Nightmare Fuel cleanup and maintenance

• The Mechon themselves are all pretty disturbing in their own way just in the design, but at the beginning of the game when you have your first encounter with the Mechon as Shulk and co. and the Mechon are seemingly eating the citizens of Colony 9, one of the Mechon rounds on a man who's cowering on the ground, clamps its grabber over only the man's neck, and he goes completely limp!

• The Faced Mechon. The Mechon are already a mechanical menace capable of mass destruction, impervious to everything but the Monado. And then you have these mysterious Mechon who have faces, can speak, and are resistant to the Monado. And then it gets worse, once you find out what they really are.
  • Metal Face, pictured above, is the first faced Mechon you fight. Vile, ruthless, and absolutely savage, this Mechon is truly horrific. Shulk attempts to attack him, only to find out the Monado cannot inflict damage. Shulk speculates that it must be the red lights he sees on the Mechon. He's right, but those aren't lights. That's blood. Then, Metal Face begins his killing spree. His first crime is gleefully murdering Fiora (complete with her blood on his claws) and taunting the party about it during their second encounter, as quoted above. Then, he murders the High Entia Emperor, and continues to show no remorse. And finally, he turned out to be Mumkhar, Dunban's former war comrade turned traitor.. In fact, he was such a wild card and so deranged that Egil ended up having to remove the memories of the next Face Mechon pilots just so they'd obey, as Mumkhar acted on his own too much!

• Even the way he's defeated isn't a pleasant sight. He's Hoist by His Own Petard after his rifle blasts a part of the structure above him, causing it to impale right through the Mechon and break the platform he was on, and then he falls to his death from the sword of the Mechonis all the way down to the Fallen Arm. The mangled remains of his Face unit function as a fast travel point.

• Xord, the second faced Mechon you fight, is quite a treat. His behaviour, design, and even voice makes him seem and sound like a monstrous, mechanical orc of sorts. He's downright vicious and brags about eating as many Homs as he can. Credit goes to his VA for making his grunts and screams sound quite beastly at times, and his delivery of the line "You cannot defeat me..." as he's falling into the Ether River is downright chilling.

• Later on in the game, you find out that Xord, and the other Faced Mechon, were piloted by Homs. Despite this, you can still fight and defeat Mass Produced Faces, even knowing that there were Homs inside. When you defeat them, you get an item called the Bloodstained Face, complete with a description entailing lives lost in the horrors of war. And even if you should choose to neglect to fight these enemies, the protagonists still murdered Xord earlier on in the game.

• Not to mention that Xord is heavily implied to be the father of one of the Non Player Characters in Colony 9, though that tidbit is easy to miss if you don't talk to her after fighting Xord in the Ether Mine. So not only did your party unknowingly kill a Homs, they killed one of their neighbors. Plus Xord was a blacksmith—with Shulk's interest in machinery, they could easily have known each other before Xord apparently died a year ago. He's definitely known his daughter for a while—she has a crush on Shulk.

• Gold Face, also known as Yaldabaoth, piloted by Egil, is the largest and strongest Mechon ever built, and has the most intimidating presence out of all the Mechon due its size. Egil ends up using it to control Mechonis itself in order to try and stop Bionis. Well-Intentioned Extremist or not, many lives were still on the line when he ended up doing this.

• During one cutscene before the final fight with it, when Egil pulls the Mechonis sword out of the Bionis while the Allied Force is still fighting on it, the camera pans back and you see black dots of what appears to be hundreds of people falling to their deaths. Most do make it out alive, but still!

• But, during the final fight with it, there's one truly scary moment. At some point in the battle, you'll receive a vision. Unusually, Shulk will comment on it, but aside from that, you'd probably think the boss is just gonna do a big attack on you. Well, not quite. Rather, the vision is for Mechonis itself performing a technique called Bionis Slash X, against the Bionis. The predicted damage for the attack is INFINITY. You then get a mid battle quest to destroy some mechanisms to prevent the boss from succeeding, and while it's not that hard to stop, the sheer implications of what will happen should you fail are terrifying.

• The true nature of the High Entia and the Telethia, wherein the former are fated to transform back into the latter. Not only is it Zanza's Moral Event Horizon, but it's also Body Horror incarnate, and a Fate Worse than Death as well.
  • It gets even more frightening, as afterward, you actually can (and for some quests, need to) return to Alcamoth. And when you get there, you'll find the streets littered with Telethia where all the citizens used to be. All of them at a very high level, swarming the town. Plus, the music remains the same, which actually makes the situation worse.

• According to some of the Alcamoth refugees (both half-Homs High Entia and Nopon colonists), some of the pure-blooded High Entia protected them even as they were transforming. Even after being fully transformed, some of them stick around an area associated with their previous life out of some kind of attachment, suggesting that the transformed High Entia are somewhat cognizant of what's happened to them, but unable to do anything about it due to a feral instinct to carry out Zanza's will. Naturally,some of the refugees' sidequests involve putting their long-time friends and family out of their misery.

• The cutscene that shows Kallian and his fellow soldiers getting transformed seems to imply that some of the larger Telethia types are created from multiple High Entia (this seems to contrast Zanza's claim of Telethia evolving into High Entia, until you remember that the Telethia are the Bionis' cells; so them combining is basically cellular fusion).

• Additionally, after that point, in the affinity chart a good number of High Entia characters are grayed out (and at least two of them are children), and whether they died or turned into Telethia is left unsaid outside of a few side quests where you encounter some of those characters as Telethia.

