Nightmare Fuel / The NeverEnding Story (1984)

• The premise of the movie- the world of imagination is gradually being eroded away- not by something comprehensible like a maniacal mastermind's Evil Plan to remake the world in their image or to destroy it for the sake of it. But, by something completely outside the context of the fantasy world- the physical embodiment of nothing with no apparent sapience or inherent malice- just an unnatural phenomenon that is unmaking Fanatasia aided by those who wish to exploit it for their own gain to control the unimaginative masses without the land of Fantasia as a byproduct. The objective of the story is revealed not to find the means to destroy it before it causes more damage to Fantasia, but to essentially reboot everything after before the situation becomes too far-gone because it's literally impossible to fight the Nothing as it's a concept of nothingness.
• How the movie visually depicts The Nothing as storm clouds. While it initially seems mundane, it's depicted in a manner that is incomprehensible for the senses as it perpetually alters its shape while not looking like anything concretely familiar. Being scarier for its alien nature and the lack of clarity makes it more frightening than if it DID have a tangible form.
  • The implication that all the terrible destruction in Fantasia is deliberate and planned by malicious, otherworldly beings called The Manipulators, who are never seen or described aside from being called the power behind the Nothing in the movie- let alone if their motives are comprehensibly evil like in the book or completely incomprehensible to a human sense of logic.
  • Alternatively, the implication is that they may not be actual beings at all. G'mork never says he serves another being, he says that he serves a POWER. It can be inferred that G'mork is the servant of the one powerful thing that destroys people's hopes and makes them forget their dreams: FEAR ITSELF.
    G'mork: I am the servant of the power behind the Nothing.
  • How the Nothing destroys the world of Fantasia, it doesn't leave holes but literally, nothing as it slowly tears apart the land until it's literally just an empty outer space void filled with the debris of the ruined world. The Rock Bitter who witnesses this happening to the forest he was currently taking a short break in, watching in silent horror before immediately hurrying away before it could catch up to him.
• The manner in which the Rock-Bitter describes how the Nothing works. The menacing tonal shifts when he gradually elaborates on this and his description paints the Nothing as a truly unfathomable and eldritch force that is undoing Fantasia.

  The Rock-Bitter: Where I come from in the north, we used to have exquisite gourmet rocks. Only now... now they're all gone. (...) Near my home, there used to be a beautiful lake, but then it was gone.

  Teeny Weeny: Did the lake dry up?

  The Rock-Bitter: No, it just wasn't there anymore. Nothing was there anymore. Not even a dried-up lake.

  Teeny Weeny: A hole?

  The Rock-Bitter: A hole would be something. No, it was nothing. And it got bigger and bigger. First, there was no lake anymore, and then, finally... no rocks.

