running Gag, that at one point a unimpressed Akane calmed him down by literally pulling a cork from it and causing it to fly off like a deflated balloon.
• In Sekirei, Miya is able to project one while maintaining a composed look. It still freaks out everyone that's looking at her at the time, however.
• In Tsuritama, when Yuki Sanada gets really nervous his face becomes like this, but he can't help it. It's really very embarrassing for him.
• Kiyomaro Takamine of Zatch Bell! does this fairly often, even to having flames and heat-waves appear behind him.

Comic Books

• The Animesque Gold Digger has a variation: Theodore Diggers' "Flaming Skull Bit".

Eastern Animation

• TuTu's mother from Da Er Duo Tu Tu is especially capable of doing this, to the point where her victims will undergo Shameful Shrinking.

Fan Works

• In Fullmetal Lol, Winry grows a second head that tears out Ed's bowels whenever he breaks her automail. And it is hilarious!

Films — Animation

• Spirited Away: Yubaba's head is already huge, and when she gets spitting-fire and tentacle-hair mad it's damn scary.

Films — Live-Action

• In the 1980s vampire film Fright Night (1985), the third phase of vampiric transformation is just like this.
• Similarly enough, the Librarian Ghost from Ghostbusters (1984) also does this. Interestingly enough, an earlier version of this puppet was rejected because it was too scary but then recycled and used in the vampire film Fright Night (1985).
• In Halloweentown High, Grandma Aggie is made a substitute teacher at Marnie's school to protect monster transfer students. She gets stuck with obnoxious students and at one point transforms her face to frighten a disrespectful student.
• In the film Paws, the dog PC does this to scare off the main character's annoying little sister.
• Large Marge from Pee-wee's Big Adventure was a source of much trauma because of this.

Literature

• Bes from The Kane Chronicles, whose trademark attack is to scare the shit out of his opponent by distorting his face hideously and screaming "BOO!" Not that he's that handsome when he's not making that face.

Myths & Religion

• More than a few youkai and obake are capable of doing this. Gaki, a type of life-stealing ghost created from humans who died of starvation (or while feeling avaricious or envious), are shapeshifters in general, but delight in suddenly assuming ghastly visages to startle and terrify. Ran, a Cute Monster Girl from Urusei Yatsura, is loosely based on the Gaki. According to traditional lore, Oni women normally look extremely beautiful, but can become terrifyingly ugly when angry or jealous.

Stand-Up Comedy

• Bill Cosby has this happen in his "Chocolate Cake for Breakfast" sketch from his concert film Bill Cosby: Himself. His wife comes downstairs and sees, well, her kids having chocolate cake for breakfast, although it's more of a Dem Bones-head.
  "I've often heard of people having a conniption, but I'd never seen one. You don't wanna see 'em! My wife's face...split. The skin and hair split and came off of her face so that there was nothing except the skull! And orange light came out of her hair and it lit all around! And fire shot from her eye sockets and began to burn my stomach! And she screamed, in this Banshee's voice; 'WHERE DID THEY GET CHOCOLATE CAKE FROM!?'"

Video Games

• In Mortal Kombat 3, Kabal has a fatality where he removes his mask, exposing his horrifically scarred face. As per this trope, it appears to us with greatly increased size, glowing eyes, wagging tongue, and a rather chilling scream. This actually manages to scare his victims to death.

Webcomics

• 8-Bit Theater:
  • White Mage in this installment. (Scroll down a bit.)
  • Chaos later appears as one of these on Sarda's body after Sarda overloaded himself with magic power.
• Professor Dr. from The B-Movie Comic uses it in the fifth movie to get an answer from Mopey. According to The Rant, he learned it from Sōun Tendō.
• Nyarai from Furry Fight Chronicles turns herself into a giant flaming head to yell at Mellow for focusing more on how tacky her Gem-Encrusted phone looks and having a small chat with Jowdie rather than watch the Spotter article she wanted him to see.
• The Operator does this at one point in The Mansion of E.
• Our Little Adventure
  • Pauline can get quite scary if she wants.
  • Played very straight by Angelo. It's just another hint that he's not quite human.
• Problem Sleuth: Mobster Kingpin transforms into Demonhead Mobster Kingpin, who is predictably one of these. What's notable about this, however, is that once he transforms, he stays looking like that.

Web Original

• In The Nostalgia Critic review of Good Burger, when the line "Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good burger. Can I take your order?" is said for the last time, the nostalgia critic replies; "Yes. DIIIIIIIIIIIIE!" and his face is replaced by that of the Balrog from the Lord of the Rings.

Western Animation

• Once, and only once by the title character on the Asian-influenced Avatar: The Last Airbender, complete with waving arms, Blank White Eyes, Cross-Popping Veins, and face reddening. Due in part to the show's well-known characteristic of disdaining from over-the-top cartoony anime tropes in favor of utilizing the more cinematic style of anime, the effect overall left a bad taste in the mouths of viewers.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh 3 when you make her mad. Complete with flaming eyes and truckloads of razor-sharp teeth.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog:
  • There's a very creepy example of this in the episode "Courage in the Big Stinkin' City", with a girl playing the violin that Courage walks in on changes into claymation.
  • Eustace also achieves a similar effect with a giant mask he pulls out of nowhere.
• Ozu from Kappa Mikey tends to do this when angered. However, most of the characters work for him, so this generally does work, if only because he can fire all of them.
• Pinkie Pie is seen doing this in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "The Last Round-Up", while being extremely furious because she thinks the normally-honest Applejack is trying to weasel out of a promise, which is not what she's actually doing.
  Pinkie Pie: APPLEJACK! YOU PINKIE PROMISED!
• The title character on Rocko's Modern Life, usually mild-mannered to a fault, gets really angry at Filburt for making Rocko miss the deadline on a sale at the grocery store, and does this when threatening to do something NOT VERY NICE!!
• Sponge Bob Square Pants uses this sometimes, such as SpongeBob yelling at Mr Krabs that he wants to go to bed in "Argh!", Plankton yelling "GET OUT!" in "New Leaf" after Mr. Krabs destroyed his properties, and most recently "Squid Plus One", used by Squidward twice.
• Steven Universe: Parodied when, near the end of "Hit the Diamond", five Homeworld Rubies fuse into one giant Ruby Fusion and then demand the Crystal Gems to tell them where Jasper is.
• Exhibited several times by Starfire in the Animesque Teen Titans (2003), usually when another girl flirts with Robin, and once by Raven in silhouette.
• Totally Spies!. Happens to Sam and Martin Mystery in the crossover episode "Totally Mystery Much?"

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