Nightmare Fuel cleanup and maintenance

The Premise

• The game is built on Paranoia Fuel from the crew's perspective. Is that other person in the room just a fellow human who happens to also have a task there, or could they be an impostor waiting to strike? It doesn't help that you can't talk outside of meetings.
  Shouldn't this be under Paranoia Fuel then?
• The Impostors themselves are extremely unnerving.
  • They look exactly like innocent crew members, except they want everyone dead for reasons unknown.
  This is lacking in context. Right now, it sounds just mildly scary rather than nightmarish, but maybe if rewritten?
  • Causing the oxygen to run out or the reactor to melt down causes the Impostors to win, which indicates that Impostors either survive these events, or are perfectly ok with dying so long as everyone else does.
  This is Fridge Horror.
  • Their tongue (pictured) is capable of impaling a poor crew member through the head with no resistance. They are also capable of using guns though, making one wonder how and why...
  Also lacking in context.
• The game ends if the Impostors alive equal the number of the innocent crew remaining. The crew can't do anything to win/survive anymore, so the gameplay just ends. One must wonder what goes through their heads.
  Eh, maybe? This sounds like it's overthinking things.
• Watching a player be executed after they are voted out can be a little unnerving. Depending on the map, they are either sent floating off into space without oxygen, sent plummeting to their deaths, or thrown into lava. Either way, they die horribly.
  "A little unnerving" is a synonym of "not very scary".
  • The mere fact that the crew members use arguably more brutal methods of execution than the Impostors. Granted, it's possible they don't have any other options to kill and must use the environment, but still...
  This is Natter with bad Example Indentation.

Gameplay

• Getting killed as a crew member is an abrupt process, with the usual ambient sounds of your surroundings getting interrupted by the Scare Chord that plays during your death animation. Often it happens while you're focused on one of your tasks (with the task interface obscuring most of your screen), and sometimes it happens just as you're passing by another player in the hallway.
  Maybe this one is okay?
  • You may be working on a task only to see an Impostor suddenly jump out of a vent, poised to kill. You have very little time to react and escape.
  Bad indentation again. Also just a barebones description. Sounds tense, but not nightmarish.
• Imagine you notice the Reactor beginning to melt down. You wait for two people to go do it while you finish tasks, but eventually you notice no one is shutting it down... and you're now too far away to fix it yourself before it melts...
  • Even worse, going to the reactor to fix it... and slowly realizing a second person isn't going to come.
  • Sometimes you'll notice one person monitored as on the reactor, only for the reactor monitor to suddenly cycle back down to 0 players on the reactor.
  WHY does no one know the indentation rules?! Anyway, none of this sounds nightmarish.
• Witnessing murders is usually a jumpscare for players not expecting it.
  Is it? Why, is there a loud sound that plays? Or an image that suddenly fills your screen? This is heavily lacking in context.
  • Witnessing murders on cameras is usually a little creepy. Especially when the murderer seems to notice the cameras on before leaving the area. It's a scramble to call a meeting to vote out the Impostor, but if you fail to do so, you're next...
  Again, "a little creepy" means "not very scary".
• Oftentimes you'll notice someone doing something in a room as you pass it. Oftentimes you'll later come back to that room later to find a familiar looking corpse.
  More mild unpleasantness.
• Sometimes you may realize you haven't seen a player in quite a while. Did they die? Are they lying in wait within the vents? Are you just not running into them? Usually you find out which it is the hard way...
  Doesn't sound too scary either.
• Sometimes you call a meeting or report a body, only to discover that there are more dead crew than you thought. Now you have to work with a lower numbers advantage and you had no idea where those extra crew were killed...
  Sounds more like gameplay annoyances and tension than true terror.
• Voting someone off only to be met with a message stating that they were not An Impostor. The real Impostor is still at large, and you just killed an innocent crew member.
  Doesn't sound terrifying to me.
• When the lights are sabotaged it can be really unnerving. Since your field of view lowers so you can only see players practically touching you, you have no idea if you’ll bump right into the Impostor, or the Impostor kills someone else in the room and you have no idea.
  Um, maybe this is okay?
• Going through the decontamination rooms on Mira HQ and especially on Polus Outpost. If nobody else who you *know* is a crewmate is coming along with you, then you're all alone in a room and/or hall that takes a while to get through. And if you're killed there, your murderer has the perfect alibi: They were just going to do their tasks, and found you on the way.
  Maybe this one could be rewritten to be okay too...
  • On the bright side, it's also a good way to tell if someone else is actually a crewmate, and you will have one more person who won't vote for you.
  This is nothing but more natter.

