Now with a sandbox!
It appears that many Nightmare Fuel pages have problems, including:
1. Listing non-scary things that made the viewer feel slightly uncomfortable at worst.
2. Having spoiler tags on them (which is against the page's guidelines).
3. Listing Fridge Horror and fan theories.
And much more!
On a few occasions, people from outside the site's community have pointed out our overly lax usage of Nightmare Fuel to make fun of us, meaning that it can legitimately harm our reputation to let this go unchecked.
The TRS thread
meant for redefining Nightmare Fuel started to become a place for cleaning up Nightmare Fuel pages in general, so we may as well move these discussions to Long Term Projects where they belong.
Here are the guidelines to determine whether something is Nightmare Fuel or not.
- This is a page whose name is intended to be taken more literally than most. It's not enough for material to be scary; to truly qualify, it has to be frightening enough to legitimately unnerve/disturb the viewer, with actually being nightmare-inducing as the ultimate endpoint.
- Good signs that something IS Nightmare Fuel include if:
- It left you feeling shaken even after the credits had rolled, you turned the last page, or are otherwise done with the work.
- You have a hard time falling asleep if you think about it at night, or have a literal nightmare about it.
- You dread that episode, scene, level, chapter, or song during re-watches, and consider skipping it.
- With that said, don't add something just because it happens to be your personal phobia. For example, spiders can be scary and many people have arachnophobia, but just because a spider happens to be in the work, it does not make a Nightmare Fuel entry. It needs to reasonably be scary to someone without the phobia.
- Don't confuse tension with fear. If the hero is in trouble, but you know he'll make it out okay at the end, it's probably not Nightmare Fuel unless the threat is especially disturbing.
- Good signs that something IS Nightmare Fuel include if:
- Explain WHY the entry scared you. Try to convey your sense of fear to your readers. Avoid putting up Zero-Context Examples.
- Remember that Weblinks Are Not Examples, and neither are quotes on their own. You should explain the horror in your own words, rather than rely on others to do so.
- Don't add things that might have scared someone. If it didn't scare you, and you don't personally know anyone else who was scared, you shouldn't be adding it to Nightmare Fuel.
- Nightmare Fuel should stick to you even after you're done with the work.
- If something is initially presented as scary but turns out to be harmless, it's most likely not Nightmare Fuel since The Reveal makes the scariness vanish.
- Jump Scares are a good source of Nightmare Fuel, but not all of them automatically qualify: being startled is not the same as being scared.
- Hypotheticals are not Nightmare Fuel:
- Remember that Trailers Always Lie: a scene that is presented as scary in the trailer could very well turn out to be inoffensive in the finished work. Only add examples from unreleased works if they were especially terrifying in the previews.
- Fan theories do not belong on the Nightmare Fuel page under any circumstance. No matter how much evidence they have to support them, don't add them until they've been officially confirmed. In the meanwhile, take them to Wild Mass Guessing.
- Fridge Horror goes on the Fridge page, not Nightmare Fuel. Don't add it unless it's Ascended Fridge Horror.
- Keep in mind the work's intended audience when considering whether or not something is Nightmare Fuel.
- If something is normal or expected in the genre, it does not automatically qualify. Violence in a Fighting Series or gore in a horror movie must be especially disturbing or gruesome by the work's standards to be Nightmare Fuel.
- Remember that Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films. If a work is rated PG-13 or higher but would only be scary to young children, it's not Nightmare Fuel.
- The standards on what qualifies as Nightmare Fuel are especially stringent on works aimed at children and pre-teens: kids have hyperactive imaginations, so even something benign can give them nightmares.
- Spoiler tags do not belong on Nightmare Fuel pages. Much of what scares us comes from inherently spoilery stuff such as death and the unknown, so finding spoilers on these pages should be expected.
- Nightmare Fuel is an Audience Reaction, so it needs to be scary for the audience. Describing how the characters react to something scary isn't needed. Just because something scares them, that doesn't mean it scares us as well.
- Nightmare Fuel is a No Real Life Examples, Please! page. Meta-examples involving the actors, production, or behind-the-scenes incidents are not allowed.
