Nightmare Fuel cleanup and maintenance

• There's some major Adult Fear when you realize that all these ghosts and evil creatures are going after a fourteen-year-old boy.

• Also, think about how Danny got his powers. He is LITERALLY half-dead. That in itself is nightmare fuel.

• Taken up a notch by that fact that it was his parents' invention that gave him his powers.

• It gets worse; according to Butch Hartman, Danny was the lucky one. Had it been Sam or Tucker in the portal when the accident happened, it would've killed them.

• The artwork for the Title Cards of the episodes is highly disturbing mainly because they mostly show Danny with a shocked expression in the clutches of the next murderous villain he encounters in the episode.

• The "Masters of All Time" title card is possibly the most frightening with its portrayal of a boil-covered and feral Jack Fenton bursting from a clock to kill Danny.

• "The Ultimate Enemy" has the creation of Dark Danny, pictured on the right just before he murders his human self.
  • It's not the scene that's freaky (though it has its Squick moments), but the part with Dark Danny before he kills his human half gives off a face past the disturbance scale. Oh, if looks could kill...
  • This is probably the most terrified we have ever seen Danny in the entire series.
  • And just before that, Danny's evil half claws Vlad's ghost form right out of him and then fuses with it. Dark Danny did some pretty disturbing stuff to his enemies.
  • Dark Danny's creation. Vlad did not expect for Danny Phantom to react, especially not to rip the ghost half (though given what he said about ripping out emotions, one could be said that all the emotional turmoil was left in Phantom). Then DP overshadows Plasmius and ends up absorbing him. Danny's utter scream of anguish pretty much makes it less of Face–Heel Turn and more of a Face–Monster Turn.
  • The entirety of Danny's Rogues Gallery in the future, and all the awful stuff that was done to them. Johnny 13, the motorcycle junky, is inexplicably in a wheelchair, and Ember mentions her singing career going downhill when Dan essentially damaged her vocal chords with his ghostly wail. Not to mention Damon, Valerie's father, who somehow lost an eye and one of his freaking arms.
  • The worst one has got to be poor Johnny 13; we never find out what Dan did to him, Danny doesn't seem to want to know what his future self did to him, and given how much more hostile he, Kitty and Shadow are towards Danny than the other villains (i.e, no jokes, no Motive Rant, nothin'), whatever Danny did to him was particularly horrifying.
  Johnny 13: I've been waitin' a LONG time for this, punk.
  • This is even scarier when you realize Johnny 13 is an Anti-Villain. He never does anything really evil ^note (except in his first episode, where he tries to bewitch Jazz and nearly kills Danny (not in Ghost Mode) when the latter interferes; although you can argue that he did it to save Kitty and wouldn't have done that if he didn't need to), yet he gets the worst punishment of them all. Did he just get on Dark Danny's bad side that day? Did he actually do anything to deserve it?
  • Jazz realizes that the Danny she's been speaking to is not her brother. Dan keeps an eerily calm demeanor while Jazz begins to lose it.
  Jazz: You're not Danny!
  Dark Danny I was, but I grew out of it.
  • Dark Danny turning around head first Exorcist-style, accompanied by a horrible cracking noise as his neck does things it clearly was not meant to do.
  • "But me - my future? I'm inevitable."
  • The scene where Dark Danny forces a Time Medallion inside Danny's body while the latter can do nothing but scream in pain.
  • The future Box Ghost's delivery of his (usually hammy) line: "BEWARE..."
    • In fact, the future Box Ghost in general. Compare him to how he is in the present. It's terrifying (if not a little depressing).
  • All depictions of the future heavily imply that Dark Danny, over the course of several years, systematically wiped out all living beings off the face of the Earth, except for the small shielded town of Amity Park.
  • Just the fact that the writers went out of their way to make Dark Danny the evilest villain in the entire series. How evil is he? The whole reason he came into being was because of his family and loved ones dying accidentally thanks to a mistake on his past self's part. But when he goes back in time and sees them all alive and well again for the first time in over a decade, he immediately starts plotting to kill them all on purpose this time around just to preserve his own existence. What the heck, Butch?!
  • It’s extremely brief, but when told to name a second evil thing Danny has done, Clockwork shows the future, then concluding with a question that emphasizes his point. Just the sheer number he says makes one question just what horrible things Dark Danny has done:
  Clockwork: How about two thousand?

• "Kindred Spirits". The darkest episode in the series after The Ultimate Enemy, naturally has tons of Nightmare Fuel as the above, if not more!
  • Vlad planned to create a clone of Danny and then kill off the original. To make things worse, after Vlad's beloved stable clone was destroyed he had a huge Freak Out moment and was alarmingly close to murdering him and likely would have if not for a timely intervention by Danny's friends. Nightmare Fuel doesn't even begin to describe it.
  • "...And then you will be obsolete.".
  • Also in that episode, when Vlad's clone son dies, Vlad himself faces Danielle with a terrifying face that screams pure violence and murder. Even after Danny first masters the Ghost Wail, Vlad got right back up again ready to rip them to shreds.
  • Vlad trying to force Danny to "go-ghost" through the machine. Danny's in obvious pain and keeps stopping mid-transformation and yet Vlad still tries to force it until the machine explodes.