• Indiana Jones' traitorous companion Satipo having several tarantulas on his back, which Jones casually pushes off his body, at least for the severely arachnophobic.
• When Indy triggers one of the traps in the cave, spikes suddenly emerge carrying the decaying body of one of his older competitors. Most disturbing is the way its head fell into Indy's direction.
  Indy: Forrestal.
• Later, Satipo gets impaled upon the booby trap Indy and he managed to escape from earlier. His horrified expression makes it even more unnerving.
  Indy: (grabs the idol) Adios, Stupido.
• Major Toht threatening to burn Marion with a poker in The Raven bar. Heck, everything with Toht is terrifying due to the Gestapo Reality Subtext that surrounds him, and the actor's extremely creepy performance.
  Toht: Fraulein Ravenwood, let me show you what I am used to...
• Toht having the medallion's side burned right onto his hand after his unsuccessful attempt to grab it during the bar fight earlier.
• The unsettling shot of the dead monkey after she ate the poisoned dates. And a second before that, something about Indy tossing the poisoned date up into the air, complete with slow-motion, shadow on the wall... and then Sallah suddenly grabbing it, face stricken. The dim lighting of the room doesn't help.
• When Indy and Sallah finally uncover the well of souls, lightning flashes revealing a snarling statue of Anubis, it's enough to catch the viewer off guard
• The Well of Souls is this trope both for the audience and Indy. Unbelievable numbers of snakes. And mummies. And snakes slithering out of the mummies. GAH. Imagine falling down into the Snake Pit and landing directly near your worst fears and it is ready to attack you along with the other snakes all around you. This was enough to cause Indy to panic. "Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?" indeed.
  • And it's not just blind phobia (though Indy certainly has that, too). At least some of those snakes are cobras or asps, and probably others are venomous enough to be a very real lethal danger to a healthy adult human.
• After Indy and Marion found a way to escape from being trapped in the Well of Souls, they are met with an awful surprise when they stumble into a room filled with decaying corpses. The corpses seem to be screeching at Marion and whenever she knocks down the corpses they fall in such a way that makes it look like they are trying to grab her.
• While the Ark is being transported, it makes a eerie hum before it burns the Hakenkreuz swastika on the box it's being held in. The buildup of that moment showed several mice wandering in the ship's hold. Just before the Hakenkreuz is burned away, one of the mice rolls over and starts hyperventilating (or possibly bowing to an unseen presence), strongly implying that something had actually come down into the ship's hold for a visit.
• The (in)famous "opening of the Ark" sequence from the finale is incredibly jarring for a viewer who has thus far enjoyed a relatively lighthearted action/adventure movie. The shot of Dietrich's head imploding on itself, followed by Toht's melting face - quickly followed by Belloq's exploding head - would have been enough to give plenty of theatre-goers nightmares. The shot of Belloq’s head exploding was originally unobscured by the flames until the MPAA stepped in.
  • The moment the spirits that emerge from the Ark turn hostile is utterly nightmarish. At first, they're serene - even beautiful, as Belloq declares - and then they suddenly start to shift into skull-faced terrors, snarling at those daring to look upon the open Ark. The shift in the music at this point is also rather frightening.
  • On top of the visual horror, the sound of Dietrich's head imploding. You can hear his brain matter turn to goop and his bones crunching! To further add to the nightmare fuel, there's the horrific hissing sound Toht's boiling blood makes, coupled with his screams getting muffled by the gurgling of his mouth filling with blood. And those screams continue as he becomes skeletonized. Even worse, when Belloq's head explodes, you can see his eyeballs fly out of the remains of his skull and brain! Sweet dreams...
  • The shocking bit? The movie is still rated PG.
• Earlier in the film, a Giant Mook is chopped up by the propeller of an airplane and while it happens off-screen, the copious amounts of blood on-screen are jarring, considering the Ark scene aside, the film is rather light on blood. It's never made clear, but in the long shot of the plane shortly before it explodes, a large smear across the sand with some chunky bits is seen near the plane...