Guidelines when proposing cleanup of a page:
- Some rules are pretty objective. If you see a Zero-Context Example, Fridge Horror, Real Life example, speculation, In-Universe reaction that isn't scary to the viewers, examples that explicitly describe themselves as not being very scary (including "mildly creepy", "somewhat unnerving", and other synonymous phrases), or examples that are just scene summaries without going into detail about why it's so scary, you can (and should) remove them immediately without coming here to ask.
- You should also strip all spoiler tags from the page. Itty Bitty Wiki Tools has a tool for that, but it can cause problems, so if you use it be sure to preview the page and thoroughly look it over.
- Once you've fixed the objective issues with the page, bring it here so we can look at the more subjective problems, such as examples that may not be scary enough to qualify. If a consensus is reached that a certain entry does not qualify, it can be removed.
Edited by Zuxtron on Aug 1st 2020 at 9:40:30 AM
The nightmare fuel pages for Tamagotchi:
The Virtual Pets
- The death screens. They come out of nowhere, they can't be skipped, and you're completely powerless to do anything. You have to sit and watch your pet die.
- The Game Boy adaptation
might be the most shocking and sudden. It starts with the screen flashing rapidly, the Tamagotchi looks sick, a skull floats over its head, and in the background, a slowing heart-rate monitor can be heard. It slows down gradually until it flat lines.
- What's worse is that this can happen at any time and for any given reason, which means the death screen may pop up when you don't expect it and startle you with its flashing lights, high-pitched sounds and the dead Tamagotchi (especially if you, for example, played a game with the Tamagotchi a moment before).
- The third game (Tamagotchi Osucchi to Messuchi) had a different death screen than in the previous two games, which featured a deceased Tamagotchi that is about to be buried next to a headstone with a large cross while the spirit in a different pose flashing in the dark sky and the music was darker and creepier compared to the previous two games.
- On the Japanese toys, from the Keitai onward, the pet is visited by the Tamagotchi version of The Grim Reaper. And you have to watch as the pet cries until it's escorted away.
- The Game Boy adaptation
The Anime
- Terrifying! Mametchi the Vampire. Mametchi wants to find a sister to be with him. However, when Lovelitchi runs away holding Memetchi's hand, Mametchi chooses Makiko and even bites her.
- Later on, to attempt to try to get all of the Nightmare Fuel out, every sister (even Kuchipatchi, although he's a male) throws pieces of garlic, which has Mametchi screaming.
- After Mametchi comments about the garlic, the Nightmare Fuel comes back as Mametchi looks like he is vomiting purple.
- All the events in the movie adaptation of the anime, thanks to Blackholetchi, black hole Tamagotchi
...
- coupled with the fact that Mametchi, was scared of the dark, and almost got himself, sucked into the black hole because of that...
- That awfully eerie Robot clone (Expy of Cafe-Mama's Husband),that Mametchi created, in the 25th episode of "Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream."
And from the YMMV/Toys section:
- Nightmare Fuel: The Game Boy games ramp up the original releases' death sequences by adding flashing screens and a montage of the Tamagotchi in a number of poses (many of which indicate they are in agony), topped off with a rather depressing song as its spirit floats about. It isn't exactly the best material for its target audience. While the second game removed the flashing screen, the third one replaced the original death theme with a much creepier new one.
That GB nightmare fuel link
has a lot of people saying how disturbing it is or that it scared them as kid. The heart rate and flashing can be very jarring, especially with having to watch your Tamagothci die in front of you.
Unintentional or not, they have been the source of nightmare for many young Pokémon fans, like Linkara who got a Missing No Skeleton. So much so that it has become part of the Pokémon fandom mythology.
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
If it's unintentional, it's Accidental Nightmare Fuel which does go on Nightmare Fuel pages.
The reference to Fridge Horror in the description is basically just asking "Imagine how these glitches would look In-Universe", which doesn't automatically invalidate everything else on the page.