• And then there's Identity Crisis, the episode where Technus is accidentally released from the "Level 0" glitch. Danny attempts Form Duplication to fight him, resulting in nothing short of unadulterated Body Horror (least of which being mouths for eyes and eyeballs on ends of tongues).
  • The "Level 0" glitch itself is a bad case of Fridge Horror at the very least. Being trapped in complete darkness for a prolonged period of time, with no stimulation of the senses and no one but yourself to keep you company? That's a Fate Worse than Death if I've ever heard one.

• Vlad's motivation for becoming a villain (murder the protagonist's father so he can marry Maddie, his longtime crush and the protagonist's mother, and gain custody of her children and have the protagonist as his own son) is very, very, disturbing. This is repeatedly lampshaded in-series.

• The scene where Dani melts back into ectoplasm is both a Tear Jerker and extreme nightmare fuel. Made even worse because it happens just after Danny does his last ditch effort to save her.

• The scene at the end of "My Brother's Keeper" where Jazz uses the Fenton Peeler on Spectra. She literally removes layers of her youth until Spectra is an old lady. The fact that she gets older as her skin is being peeled off is seriously disturbing.

• The Ghost Writer. While he was played more for laughs (and was the villain of a holiday special, to boot), the fact remains that he can take control of all existence with a typewriter, and the only thing that can slow him down even a little is when he runs into a situation where he can't rhyme. And once his typewriter is destroyed, it doesn't stop the surreal situation, it just means he can't control it anymore; Danny had to learn the lesson the Ghost Writer was trying to teach him before he could break out of his story.

• When Freakshow turns himself into a ghost with the Reality Gauntlet, he really goes all out on making himself look like a nightmare creature.

• To be fair, his first appearance in "Control Freaks" had a scene where he has a Brainwashed and Crazy Danny with red eyes chase Sam onto a tightrope with a scythe, dressed up like the Grim Reaper. Danny's smile when he tries to kill Sam really doesn't help . . .

• The scene in which Poindexter first possessed Danny's body to be extremely disturbing, with the eerie green lighting, and Danny's contorting, spasmodic movements as Poindexter literally rips his spirit from his body.

• The scene in "Doctor's Disorders" in which Bertrand transforms is a major example of Body Horror: his skin glows green and begins to bubble as if it were boiling, while at the same time his head rotates gruesomely before his body expands and his scalp tears off, exposing his brain.

• Prince Aragon's dragon transformation can be kinda disturbing.

• The most disturbing image in the series has to be Danny screaming and writhing in pain from the Blood Blossoms in "Infinite Realms." For a ghost, just being near the flowers is like being under the Cruciatus Curse. And then Vlad shoves him into the circle so that he's surrounded by the stuff, making the pain ten times worse.

• How come noone has mentioned when Sam rips the head of one of the teddybears at the Gem-of-Form-transformed Gothapalooza!? I mean, all of those teddybears are turned out to be transformed goths, meaning Sam rips the head of another person!!! That means that when the Gothapalooza is turned back, there's a goth lying somewhere with his or her head ripped off!!!

• It's not given in the cartoon itself but Word of God is Ember died because she was too exhausted to wake up when her house caught on fire. Talk about Paranoia Fuel.

• Butch Hartman's recent video about the Ghost Zone gets into some details that weren't shown in the show. One of which is a place called the Unworld, which is a kind of Limbo/Hell that both humans and ghosts can get stuck in and have no powers. Granted, a sort of heaven exists too in the form of the Elsewhereness, but the thought of The Unworld is still scary.

• Ladies and gentlemen, Pariah Dark, the King of All Ghosts: he's said to be so powerful that the only way he was stopped was when a group of ancient powerful ghosts banded together, and even then they just knocked him out long enough to put him in a sarcophagus that kept him from waking up. It's also implied that when Danny was fighting him, the Ghost King was merely toying with him. Then there's Ember's line.
  Ember: He's only been free for a day and he's already destroyed our homes!
  Danny: And that without the ring.
  • The Ghost King obviously never took Danny seriously. Let that sink in. Even Future Danny took his past self serious when push came to shove, but even when faced with being imprisoned again, The Ghost King still saw Danny as a non-threat, knowing Danny was weakened by their fight.

• 1. 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.

I think this can fit all 3 good signs of nightmare fuel material. Most notably with the third one, because not only is it one scene I'm hesitant to rewatch, I think Skye Bennett's performance in that moment did help convey her immense pain and her fear in the "inside the mind" part of the cutscene, so I'm sure the same could go for other players here. Also, one thing that the entry did not talk about (which could be added to a revised restoration) was how when this is happening before the "inside the mind" shot, Pyra has these sickly looking purple lines caused by Malos all over her body, which can be an unsettling sight. There's also how the "inside the mind" shot's visuals just look ominous with an advancing fog covering Pyra's memories while Malos pursues her with some kind of Unflinching Walk. Then at the end, how Malos is suddenly in front of Pyra is almost like something out of a horror movie for a brief moment.

• 2 (From the Torna section). 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.

Super Mario Bros.