• This game, or at least parts of it, is not friendly to those who have arachnophobia. A few arachnid examples below:
  • One of Shulk's first visions shows the Arachno Queen impaling and killing Reyn in one blow. If it weren't for Monado Shield kicking in just in time, Shulk would have lost Reyn, another one of his best friends lost within days of one another.
  • Tephra Cave in general has various areas with a whole bunch of spiders running about, and pods that hatch that release more spiders. Various areas and caves on the Bionis Leg are also the same, but at much higher levels. Near the end of the game, you can explore more of Tephra Cave, including a Lv 85+ area that contains some of the toughest enemies in the game... which includes, of course, more spider enemies, of note two Unique Monsters that are basically huge spiders that are also really tough to take down.
  • An early sequence of sidequests will have you trying to find the "Giant's Mirror", located in a ruined shrine on the edge of a cliff on the Bionis Leg. Simple enough, right? Well... The moment you pick it up, you'll see legs emerge from the abyss, and suddenly a huge spider pulls itself right up in front of you. And if you're doing the quest as soon as you can, you'll probably be too weak to fight it, as it can kill you horribly in one hit(luckily, the game gives you just enough time to run). Then, when you have to go to the place to offer the mirror, the same thing happens. But then there are three giant spiders. On top of that, that first spider will show up if you explore the ruins no matter what, even if you haven't gotten the quest. You might just be exploring the area and discovering everything around the Bionis Leg on your first time around, well under half the level needed to actually fight it. It also attacks on sight, and takes a while for it to get over the edge of the cliff, so you could very well walk to the edge, turn around, and not know you're under attack until the music kicks in.

• The scene where Shulk collapses in pain from the power of the Monado. Serious props to Adam Howden because his screams of agony are bone-chilling.

• Incredibly high level Unique Monsters when you're low level ends up being this. They usually come out of nowhere when you're not expecting it and can one shot you. Besides from the spider earlier there's a giant monkey, giant dragon and others that do this.
  • In a meta sense, having Boss Fight music start up when you don’t expect it is one of the biggest Jump Scares in the entire series.

• Dickson. Just Dickson... Pretending to be a good guy and parental figure to Shulk just so he could use his body as an offering for the Big Bad. It's Adult Fear and Child Fear at it's finest. Think about it like this: You're a young adult who lost his real parents, and was taken in and raised by an agent of an evil god figure not realizing you are really being raised to become the Big Bad's body so he can destroy the world and absorb the energy of everyone living on it to become even more of a god. If that wasn't bad enough, this guy treated you like an equal and every moment that they seemed to care about anyone on Bionis was a facade and the kindly old eyes that watched you grow up were really plotting yours, and their own war comrade's demise as well as the entire world with you. Not to mention he was willing to betray Zanza when it was revealed Shulk might be more powerful than him meaning he's essentially doing all this for his own gain to be god himself. Now imagine having this person as a parental figure.

Main Game

• Like in the previous Xenoblade games, it is possible for Unique Monsters much higher-leveled than you to attack you by surprise.

• When you are out salvaging, you may sometimes end up fishing some monsters along with some treasure. Most of the time, these are small or medium-sized monsters like Crabbles or Crustips, but other times, you'll be fishing up beasts large enough to swallow a man whole such as Lexos, Aspids, Serpronds and Marrins. Salvaging is a very dangerous occupation in Alrest, to say the least, so it's no wonder Rex was armed even before becoming a Driver.

• When the party enters Torigoth for the first time, they witness Ardanian soldiers making a recruitment drive for potential Drivers, which serves to demonstrate how Blades awaken. However, it also shows that not just anyone can resonate with a Core Crystal, and those who don't qualify get long-lasting nosebleeds at best or die from ruptured insides at worst. And the qualifications for becoming a Driver aren't clear even in-universe, making it a potential life-or-death gamble. With this scene, you'd be forgiven for thinking Mor Ardain is an Evil Empire at first if not for the fact they aren't really drafting people to become Drivers.

• The rule of thumb for each area is this: If a unique weather effect is in play, the strongest enemies will emerge. Most of them are high-level versions of other enemies in the same species but there are several unique and disturbing ones. This is especially true for when Tantal is foggy and the lower area is filled with Squoods, giant, squid-like things that have dragon-like heads and any one of them is bigger than the full party combined. They alone make Tantal the scariest area in the game to traverse during its unique weather. In some of the bleaker parts of Alrest (namely Temperantia and the Cliffs of Morytha), it's possible to accidentally fish up one of these monstrosities while salvaging.

• Learning about Nia's backstory when going for the third Aegis sword. While Nia tells the group that her father was very kind and that she loved him, the actual flashbacks shown have him come across as very creepy and possibly mentally unstable with him telling Nia to call him "father" and that her "sister" lives on through her. Not hard to see why when one considers that Nia is the Replacement Goldfish for his real daughter, but it makes you wonder what kind of state he was in at the end of his life.

• How Nia attempted to kill Malos at the Cliffs of Morytha. By giving him a hyper-fast acting cancer that causes his muscles to repeatedly explode with clouds of black fluid. It is awesome, but undeniably brutal and horrifying. Goes to show that even the good guys do not shy away from invoking this trope.

• Pyra's brutal Mind Rape by Malos, which ends up temporarily turning her into an empty shell by the time Rex comes to save her. What's worse is that Malos didn't even need to erase Pyra's memories to restore his Aegis powers. On top of all that, Pyra's screams of agony can be hard to sit through for some players.