Yeah, I think that the glitches can stay on the basis that they're something in the games that can definitely be really scary, even if they're just...well, glitches.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallAs for something that is full of Zero-Context Examples and existed for no other reason than to perpetuate the existing Periphery Hate Dumb this show gets, here's the contents of NightmareFuel.Breadwinners.
- SwaySway's has a really creepy crush for Jenny Quackles.
- Oonski falling in love with the Rocket Van, with SwaySway and Buhdeuce inside.
- In fact, a later scene from said episode has Sway and Buhdeuce inside the Rocket Van for the rest of their lives.
- The Love Loaf, which causes a person who eats it to fall in love with the very thing they see.
- Buhdeuce literally falls in love with himself. Readers of Classical Mythology will probably recall the fate of Narcissus...
- A monster falls in love with a blimp. He hugs it, and it explodes.
- Probably the most horrifying thing in Breadwinners, is a cameo in Kettastrophe. A newly hatched duckling in Buhdeuce's nest that is nothing but a skeleton.
Looks like the page as a whole could use a chop chop.
Edited by Brainulator9 on Jul 1st 2019 at 2:17:31 PM
Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!Kind of off-topic since another page came up, but I really have no excuse for not taking Accidental Nightmare Fuel into account, considering how I wrote the original version of the Trope Epitaph entry for before it was merged with regular Nightmare Fuel (as in, when it used to be listed completely separately, aside from the definition-only page we have now). Then again, I posted that after not sleeping well, so it was harder to make a properly thought-out post when thinking in general was harder than usual at the time.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 2nd 2019 at 5:36:34 AM
I got a rock for Halloween.Pokédex. I'm thinking of cutting these examples
General
- Bug Pokémon. While Misty's phobia of bug Pokémon is Played for Laughs in the anime, the fact of the matter is that they are often at least the size of car tires.
- The flying-type birds are the counterparts of pigeons, sparrows, starlings, and crows; yet in the Pokémon world, they're all big and pretty aggressive, attacking in flocks. In the anime, a swarm of Spearow were going to actually kill Ash and Pikachu as soon as the first episode. Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds inevitably comes to mind. Then there are bigger evolved form of said birds: pelicans that can launch tidal waves, the eagles that know kung fu, and even Giant Flyer ones.
- The entire idea of having "Ghost" as an elemental type is creepy. If their dex entries are to be believed, most of them are at least linked to the afterlife in some ways, if not outright rumored to be dead people in Pokémon forms (as in the case of Yamask and Phantump, for instance). This puts a whole new spin to the very idea of the game, in that you aren't just capturing wild animals and using them in battle, but capturing souls of the dead or harbingers of afterlife or such and using them in battle, and that's highly disturbing. It's no coincidence that Ghost-types are disproportionately likely to be on this list.
- As if the Pokédex was not already dark enough, Pokémon Sun and Moon's Pokédex has entries that would top even the most graphic entries from previous generations.
- Ekans and Arbok are pretty much giant, poisonous snakes. It's a cobra and a python mixed into one frighteningly lethal package.
- Bellsprout's Generation I sprite
◊ looks like a skull on a plant.
- Magneton: the Pokédex says that 3 Magnemite join together to form one of these. However, Gameplay and Story Segregation makes it worse, as even with three Magnemites in the party, when one evolves, the others are still there, leaving the player wondering where did the others come from.
- Voltorb and Electrode disguised as item balls in the first-gen games. It should be noted that Voltorb and Electrode were only discovered after the creation of Poké Balls: their Pokédex entry for Ruby and Sapphire outright says they're Poké Balls that came to life.
- Starmie's Pokédex entries suggest that it might be an alien species and that its core sends radio signals into space. Then there's the fact that Staryu and Starmie are among the very, very rare Pokémon with virtually nothing in their appearance to mark them as living creatures: no eyes, no mouths... for all intents and purposes, they look like inanimate objects with a jewel for a core. Starfish Aliens taken to a literal and rather unsettling extent.
- Mr. Mime's laugh
in Pokémon Stadium.
- Scyther is a bug the size of a person which is apparently permanently pissed off. It also has scythes instead of hands. Which, according to one of its Pokédex entries, get sharper as it cuts things, meaning it gets deadlier the more it kills.