• Ripping people's hearts out, enslaving children, crocodiles and chilled monkey brains feature, although the most terrifying thing of all is that they brainwashed Indiana freakin' Jones. It's not easy to see your hero attempt to kill his love interest. It takes heavy pain to snap him out of it, luckily.
  • The way they brainwash Indy is pretty unsettling: they force him to drink a chalice topped with a rotting human skull which is filled with a potion that would put the victim into a "black sleep". When they finally manage to make him drink it, we later see Indy writhing and screaming. The ambiance is very dreamlike and when he finally succumbs, he starts to laugh slowly, staring at the camera with unblinking eyes.
  • Harrison Ford's performance as Indy slowly undergoes the torturous process is extremely unsettling.
  • One slave would describe the experience being under the black sleep as a nightmare in which you are unable to wake up. He openly prefers death to such a fate.
• The Temple Of Doom itself is pretty much made of nightmare fuel. In particular, the lava pits, combined with the kids being enslaved and all the other horrible stuff that goes on there makes it seem like a part of Hell, rather than some place in India.
• When Short Round and Indy are exploring the secret passageway in the palace, Short Round tries to open a door which collapses revealing two rotting corpses.
• The Brainwashed Maharaja torturing Indy with the use of a Voodoo Doll, during the first time when we see him using it, he places it near a fire and Indy starts screaming in agony. What's even more disturbing is the Maharaja's Slasher Smile when torturing him.
• The spike room trap, which could only be deactivated by a lever that was covered with bugs.
• The statues of Kali outside Pankot Palace are decorated with necklaces of human fingers. Freshly severed human fingers, as Indy discovers when one of them drips blood on his hand.
• The bugs are themselves a gallon of nightmare fuel. Heck, don't even get us started on when the centipede crawls into Willie's hair...
• When Mola Ram pulls out the sacrifice victim's heart, it is more terrifying when we find the heart is still beating. In fact, not only is it still beating, but it starts beating faster - out of fear - as the guy gets closer to the lava. Not only that, but the thing starts smoking even before the guy bursts into flames. The poor sacrifice victim's screaming as his body is consumed by fire crosscut with Mola Ram laughing maniacally holding the guy's heart as it bursts into flames at the same time. Then we see the victim's torched body dissipate in the lava. Yeah, there’s a good reason this movie helped contribute to the creation of the PG-13 rating.
  • The sadistic grin on the face of the guy lowering the cage into the pit doesn't help.
• When one of the slave drivers Indy is fighting gets his sash caught in a rock crusher and then gets dragged, feet-first, into it slowly screaming in panic and begging Indy to help him by calling out "Sahib!" over and over. Indy even tries to save the guy, but to no avail. Then the film cuts to above the crusher and we see a smear of blood on it. At this point, no one could blame Willie for looking away. Even INDY turns away in disgust.
• The Mooks who fell down into the canyon at the end of the movie, only to be devoured by crocodiles. Even worse, Mola Ram pushed several of them off the bridge to this fate.
  • I might be wrong but I would imagine many of them died on impact from the fall before they were digested?
• Right after Indiana got the Shankara stones from the giant skull, he hears the sound of whipping and children screaming in pain. And each scream seems to get distorted into a monstrous roar. After the second scream, he looks at what appears to be human skin tied up above the wall. Then after the third scream (which is much deeper), he looks at the giant statue of Kali, which looks like it is staring at Indy.
  Willie: (to Short Round) Where's he going?
  Thug: RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!!!!!
• A villain like Mola Ram should come off as almost Narmy, but the way he acts and fits right into the nightmarish setting of the Thugee temple just makes him terrifying. Ram isn’t a twisted bastard hiding beneath a veil of civility like the main villains of the first and third films; he’s an out and out monster.
  Mola Ram: Drop them [the Shankara stones], Dr. Jones! They will be found! YOU WON'T! Hahahahaaa! GE-NA!!!^note  Get him!
• In the novelization, it is revealed that Mola Ram is just another brainwashing victim too. ANYONE could turn into a monster like him, and all it takes is a sip of the right blood, through no fault of their own. Though kudos on making someone like him into a Tragic Monster.
• The Thuggee assassin hiding among the murals in Indiana's room, who then steps out of the shadows and starts to choke him. Though it might be Nightmare Retardant when you realize he's hiding while Indy complains about Willie.
• Indiana translates what the village leader said about what happened after the Shankara Stone was stolen from the village:
  "He said when the stone was taken, the wells dried up and the river turned to sand. The crops were swallowed by the earth. The animals lay down and turned to dust. Then one night there was a fire in the fields. The men went out to put out the fire. When they came back, the women were crying in the dark... Children. He said they stole their children."
• The bit where Willie is almost sacrificed is pretty terrifying, from when she tearfully begs Indy to help her, not understanding why he won't, to her hysterically and repeatedly screaming "No!" as she's lowered into the pit, to sobbing as she resigns herself to her fate. The quick shots of the worshippers chanting and cheering all this on doesn't help.
• The Real Life subtext adds another layer of horror to the movie. The Thuggee were supposedly a real death cult dedicated to Kali that preyed on travellers and other isolated victims, with the killers disappearing back into normal Indian society when the monsoon season started and travel slowed to a crawl (the original accounts of the cult is the source for the word "thug"). The British exterminated the cult during the colonial era, but it's entirely believable that many of its members simply disappeared into the shadows, waiting for the time to rise again...
• Consider this: the Ark of Covenant and the Crystal Skulls were too powerful and uncontrollable, and in fact it is they — and not Indy — that destroyed the villains who meddled with them. And the Grail was useless outside its temple. But the Sankara Stones? Mola Ram knew how to control them and make full use of their unearthly powers. When he explains to Indy about the terrible things he plans to unleash (massacring the British and Muslims from India, toppling the Abrahamic faiths by force, and taking over the world in Kali's name) once he finds all five stones, it was not an empty boast, but a legitimate threat to the entire planet.
  Mola Ram: You don't believe me? You will, Doctor Jones. You will become a true believer.