• The Land of Morytha, a post-apocalyptic modern city full of nightmarish, humanoid monsters known as Guldos, and they are the only organic monsters present in the land aside from Parisax in the Titan carcasses. It is later revealed that these feral abominations used to be the original humans of Earth, who tried to make themselves immortal through overuse of Core Crystals (which were intended to replace dying brain cells). They succeeded and survived the creation of Alrest, but they've mutated so drastically, the only thing human about them is their shape, and some such as the Infernal Guldo, don't even look close to human anymore. These creatures and the ruins of Morytha are all a result of human folly.

• Continuing the horrors of Morytha, Rex comes across the corpse of the Torna Titan. Inside of it, he learns of the life-cycle of Blades and Titans, with broken eggs and the bodies of stillborn Titans as a visual aid.

• Amalthus's One-Winged Angel form, created from absorbing multiple Blade crystals. After Klaus tells the party how the Guldos in Morytha came to be, it's apparent that Amalthus essentially became a Guldo, but has retained his sapience and some semblance of his original self.

• The final fight in Vale's sidequest becomes dark very fast. Throughout the quest, Vale's been witnessing rather clumsy Nopon satanic rituals, all of which so far have been played for laughs. The third and final ritual, however, gets serious, with troubling non-Nopon like behavior with a deep-voiced Nopon threatening the party with a genuine summoned monster. Doesn't help that said ritual takes place in Spirit Crucible Elpyss.
• Klaus’s test for Rex at the beginning of Chapter 10. Continuing on from the empty desert that is Elysium now, the Architect wants to test our heroes. Rex gets to fight all the party members. All the while, they voice Rex’s doubts, from Nia’s feelings to leading his friends on a wild goose chase. You can hear Rex’s voice get more and more confused and scared as it goes on. Sure, it ends with a touching scene with Pyra and Mythra, but even at the end of that, Rex breaks down. It’s too much for Pyra. And the rest of the party experienced similar visions.

• The very sight of fighting your party members can be very unsettling. Even the music is distorted sounding and unnerving, it almost sounds like something out of Mother 3's final boss theme.

• One side mission in Torigoth involves finding what happened to a team of soldiers. Naturally, you end up finding their corpses. You track down what attacked them, and find their corpses. So you start tracking again, and...Oh boy that's a BIG footprint.

Torna: The Golden Country

• Mythra in her Unstoppable Rage is absolutely terrifying, not only can Addam not control her because of their less-than-ideal bond but Addam is still getting electrocuted after touching the third sword even when it's no longer in his hand. It's very similar to Dunban's pain of not being able to use the Monado. Then there's Mythra's screams, which shows she is in absolute agony. The only thing she wants until she snaps out of her Roaring Rampage of Revenge is to make Malos suffer.

• Torna: The Golden Country ends with a fight against Gort, who has been turned into one of the first Blade Eaters, a raving titan-like abomination that's practically a more deliberate but intelligent version of a Guldo, courtesy of Indol. And under his insanity, he's absolutely ecstatic about killing Jin in a gruesome manner before Lora (and his human face embedded in the beast's mouth sports a horrifying Slasher Smile). It gets worse when it's shown Indol made several of them to attack the remnants of Torna.
  Gort: I'll use your blood as a balm for my wounds. How about it? Sound fair? Yeah?! *Pops a Wolverine Claw out of his prosthetic arm* I'll start with you, you Tornan Blade! I'm paying you back for cutting my arms off, you dog! I'll have me arms back... And I think I deserve... some interest, too... I'll take your ears and nose as well!

• Lin's opening narration doubles as Fridge Horror. The habitat gives the people of NLA a false sense of normalcy, 'cuz just outside those walls is the inescapable truth that they're stranded on an uncharted alien world, with limited resources. Made worse, given they're being pursued by a hostile alien race that's hellbent on wiping out what's left of them. Imagine being one of the survivors to be awakened to that reality. To make the horror even easier to relate to, the destruction of Earth and the endangerment of humanity as a species happens in 2054, which is within the expected lifespan of the game's player demographics.

• Sylvalum sometimes gets covered in a spore fog so thick it's near-impossible to see anything. It's also home to a ton of Jump Scare monsters and very powerful roaming monsters with a bad habit of jumping into a fight in their path. They're normally fairly easy to see coming, but with this weather active...
  • To make this worse, there's a certain tyrant that only spawns during the spore fog. Have fun fighting a monster you can't see.

• The way the reveal of every human currently in New LA being a mimeosome is handled gets pretty horrific, because the game exploits the technicality of the player being a "robot" to push the T rating way further than it could otherwise go. Specifically, your character's arm is blown clean off by a mech-mounted gun - and, well, we say "clean" but the injury is absolutely horrific, with the establishing shot showing a huge trail of blood and char along the route you got knocked back, and then the camera rests on your mangled, bleeding stump while you writhe in agony. We also get a nice, long shot of the also-bleeding remains of your previously-functional arm. Mimeosome "blood" being blue and this not being a "real" human body allows the game to do all this within a T rating, but the game presses home that the experience is, for Rook, exactly as if a biological arm was blown off (Lin has to turn off the player's nervous sensation in that area and then ultimately turn them "off" just to provide some relief), and the presentation is more like something out of The Pacific than a family-friendly Nintendo game.

• The game also points out how horrific this must be for Rook: they had no idea they were a robot, and so they get the full shock of this on top of the trauma of such a brutal injury. It's a testament to Rook's mental fortitude that they keep it together after all this. And really, just imagine finding out you and everyone you know is a robot when you previously had no idea, especially when you're already unsure about your own identity.

