With that said, don't add something just because it happens to be your personal phobia.You dread that episode, scene, level, chapter, or song during re-watches, and consider skipping it.You have a hard time falling asleep if you think about it at night, or have a literal nightmare about it.It left you feeling shaken even after the credits had rolled, you turned the last page, or are otherwise done with the work. Good signs that something IS Nightmare Fuel include if:.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. This is a page whose name is intended to be taken more literally than most.Notes to editors before changing this list:Īll Nightmare Fuel examples should be specific and provide details. For examples where this trope comes about as the result of Fridge Logic rather than anything occurring onscreen, please see Fridge Horror. The aftermath of frightening moments, such as death or trauma or violence inflicted upon likable characters, can easily overlap with Tear Jerker. Characters that are this In-Universe are The Dreaded. If this is Played for Laughs, this turns into Lightmare Fuel. If it is meant to scare but fails to deliver, and becomes hilarious instead, it devolves into Nightmare Retardant. If it is unintentionally scary, it's Accidental Nightmare Fuel. Tropes about the emotion of fear itself are Fear Tropes. Tropes used to invoke this feeling are Horror Tropes. Focus on what frightens you, not what you think may or may not frighten someone else. This is an Audience Reaction, so leave it on YMMV and Nightmare Fuel tabs and don't get too worked up about what specifically goes into it - what's Nightmare Retardant for one person may well be Nightmare Fuel for another. Think the difference between the monster who lives under your bed when you're grown up versus the monster who lives under your bed and fist-bumps your parents when you were a young child. Some people, for example, may find the invasion of monstrosities which are treated as benign to be a far more terrifying prospect than things which we need to explicitly fear. In the case of such movies and shows where Nightmare Fuel or anything related to horror is far from the norm, it can be unsettling when it does occur due to the stark contrast, especially if the genre of the film or show is far from horror, such as comedy or animation, or when in a show with a very specific target demographic.Įxperiences may vary from person to person. On the other hand, Nightmare Fuel doesn't exist just in the horror genre and is not always the main focus of the films and shows in which it is present. These can be sources of Fridge Horror as well, as those from different cultures or eras past can demonstrate some intensely creepy Hard Truth Aesops. Similarly, some Public Service Announcements choose to employ terrifying imagery in order to keep people away from doing dangerous things. Others are fascinated by the very things that most people avoid. In any case, this is normal for the genre. Some think it's cathartic or therapeutic in some way to explore our fears from a position of relative safety. There may be a euphoria generated by surviving something that seems scary, or maybe we know that fiction can't hurt us (not physically, anyway) and the idea of choosing to be scared without the danger is fun. For some reason, many of us like to be scared on purpose. This makes you shrink in the back of your chair (or maybe even hide behind the sofa), look over your shoulder, and remind yourself that what's going on is (usually) only fictional.įor many horror films, achieving this effect is the whole point (and many in-universe examples arise because Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films). This scares the pants off of just about anyone to the author/creator's delight. This is the stuff so horrifying that it can give people the creeps for years.
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