- Ditto. Found where Mew was cloned, with its same colors (both are pink normally, and blue when shiny), and the same weight. Adding the fact that both are the only Pokémon that can learn transform, Ditto might well be a failed clone of Mew (which explains why it's a melted blob).
There's certainly more bad examples, but I'm going to deal with them slowly
Edited by KingofNightmares on Jul 2nd 2019 at 3:38:45 AM
"It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?"About Voltorb and Electrode, it sounds more like Fridge Horror - they are so similar to oversized Pokeballs there is the danger of someone less knowledgeable, like a kid, getting into the blast radius for example because of playing with them.
I agree about Arbok and Ekans, there is no mention of their poison so it would only be scary to snake-phobics.
As for Magneton, the other two Magnemite spawning from seemingly nothing is kind of Fridge Horror too.
Speaking of Pokemon, here are my thoughts on some Gen II entries:
- Crobat, Golbat's evolved form, is rather creepy itself, being a 5 feet, 11 inches tall, 165-pound blood-sucking bat. Thankfully, they can't be found in the wild until Generation V...
It doesn't actually look that creepy according to this image
◊ from Pokémon: Generation I - Bulbasaur to Tentacruel
- Igglybuff's unsettling, enormous red eyes add an unnerving edge to an otherwise adorable Pokémon.
"Unsettling" isn't NF
- Xatu is a clairvoyant Psychic/Flying Pokémon that the R/S Pokédex describes as silent and unmoving because "shocked by the terrible things it sees in the future". In other words, Xatu is a Pokémon that spends most of its life paralyzed in fear from having visions of a bad future.
Not sure about that one. It might count, but it sounds a little bit like Fridge Horror.'''
- Wobbuffet (plus its Gen III pre-evolution Wynaut) is cute, funny, and, starting from Gen III, surprisingly awesome. But the issue is that they're usually banned in tournaments, due to their ability, Shadow Tag, which prevents the opposing Pokémon from switching out. Also, its tail: it's mentioned in the Pokédex that there's a secret about them, and that Wobuffet are oddly protective of their tails. Someone figured this out when looking at how Wobbuffet looks and acts like an inflatable punching bag, because it actually is (and, in the Super Smash Bros. games, it acts exactly as such). The 'eye spots' on Wobuffet's tails may well be its real eyes, and the tail might well, in fact, be the actual Pokémon: the entire body is merely a protective decoy.
Doesn't explain why it's scary
- Scyther's evolution, Scizor, is pretty much the same, but is coated in metal armor and has metal pincers for hands. Ouch.
Same issues as the previous post's Scyther entry
- Houndoom is basically a Hellhound, with a little skull pendant and a call that the ancients once imagined to be the call of Death itself. And to make matters worse, if left untreated, their fire attacks will never stop hurting if they hit you. And yet they're still capable of becoming the player character's loyal and trusted friend. They probably have the same problems as Rottweilers do in Real Life.
The "little skull pendant" isn't scary. Neither is its cry (or what is heard in the games, at least). The "fire that never stops hurting" never actually comes up, either. The rest sounds like it's trying to say "it's not really as scary as it sounds".
- Downplayed by one particular episode
where a Houndoom went out of its way to help Misty's Togepi find its way back to Ash and company, protecting it and developing a bond with it on the way.
Natter - Downplayed by one particular episode
- Larvitar's Pokédex entry:
"A Pokémon that eats soil. Once it has eaten a large mountain, it goes to sleep so it can grow."Doesn't make it sound scary, and is probably exaggeration.
- Larvitar and its evolution Pupitar are found in the wild in Mt. Silver, near the Victory Road. A zone whose geography has severely changed from Gen I to Gen II, disappearing a whole route. A very transitated route, leading to the Pokémon League.
Also not scary - Imagine this, a bird. Not that scary, right? Ok, now picture a bird that stands at 17 feet tall. Unnerving, but not that scary. Now, imagine this bird looks like some sort of draconian beast. Not only that, but said bird was once worshipped as a god and (accidentally) caused a terrible storm that burned down the tower it perched on, killing three Pokémon inside, due to it losing control of its immense power. Also, imagine that a single flap of its wings is enough to cause devastating hurricanes. Folks, say "hello" to Lugia.