• The otherwise normal side mission "Lakeside Getaway". It starts off as a mundane and petty request by Rosie to get some payback against Ajoa and Ian for setting up the Biahno Water Purification Plant in Primordia and running it without her (and suspecting that their relationship is more than just professional). But then things get really disturbing once you get to the plant. First off, it's being attacked by Cantors - four-armed humanoid creatures that are already creepy enough when they are posing as statues, have uncannily human-like skin tones and are usually found in the northern continents of Sylvalum and Cauldros - except they are smaller than normal (as opposed to being about the size of an adult Simius) and hatch out of cocoons. As you look for other survivors besides Ajoa, the Cantors drop ID cards as you kill them (something that can make players of past Xeno games wary). Once you read Ian's ID card and look at the plant's security recordings, it is revealed that the Cantors there are actually the rest of the plant's staff mutated as a result of a previous Cantor laying its eggs in their bodies from its attack and being exposed to water from that point, with the parasite compelling the host to crave water through symptoms such as dry skin, a reproduction method similar to parasite wasps from Earth as mentioned by Ian's recording. The really scary part can come off as a result of what you the player decide. Before checking the recordings, Ajoa will ask to take a shower while you check the recordings. Players wary enough of survival horror tropes will tell her not to be left alone for her safety as she was already attacked at least once when she did so (she'll just go to a doctor in NLA to get the eggs planted in her surgically removed), but if you let her take a shower to cut her some slack, Ajoa will come back into the control room mutated into a Cantor still begging for water just after you finish watching the recording, forcing you to kill her in defense. That's right, you just caused an NPC death that could have been prevented from one dialogue choice with very little warning. Suffice to say, Rosie becomes regretful for her earlier attitude once you tell her about this incident. Along with other side quests where you have the potential to get named NPCs killed as a result of your bad decision-making, the negative outcome of this side quest has prompted many players to to save their game before starting quest-related conversations that have player decisions with potentially fatal consequences (this game has only one save file).

• Some more Fridge Horror comes in after completing Chapter 5 when you learn that you and the human inhabitants of NLA are actually android avatars that simulate being a human near-perfectly without aging. The simulation is done too well when you realize that mimeosomes still have some organic components and thus are not immune to biological illness, parasites and mutations. In the main story, the most apparent example of this is Lao in the final chapter, who gets mutated into a chimera.

• Another horrifying episode comes from a mission given by an isolated Harrier outpost in Sylvalum. It starts out as a total milk run monster hunt, followed by comically looking after the squad princess's demands. When your get back, the squad rookie is the only one left. He tells you the Prone killed their captain and dragged the other girls of the squad away. When you catch up, only one is left, beside herself with grief and fear. If you press her, she reveals her companion, the aforementioned diva, had nothing to live for with the captain dead and provoked the prone so she would die first... whereupon they started skinning her alive in preparation to eat her. And when they realize she's a Mimeosome, they started torturing her to death via dismemberment. So not only do we have off-screen torture and dismemberment added to the pile, but this is where it's confirmed that the Cavern Clan Prone are, in fact, cannibals of non-Prone sentients. Missions likely encoutnered prior to this one will hint at the "hunting" nature of the Prone, but this makes explicit that the thing which makes the Caverns particularly savage is their willingness to consume other sentients. Even more disturbing, two pairs of psycho launchers are dropped from the Prone you need to kill, and they are named Grette and Adelbert, after the two Harriers who were dismembered. You might be quick to assume the launchers belonged to them, but a comment from Kupee mentions that the Prone made weapons out of mimeosome parts (and the Definian Jisanne, from the Affinity Mission "A False Hope", implies that the Prone aren't the only Ganglion race that do this).

• The above also throws a key event early in the game into a whole new light: Tatsu, in all likelihood, wasn't just being saved as a vegetable. The Prone at that base were perfectly aware he was sentient and really were going to eat him anyway, and simply stored him in a convenient place. Tatsu (as well as a few other NPCs) also mentions that they eat Nopon on a regular basis. Even worse, one of the holograms you can display in the BLADE barracks shows a Cavern Clan Prone trying to eat a Nopon alive by using his facial tentacles to force him into his gaping mouth.

• Lao's final boss form is just a humanoid mess of various body parts, including the heads of various animals. Take a look◊. Even worse, due to being merged with the DNA, memories and consciousness of Luxaar and several other Earth animals, he's unable to control his own body while the other consciousnesses of feral creatures use it destroy everything around them. The only thing he can do on his own volition is communicate. Unlike the previous game (and past Xeno games), you're not fighting a god. You're putting an old friend out of his suffering while protecting the future of humanity. Oh, and it also resembles the horrifying third form◊ of William Birkin. Have fun.

• Marcus' death scene during the Ganglion's attack on NLA. Despite his best efforts, he could only stare helplessly as his monitor repeatedly flashed: WARNING: Incoming Missiles - which he could already see were gaining on him, directly below his cockpit. Half of it is shown from Irina's perspective, as she desperately tells him to evade them. The other half is from his perspective, with the monitor continuing to flash as the warning siren intensifies... until the inevitable moment of impact.

• The Millesaurus' long neck is actually an extended mouth they can use to feed and cutting it off reveals its actual face◊. (Spoiler Warning for unrelated post-game content in screenshot!)

• The lyrics of the standard battle theme "Black Tar", which tells of an alien lifeform killing off soldiers, taking over their bodies, and forcing them to fight amongst one another. Doubles as Paranoia Fuel by the end of that particular verse.
  The tar inside, stealing their body and breath
  'Til only a shell is left
  Witness to Hell in the flesh
  A fight to the death
  Screaming "Where's the relief?!"
  Maybe no more sleep!
  All is swallowed in grief
  The images start to stalk like a beast
  I hear voices, but no one's talkin' to me...

