For a teen drama, this show can have some pretty scary moments.
As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- The entirety of 3x16 as it deals with a school shooting. Just imagine a totally normal school day suddenly turning into a nightmare with no warning whatsoever. Jimmy Edwards, tired of being ignored and bullied in the previous episode pulls out a gun and tries to kill Marcus(the person who beat him up after the time capsule was released because Jimmy talked about him date-raping girls) but ends up accidentally shooting Peyton in the leg. Then he ends up in the tutor center and everyone thinks they're safe from the shooter, until Jimmy suddenly reveals it was him and holds everyone hostage and when the cops get on one of the phones he threatens to start killing people if they try to interfere. Karen is horrified to learn that Lucas is inside the building.
- Peyton thinking she's going to die from blood loss is especially hard to watch.
- There's also more Paranoia Fuel when Jimmy tries to dissuade the others from all teaming up to take him down, as he points out there might be "others" outside waiting to do the same thing he's doing. Nathan tries to dismiss his claims, but Jimmy asks how they can possibly be sure there won't be others out there like him who were bullied and ignored, the fact that nobody tries to counteract his statement shows that they are seriously worried about the possibility of another person doing the same thing that Jimmy is doing.
- Peyton thinking she's going to die from blood loss is especially hard to watch.
- Deb's gun accidentally going off inside of Karen's Cafe and shooting out a window, after that nobody blames Karen for threatening to fire Deb if she didn't get her pill addiction under control.
- Dan being trapped inside his burning dealership in the season 2 finale, if Lucas hadn't saved him he would've been a goner, considering how close he came to dying his desire for revenge is understandable.
- After going to confession following his recovery, he says to the priest that he plans to enact revenge on whoever tried to kill him and says this absolutely chilling line:
Dan: The sins i'm about to commit will turn this place to rubble. - Anytime a car crash happens on the show, it's pretty terrifying: Keith and Lucas both getting hit in season one, with Lucas in serious condition, Nathan crashing on Cooper's race-track and going into a coma, Rachel and Uncle Cooper both crashing off the bridge in a limo and Nathan jumping into the water to try to save them both, only to end up getting trapped in the limo and running out of air and yelling for Haley(Who is screaming for Nathan and worried that she hasn't seen him come up for several minutes).
- WATCHMEWATCHU, who suddenly messages Peyton in the second season finale. The name itself is incredibly creepy, but then it turns out that the person using that name is stalking Peyton. Speaking of which...
- Peyton's half-brother, Derek Sommers, turns up looking to get to know her after she put a message online for him. Great... Except it turns out he's obsessed with her, with his motel room having a wall covered in pictures of Peyton & he has a tattoo of Peyton that covers his back. So they call the cops & he's arrested, all's well that ends well, right? Nope. Turns out the Derek who turned up on Peyton's doorstep was an imposter, and the ensuing fight between Lucas, Derek & Psycho!Derek ends up with the imposter thrown out of Peyton's bedroom window. He managed to get away before the police arrived, but a few episodes later, it's mentioned off-hand that he'd been arrested.
- Another half of the season passes by, no follow up to this... And then to Peyton's horror, he turns up on her doorstep and assaults her on the night of senior prom. And then Brooke turns up looking for Peyton, and he nearly kills the both of them...
- A particularly horrifying portion of this appearance only lasts for a second, but imagining how Peyton must have felt when Psycho!Derek had Brooke by the throat and was choking her right in front of Peyton, especially given the last conversation the two girls had prior to the confrontation, is both horrifying and upsetting. Basically, imagine telling the person that has been your best friend for years that they are no longer your friend, then being forced to watch helplessly while your Stalker with a Crush is killing them right in front of you.
- The disturbing, incredibly creepy music that plays anytime Psycho!Derek appears or Peyton feels scared. Bonus points for the fact that the music can play even when Peyton isn't in any true danger. There's three distinct points in the season where Peyton and the viewer are led to believe that Psycho!Derek is inside her house. Sure, it turns out to be Lucas/Derek/Haley, but the disturbing music combined with Peyton's obvious, infectious fear makes some scenes very tense.