◊
The backstory might count, but Lugia's appearance isn't scary.- And, to make Lugia even scarier? Meet Shadow Lugia
◊. It's basically a Lugia forcibly turned "evil" by turning it into a fighting machine. Did we mention that it's established that "Shadow Pokémon" in general are known to attack humans? Yeah, let that sink in.
- On the bright side, Lugia isn't always Nightmare Fuel, as shown by a three-episode story involving a baby Lugia and its parent and the second movie, when another one serves as a guardian to Shamouti island.
Natter - And, to make Lugia even scarier? Meet Shadow Lugia
![]()
I think we can safely cutlist Brother Bear's page.
As for Pokemon gen 2...I agree with all of the points made. The Houndoom and Lugia entries might be able to be reworked, but the rest is just not good.
Edited by WarJay77 on Jul 2nd 2019 at 4:21:37 AM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallSo, here's what I think we can remove from Pokemon Gen 3:
- Kirlia and Gardevoir: apparently Kirlia can distort reality and create a rip in dimensions whenever they use their psychic powers. Gardevoir can do that, but are stronger to the point they can create black holes to protect their trainer. They also have more biologically in common with ghosts, walking sludge, and a floating electric viper-lamprey than other humanoid Pokémon.
- Starting from Gen VI, Gardevoir is also Fairy-type. If that seems to lessen the effect, fairies weren't always cute little winged harmless things. It's a good thing it wants to protect you rather than play nasty pranks or worse.
- Aggron (a fellow beastly-looking Pokémon who's a bipedal metal Triceratops) lives around mountains and will savagely protect its territory from all comers, and repairs any damage to its home.
- Gulpin and Swalot play on the Primal Fear of getting eaten. Swalot can swallow just about anything (the Pokédex says a car tire is the largest thing it can eat), except its own stomach. And a Swalot has no teeth, so whatever (or, Arceus forbid, whoever) it swallows goes down whole and gets broken down by its stomach acid, said to be powerful enough to melt iron.
- Yes, there is vore art depicting Swalot.
If you value your ability to sleep at night, it's best not to look at it.
- Yes, there is vore art depicting Swalot.
- Spoink's Pokédex entries state that if it stops bouncing, its heart will stop and it will die. Its fainting animation in Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness have it falling onto the ground.
- Zangoose, while badass, can be scary considering a closer look at its fur suggests the red markings are blood and scars. His paws appear to be blood-soaked, too. And it's pissed off all the time.
- Seviper: same deal as with Ekans and Arbok, a giant, poisonous snake.
- Whiscash looks goofy, but it's an extremely territorial Pokémon that will generate a three-mile-radius earthquake when in danger. It will also eat anything that's alive.
- The Regi Pokémon: Regirock, Registeel, or Regice. They're giant, faceless stone golems that have been around for apparently an extremely long time, as indicated by Regice's Pokédex entry of it being formed during the Ice Age.
- Latios and Latias are found in the game carrying the item Soul Dew, which increases their stats. In the movie Pokémon Heroes, it's discovered that the Soul Dew is actually made from the soul of a dead Lati. So the Lati seen in the games is carrying around a trapped soul to make it stronger.
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
Agree with everything said about the Pokedex so far. Here's gen 4:
- Combee are really cute, but being swarmed by a bunch of them would be frightening, which is what Vespiquen forces them to do. The Combee fly out of the honeycomb at the bottom of Vespiquen's skirt-like abdomen, which is exactly why it's shown lifting up its abdomen in its official artwork
◊.
Not sure about this, being swarmed by bees is certainly scary, but it's not necessarily shown in great detail in the games, so it might fall under Fridge Horror. - Cherubi is a sentient cherry with eyes and a mouth. The fact that it has a second, smaller head it can eat for nourishment is even creepier.
Cherubi? Really? This
◊ is Nightmare Fuel?