• You know Talon Rock? That massive prominent geographical feature that dominates the Primordia skyline? Well it's home to one of the most powerful Tyrants in the game: Elvira, the Talondrake. It can often be seen floating above the summit during the daytime - only a thousand feet or so above NLA. If this monster wasn't just content to pace back and forth above Talon Rock, it could easily attack and destroy most of the city.

• What's more, because of its location atop the most striking landmark in Primordia, the player can actually catch a glimpse of the Talondrake very early on in the game - even before entering NLA for the first time. The player casually glances up at the rock formation looming over the city, only to see a giant monster floating away off in the distance. It really establishes the kind of world Mira is.

• Worse is the fact that Elvira is a Colubrim, which the enemy index says tend to stay dormant for decades at a time... but when they do awaken fully, they go on eating sprees that include just about anything they can get their (multiple) mouths around. Elvira might be content to fly around the summit for now, but when it finally gets hungry...

• The ending to Yelv's final Affinity Mission implies that he's not even a mimeosone with human consciousness, but an android. He has a single minded desire to find his missing partner, something that leads him to becoming a Reclaimers. The theory being that these are false memories implanted into him to make him more efficient as a Reclaimer, and that Eleanora may be his handler.

• Squallo, the Sand Mirer is a massive Tyrant hiding underneath the sand in Northern Oblivia, so unlike many of its fellow Tyrant, you might not see it coming yards away, aside from the ominous Dangerous Area theme playing when you're close to it.^note It sometimes pops out of the sand if you're far enough from its territory for a split second. You can be walking along and it will erupt from the ground catching you completely off guard. Its Sylvalum counterparts Atreides, the Distinguished and Gesserith, the Wileworm are also frightening. Atreides is more out in the open during the daytime and consistently jumping from one hole into another, but generally ignores you until you try to pick a fight with it. At night, however, it just sits in the sand with only parts of its mouth visible like a Sarlacc, waiting for some hapless prey to walk into its maws.

• Duoguills in general. From the top down they look similar to manta rays, but underneath their mouths look like zombie faces.

• So you've just gotten the flight module for your skells, and you've decided to take a flight around Sylvalum in order to reach some of the higher up probe sites, when you notice that one of those massive spheres hanging in the air has an opening in the side. Obviously you decide to take a look inside, and once you enter you notice the large amount of level 60+ indigens floating around. Rather disconcerting, but they're non-aggressive so you ignore them. And then you look up and notice the level 97... THING hanging from the roof of the sphere like a bat. Congrats, you've just met Pharsis the Everqueen, the second most powerful enemy in the game.

• The Enemy Index description for the Yggralith species reeks of Cosmic Horror Story. According to the description, Yggraliths are from the depths of outer space and come to feed on the world's Ether as well as any other creatures it may come across before leaving the world as a dead husk and flying off to another one, which sounds like a mix of what the Telethia of the original Xenoblade and Lavos do. Worse, it is said that if two Yggraliths were to meet, they would engage in a battle that could potentially destroy the entire solar system they are in. Fridge Horror settles in when you realize that Pharsis isn't the only Yggralith you can fight on Mira. The battle with the Global Nemesis Yggralith Zero takes place far in Cauldros, but the fight with the squad mission-exclusive Tyrant, Phanatos, the Netherlord takes place in Sylvalum's Lake Ciel, which is not very far from Pharsis' nest in the Noctilucent Sphere.

• Even with the end of humanity looming if BLADE doesn't get its job done, some humans are still prone to committing atrocities, such as purging NLA of (friendly) Xenos, being murderers in some other capacity, betraying allies in the worst manner possible, or running scams for money. It's safe to say that the realities of mankind can't be assumed to have improved in the wake of desperate times.
  • Special mention goes to The Murderess' Arch-Enemy, Dale Gibbon, a serial killer and the one who killed her parents. He sounds like a pedophile and his delivery of his Hannibal Lecture really makes it clear that he's a threat to NLA's safety.
• Enjoying Noctilum for its beautiful colors, upbeat music and lively environments? Ready to fly up that waterfall and see the last of the cool stuff the continent has to offer? Because boy oh boy, once you reach the Divine Roost, it's all downhill. The music is flat out unsettling, the single tree in the center bears roots that wrap around the enviornment like tentacles, some of (including THE) most powerful indigens hang out up there, and the whole place has a very eerie, disturbed feel. Oh yeah, and all the water looks like blood.

• A musical example: the second half of the track aBOreSSs, the "music" accompanying the first phase of the Zu Pharg fight. It just sounds wrong with the heavy percussion, weird synth sounds, the almost total lack of any harmony and the random piano stings. But don't worry, it gets much more melodic later on, and trust us, you'll wish it hadn't.
• But don't worry. aBOreSSs isn't the only ominous track in the game. z30huri2ba0tt12le1110 (which, decoded, translates to Z30 Free Battle 2012/11/10, giving the cruel illusion that it'll be the more laid-back sounding kind of battle theme), which plays for the second fight against Rexoskell and Dale Gibbon's Skell, Interfearance, is somehow even worse. It opens with a repeating Scare Chord accompanied by what sounds like dial-up internet screeching in your ear uncomfortably loudly, making one assume it might simply be a non-musical track like aBOreSSs, but no, it gets worse as it transitions to a synth verse. Thought it couldn't get worse than that? WRONG. The Scare Chord returns alongside the sounds of Nightmare AOL. Then there's some sort of horrible moaning, alongside what sounds like distorted robotic voices whispering in your ear. Then the song finally closes, with a sudden transition to terrifying silence accompanied by electronic clicking.