• The killer Siafu ants that eat people alive. Oh yes, and they're coordinated enough to form a tower to reach you if you're out of reach.
  • Know what's scarier? There really are ants like this in South America, tropical Asia, and Africa that move in waves. This is NOT science fiction. (Fortunately, however, real Siafu and Driver Ants aren't as big or aggressive as the ones shown in the film, and don't go after humans.)
  • That moment when the ants use their own bodies to build a tower and reach higher? Also real.
  • When Dovchenko is dragged into the anthill, you can hear him yelling "Pomogi mne". It's Russian for "Help me!"
• Spalko's death from too much knowledge is pretty horrifying. Even more so in the adult novelization. As the alien beings leave this world, Spalko actually feels her skull painfully transform into quartz as the aliens flood her mental consciousness with all the knowledge in existence. It gets worse, and just before she dies Spalko gets a terrifying glimpse at the Eldritch Abominations.
• A 50s-esque suburban neighborhood populated by eerily smiling plastic dummies, complete with "Howdy Doody" playing on a TV set. The creepiness isn't reduced by the fact that it's a nuclear bomb test site.
  • The moment when the warning siren flares up, and you know exactly what's to come.
    Indy: That can't be good.
  • The actual bomb going off is just as nightmarish, as the bomb burns the plastic dummies before destroying the ENTIRE TOWN. It's so destructive that it ends up also killing the Russians who were trying to escape by car.
• Irina Spalko's plan for the Crystal Skull, i.e. using its power to brainwash large numbers of people into mindless followers of communism is downright terrifying, and the psychological nature of this attack is what makes it so bad.
• The Greys have always been creepy but to have one looking super pissed like the resurrected alien was at Spalko at the end? Terrifying.

• Some episodes from the World War I saga, such as "Trenches of Hell" and "Demons of Deception"; since despite the Bloodless Carnage, they show a gritty picture of trench warfare. Indy witnesses poison gas attacks while serving in France; in one instance, a soldier loses his gas mask and desperately searches for one and begs the other soldiers for a gas mask with no success, as he begins to die a painful death from the gas. And soon the terror is amplified when flamethrower teams emerge from the gas cloud.