- Drifloon, a cutesy balloon Pokémon, apparently
tries to drag people to the underworld (but is so weak that it gets dragged along like a common balloon you see at birthday parties).
- For Drifloon, it was made so much better in Sun and Moon’s Pokédex entries:
Sun Pokédex: Stories go that it grabs the hands of small children and drags them away to the afterlife. It dislikes heavy children.
Moon Pokédex: If for some reason its body bursts, its soul spills out with a screaming sound.- Drifblim, its evolution, is more successful at carrying kids off into the land of the dead.
I think this could work if rewritten, to emphasize that the evolutions are meant to be the scary part and not the weak original form.
- What happens to two of the three "members" of Magneton when they evolve into Magnezone? They appear to be partially absorbed by the middle one.
Speculation, and only mildly scary.
- Froslass, Glalie's evolution counterpart, is based on the yuki-onna, a type of ghostly Yōkai in Japanese folklore that appears during snowstorms and takes the form of a beautiful young woman without feet coming into being when a regular, foot-having young woman freezes to death in the mountains during frigid weather. Depending on the disposition of the ghost, which varies from story to story, it will either guide you to safety or get you hopelessly lost so that you suffer the same fate as she did. Because of this, there's the implication that Froslass is not above having sex with her victims before said actions (or it would, if this wasn't a family-friendly video game).
- There's also the fact that, in order to get a Froslass, you need to evolve a female Snorunt (an Ice type) by exposing it to a Dawn Stone. Froslass is an Ice/Ghost type, so this means that she melted.
- And then there's her Pokédex entry...
"It freezes prey by blowing its -58 degree F breath. It is said to then secretly display its prey."- This gets explicitly shown in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers Of Time And Darkness. Poor Scizor...
Wait, what? Froslass rapes its victims? Where is that even remotely hinted at? The second bullet point is pure Fridge Horror. The third one could be OK if it weren't for the bad indentation. - Regigigas, the Regi "boss", has been rumored to move entire continents. In Platinum, the fact that he is encountered at Level 1 makes it Nightmare Retardant.
This literally does not even remotely try to make it sound scary.
- Behold Arceus
◊. Doesn't look too scary, right? Just a weird-looking Kirin horse-thingy Pokémon, right? Nope. For one thing, its signature move "Judgement" is capable of destroying entire cities and taking out weaker Pokémon with ease. Not only that, but its "Multitype" ability allows it to become any of the 18 elemental types of Pokémon available (meaning it can also learn a wide variety of moves). Oh, but it gets better. You see, Arceus isn't just any run of the mill Legendary. It just happens to be the Pokéverse's version of God. Luckily for us, "God Pony" prefers to nap and not interfere with the Pokéverse directly. That is, unless you piss it off; then it will go so far as to destroy the entire world in its rage.
- Taking an Arceus to the Ruins of Alph in HeartGold/SoulSilver results in the most out-of-place, trippy cutscene ever;
afterwards, Cynthia points out that "this is what happens every time an egg is created". As in, what always happens at the Day Care. According to Word of God, the images you see are actually Arceus recreating the universe from scratch just to give that egg.
This is mostly just describing Arceus as a strong Pokemon, not a scary one. The cutscene could maybe count, but that wouldn't belong on the Pokedex page.
- Taking an Arceus to the Ruins of Alph in HeartGold/SoulSilver results in the most out-of-place, trippy cutscene ever;
I agree. I can see the case for Driflim's line and Froslass because Ghost Pokemon do often come with delightfully creepy stories, but they need work.
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
I removed/rewrote the examples we agreed upon from NightmareFuel.Pokedex, plus a bunch of examples that were explicitly Fridge Horror.
Edited by Zuxtron on Jul 5th 2019 at 7:03:44 AM
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
- Musharna, with pink smoke protruding from its head, who seems to be perpetually sleeping: this has the unfortunate effect of making it look as though it's suffered a grievous head injury.
Not sure about this one, Musharna is a pretty cute Pokemon and I don't think anyone will find this unintentional interpretation to be THAT scary.