• Another musical example is in the second section of "z12e201v2e091n4t", an incredibly ominous track that plays in key areas, particularly in the territory of notably powerful Tyrants, areas heavily inhabited by dangerous enemies (such as Dead Man's Gulch in Noctilum, which is infested with Tainted Indigens), or generally uncharted territory. Even when the Indigens aren't that powerful or hostile, the Tyrant isn't available at the moment, or there are no enemies around, it gives off a sense that something is very wrong with the place it plays in and that you shouldn't be there, especially when you're low-leveled. It also plays during some darker plot points, such as when you learn where the Cantors that attacked the Biahno Water Purification Plant came from during the "Lakeside Getaway" side mission.

• Z23 Sama-ru is an ominous track that works well with providing the necessary atmosphere to a scene of a looming danger or a passed tragedy. And the first time you'll hear it is during "Renewed Will" when Irina is getting heckled by two smart-mouthed BLADEs. It makes you wonder what happened in Irina's past that makes the back-talk cut deep under her skin and what might've happened if she really got into a fight with them.

• The reveal that the mainframe that is supposed to control every mimiosome has been destroyed since right before Elma rescued the protagonist, which means not only are all of the humans supposed to be dead, Rook shouldn't even exist at all.

• This◊ image appears when you clear All-Star Mode with Peach, making her look unusually sinister. Not enough.
• The Brinstar Depths stage is a giant piece of space debris that could be spun around by Kraid. Plus, not only is the stage creepy in that Kraid just comes out of nowhere from the lava and roars at the player(s), but the music is actually rather chilling. Not enough I don't think.
• This game introduces Crazy Hand, the more sinister side of Master Hand. While fighting Master Hand is not entirely unlike one's action figures trying to kill one's hand; Crazy Hand, is much creepier, since he idles spastically, has a few oddly creepy attacks, and is a tough boss, since he almost always brings Master Hand along. I don't think Crazy Hand is that different enough from Master Hand to warrant this.
• Giga Bowser's introduction in Melee. Just after getting to the end of Adventure Mode and beating Giant Bowser, Bowser's trophy suddenly lurches back on stage with a loud thud, and then crumbles revealing a colossal, far more vicious-looking, SNK Boss version of him, being much stronger and immune to grabs. And his transformation ends with a silent roar, complete with Glowing Eyes of Doom that freezes in frame while the actual fight starts loading. Maybe this might count.
  • There's also something unnerving about the cutscene that plays when you beat him. With Giant Bowser, you see Bowser's trophy tumble off into the black abyss. With Giga Bowser, you get the same cutscene except now it ends with the trophy smashing into dust on the floor. The fact that you can barely hear the sound of it breaking adds to it. I'm mixed on this being NF or Tear Jearker honestly.
• Zooming in on Daisy's trophy from the back in early versions of Melee reveals a glitchy, deformed eye on the back of her head. Maybe? It is pretty creepy
• When you earn a trophy in the Lottery, and it happens to be something like the moon from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask or something equally terrifying. Given that all trophies quickly pop up in the middle of the screen when earned, it could also double as a Jump Scare. Not even a real Jump Scare.
• As mentioned in the 64 folder, Metal Mario, especially how he's introduced. He falls from the sky head-first and lands on the Battlefield stage still stiffly head-first before falling over…and then extremely fluidly stands up to face the player while ominous music plays. Should you have Luigi unlocked, he joins as Metal Luigi and the creep factor becomes doubled. It's not quite as effective as N64, mainly because this incarnation moves more like a regular CPU, as well as flinches when you attack, unlike N64 Metal Mario, whose movements were more unnatural, and didn't seem to move until higher percents, which is far more creepy.
• Learning that Mr. Game and Watch is actually a 3D model made and then set up to look 2D. It just looks so out of place and could make any player uncomfortable. Thankfully, he was made complete 2D in later installments. How is this creepy. This is cool, not creepy.
• The music for Flat Zone (which can be heard in the above video) is rather unsettling and downright alien. That's the point, it's supposed to sound different... and it's not unsettling. Listen to it.
• Zelda's star KO scream, compared to others and even her future games' KO scream(s), she sounds genuinely terrified, in pain or both and it comes off as plain unnerving. Jarring, but won't stick with you long enough to be NF
• While most of the North American chants in this game aren't terribly scary, just rather bored sounding, a few are rather creepy. Take the chants for Yoshi and Falco for example. It sounds like a group of spirits in a haunted place calling to them. No it doesn't
  • Ganondorf's one is suitably off-putting, while the crowd saying "Ness, Ness, Ness!" can also be eerie if you know what the reference is. I don't think it will make you that frightened though even if you do know the reference.
• The Special Movie has an eerie moment where the Majora's Mask trophy inches towards the screen, slowly rotating, just like in that game's intro. In the midst of everything else? It doesn't stand out enough to scare.

• Cruella ("-De Vil"), Cruella ("-De Vil, if she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will..."). And more.

• Likewise, the part where the dogs are hiding in the coal shed and suddenly Cruella is right there at the window, driving past really slowly and glaring in at them. It gets even worse when, shortly thereafter, this is repeated with Cruella going the other way.
• Consider the Fridge Horror of the scene where Cruella barges into the Radcliffe's flat just minutes after the puppies were born. It wasn't just good timing on Cruella's part—Jasper and Horace were spying on them the whole time. She was outright stalking them for their pups.