• The comic's version of Kerner and Ubermann using the God Machine. They don't even survive the transformation]], instead horrifically mutating and melting (a la Toht's death in Raiders) away at the same time. Kerner ends up as a pile of smoking goo on the ground, and Ubermann's eyes BURST OUT OF HIS MUTATED HEAD at the end of his transformation.
  • To be more precise, in the comic the God Machine doesn't work at all - it NEVER DID. It wasn't a matter of putting in the right amount of Orialchum beads - the God Machine was just a failed experiment created through the mad hubris of a decaying civilization attempting to ascend to the same level as their alien "gods". Unlike the game, where the Energy Being endings hints that the Atlanteans were on to something, in the comics, it was all utter nonsense!
  • There's an earlier moment in the comic where an Orialchum-powered statue advances on the characters, only to trip over it's own feet and shatter on the floor (which is noted by Sophia) that gives a kind of disturbing foreshadowing to the true nature of the God Machine - that all the wondrous technology of Atlantis is just barely comprehended imitations of real technology, because aside from the Orialchum, which the aliens gave the Atlantians, none of it is really anything other than Bronze Age knockoffs of advanced tech. The glittering utopian legend of Atlantis is nothing but a pathetic Cargo Cult.
• In the game, the inner circles of Atlantis start to become this as time goes by, especially if you haven't rescued Sophia yet. Up until now, the Lost City hasn't seemed too frightening; the hallways are immensely wide and brightly lit, the ruined architecture is a little too grand to be frightening, and the Nazis are always patrolling the area to provide a reassuring series of fist-fights. After the canals, however, the random encounters end, and you're allowed to wander freely through the dimly-lit claustrophobic hallways of the second circle, all alone except for the eerie carvings on the walls and the skeletons on the ground.
  • Another element that adds a layer to the creepiness factor: the skeletons themselves. Maybe it's just the graphics, but quite a few of them look as though they died screaming in agony. If you decide to examine the bones, you can hear the uneasiness in Indy's voice as he describes them.
    Maybe they're animal bones.
    No animal I know about has bones like these...
    These bones are weirdly twisted.
    Any human being with bones like this had to have been diseased.
    Some of the skulls bear half-grown horns.
    Maybe they weren't human at all, but... something ''else''...
    • It becomes especially so when by the end of the game it becomes clear that what Kerner became is about the same as the skeletons on the ground. The skeletons are the failed experiments from the God machine.
• The canals themselves are guarded by a giant octopus.
• When Sophia first puts the bead in her pendant and Nur-Ab-Sal appears for a brief second. It's not exactly nightmare fuel, but genuinely creepy.
  • It's even worse when you put a bead in her pendant while she's possessed. Suddenly, the pendant's face changes to give you a creepy Slasher Smile.
• Sophia's possession by Nur-Ab-Sal. It's even hinted at through the game at certain points where she'll start speaking in a deep masculine voice briefly if you choose certain lines of dialogue.
• Being lost in the Greater Colony and finding the remains of previous explorers, including Sternhart's.

• In the beginning you are told not to look into the eyes of the idol and when the tourists inevitably do, he will condemn you to the Gates of Doom as the ride is being dragged towards it. Luckily, Indy himself blocks the way to let the riders drive off.
• When you enter the chamber with the bridge, you would see a second statue of Mara, although this one now looks like half of the flesh around its face has somehow decayed. The hellish atmosphere within the chamber does not help as well.
• In one area, you enter a room full of screaming skeletons and some will pop out towards the tourists.
• It's also the home of a giant cobra that lunges out at the vehicle. Many guests who know the ride very well are too scared to sit on the far right seat of the vehicle because of this! You even hear Indy comment on it:
  Indy: Snakes?! You guys are on your own!
• Apparently, Mara's idol wasn't scary enough, so they did some changes to his face.
  • Thankfully, it was changed back.
• In the room of skulls, Mara's ghost is hovering above you.
  • It doesn't just hover above you. It screams loudly.
• The Temple of the Crystal Skull in Tokyo Disneysea doesn't disappoint either, with the scares starting even before you enter the ride. In the main queue area, there's a large altar to the skull, with skeletons freely hanging off it and littering the ground below it, suggesting that human sacrifices were common in this temple. Then as you get closer to the loading dock, you enter caverns that feature carvings of skulls and horrifying demonic visages lit up in red light, plus ominous busts of Aztec warriors, made worse that they're practically the only lights in some rooms. As for the giant serpent, you get to face what is implied to be Quezalcoatl himself. Finally, while you see Mara at the beginning, you only meet the deity near the end, who takes the form of a giant crystal skull. Before you get a chance to explain, he screams at you in bloodthirst and launches a fireball at you. While Mara only got angry if you looked into his eyes, the skull was malevolent from the start and just wants you dead for merely entering his temple.