Scooby-Doo (animation)/Nightmare Fuel

Cartoons

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?

• The musical cue that accompanies Captain Cutler's appearances in "A Clue for Scooby-Doo".
  • The stings that follow the debut of the Headless Specter and the reanimated Caveman are surprisingly uncanny, too.
  • Much of the underscore in earlier episodes (notably "Hassle in the Castle") originates from older Hanna-Barbera shows (e.g. The Adventures of Gulliver and The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), and is much darker in tone and orchestration than the newer music scored specifically for the show.
• "A Night of Fright is No Delight" is chock-full of this trope:
  • The set-up is fairly spooky. The gang has to sail to an old mansion on a dark, stormy night to hear a will, read by Sanders' lawyer Cosgood Creeps. The vinyl the will is recorded on warns that the mansion where they have to spend the night to inherit is haunted and ends with a creepy chuckle. Then Creeps says that he's leaving and will return tomorrow to see which of the heirs are still on the island — "if any", followed by another sinister laugh. It's scary even from the supernatural horrors implied by the set-up, but there's an additional level of horror for viewers who suspect a Scooby-Doo Hoax. While the Phantom Shadows don't actually harm anyone, it's not hard to imagine a more sinister meaning for whether anyone will "remain" come morning.
  • The episode is pretty sinister when you get right down to it. A Ten Little Murder Victims-style plot where the missing heirs later turn up as corpses in coffins? Yeesh!
  • It really speaks volumes that this episode was the one that the characters of Supernatural entered, using the rather creepy setup to full effect with the actual horrors of that show to outline just how terrifying such a premise could have been.
• "The Spooky Space Kook" is no picnic, either:
  • Episode 15 of the first season of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! features the titular monster. The opening of that episode... We have an alien, dilapidated ship drifting eerily across the screen, and then the Spooky Space Kook, a lumbering spacesuit with a glowing, flickering skull inside its translucent dome, approaches, staring right into the viewer's eyes as it gives out this horrible shrieking cackle.
  • Making things worse? The sound of the alien ghost-ship can be recognized as the "electronic rattlesnake" noise from The War of the Worlds.
  • The sight of a skeleton walking around in a spacesuit is also Harsher in Hindsight for Doctor Who fans...
• If you think about it, several of the villains showed that they were willing to seriously injure, or even kill, the gang:
  • The Ghost Clown hypnotized Scooby into doing a high-wire act, and then broke the trance when Scooby was still high above the ground. He also hypnotized Shaggy into being a lion tamer, and clearly said Shaggy would be "a tasty snack" for the lion when he tried to break the trance.
  • The villains in "Mystery Mask Mix-Up" were explicitly going to BLOW UP Shaggy and Scooby, and they don't even mind having to build a new storeroom to do it.
  • The Snow Ghost tried to saw Velma in half and then sent a crate of dynamite after her and Scooby.
  • The ghost of Captain Cutler locked Fred, Daphne and Velma in an underwater room. Had they remained trapped, they would have lasted quite a while before drowning.
    • Not to mention the fact that there's a centuries-old corpse of a diver in the room with them.
  • The Headless Specter, at one point, jumps repeatedly on a bed he thinks the gang is hiding in, even if it turns out that he isn't really a villain.
  • Although the titular criminal in "Jeepers, It's The Creeper!" never did anything to directly harm the gang, he did incapacitate the guard of an armored car in an implied No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, with the implied reason to keep him from being a witness. If the Creeper had no qualms about beating a security guard unconscious, he'd surely have very little reason not to give a savage beating to any of the Mystery Inc. Gang.
    • Fridge Horror sets in for the security guard when you realize that the gang left him in the care of the man who assaulted him. Luckily, the sheriff mentions later that he was only tied up in the basement, but the revelation that Carswell was the Creeper casts a dark shadow over his line "Don't you worry, I'll take good care of him!".
  • Captain Redbeard pretty much all but told Fred, Velma and Daphne that he was going to kill them.