• A very important example that combines with Fridge Horror. She's ordered her henchmen to kill puppies and in the most painful ways possible to have them skinned into a fur coat which is scary enough; now, consider the following: it's implied they were her regular employees, so they do work for her all the time, but acquiring fur illegally is probably why she hired them, leaving the possibility open that they killed animals before to satisfy her whims.

• Add in the fact that Horace and Jasper themselves were perfectly willing to do the dirty deed, and only showed hesitance so they could watch their favorite game show, and you have some prime examples of Not-So-Harmless Villains.
  Jasper: We'll get to it as soon as the show's over.
• A moment before that, they ask how they should go about the deed. Cruella replies, "Any way you like. Poison them. Drown them. Bash them in the head." When Jasper and Horance point out that they don't have any chloroform (or ether), she retorts, "I don't care how you kill the little beasts, but do it, and do it now!"
  • These lines have become Cruella's character-defining quotes, just for how purely nasty and villainous they are.

• Hell Hall is just as scary. Bonus points when it becomes shrouded in darkness when the moon disappears behind the clouds.

Colonel: They say the old place is haunted or bewitched or some such fiddle-faddle.
Sgt. Tibbs: (fearful) Fiddle-faddle and rot, sir.
Colonel: Just the same, Sergeant, use extreme caution. No telling what sort of hocus-pocus you might run into.
[Sgt. Tibbs gulps]

• Just look Pongo and Perdita's faces when they are facing off Jasper and Horace. They don't look so sweet anymore...

• Subverted that while Pongo and Perdita attack Horace and Jasper, Hilarity Ensues when Pongo bites Jasper in the butt and Perdita trips Horace with a rug and he falls into a fireplace butt first.

• When Jasper spots Rolly trying to get up the stairs, he gives a surprisingly creepy Slasher Smile as he moves closer.
  "Here, puppies."
• Put yourself in the truck driver's shoes. You just got your engine repaired and driving to London, when suddenly, you are attacked by an insane, psychotic, and very angry car driver, who is doing everything in her power to run you down and murder you, and you have no idea why or what you have done to deserve this. Especially when she does try to knock you off the cliff, and are powerless to stop her. That driver was an absolute badass for not breaking down in terror there.

• The Cut Song "Creation of Cruella De Vil", which seems to suggest that Cruella is not just a rotten human being but instead some kind of Lovecraftian terror in human skin. The singer (presumably Roger) witnesses Cruella being summoned by a band of nine evil witches and they all die of fright the minute she emerges. Cruella promptly glares at the singer, who flees, but then reveals that Cruella won't allow him to continue living with knowledge of her existence and so now is hunting him down to try and silence him...

Live Action Movie

• Mr. Skinner (the name alone says it all...).

• Glenn Close's Cruella as well. When not being a Large Ham, there are moments where she's legitimately terrifying.

• It's surprising nobody mentioned the sketch of the dalmatian fur coat. In the animated version, it's just mentioned so nobody actually pictures it. But this time, we can actually see what would happen to the puppies if she succeeded.
• Cruella's twisted sense of humor is as terrifying as it is hilarious. "If we made this coat, it'd be as if I were wearing your dog!"

• In-Universe: Cruella in Roger's video game, retaining her classic animated design. Which makes her an "excellent villain", and the game an easy sell.