• The first Super Mario Bros. gave us the Minus World, a world no man is intended to go to and has no escape, unless you count drowning to death or the reset button as a method of escape. Remove, FH and non-canon
• If you let a Hammer Brother stay onscreen too long without killing him, he will chase Mario. Surprising, but not nightmare fuel.
• The castles in the first Super Mario Bros. game for the NES probably weren't intended to actually be scary. But the pitch-black nothingness in their backgrounds, the weirdly static lava and the oppressive music, which seems out-of-place against the rest of the game's soundtrack (and tends to desync slightly as it goes on), make for an atmosphere that can be downright unsettling. To make matters worse, some of the castle levels are also mazes that will repeat endlessly until you either find the correct path, or time runs out and you die on the spot. I'm on the fence about this one.
  • The rotating spinning Fire Bars obstacles speak for themselves. But a special mention goes to an exceptionally long one found in castle World 5, and it being longer in fact means an increased risk of getting hit by it. Obstacles are not inherently scary. Also first sentence is a ZCE.
• Speaking of running out of time, the "Hurry Up!" jingle is probably at its most startling on the NES, a potentially frightening experience if you are a young child that doesn't quite understand numbers or time limits yet— especially if Mario dies seemingly without cause when the timer hits zero. I see a kid being more confused about this than scared.
• The famous cave music probably creeped out more than a few kids. "Probably"? Cut it.
• The story behind this game. Bowser invades the kingdom and kidnaps Peach. That's all you get from the game itself. In the instructions book, however, it's revealed that Bowser laid waste to the Mushroom Kingdom and turned the Mushroom Retainers that weren't kidnapped alongside their ruler into the bricks that make up the blocks that Mario hits for powerups, and the reason why he kidnapped Peach was that she's the only one that can break the curse. These poor Toads are probably aware of their position, and would have likely stayed like that forever if they hadn't been separated by Mario. I think we can keep this, but the last sentence steps into FH territory.
  • The Game Theory video on this led to a widespread misconception in that they became Brick Blocks which were broken by Mario, killing them, but that same instruction manual clearly states the Toads are giving you the powerups, so you’re not killing Toads, you’re just getting a little magic from them. There’s still plenty of nightmare fuel to be had in the canon-after doing the one thing they can, Toads trapped as blocks are completely unable to move until Peach saves them. FH

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2)

• 8-4 and D-4 both have two Bowsers in one castle (one of them is fake). And why is that scary?
• The Hammer Bros from the original game chase you if you wait, but they don't wait this time around. They come after you immediately. Not scary.

Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA)

• The Mask Gate in Super Mario Bros. 2 (the eagle head that acts as an end of level gate) scared the crap out of some in the end of World 7-2 when it flew off the wall and tried to chase them. I'm on the fence about this one.
  • It was even creepier in the original Doki Doki Panic, where it was some sort of tribal mask. Look for it here, labeled (rather accurately) as "Evil Door."
• And then you get past the door to confront Wart — and the music changes to this creepy, disturbing horror/techno mix that just messes with your concentration while you have to catch vegetables in midair and throw them into Wart's open mouth (as opposed to the other bosses where you just had to hit them with weapons). Maybe keep. Wart did kind of freak me out as a kid because of how out of place he was in a Mario game.
• Phanto. Creepy pumpkin masks that guard keys; when you pick up a key, they come to live and move really fast and chase you. Maybe keep.
  • In remakes, World 1-3 in particular has a chamber with a key, a squad of phantos, and a giant Phanto face in the background. When you pick up the key, the background Phanto face's eyes light up red. I can see this freaking me out as a kid. Keep.
• Corrupting SMB2 leads to some horrifying results. Meta example
  • WORLDSPREAD BEFORE WORLDSPREAD BEFORE WORLDSPREAD BEFORE
  • Not to mention literally invoking this trope by corrupting a game that's set in a dream.
  • Being a highlight video, it plays up more of the bizarre aspects, such as a segment with a bunch of 6s (with a hidden pentagram, soon after, appropriately), and several enemies appearing in places they shouldn't be. Cut all of this. It has nothing to do with the game proper.
• In the later versions of the game, after Wart dies, there's some red under his eyes, almost like he's bleeding from them. Yeah. That does look like blood, and it's definitely out of place for a Mario game. At the same time, it kind of falls into FH. I'm on the fence on this one.
• In the SNES and GBA remake, they made warping much, much eerier. When you enter the Warp Vase, a creepy tune plays in the background while the screen becomes distorted and fades to black. See the warps in the SNES remake here. Seems like the comments section finds the warping to be genuinely unsettling.