Captain Redbeard: Soon, you three shall join my crew! Daphne: What did he mean by that? Velma: I think he means we're going to be ghosts once he's through with us!

• "Bedlam in the Bigtop" is an episode you should not be watching if you're afraid of clowns:
  • The aforementioned Ghost Clown also hypnotized Daphne into performing a circus stunt, and she changed clothes to do so. This becomes serious Fridge Horror when you realise that a man who showed a gleeful willingness to feed Shaggy to a lion or watch Scooby plummet to his would-be demise from a high wire probably wouldn't have spared Daphne's modesty as she changed clothes...
    • That's not even the worst theory that can be made of it. For all we know, the Ghost Clown could've possibly stripped Daphne down and changed her into that costume himself. Plus, when you consider that said costume was a somewhat skimpy-looking ballerina outfit, that Daphne was the only one of his temporary victims that he didn't actively try to kill, and that the Ghost Clown is revealed to be an older man named Harry the Hypnotist, this goes straight into Squick territory. He could very well have had a thing for her, for all we know.
    • That blissful smile Daphne gives off after the Ghost Clown finishes his rhyme while entrancing her really raises some eerie implications, possibly the fact that Daphne’s hypnosis was so deep, that she felt nothing but happy feelings like she was on a drug high. Also, the way she shuts her eyes while smiling likely gives a whole new meaning to the usual hypnosis command "You are falling into a deep sleep", despite the Ghost Clown not ordering Daphne to fall asleep.
• Episodes like "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts" or "Hassle in the Castle" where the villain is a criminal who's wanted in several states provide a healthy dose of Fridge Horror as well. It's never mentioned what they're wanted for, and in any case, a man who's on the run from numerous state authorities probably wouldn't hesitate to kill off a few meddling kids who were coming too close to blowing his cover.
• "What the Hex is Going On?" has a friend's relative, Uncle Stuart, disappear twice. The first time he reappears, he's now an old man, and the second time they find him, he's just a skeleton sitting in a chair. It's lessened by the fact that Uncle Stuart's really the villain and the skeleton's just a dummy, but it's still pretty creepy.

Shaggy: Hey, Fred! Was Uncle Stuart wearing a blue suit, red tie and tennis shoes? Fred: Yeah, when we last saw him. Shaggy: Then I think I found him... only he looks a lot older now!

• "Nowhere to Hyde" has Mr. Hyde, who has one of the scariest villain designs and a creepy laugh. However, his actions stand out among the rogues gallery of monsters; scaling buildings to rob jewelry, hiding out in the Mystery Machine with the Mystery Inc. Gang none the wiser until he reveals himself, and worst of all, Mr. Hyde is portrayed to be the most cunning out of all the villains. Mr. Hyde places false clues to frame a housemaid for his crimes and completely fooled the Mystery Gang until his defeat. When Shaggy actually discovers a real clue that could expose the villain, Mr. Hyde comes out of nowhere and captures Shaggy before he could show it to the gang. Hyde then has Shaggy strapped to a table, while Hyde wordlessly implies to Shaggy that he's ready to either kill him or perform a horrible experiment on him.
• "The Backstage Rage":
  • Though not quite as outright villainous as other villains on this page, the Puppet Master from "The Backstage Rage" is really creepy. His unblinking eyes and creepy laughter can make any time he appears really uncomfortable. One of his most frightening moments is when Scooby sees Shaggy wearing a costume that's identical to the Puppet Master's and looks at the two of them. The Puppet Master doesn't move, speak or even blink.
  • The gang goes back to tell the doorkeeper what they've found... but as Daphne tries to shake him awake, his head falls off, revealing that he's actually a puppet. The effect is creepy in a way that's hard to describe.
• Charlie the Robot from "Foul Play at Funland". With that blank smile, the way he moves, his background music and the way he's seemingly invincible, it's no wonder the caretaker's well-meaning wife deemed him too scary and tampered with him to teach her equally well-meaning husband a lesson.