- The Timburr line is pretty much 60% veins. Its muscular veins extend across it, which is pretty disturbing when you take a good look at it.
Not really THAT disturbing. I didn't even realize that was supposed to be veins.
- Seismitoad essentially looks like a Politoed, only blue and with a bunch of orbs around its skin: one of its available abilities, Poison Touch, causes anything it touches to be poisoned. Oh, and it's said to spray acid from the orbs on its head. And Ghetsis has one.
What's the scary part? Going by this description, nearly every poison-type would be Nightmare Fuel.
- Yamask's Black Pokédex entry says that the mask on its sprite is actually its former human face, and the Pokémon weeps over memories of being alive. It was apparently born from the spirit of someone buried in an ancient grave.
- Cofagrigus, its evolution, is a sarcophagus with a malicious grin on its face and ghostly hands peeking out of the inside of the coffin. Its ability, Mummy, gives the same ability to anyone hitting it: in other words, Zombie Apocalypse. According to its Pokédex entry, it pretends to be a fancy coffin so it can punish grave robbers.
Yamask is 100% a valid example, being featured in a lot of dark theories. Cofagrigus' example sounds like Fridge Horror. - Archeops may be endearingly pitiful, but its Black Pokédex entry shows that it's a clear case of Not So Harmless: "They are intelligent and will cooperate to catch prey. From the ground, they use a running start to take flight." And according to other Pokédex entries, it can run 25 miles per hour. Oh, and the Moon Pokédex entry for it states that "when one Archeops had the prey cornered, another would swoop on it". That's right: Archeops are basically the Pokémon equivalent to the Velociraptors from Jurassic Park... but unlike those raptors, Archeops can fly...
This doesn't sound too scary, I could go either way on this one.
- Amoonguss uses its Poké Ball mimicry to lure prey, but Pokémon aren't usually fooled by it. Humans, on the other hand, might not know better...
It's never mentioned that the trick works on humans, just that it doesn't work on Pokemon, making this speculation.
- Frillish paralyze prey with poison, then drag them down to their lairs, five miles below the surface.
- Jellicent's (Frillish's evolved form) Black Pokédex is highly disturbing: "The fate of the ships and crew that wander into Jellicent's habitat: all sunken, all lost, all vanished." The White Pokédex mentions that "life energy" is its favorite food. In Black 2 and White 2, the Pokédex states that it has an undersea castle made from the remnants of the ships that it attacked. This might be a bit problematic for the Unova region, given that Jellicent can be found readily in most bodies of seawater. No wonder they're so big on trains.
- After Groudon/Kyogre's appearance in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Frillish start appearing in the infamously water-heavy Hoenn, and Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon introduced them to the seas of Alola — there's even a small side quest where you have to save some Swimmers from them. Better hope they never become as common as they are in Unova, or those two regions could be in some serious trouble.
The last point is Fridge Horror.
- Eelektross is an enormous lamprey that is also a living dynamo. It hunts by slipping out of the ocean, grabbing its prey, shocking them, and chowing down. And Ghetsis also has one. It also has no weaknesses in the games. Its type's only weakness, Ground, is canceled out by its ability, Levitate.
The part about it having no weakness is irrelevant, being strong in-game doesn't mean it's scary.
- The Litwick family line is infamous for not only stealing, but burning any souls it catches:
- Litwick is a cute little Fire/Ghost candle, but the Pokédex says "It burns brighter when it absorbs a human soul", and that "It tricks people into thinking it's a helpful guiding light before doing so". It's made even creepier in Black 2/White 2, where a young girl challenges you in the Celestial Tower with one. After losing, she says that losing battles makes her tired. In other words, it's leeching off her life force, and she has no idea what's going on. That's right, kids — even your own Litwick will leech off your soul, so being its owner doesn't even make you safe! Made better by the fact that she goes to the Pokémon Center afterwards to rest, but it's still creepy.
- The White 2 entry outright states that, "Its flame is usually out, but it starts shining when it absorbs life force from people or Pokémon". Its sprite always has the flame lit. So either it's feeding on the Pokémon it faces, or Nate/Rosa are going to end up lethargic...