- Peyton's hallucinations and flashbacks suggest that she is suffering from PTSD, a very real condition. Then there's the hallucinations themselves; the aforementioned music begins playing as Peyton sees Psycho!Derek right in front of her, and completely breaks down. Some of the hallucinations are so sudden that they can be considered a Jump Scare.
- Another half of the season passes by, no follow up to this... And then to Peyton's horror, he turns up on her doorstep and assaults her on the night of senior prom. And then Brooke turns up looking for Peyton, and he nearly kills the both of them...
- Keith Scott haunting Dan, whilst he's under arrest for killing Daunte. Seeing one of the nicest characters in the show acting so creepy is just unsettling, and then he begins bleeding from the gunshot wound that killed him a season earlier. And then there's the Jump Scare where he pops out from the side of the cell door, looking demonic thanks to blood pouring from every orifice on his face.
- Even before Keith appears as an adult, his haunting is fairly creepy. The way that he follows Dan everywhere he goes, whispering his name and staring at him menacingly is quite unnerving. It's also left ambiguous whether Keith is actually haunting Dan, or if Dan is hallucinating.
Keith: "Maybe I'm not just in your head this time." - Jamie falling in the Scott's pool and nearly drowning.
- Quentin Fields's death. He just went to put some fuel in his car, and happened to choose the gas station that Xavier Daniels is in the midst of robbing. To make it even worse, when he walks in on the robbery, the employee working the register is already dead, and Quentin only dies because he happened to see the body - there's a pause between his seeing the body & being fatally shot, where he realizes that he's about to die.
- Knowing what's coming makes the scenes immediately before this heart-wrenching - he only ends up at the gas station at that time because Nathan decided to end practice early for the day, and Skills decided to put off talking to him about his progress on the team until the next day.
- Nanny Carrie kidnapping Jamie. Her first attack is bad enough, but her second attack, where she chases Jamie through a cornfield, becoming progressively more angry as he continues to run from her, is far scarier.
- Carrie is shown to be more than willing to kill anyone who tries to keep her from Jamie, including his mother and grandfather.
- Katie stalking Quinn in "Darkness On The Edge Of Town"
- Julian accidentally leaving his son, Davis, alone in the car in one hundred & one degree heat.
- Everything involving Xavier Daniels and his creepy, terrifying continual threatening of Brooke. Bonus points for his Catchphrase:"Have a nice night..."
- In Darkness on the Edge of Town, we get Brooke and Jamie trapped inside of a flooding car while Julian is desperately trying to free them. All three of them are obviously terrified, especially Jamie, who is just a kid and who is panicking. The true Nightmare Fuel comes from two things: the fact that Brooke knew that if Julian took the time to save Jamie, she would probably drown, and then she actually did; and the fact that Jamie was standing alone after all of the trauma of the night, just staring as his godmother is lying dead on the ground, and he knows that it's because he was saved first.
- Nathan and Haley pull up on the scene to find their son standing in the middle of the street in the pouring rain, the car Jamie was riding in is nowhere to be scene, and one of their best friends is lying on the ground getting CPR. And they have no idea what is happening; all they know is that something very bad happened, their son was a part of it, and he might have just had to watch one of the people he cares the most about die in front of him.
- Nathan's kidnapping experience in the final season. His abductors repeatedly beat him, threaten him, and laugh at his pain, treating him like an animal. They also make no effort to hide their intention to kill him, no matter how much he offers to pay them.
- In Last Known Surroundings, Nathan finally makes an attempt to escape. He attacks Dmitri and begins to flee, then encounters a police officer. The officer hands Nathan a gun and directs him outside. Dmitri appears again, and Nathan tries to shoot him, only to find out that the gun isn't loaded. The officer knocks out Nathan, revealing that he is the leader of the kidnapping operation. The fact that the officer doesn't simply stop Nathan immediately really goes to show how cruel and sadistic he is.
- Nathan's sheer desperation to escape and to see his family again is utterly heart-wrenching. He has no idea how his disappearance is affecting his wife and children, all he knows is that he may never see his family again, and that his daughter may have to grow up without a father.