The Scooby-Doo Show

• The theme music for the show gets downright creepy at times, if not disturbing. It certainly sets a darker tone, much more than the other Scooby-Doo themes from its time do.
• "Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats" reportedly scared the shit out of many kids... and it's not hard to see why:
  • The scene where Lisa turns around after answering the phone and it's revealed that she's been turned into a vampire - mainly because it comes right out of fucking nowhere.
  • That damn ringing bell on the other side of the phone also falls under Hell Is That Noise. Turns out the bell's actually a hypnotic trigger that Lisa's uncle placed on her that made her slip into a state where she thought she really was a vampire.
  • The scene where the vampire sneaks into Daphne and Velma's room at night and tries to bite Daphne while she's asleep.
• The Jaguaro from "Jeepers, It's the Jaguaro!" is pretty tame, considering it's an ape monster with a cat's head... but the screaming sounds it makes are utterly terrifying.
• "The Harum Scarum Sanitarium" has been considered one of the freakiest episodes ever by fans:
  • Dr. Coffin is the ghost of a mad doctor with an evil laugh and glowing eyes that haunts a Sanitarium where an ambulance routinely delivers bodies and takes them away while it's constantly storming with thunder and lightning.
  • Dr. Coffin plays the organ in a creepy fashion and it makes two attack dogs (and Scooby) stand up on their hind legs and dance ballroom style to the music.
  • The scene where the paramedics are seen wheeling corpses out of the sanitarium. Thankfully, it turns out they're not bodies at all, but stolen gold disguised with sheets and wigs.
• The introduction of the Diabolical Disc Demon. While some may laugh at how he looks like a KISS reject, some are absolutely terrified by the fact that we first see him stalking an innocent man locked in a building to do god-knows-what to him. It definitely doesn't help that the situation plays out like something a Serial Killer would do.
  • The scene where Scooby and Shaggy stumbles across a shadowy figure in the storeroom who screams bloody murder at them. Thankfully, it's revealed at the end that it was just the missing friend they were looking for who had been hiding from the Disc Demon in the room and yelled to try and scare him off.
• The Ghostly Gondolier is scary, not just because of his creepy hooded design, but also due to the killer reveal that the ghost costume isn't an example of Came Back Wrong. According to a flashback, he looked exactly like a monster when he was alive and was even called "The Ghostly Gondolier" when he betrayed Venice and led the city's enemies through its defences to get revenge on the ruler of the city. No wonder everyone was scared when that guy issued a curse.
  • Another moment, in the beginning, is when the Ghostly Gondolier explains his plans to the viewer with his face close up to the camera. The way he explains it is creepy because of how unexpected it was.
• "The Ghost of The Bad Humor Man" is creepy because of how bizarre it is. Why on Earth would an ICE CREAM FACTORY be haunted?! The ghosts don't even have any identifiers other than being colored brown, red and white, like they correspond to ice cream flavors.
• "Mamba Wamba and the Voodoo Hoodoo" has a pretty good aesthetic going for it. The Alex Super Experience uses an ancient voodoo chant as part of their new song. This results in Mamba Wamba returning from the grave and abducting the members of the band one-by-one in order to turn them into zombies, leaving only a creepy voodoo doll in their place.
• The ghost of Ebenezer Crabbe from "High-Rise Hair-Raiser", a blue-skinned man with sunken yellow eyes and a creepy laugh. What makes this episode creepy, however, is that during the investigation, Mystery Inc. visits Ebenezer's now extremely-old sister Netty, who tells them that Ebenezer's ghost comes home to visit every 50 years or so, and that he should be there any moment if they'd like to stick around. Later, it's revealed by the construction foreman that Netty herself has been dead for years!
• The 10,000 Volt Ghost, just for how incredibly dangerous he actually is. His costume is electrified to a horrifying degree, and if he ever managed to touch the gang, they'd have been fried to a crisp.
  • It's not just the costume that ups its scare factor. Its face, full of angular and pointed features that don't even look remotely human, sends it falling creepily into Uncanny Valley. And then there's its growl, filled with the deadly crackling sound of electricity mixed in with the threatening rumble of a furious animal bearing its fangs. Hell Is That Noise, indeed.
• "The Spirits Of '76", featuring the ghosts of Benedict Arnold, William Demont and Major John André haunting the Smithsonian Institute.
• For those not quite initiated into the "it's always a Scooby-Doo Hoax" genre savviness of the classic era of the franchise, the scene in "The Headless Horseman of Halloween" where the Headless Horseman succeeds in getting a new head will be terrifying.
• Although ghosts scaring the gang are par for the course, "A Creepy Tangle In The Bermuda Triangle" gets bonus Adult Fear points for having the weather nearly kill them all before they even see the ghost-of-the-week. Four teens and a dog on a catamaran, too caught up in their music and food to stop and listen to the weather report, sail right into a freaking hurricane that rips chunks off their boat and nearly turns them into another Bermuda Triangle mystery.