- Which kinda makes it all sad, too, because it's possible it can't stop itself from draining the souls of living creatures (much like how Darkrai can't prevent itself from giving nightmares to anyone nearby), so the little Hinkypunk-based buddy might be unintentionally Dementoring its beloved trainer. After all, you can max out your friendship with one just by levelling it up from a Litwick to getting its immediate evolved form Lampent to learn its last attack at level 69. Litwick are found in places where there aren't usually a lot of other living creatures apart from other Litwick, and Litwick is always the most common Pokémon in the area if it's not exactly equal to the rest. It's a toss-up to see if this is because Litwick have killed everything elsenote or because they've purposely put themselves away from others so all they have are the souls of the already-deceased to eat (which makes sense, as the places they go are haunted) and others joined them because of one thing or another.
- YMMV on whether this is better or worse, but evidently the souls they consume are neither trapped within them nor destroyed; rather, they are stuck in limbo for eternity.
- Lampent, Litwick's evolved form, "wanders the streets actively looking for the souls of the dead", as well as "appearing when you're on your deathbed and severing your immortal soul from your body". It hangs around hospitals waiting for people to pass on.
- Litwick is a cute little Fire/Ghost candle, but the Pokédex says "It burns brighter when it absorbs a human soul", and that "It tricks people into thinking it's a helpful guiding light before doing so". It's made even creepier in Black 2/White 2, where a young girl challenges you in the Celestial Tower with one. After losing, she says that losing battles makes her tired. In other words, it's leeching off her life force, and she has no idea what's going on. That's right, kids — even your own Litwick will leech off your soul, so being its owner doesn't even make you safe! Made better by the fact that she goes to the Pokémon Center afterwards to rest, but it's still creepy.
- Durant: Ants that are thirty centimetres tall (roughly 11 inches), with steel covered skin that would make it nigh-impossible to stomp on them.
This is just a basic description of the species, it doesn't really make it sound too scary.
- While Volcarona is mentioned as having been deified as a bringer of light, it still is an enormous (as in, 5 feet tall and weighing a hundred pounds) moth that spreads embers wherever it goes; one flap of its wings is enough to set vast swaths of land ablaze. And it's just one of many. One has to wonder what would happen if Volcarona encountered anything Weakened by the Light...
- Genesect was feared as the ultimate hunter 300 million years ago, long before humans, when there were mostly small lizards, amphibians, and bugs. A four-foot tall bipedal insect would be an overpowered monstrosity by comparison, and it could have easily wiped out all life on the planet. And there wasn't just one of them, it was an entire species. It's a good thing it went extinct... and then Team Plasma revived one, gave it cybernetic enhancements, and put a giant cannon on it, making it even more powerful. Oh, and they did this to make the strongest Pokémon ever, because that guy's attempt over at Cinnabar went so well for him, didn't it?
- It gets worse when you consider why it might have gone extinct in the first place. Species generally go extinct when the climate changes too much for them to adapt, their food source goes extinct, or something else outcompetes them. That provides two new horrors: either Genesect wiped out the local ecosystem, or something even worse took over.
- Genesect, as a Mythical Pokémon, has no real residence like most Legendaries, so it's not unlikely that it roams the planet. If its instincts and nature haven't changed much post-upgrade* , woe be to anyone living near wherever it may currently be...
The last two bullet points are just Fridge Horror.
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
Found what seems like a pretty easy cut on NightmareFuel.The Enigma Of Amigara Fault:
- The story begins by explaining the origin of the fault: a powerful earthquake in which, as the manga explains, "several towns and villages were devastated". Even if it's Japan, and earthquakes are commonplace there, how much do you want to bet there were casualties in those towns?
Given how this is considered one of the scariest manga ever, I doubt anyone reading it would be scared by some people possibly dying off-screen before the story even starts; even if someone was sensitive enough to find this scary, chances are that the feeling of fear they get from this would be completely overshadowed by everything else that happens.

It probably is because the writer substitutes "one" for "you" in a poor attempt to avoid This Troper. And yes, that last part is gushing.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times