Super Mario Bros. 3

• The mini-fortress music. It's quieter than the fortress music of SMB 1, which gives it another brand of eeriness. It's eerie, but I never thought it was scary.
• World 8 of Super Mario Bros 3. Apparently, Bowser's home base is Hell itself. The gigantic, discolored hands that drag you down on certain tiles are especially creepy to a small kid. And if that doesn't scare you, the levels will because you are forced to play the levels without fail or you are sent back to the beginning of the tile section. I think this entry is exaggerating how scary World 8 actually is.
  • The color limitations on the NES ended up (unintentionally?) making Bowser's castle look like some flesh-tint structure with teeth at the front gate, like the castle is an organism. Compare this with the SNES version of SMB 3 where the details have been improved and the castle is less jarring, looking more like a regular castle-château with the top of the castle emulating the form of Bowser's upper-skull. I never thought of it like that, and this entry seems too meta. Cut.
• The Angry Sun made some too scared to play past World 2. I heard many reports of players being afraid of the angry sun. Hard keep.
• Some were also afraid of the Podoboos in the World 1 mini-fortress. Some?
• Chain Chomps debut in this game, and there's a quirk to their behavior that not many know about. If it pulls on its chain 50 times or if the timer hits 160 seconds, it escapes. Not scary.
  • Notably, Chain Chomps are inspired by an incident in which Miyamoto was nearly attacked by a dog.
• The Giant Fish that constantly chase you as you race against time to get to high-ground as the water level rises.... if you don't make it to high ground in time, or worse, fall in the water, they will swallow Mario in one gulp, no matter how big you are and, insta-kiling you. No chewing, no biting, just gulp and you're gone. Maybe keep. It's definitely jarring for a Mario game.
• There were also some terrified by the Hot Foot in the first fortress of World 4. "Some" terrified?
• The laser-shooting Bowser statues in his castle. ZCE
• World 6's map theme is pretty ominous and chilling compared to the other world map themes (save for World 8) in which gives off a feeling that something's bad is going to happen It's ominous, but not scary.
• The first fortress in World 7, since the entire place is empty. No enemies whatsoever (barring the boss). Even worse is that one can see where the enemies would be, giving the feel that it was just suddenly abandoned. Atmospheric but not nightmare fuel.
• In the Super Mario All-Stars remake of Super Mario Bros. 3, World 5's blue mini-fortress has both a lava floor and a ceiling. It's even more unsettling considering that in SMB 3, lava isn't merely a harmless curtain for the top of a Bottomless Pit; rather, touching it kills you instantly, even if you're Super Mario. Or powered-up with the invincibility star for that matter. Not scary. It's an obstacle that kills you. How is this different from the rest?
• Boss Bass from Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario 64. Super Mario 3's Boss Bass in particular has this habit of jumping right out of the water, snatching you right off the surface and swallowing you whole in one gulp. Already mentioned earlier.
  • And what makes it even more nerve-racking that by swallowing you whole in one gulp, means that no matter what power-up form you're in, being swallowed and gulped is an instant death regardless.
• SMB3 can be corrupted too, as ProtonJon found out. The video is called "Super Mario Bros. 3: Nightmare Edition." Again, meta example. This has nothing to do with the actual game.
• In Worlds 1 through 6, each time you transform a king back to normal, he gives you a letter featuring some advice from Peach. Come World 7, however, and the letter instead comes from Bowser, who has informed you that he has kidnapped Peach (again), with his portrait on the letter and a Scare Chord taunting you. Those who expect Peach's usual advice letters are in for a nasty surprise out of nowhere. Not really nightmare fuel. It's more of a Wham Line at worst.

New Super Mario Bros.

• In New Super Mario Bros., Bowser falls into lava in the first world. Not much different from what happened at the end of every single castle in the original Super Mario Bros... until the game proceeds to show him desperately flailing in the lava, and emerging with all of his flesh melted off. Totally unexpected and freaky as all get-out. Yeah that actually kind of terrified me as a child. Keep.
  • Mario's next line, immediately after the whole debacle is "That's-a so nice!" He probably wasn't referring to Bowser's death, but still... Adds nothing to the above.
  • Later on in the game, it turns out that he's still alive and continues to live on as a skeleton, which meant he actually got to feel his flesh burn off. FH
• Unagi the Eel is a regular type of enemy in this game. And there's also a giant, unkillable version◊ of it, which is easily the most terrifying enemy in the game. The eel did scare players so keep.

New Super Mario Bros Wii

• The final boss fight first starts off with a regular Bowser-on-the-bridge boss fight. Mario looks up to what appears to be Peach, a remix of SMB1's ending music playing... before it starts Letting the Air out of the Band, unveiling Kamek in a Peach disguise. He gets on his broomstick and gives Bowser some magic...the ground starts shaking. Kamek looks down, wondering what's happening... and then, Bowser springs up, looking tremendously huge, his eyes glowing a blood red, and he's very pissed. He starts chasing Mario down relentlessly in a mindless rage, with intense orchestral music playing and only becoming even more intense in the second phase...and it's his roar that really sells it. Maybe I'm biased because Bowser in the mainline games terrified me as a kid (not so much the RP Gs or the spinoffs) but keep.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

• Sorbetti, a giant rolling spiked snowball monster with a disturbing clown-like face and a really creepy high-pitched laugh. Because the fight planet is designed to look like the body to his head, it's even creepier. I never thought this was scary.
• Cosmic clones in Super Mario Galaxy 2. The ones in the previous game were simple Mario and Luigi clones that served as racing opponents. In this game, they follow your every action with a delay of a second or two. If one catches up to you or you bump into one, it hurts. You can't stop for even a quick breather or you'll get hit. And they keep coming. More and more of them get spawned every few seconds, leading to a seemingly endless chain of them. Even the nearby signs are afraid of what they can do. And worst of all, their corruption extends as far as Luigi's Purple Coins... They're just clones. The entry doesn't really sell why they're scary. In fact I thought they were kind of funny as a kid.
  • They mimic their movements perfectly, a few seconds after they do. You touch someone on the shoulder, they touch them seconds later. You pick something up, they mime picking it up themselves. And if you stand still, they collide with you, exploding into dark energy at point-blank range. And until you, or possibly somebody else the comet is focusing on, finishes an arbitrary task, they spawn forever. Following you everywhere. They mimic your movement. So what?
• In several later levels, Magmaarghs (a much larger version of Blarggs from Super Mario World) rise up and engulf your platform in their mouths. They're huge, hideous creatures made of lava who look incredibly deranged, with strange eyes and huge mouths, and when they try to collapse into Mario or Luigi, they make a very disturbing roar until they lose their form in the lava. I'm not sure. It's been a while since I played Galaxy 2.
• In the Shiverburn Galaxy, if you change the camera to first-person mode and look toward the cliffs above you, you can see three shadowy figures on the cliff, watching you, and following you. The file names? BeyondHellValleySky is where they reside, and HellValleySkyTree is the names; the ominousness of the trees were enough, but those names make them worse. The skybox implies that the cliff background is very far away, suggesting that these figures are somewhere between the size of a large hill to mountain-sized. They are pretty creepy. Keep.
• The swirling spirits in the background in the ghost levels, which looks like they're entering a bright portal to the afterlife. Not really scary.
• The black hole that spawns at certain places, waiting to suck Mario in if he falls off within range. The sound too doesn't help matters at all. Honestly I thought Mario getting sucked into a blackhole was hillarious as a kid but others seem to find it scary. I must have a sick sense of humor.
• Bowser himself, as he's immensely powerful and gigantic in this game. He nearly devours Rosalina and her starship, and creates a black hole that he's in complete control of. He's not really scary in this game. In fact he has notes of his RPG personality here.