The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show

• At the end of "The Scarab Lives!", Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy get trapped on a conveyor belt moving directly towards a huge, sharp knife used to slice and prepare newspaper. They were this close to being chopped to pieces.
  • The worst part was how Daphne, Fred and Velma were just one level below and could see and hear their friends, but were too far away to do anything to help...
• The Night Ghoul from "Night Ghoul of Wonderworld". While most Scooby-Doo monsters get their horror from looking bizarre and unrealistic, the Night Ghoul looks eerily... human. It has pale, saggy skin and red and black eyes, and at one point, it gets its face close-up in the camera...
• In "Stowaways", right after Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy escape the ship in a lifeboat, there's a little lull in the action, panning down from Scrappy's face to the bottom of the lifeboat... when a huge shark suddenly blasts directly through the wood, eating the camera!
• A lot of the villains Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy meet actually qualify. While normally it's mostly an angry beast with which they got on the wrong foot, more often than not it's a quite-ordinary human being who wishes to trap, maim or, in some cases, even kill them for the pettiest of reasons, or simply just for fun.
  • Some of these human villains are actually implied to have preyed on humans before, again simply For the Evulz. It does not disclose what became of the previous would-be victims. Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy are essentially going up against at least attempted Serial Killers in these episodes.
• The Waxmaster from "Wax World" quickly reveals that he wants to turn Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy into wax statues, which, given the wax statue-making process, is not a nice way to be immortalised...
• "Scooby's Luck of the Irish" had a surprisingly creepy-looking Banshee that took full advantage of the Uncanny Valley.

The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo

• The townsfolk (and Daphne) turning into werewolves in "To All the Ghouls I've Loved Before".
• "Me and My Shadow Demon" has a creepy scene where Vincent Van Ghoul's facial features are scrambled while he's yelling at Flim-Flam from the crystal ball.
• The Bad Future in "It's a Wonderful Scoob" where Flim-Flam and Scrappy have become Time Slime's motorcycle-riding minions, Daphne has been enslaved and has aged horribly, and Shaggy has gone insane while clinging to the futile hope that Scooby will come back to save everyone.
• The fact that Captain Ferguson (the sixth ghost) and his passengers from "Ship of Ghouls" are actual ghosts who died in a Titanic-like disaster 50 years ago and want to share their fate with living people. The way the Queen Myrtle sails through the fog to show its true form (a floating wreck) is quite disturbing, too.

What's New, Scooby-Doo?