• When taking the head-exploding scene of Meet the Spy frame-by-frame, in one frame, you can see Spy's eyeballs, brain, and skull fragments. View the frame here◊, if you dare. Who would go out of their way to take that video frame-by-frame? And the picture isn't as scary as it's hyped up to be.
  • The sequence of the RED Spy infiltrating the BLU base... and slaughtering the BLU Engineer, Sniper and Medic on the way. His fight against the Medic is especially chilling. Zero Context Example. What about this specific massacre makes it so scary? Also, this happens all the time in TF 2.
  • And the RED Spy's final disguise is the BLU Scout. He then stabs the final two members of the team over the score of the outro. Again, this happens all the time in TF 2.
  • The music is also genuinely tense and unsettling, perfectly expressing the terror and paranoia a Spy can create for the enemy team. Oh yeah, and it's also menu music, which means it can play whenever the game launches. It doesn't help that the song name is "Right Behind You". Tense and unsettling does not automatically equal Nightmare Fuel.
• Meet the Pyro. We always knew Pyro is a psychopath, but we really never saw Pyroland coming. Rather than just seeing them wandering around killing people, we get to see how much they terrify their own team. Oh, and if you hoped you'd see a face, hear an interview in that video... you were wrong.
  RED Heavy: I fear no man. But that... thing. It scares me.
  RED Scout: No, I ain't — I ain't talking about that freak, alright? (looks around in panic) He's not here, is she...? (gets up to run away as he tries to rip the microphone off his shirt collar) H — how do I get this f*thump*king thing off?!
  RED Spy: (draws from a cigarette) One shudders to imagine what inhuman thoughts lie behind that mask. (cut to Pyro torching the BLU team's entire base) What dreams of chronic and sustained cruelty? Meet the Pyro is genuinely scary, but there's a ton of natter in here. Condense and keep.
  • Even scarier is that the Spy can produce massive paranoia and fear in the enemy team, and takes pride in it. And even the Spy cannot comprehend the Pyro.
  • Pyrovision goggles show this on maps without the sugar sweet candyland theme and effects: Your enemies and allies are still flinching from gunshots and the like, but instead of making noises of pain, they laugh jovially as they are shot, lose it on dying and break into hysterics on bloody gibbing. That's fucking scary.
  • The ending. After being blown out of a high window by a backdraft from the fires, the crippled BLU Sniper crawls up to the RED Pyro and begs for help. Pyro's response? Flamethrower to the face. At point-blank range. Complete with Sniper screaming in agony as the Pyro looks down at him — tilting its head in a Shout-Out to Michael Myers as seen in the image above. After the signature outro, the Pyro is shown walking through Pyroland, then zooms out to reveal a gaping hole in the BLU Soldier's torso, who's holding his organs in his hands, and dies with a stifled, agonised groan as he falls down. Then it zooms out furthermore to show the dismembered corpses of the massacred BLU team, with the Pyro whistling to the song playing in Pyroland whilst the entire town burns down around them. Yeah.
    • It doesn't help that in their head, they're bopping along with the music happily. Change to real life, and they're just walking slowly and methodically as they murder each member of the BLU team. The fact that Pyro is completely oblivious to the destruction they're causing and that in their head, they're simply spreading rainbows and joy around them, is creepy on many levels.
  • BLU Medic's death was also horrifying. He gets forced into a barn, which subsequently has the door barricaded with an axe handle before being set on fire. The worst part is the look on his face as he realizes his impending doom...
  BLU Medic: No...! (Pyro torches the building with its flamethrower) NOOOOOOOOO —
  • Not to mention the Scout, who gets shot in the face with a flare gun at point-blank range.
  • And then of course there's the bone-chilling soundtrack that played in reality.
  • Hell, just Pyro's brutal, remorseless rampage in its entirety has to qualify as one of the most frightening things in the whole series. Although all the death and destruction that goes on is usually played up for comedy in the Meet the Team videos — it's played entirely straight here, complete with the BLU team being reduced to utter primal terror by Pyro as it single-handedly massacres them.
• The screams of pain from the other classes in "Meet the Sandvich" are chilling. While rather hilarious, just trying to imagine the images the Soldier and Scout are providing is enough to make you shudder. It gets even worse with some of the cut lines — including Soldier begging Heavy to kill him, and Scout frantically and tearfully begging him to stop.
  Scout: M-my blood! HE PUNCHED OUT ALL MY BLOOD!
  Soldier: (cracking noise) You call that breaking my spine? You RED Team ladies wouldn't know how to break a spine if — (much louder cracking noise) AAAAAUUUGGGGHHH, MY SPINE! Too obviously Played for Laughs to be scary.
  • The deleted lines:
  Soldier: You call that killing me? I am not dead! (Cracking noise as his tone becomes noticeably more panicked) Now I am ordering you to kill me! Please please please God, KILL ME!

  Scout: (Sobbing) He's already dead! HE'S ALREADY DEEEEEEAD!

  Soldier: There is a checkbook in the left-rear pocket of my fatigues! I will pay you all of my money to stop!

  Scout: (On the verge of tears) I regret everything! I regret everything I've ever done!

  Soldier: You do not frighten me! Pain does not hurt! (SNAP!) I stand corrected! AAUUUUUURRRGGHH!

  Scout: Give me back my leg bone! (cracking noises) NO, DON'T HIT ME WITH IT!

  Soldier: You cannot hurt me, I do not have time to bleed! (SNAP!) My schedule has just opened up! Aaaohhww, my God! See above. Also contains an unnecessary pothole to a work page.

• Just about the first half of Meet the Medic. The Medic is literally holding the Heavy's heart, and it explodes. Oh, and lest we forget that Heavy is fully conscious throughout the entire operation.
  • Although the horror factor is mostly subdued due to the fact that the Heavy did not seem to feel any pain (apart from the breakage of a rib bone). He even laughs to the Medic's joke while his organs are exposed. It's pretty possible that the Quick-Fix and the other Mediguns can nullify most pain, so the patient isn't in too much danger. Admits that the horror factor is subdued. Cut.
  • The BLU Spy's head, which early versions of the video explained as a dead, decapitated enemy spy's head falling into the accidental chemical mixture which would inspire the Medic's Mediguns. Said mixture made the head fully alive, aware, and unkillable, much to the BLU Spy's horror. By the events of Meet the Medic, he seems almost used to his horror of an existence, but still begs the RED Medic to kill him. Again, obviously Played for Laughs.
  • And then The Stinger, where Scout walks out of the operating room saying "You will not believe!... how much this hurts." Cue the sound of a dove cooing, and then the Medic calling out for Archemedes. In short, Scout has a live bird in his chest. This one gets a weak pass from me.
    • In game, if the Scout is killed in such a way that he's completely eviscerated, there is a 1 in 100 chance that a dove will fly out of the carnage. Natter
• Expiration Date: Apparently, bread gets green fleshy tumors when put through a teleporter... which can turn into monstrous abominations if put through a teleporter multiple times.
  • Actually it's just some sort of self-aware beauty mark, doesn't make it any less terrifying however.
  • What about all the Heavies with Sandviches that go through teleporters?
    • The bread they used was made from dolphin milk, fed only on pre-chewed grass. So Heavy's sandwiches should be fine. The bread monsters ARE pants-crappingly terrifying. However, the Heavy example is Fridge Horror.
• During Expiration Date, Spy pins Scout in a door and holds out his knife. He was perfectly willing to murder a teammate who wasn't a threat to him at that time. And topping it off, said teammate was later officially confirmed to be his own biological son.
  • Though, considering what the Scout was putting Spy through just minutes earlier, Spy's actions could be somewhat justified. This one also gets a weak pass.