Follow TV Tropes

This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.

Following

Nightmare Fuel / The Crush

Go To

  • Adrian entering Nick's place without knocking or asking for permission.
  • Adrian breaking into Nick's place and stealing his favorite childhood picture.
  • At a barbeque, Amy goes to retrieve some sticks for marshmallows and finds herself alone near a tree inhabiting a wasp hive. Adrian reveals herself from hiding and tells Amy that wasps are social creatures and that they only attack when threatened. All in a Creepy Monotone voice.
  • Adrian deliberately undressing in her bedroom knowing that Nick (or someone) is hiding inside her closet watching. Then there's that little smirk she makes.
  • Adrian shrugging off Nick's insistence that they're just friends and laughing. All set to creepy instrumental music.
  • Cheyenne attempting to warn Nick about Adrian. Then Nick notices Adrian spying on them from her window.
  • When Adrian and Cheyenne go horseback riding, Adrian sabotages Cheyenne's ride by deliberately loosening her saddle causing her to fall and suffer an injury. All while faking empathy and kindness.
  • The thought of your child suffering a near-fatal horse-riding accident.
  • Just the thought alone that your best friend would want to kill you over a crush.
  • Nick waiting alone outside in the dark for Cheyenne to tell him something about Adrian (unaware that she's been injured) when he hears a twig snap and he jumps at the noise. He calls out but no response. Then he turns and Adrian is standing nearby accompanied with a Scare Chord.
  • Adrian's Clingy Jealous Girl side coming out, making Nick assure her that it's not what she thinks. Then it's the way Adrian coldly tells Nick why Cheyenne hasn't shown up.
    Adrian 'Darian' Forrester: So you like Cheyenne now.
    Nick Elliot: It's not like that.
    Adrian 'Darian' Forrester: Maybe you'd like to visit her in the hospital. It just goes to show you, Nick. You can never be too careful.
  • Nick entering his basement and discovering the creepy stalker shrine Adrian made. It's enough that he has to nail the basement door shut after seeing how bad things are really getting with Adrian's crush.
  • Adrian attempting to contact Nick over the phone many times. By the time he has his locks changed, she has left him over 100 phone messages. The creepy background music doesn't help either.
  • Adrian spies on Nick and Amy as they lay asleep in his bed post-coitus. Standing just right by their bed while they sleep with an angry look on her face.
  • Nick hears banging and grunting noises in the distance. When he finds the source of the noise, it's Adrian manically chopping lemons with a knife like a madman.
  • Adrian locking the door to a dark room, trapping Amy inside, and unleashing a nest of angry wasps through the vent. As Amy collapses covered in the wasps, the lights go out centered on a photo of Adrian which darkens. Symbolizing how dark and soulless she is on the inside.
  • Adrian stalking Nick to his party at an art gallery. When Nick tells her to leave, she slaps him across the face. When Nick forcefully escorts her out, she fakes being the victim, lets out an ear-piercing scream, and then attempts to lick him and kiss him across the face.
  • The little evil smile Adrian makes after she frames Nick for a crime he didn't actually commit (sexual assault of a minor) all because he turned her down again.
  • How Adrian makes her rape victim story believable. Faking genuine human emotions, and then there's the fact that she snuck into Nick's place, took a used condom from his trash can, and placed it inside herself so that way she could use his semen from the condom as "evidence". Yeesh.
  • The camera in first person view showing that someone is entering into Nick's place without his knowing. Luckily it was just Cheyenne coming to warm him but still.
  • Cheyenne tells Nick that she knows he is innocent and that Adrian has an extensive history of obsessive behavior, citing a previous crush on a camp counselor named Rick who "accidentally" died from eating something poisonous. Cheyenne also informs Nick of an obsessive diary Adrian kept.
  • Nick hearing the piano playing loudly from afar. Meaning that Adrian has returned.
  • Nick entering the unoccupied Forrester house, turning off the loud piano music coming from a toy carousel. Then he is startled by a phone ringing loudly. Then someone picks up the line, meaning that someone was inside the house with Nick.
  • Nick entering Adrian's bedroom and finds another stalker shrine dedicated to him. A Ken doll topped with dead wasps, his only childhood picture, and many candles burning atop her bed. Then Adrian appears right behind him, startling him.
  • Adrian, by the film's climax, is sporting disheveled hair, red eyes, sobbing, and holding a baseball bat.
  • Adrian going mad and attacking Nick with a baseball bat, sending him falling over a stair railing.
  • Nick being alone in the dark attic and hearing noises. Followed by Adrian's giggling.
  • Nick finding that Adrian has attacked Cheyenne and tied her up onto her large carousel in the attic.
  • Adrian attempting to kill both Nick and Cheyenne with a baseball bat. Then there are the sparks flying as she accidentally strikes the working carousel.
  • Adrian attacking her own father with a bat, knocking him out cold.
  • Adrian leaving Nick hundreds of obsessive letters she's written him from the psychiatric hospital.
  • When Nick doesn't respond to any of her letters, Adrian finds herself a new crush, one of the married doctors from the psychiatric hospital.
  • The ending closes out with the screen frozen in on Adrian's face making an evil smile after looking over a photo of a married doctor and his wife.
  • The creepy 90's instrumental music playing over the end credits.

Top