Super Mario 3D Land

• An Easter Egg: In the yard at the end of any ghost house, waiting long enough causes a ghostly figure to appear in the background just behind the fence and will vanish after a few seconds. This figure doesn't actually do anything and cannot be interacted with, but what makes it creepy is that the thing resembles the Shiverburn Galaxy figures. They're not trees. They're still watching. And they're getting closer. On the fence about this one.
  • Even worse, it could be Slenderman, in a Mario game. And as a bonus, it opens its mouth before disappearing, as if trying to scream at you. WMG
    • The connection between the spirit and the [HellValleySkyTree]... there's also a UFO visible if you wait a minute at 1-3. What other freaky stuff has Nintendo put in these games? Are they... are they trying a secret subplot told through weird Easter eggs? More speculation.
    • Come to think of it, that UFO...we've seen a UFO like that before. Specifically, one that helped Bowser to airlift Peach's Castle in the first Galaxy game... Yes, others appear in later levels, but that first one that helped kick everything off—Bowser did not just happen across it on his own... Cut. TV Tropes is not a forum.
• The cosmic clones. They mimic Mario's quotes, but in a higher pitch with added distortion. When they say "Let's-a go!", it sounds like they're saying "Time to chow!". Hearing things that aren't there and again I thought the cosmic clones were funny.

New Super Mario Bros. 2

• There is nothing okay about the Boohemoth seen to the right, the giant Boo in the ghost house in World 2 and World Flower. It has a terrifying face, being between it and a wall means instant death, and it doesn't even play by Boo rules- if you stare directly at it, it will occasionally peek out from behind its ghost-hands and inch forward a bit. For a boo, it looks weird, but I don't think it's scary. It's just another obstacle to run away from.
  • What really gets you is when you're just entering the hall it's in. It just appears out of nowhere with a high pitched laugh that almost gives you a heart attack. Exaggerating.
• The game introduces a Piranha Plant equivalent of Dry Bones. Its appearance is unsettling at best.◊ "Unsettling at best"? By the author's own admission, this is not nightmare fuel.
• In World 6-Castle and World Star-Castle, Mario has to make his way across a lava-filled platforming level. The kicker? He has to avoid the Koopalings' special petrifying gaze. If he's not hiding behind a wall, one wrong step and he'll most likely freeze, and fall into lava. Another obstacle to avoid. Not scary.

New Super Mario Bros. U

• The opening of the game is pretty jarring, with the giant Bowser claw crushing the heroes and throwing them out of the kingdom. Not even 8-year-old me would find this scary. The scene is clearly cartoony and a bit humorous in nature.
• In a certain set of haunted levels in the Soda Jungle, you can see a giant, painted, Mega Bowser in the background. He has blank, milky-white eyes and just sits there looking like he wants to eat you, sometimes moving his eyes. There's even a Bowser Jr. version... I'm not really sure about this one. I've never played the game past world one so I can't speak for this one.
• Grrrols. They're one of those enemies that can't be killed by normal means, plus they have toothy grins and red eyes with black scleras. It doesn't help there is a giant version of it as well (seen at the right). Not scary. In fact I think they're kind of funny-looking.

Super Mario 3D World

• As cited from a Miiverse post, the Shiverburn figures are back. They can be seen through a reflection on a Clear Pipe Cannon on the last main level, The Great Tower of Bowser Land. Keep.
  • The post? "Anyone remember those mysterious faces on the top of the cliffs in SMG2? Or the mysterious face in the ghost house in SM3DL? Look closely at the reflection in this photo. Tell me what you see."
  • It seems Nintendo is slowly trying to implement their own darker version of Where's Waldo?. I don't think this adds anything.
• There's also Motley Bossblob: a Koopa jester who summons Blob Monster creatures to transform into an enormous gelatinous Asteroids Monster Clown, complete with Glowing Eyes of Doom and a Slasher Smile. And it chases you around the stage, hopping around erratically in an attempt to crush you, and if the player's afraid of clowns, it can become worse. He's honestly not scary in the first place.
• Bowser re-kidnapping the Sprixie Princesses and using them to power Bowser Land. Not scary.
• The advancing wall of Fuzzies in Fuzzy Time Mine. Resembling a fuzzy black void with faces randomly and chaotically popping in and out, it consumes everything in its path. Again, not scary.
• The music that plays in the final Captain Toad level sounds very chilling, especially in contrast with the more happy-go-lucky tracks in these stages. Not very scary. In fact I think it sounds kind of cool. It has a Zelda "Lost Woods" kind of vibe.