• G'mork. His film incarnation has given many viewers nightmares. The first-person shots from his perspective as he hunts Atreyu are absolutely terrifying. And that's without getting into his personality. The film also removes anything sympathetic about his motives from the book: "People who have no hope are easy to control, and whoever has the control has the power." And due to the lack of backstory, when Atreyu asks him who Gmork is really, Gmork might not be a sapient wolf at all, but some entity of unfathomable nature given the form of a wolf within Fanastia by the power behind the Nothing.
  • The manner in which Gmork is introduced. During is a dark storm- heavily implied to be the Nothing, camera slowly pans into a hole in a tree until it's covered in the darkness, until two green catlike eyes open in the pitch before flashing a brief glimpse of Gmork's demonic-looking wolf form in a flash of lightning.
  • The build-up to the first and final confrontation between Atreyu and Gmork. As the entire world falls to pieces around him, Atreyu finds himself in a ruin where he sees murals of his entire journey going all the way back to the beginning of the film: taking up the challenge of stopping the Nothing, losing Artax in the Swamps of Sadness, Falkor...and then comes upon a mural showing an unfamiliar scene. A hole in a stone wall, with the terrifying face of a snarling, wolf-like creature emerging from it, and the scene becomes very quiet. Then, we hear a growl. Atreyu turns around, a terrifying chord plays, one that we've heard in the film before, and both Atreyu and the audience realize that the scene in the mural is unfolding right this very second. Gmork is finally revealed in all his nightmarish glory. Really, words don't do it justice.
  • The sequence of Atreyu witnessing murals of his quest leading up to this moment is accompanied by low and subtly creepy music. While Bastian and the audience are aware it's visually telling Atreyu that he's a character in a story through the images being stone-craved illustrations, from Atreyu's perspective, it's an in-universe metaphysical Mind Screw of this place somehow having detailed his quest beforehand to accurate detail, as the traditional narrative has been gradually being broken down to a surreal deconstruction.
  • Just how unnatural Gmork looks and sounds, despite being a wolf. He looks like a combination between a wolf and a black cat, and his green eyes are almost human-like. And he doesn't howl or snarl like a wolf either, he roars. The roar he lets out when he lunges at Atreyu is terrifying, and thanks to Enforced Method Acting, the shocked look on Atreyu's face, as G'mork lunges at him, is quite real as well.
  • Atreyu himself is a little scary in this scene, as he gets more and more angry at Gmork until he grabs a sharp rock and orders Gmork to fight him to the death. The fierce look on his face makes it clear why he's called a warrior, and Gmork's Oh, Crap! reaction when he realizes who he's facing is both satisfying and a little chilling, and Atreyu just gives him a stone-cold glare in response. It shows that Good Is Not Soft, as Atreyu decided Gmork is so evil and dangerous that he cannot be left alive.
  • G'mork suffers a Family-Unfriendly Death. As Atreyu gets up, you can see the stone knife stuck dead center in his chest. The wound is still spurting bright arterial blood.
• Falkor and Atreyu fly through the empty void, resembling outer space after Nothing destroys everything. The scene just feels so empty and foreboding with the music only adding to the feeling. Also doubles as a Tear Jerker.
• The part where Artax sinks in the Swamps of Sadness. Tear Jerker, yes, but also prime Nightmare Fuel. If I heard right, if you let the sadness get to you, you sink! What this means is the swamp possibly subjects you to unbearably depressing images until you get sadder and sadder and sink!
  • Noah Hathaway also apparently got scarred for life because he got hurt several times during filming - during his horse riding training, he fell off and got stepped on. Then evidently, his leg got caught in the elevator and he got pulled under during the Artax scene. He also nearly lost an eye when G'mork tackled him, since Hathaway didn't know the puppet was going to tackle him.
• Morla, the giant sneezing turtle, has robbed many a child of sleep on her terrifying appearance alone having massive, uncanny human-like eyes. Her cynical views, complete indifference to everything, and possible schizophrenia do not help the situation.
  • Bastian screaming at her introduction didn't help.
• The scene where the knight's helmet blows open to reveal his charred skull crept many out for years.
  Engywook: Fancy armor doesn't help. The sphinxes can see straight into your heart.
  • And right after this, when Atreyu's determination cracks and turns to fear and doubt, the Sphinxes' eyes slowly start to open...
  • The Sphinx in general, are large and imposing, but that's not what makes them terrifying due to not moving. They possess the power to open their eyes to zap whatever unworthy comes too close to charred corpses.
  • This actually deserves a bit more detail. The whole scene leading up to this is very slow and tense, with the music building up in a gradual crescendo as Atreyu approaches the Sphinx Gate across the sands, alternately in a long shot that emphasizes his smallness in comparison and in a close-up where the viewer can see just how nervous and unsettled he is. When he finally reaches the gate, we're treated to a beautiful Dutch Angle of him gazing up at each Sphinx in turn before he moves closer through a rising wind, passing the scattered bones of previous questors. Finally, he approaches the fallen knight, only for the wind to blow his helmet open in quite the Jump Scare as the camera lingers on The Reveal of his charred appearance. Atreyu begins to panic...backing up a bit at a time and constantly looking in terror from one Sphinx to the other, the music rising and the Dutch Angle becoming increasingly acute...until finally the eyes begin to open slowly, letting through the slits a blindingly bright light...
  • The Magic Mirror Gate, it's not as immediately dangerous as the tense Sphinx test, but it involves implied mental horror as it exposes the person as their true selves- saints as being cruel deep down, brave warriors being cowards, etc. with the usual result being them screaming and running away with this Awful Truth. When Atreyu first approaches the Gate, he doesn't see himself but rather Bastion, the reader animating his adventures. This slightly alarms Atreyu for a moment, it truly freaks out Basion as the book is somehow aware that he is reading it and making him part of the narrative. Understandably, Bastion initially throws the book as the story is getting too real and meta for his comfort, not helped by the tense music leading up to this build-up.
  • The way Engywook describes the second test is very ominous.
  That's what everyone thinks. But kind people find that they are cruel. Brave men discover that they are really cowards. Confronted with their true selves, most men run away screaming!
• Just before we cut back to Bastian, we see solid ground getting blown away by the Nothing.
• The Southern Oracle beginning to fall apart.
  If you want to save our world, you must hurry! We don't know how much longer we can withstand the Nothing!
• While they're ultimately good-natured and trying to save their world the representatives from across Fantasia are very surreal from entities with the heads of large elephants, three-headed bestial humanoids, sapient fish, long-necked birds, and large-headed statue beings whose bodies are rising from stone to those who are seemingly human but some having a face on each quadrant side of their head while others having two faces but joined together with the second eye of each face being the meeting point between the faces.