• Super Mario Land:
  • The way the enemies die is actually kind of creepy. Unlike the NES Mario games, where enemies generally flip upside-down and fall off the screen when you jump on them, here they lay on the ground, flattened and dead for a few seconds, before flopping off the screen. Not really scary.
  • The Fake Daisys at the ends of Worlds 1 through 3 of Super Mario Land that are actually monsters can make the player jump. Unexpected, but not scary.
  • There are bonus rooms with Spikes of Doom. Coupled with the quiet bonus room music, Mario accidentally jumping onto the spikes and dying is pretty frightening. Why is Mario dying to spikes suddenly scary here? He can potentially die to spikes every game. And no, the music doesn't make it scarier. It's not even a scary song.
• The U.S. commercial for Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. To some it may be Narm but before Wario was portrayed as the greedy character he is today, the U.S. portrayed him in a way that made most young gamers rather afraid of him. The commercials for Virtual Boy Wario Land and Wario Blast! didn't help matters. I guess the first commerical is kind of creepy but the other two are kind of humorous.
  • The ending sequence to Super Mario Land 2. Wario shrinks into a pointy-eared midget, punts his shoe at Mario, and runs off the castle balcony bawling. It became a bit more bearable in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, when it was revealed that Wario has a "powered down" form a la Small Mario which looks very much like his diminutive appearance in the ending, but to a young child who doesn't know any better, it's easy to wonder: just what did Mario do to Wario to turn him into that strange little mutant? And what happened to Wario after he seemingly jumped off a balcony on the highest floor of Mario's castle? FH and it's more of a bizzaro moment than nightmare fuel.
• The Thwomps from Bowser's Castle in Mario Kart 64; it's that disturbing Evil Laugh. The green one in the cell is scarier for some reason. Luckily, they aren't scary in the Wii version's remake. I grew up with the Wii version so I can't speak for this one.
• The final stage of Tetris Attack for the SNES, where a Godzilla-sized Bowser rises out of a chasm at the end of a mountainside cave. Cue the sinister organ music. He just rises from the mountain side. Nothing scary about that.
• While playing Hotel Mario, you must never hide in doors during boss battles. While this does work for regular enemies in normal levels because they can't enter the door and hurt you, the Koopa Kids (except Wendy) or Bowser himself will enter the door you're in, come back out, and burp out Mario's hat, strongly implying that they ate him. The silence before the "lose a life" music does not help. On one hand, it's jarringly OOC for the Koopalings to EAT Mario. On the other hand, the game portrays it so cartoonishly it's hard to take it seriously.
• Mario Teaches Typing 2, like Mario 64, featured the floating disembodied head of Mario. Unlike the Mario 64 version, this one goes back and forth between cracking jokes and being amusing, to being just plain unsettling at times. ZCE
• The GBA puzzle game Mario vs. Donkey Kong features a relatively realistic 3D rendering of Mario facing off against cartoony Thwomps and Shy Guys, and is brought up at this point in the page due to its Galaxy-like series of disturbing death animations. The default animation (for example, stepping on spikes or touching a Shy Guy from the side) has Mario tilt briefly before he falls face-first into the floor (or spikes) and stops moving. Then there's the specialty animations for dying to a fiery or electrical attack, which don't pull any punches about how terrifyingly painful it must be for poor Mario. I thought the deaths were darkly comedic (didn't help that the silly death music would play after Mario was burnt to a crisp by electricity).
  • There are three different "death" tracks in the game's BGM. While the first two apply for "standard" deaths (the second is used for getting burnt by lava), the third is used for the most horrifyingly painful and gruesome (for Mario standards, that is) death animations, such as getting squished by a Thwomp, falling from a high place (with Mario falling on his head as a result) and, last but not least, getting electrocuted to death. In fact, you can tell the various deaths apart by listening to the different pitches of Mario's variants of his classic "Mamma mia!". The first is "standard", the second is "exhausted", and the third is "a mixture of pain and horror". I never thought that the death music in this game was scary. Also the link is broken.
• Mario Tennis was the game that debuted Waluigi. In his debut, Waluigi, not only was pretty creepy looking, but made extremely weird noses all of the time, almost like a psychopath groaning in pain or delight. Whenever he scored, his celebration would have him making his eyes glow and flash purple, all while bearing the demented grin frozen into his face. The glowing eyes, to this day, remain unexplained. FH and his appearance falls more into Uncanny Valley due to the N64's graphical limitations.
• In Mario Power Tennis, when Yoshi wins a trophy, there's an animation in which Luigi brings it to him. Things go awry, and in the end Yoshi has swallowed Luigi. There's no scene where Luigi gets spit out, or even turned into an egg, he never escapes onscreen. The scene is clearly Played for Laughs. Also FH.
  • Another one involving Luigi, Luigi delivers a trophy to Shy Guy. While walking toward Luigi, Shy Guy suddenly trips and his mask falls off. Only Luigi sees what's under his mask, and he is terrified. What is under a Shy Guy's mask? Not scary and FH
    • Actually, Luigi already knew before then. In Luigi's Mansion you can remove the masks from Shy Guy ghosts revealing their heads to be completely hollow. TV Tropes is not a forum.
• The end of Mario Is Missing!, when Bowser is defeated, may scare some young children. You don't fight him, he comes out of nowhere and is shot out of a cannon, but then he falls into the ice, freezes up, is covered in snow, then shatters. It "may" scare younger children? Bowser's death is meant to be comedic.
  • Also one of the versions you have to rescue King Kong. The image you get of him is his fist wrapped around the entire Empire State Building. Something that big is too terrifying for words. Something that terrifying for words shouldn't even be here (ZCE).
• In Super Mario Strikers, we have Bowser, who is portrayed as a giant implacable koopa who wreaks major havoc on the field with shells and bombs whenever the "Bowser Attack" options is on instead of comic relief. When that occurs, his entrance would be accompanied with a short, gritty rock n' roll riff or a Scare Chord. Worse is that you don't know whether when or if he will ambush anybody in his way. Even when he becomes playable in Charged, it does little to dampen the terror, considering not only does he often turn on his own teammates if he's on a winning streak, his gloves have blades longer than his own claws attached to them. Perhaps even worse is the silhouette he gains when using his Mega Strike. I never played Super Mario Stikers so I can't say. Also the link is dead.
  • Also, one of Peach's screams when she is electrocuted sounds like a realistic interpretation (i.e. screaming bloody murder) of feeling that type of excruciating pain in contrast to some of the other screams. Think about how she and the others feel in a more realistic way after that. FH
  • The Mega Strikes can be this. Almost everyone gains an unsettling silhouette, and there's a look of utmost fury on (most of) their faces. Makes you wonder: what the hell is going on to cause this?!? Being angry does not equal scary.
• The Game Over theme from Super Mario Kart. What's scary is that if you lose all your lives, the screen darkens, your character vanishes, then "GAME OVER" drops in ghostly-like letters, with that nightmarish music playing in the background. The music isn't nightmarish. This entire example isn't scary.
• Super Mario RPG:
  • There's a room in the Sunken Ship with a Mario clone that seems pretty harmless, like any other NPC. Except that said Mario clone turns into a Greaper out of nowhere, and you enter battle. Startling but not scary.
  • When you initially arrive at Seaside Town in Super Mario RPG, there is definitely something off about the place. The townspeople all look identical, and display disturbing behavior, like stopping mid-sentence to quietly converse with each other, and watching you sleep. It eventually turns out that a Smithy Gang member named Yaridovich took over and impersonated the entire town. I don't know about this one.
  • Smithy, himself. Imagine a cyborg-bearded-giant-king-mechanical being, with More Teeth than the Osmond Family, and a couple of replaceable heads, each just as creepy as the original. Smithy is kind of freaky.
  • The factory's basement where the final battle takes place, the floor is made of nothing but several Smithy's heads, and some particularly interesting ones seems to be looking at the player. It would be harder to beat him if those eyes were glowing...
• Mario Kart 8: The new Bowser's Castle course features a gigantic and terrifying flaming rock version of Bowser, which punches a forked road in the course repeatedly. And there's a chance that it may crush you under its immense fist, depending on which part of the road you choose. It's even the page image you see at the top. I don't think this is scary. Also we need a new image.

Super Princess Peach

• In Bowser's Villa, there are a couple of segments that contain several faceless Peach statues and a giant Thwomp that takes up the entire background. Before it opens its eyes to scan the area, you have to copy the poses the statues are in. If you fail to do so, you'll be sucked into his gaping mouth. Of course, you'll only be sent to the beginning of the segment, but still... Tension isn't scary.
• The wall of Langolier-like Boos that you can only escape from while crying because it makes you run faster. ZCE
• Perry devours baddies to recover the Vibe Gauge. If there are no enemies nearby, one can stand still for a few seconds, cuing an idle animation where Perry latches onto Peach's head, to her vocal displeasure, regaining Vibe Gauge that way. Not really scary.
• The Mad Boos and Mad Big Boos, which look positively Ax-Crazy. They do look scarier than regular boos. Maybe keep.
• In Bowser's Villa, there are several segments where you constantly need to avoid a pair of mechanical claw-like things flying in from the sides. Get caught, and you're treated to Peach being helplessly trapped in them while they begin a countdown to explode. There's nothing you can do if you get caught, unless you mash the buttons on the D-pad for dear life. Exaggerating.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games

• During the Hammer Throw event in London 2012, most of the characters will let out a yell when preparing to toss the hammer, but Daisy's yell in particular sounds more like a blood-curdling and realistic scream of pain. Does it really?

Yoshi's Crafted World

• "Be Afraid of the Dark" is a terrifying level in a cutesy, charming game. The level's primary enemies are invincible Monster Clown ragdolls with axes chasing you throughout the stage. They can pop out from the background at any moment, make a horrific screeching sound when doing so, and one moment has them appear en masse when you hit a winged cloud. Even worse is the atmosphere, since almost everything is dark and dreary, and even the text boxes are ominous jumbled phrases that would feel more at home in a psychological horror game. And to top it all off, there's red paint on the walls as a stand-in for blood. Keep. A lot of people do find it scary.

Super Mario Bros. The Movie

• Daniella and Daisy's kidnappings are played to scary effect, and as far as the residents of Brooklyn knew, they and the other girls were missing and probably dead. FH and ZCE.
• Koopa coming on to Daisy. With his face and tongue getting... less human. (Early drafts suggest he was attempting to rape her.) That is definitely fucked up.
• The Goombas and Koopa Troopas are huge behemoths with tiny heads and flamethrowers. They fall into the Uncanny Valley but not scary.
• Lena's head motions and hisses invoke the Uncanny Valley, and she's intensely jealous of Daisy. ZCE
• Koopa snapping and attacking Luigi after politely asking them for the rock. He looks like he's trying to crush Luigi's head or gouge his eyes out. FH
• The brothers dissolving between dimensions. Mario was conscious of the fact that he disintegrated. I haven't seen this scene.
• Koopa's Transformation Ray, especially in the deleted scene where a guy gets devolved into primordial slime and sloshes out of the chair and onto the floor. As Koopa puts it, it's worse than death—it's being undone. Maybe keep.
• According to Mojo Nixon, who played Toad, Dennis Hopper's performance as Koopa legitimately scared him during the scene where Toad de-evolves. Toad freaking out as he's strapped into the chair wasn't acting. That is trivia, not nightmare fuel.
• The Snifits, due to those weird noises they were constantly making. Maybe? I haven't seen the movie.

The following are zero-context examples.

• Lena stabbing Yoshi after trying to kill Daisy.
• Goomba!Toad getting set on fire.
• Lena shoving a guy out of the way by grabbing his face, then getting electrocuted when she dives for the meteorite piece seconds later.
• Lena being fossilized by the meteor energy.

• When the two dimensions start to merge, Koopa's twin towers — one of which looks half-destroyed (actually, it's not finished construction yet, but the visual effect is the same), and the other of which has a glowing stylized "K" on the side that looks like, depending on how you see it, either an explosion or a gaping hole — replace the World Trade Center towers. This scene can be nightmare fuel to especially survivors and family members of the victims of the September 11th 2001 Terrorist Attacks. More like Harsher in Hindsight than nightmare fuel.
• When the dimensions start to merge, what is the first thing Koopa does when he arrives in New York City (specifically, Brooklyn)? He unintentionally de-evolves Scapelli (due to Mario, his intended target, jumping sideways out of the way to avoid it) into a monkey. Granted, the son of a gun had it coming, but still, it is kind of scary to be de-evolved into a monkey. Doesn't really explain why this is scary.
• The Jump Scare of the Tyrannosaurus lunging out. I'm not sure.
• Koopa devolving into slime. ZCE
• After retrieving the meteorite at the night club, Lena swallows a worm that she's using like a cocktail olive. Except that the worm pleads for mercy as she drinks and then lets out a dying scream when she swallows it. It's not made any better when you realise it's a Shout-Out to The Fly (1958). That does sound pretty freaky.
• Bob Hoskins had a terrible experience during filming, suffering numerous injuries from being stabbed four times, being electrocuted, breaking a finger, and nearly drowning. He and John Leguizamo would get drunk on set to try and forget how miserable the experience was. The actor's experiences with filming the movie has nothing to do with the fear factor of the film itself.
• The city itself is pretty terrifying, especially for anyone expecting the bright, cheery Mushroom Kingdom of the games. It's dark, fungus-infected (and the fungus is sentient, albeit helpful), and full off strange devices and hostile people. It also has more than a few things in common with a police state, given how Toad is arrested for singing an anti-Koopa song and prisoners are hung from the ceiling in cages. Oh, and at least one form of punishment is for prisoners to be de-evolved into hulking monsters to work for the very people who did this all to them. Could probably qualify.

The Super Mario Bros Super Show

• "Love 'Em and Leave 'Em": Queen Rotunda, an Expy of the Queen of Hearts, ordering the Marios to be executed, yelling "Off with their heads!". Then, Mario tries to intervene, causing the queen to ask why he still has his head. I haven't seen this episode but it sounds like its meant to be Played for Laughs.
• "Count Koopula" has creepy looking and sounding Giant Spiders that wear Snifit masks. More like spooky than scary.
  • Many of the horror-themed mooks in that episode definitely qualify, including the Koopa Troopas changing into wereturtles. Why are they scary?
  • Koopa's vampire alter-ego, Count Koopula, is perhaps his most menacing and terrifying. Why is he more menacing and terrifying?
• Dr. Koopenstein's brain scanner in "Koopenstein" along with Koopa turning into the Koopenstein Monster when he gets too close. ZCE

Other

• This "realistic" Mario image is Uncanny Valley personified. It is Uncanny Valley. Could probably keep.
• Everything has eyes. You can't go anywhere without being watched. The fact that everything has eyes isn't creepy. This falls more into FH.
  • Brawl In The Family noted this.
• A fear of heights as well as death by falling makes playing Mario Galaxy and Mario 64 terrifying sometimes^note since Galaxy had falling into an endless abyss/sucked into a black hole deaths and 64 had falling damage.
• The German Club Nintendo comic Super Mario in Die Nacht des Grauens ^(ENG) Super Mario in The Night of Horror features a zombie Princess Peach◊ with creepy black eyes and a pale, cracked face. It does look creepy. Could probably keep.
• This image of Nurse Toadstool from the German Club Nintendo magazine has horrifying Skintone Sclerae. The link is dead so I can't see how horrifying it is.
• The underratedly demonic You Lose theme from Mario Hoops 3-on-3. This link is dead too. Maybe we should describe the theme instead of relying on links.
• Meta Nightmare Fuel from the fans in the form of a joke turned psychological horror. At one point, an internet personality suggested in jest that the entire series was a hallucination of Luigi's brought on as a side effect of brain cancer. This idea has gained a shocking amount of traction with a variety of fan works depicting the series as the deluded fantasy of at least one of the Mario Bros., including a psychological horror game made in the Source engine. Pure WMG