• From "Big Scare in the Big Easy", the gang spends a lot of time searching through a graveyard and looking for clues about two ghosts that come to life and fight each other. These ghosts are pretty terrifying, about as much as you can get from this series.
  • It's made worse when Daphne tells Shaggy and Scooby that she wasn't wailing, and the ending implies that it was one of them moaning from beyond the grave.
• From "Farmed and Dangerous", the Monster of the Week is a zombie farmer with rotting, green flesh and a scythe replacing one of his arms.
  • His backstory, made Deliberately Monochrome, has him get run over by his own tractor for building his farm on a graveyard.
• The Teaser from "A Terrifying Round with a Menacing Metallic Clown", where a pair of siblings are playing mini-golf beside a giant clown head. The clown head then comes to life, devours the boy and advances toward the girl before a fade-out.
  • Actually, the premise of this episode involving Velma being terrified of clowns and playing Shaggy's part while Shaggy takes Velma's part due to him being the headliner act of the mini-golf tournament where the action is taking place is just freaky if you know the characters at all. The role reversal is just creepy.
  • The reason for Velma's half of the above is pretty darn creepy when you think about it. At one of her childhood birthday parties, she received an encyclopedia set, which naturally delighted her. However, the clown performing at the party assumed it was just some boring gift from an out-of-touch adult and proceeded to burn it to ashes. Hard to blame Velma for how she reacted to that.
• Even though it's based on a popular misconception/Urban Legend taken Up to Eleven, the boat trip back from Alcatraz in "The San Franpsycho" with the gang's boat being repeatedly attacked by ferocious sharks.
• The story of the Creepy Keeper from "Fright House of a Lighthouse". He was a corrupt lighthouse keeper that sought a priceless treasure that was being carried in by ship, so he turned off the light of the lighthouse during a perfect storm to sink the ship (and presumably kill everyone on board) to ensure that only he would know where to dive for the treasure. Immediately afterwards, karma caught up with him in the form of a stray branch that pushed him down the hatch of the lighthouse to his death.

Miscellaneous

• In one of the New Scooby-Doo Movies episodes, the gang helped Dick Van Dyke discover that his circus was being terrorized by the strongman, sneaking up on the guy while he's working out. However, the strongman reveals that he'd heard them, and demonstrates what he'll do to them by effortlessly twisting his barbel like a pretzel. This is not just the usual greedy Scooby villain; this guy intends to straight-up murder the gang.
• The Scooby Doo Project. The fact that it's a parody of The Blair Witch Project should give you a good idea about what it involves. What makes it worse is it's implied that the monster killed the gang at the end.
  • Fred's freakout, while also rather funny, is still somewhat unnerving.
  • The scene in which it initially seems that Scooby has vanished, similarly to Josh's disappearance in the movie.

Movies

Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School

• The Grimwood Girls after getting "revoltized", specifically their expressions: Sibella's eyes shrink as if she were going feral, Elsa looks like her mind just got fried, Phantasma quickly loses her Genki Girl composure and scowls for the first time in the whole movie and Winnie howls for some indiscernible reason. Elsa, Winnie and Tanis were freed early, but Sibella and Phantasma remained under the spell longer. The former was freed by Tanis and apparently needed a few seconds to shake off the effect. Phanty, being under the longest, probably would've had more permanent effects had Scooby not knocked some random chemicals into the potion.
  • The Mirror Monster pulling Shaggy into another dimension and then sending a Evil Doppelganger of him after Scooby and Scrappy.
    • Shaggy being trapped in the mirror can be this for some, because there's no named way to get out of there. It's a good thing that Scooby and Scrappy brought Matches the Dragon along to scare away the fake Shaggy, or else Shaggy would've been trapped in that mirror forever!
  • The girls' fathers are, for the most part, really friendly monsters and don't seem like the types who would easily hurt anyone. However, they do warn Shaggy and Scooby that, if any harm comes to their daughters, they'll make them wish they'd never been born.
    • The scariest moment is when Tanis' father Imothep grabs Shaggy and Scooby by their necks and tells them not to let anything bad happen to his sweet little girl as his eyes start glowing bright red.

Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island

• The zombies. The film pulls no punches when pointing out that they're dead, with many being walking displays of Body Horror. There's even a scene where a zombie's head falls off and lands in Scooby's paws.
  • The kicker? Terrifying as they were, the zombies were actually trying to warn everyone of something WORSE.
• The appearance of the first zombie. A skeleton is half-poking out of the wall of a pit into which Shaggy and Scooby have fallen, then an ethereal green light enters it, causing it to wrench itself out of the wall and regrow rotting flesh. The fact that it's an angry pirate (with a rusty cutlass, no less) doesn't help matters.
  • Even worse, the cutlass might actually be covered in BLOOD! This means that, when Captain Moonscar was alive, he probably slashed some residents to ribbons before he got killed by the cat people! The cutlass was probably covered in dried blood from the last victims he killed!
• Simone, Lena and Jacques' transformations into werecats.
  • Jacques' transformation is particularly scary. Imagine this seemingly pleasant ferryman suddenly transforming into a vicious cat monster, chasing you down with every intention of killing you, either by draining your life force or simply eating you alive, as Shaggy and Scooby surely thought while running for their lives. Simone explains that Jacques wanted immortality, so they gleefully gave it to him in exchange for bringing unsuspecting victims to their island with his ferry. Once he reveals his true colors, Jacques becomes much more sadistic and vicious than Simone and Lena, having been driven completely insane by the immense power given to him.

Daphne: You won't get away with this! Simone: I've been getting away with it for two hundred years! [cue Body Horror-filled transformation]

• The deaths of the cat monsters. We see them howl, snarl and screech in agony as they sizzle and fry. We get to see their fur get fried off of their skeletons, which then explode into dust. They deserved every single second of it, however.
  • The final deaths of the poor zombies as well, though this is more bittersweet when you realize that their suffering's finally over. They literally decay, and the flesh is literally torn from their bodies.
  • During this whole scene, the most powerful, nightmarish music you can imagine is playing, appropriate for the breathtaking end of such a powerful nightmare. Seriously, how did the gang ever fall asleep afterwards?
• Fred, Daphne, Velma and Beau's faces melting after their wax voodoo dolls get too close to a fire. You can literally see the life leaving them as they melt. Thank goodness Scooby and Shaggy knocked the dolls away in time.
• The part where Fred tries to prove that one of the zombies isn't real:

Fred: [trying to pull the "mask" off] It's the gardener! Daphne: No! Fred: [keeps pulling] How about the fisherman? Shaggy: Like, no way! Fred: [still pulling] Perhaps it's the ferryman! Scooby: Ruh-uh! Fred: Well, maybe it's... [pulls the head clean off] real?!

• The flashback revealing Simone and Lena's backstory, specifically when the pirates force their family and friends into the water to be eaten alive by alligators. It doesn't justify their horrific actions, but one can't help but sympathize at least a little for their tragic past and their desire (though it becomes truly monstrous) to exact revenge on the pirates.

Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost

• Ben Ravencroft is elated to finally find Sarah's book, which will finally prove that his ancestor was a peaceful, kind Wiccan and not a witch... only for it to be revealed that the book has a massive, scary skull on it. We get a deep Scare Chord as we realize Ben was not telling the truth. It turns out Sarah was a wicked old witch and her so-called journal was actually a spell book.
• Ben finally dropping his facade and reviving Sarah from the dead is both epic and terrifying. Sarah may have only been introduced in this movie, and only just been established as evil, but you will be on edge and horrified when Ben performs the ritual to bring his evil ancestor back to life.
• Sarah Ravencroft herself is nightmarish in her own right. By this point in the franchise, she was the most evil and most powerful foe the gang had faced, being an all too real, all-powerful witch with a desire to destroy everything on the face of the planet.
• The Ravencrofts' demise. Sarah drags Ben kicking and screaming into the hellish netherworld she'd been trapped in for centuries before the spell book then bursts into flames, killing them both.

Ben Ravencroft: No! No! No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Scooby-Doo (live-action film)

• The plot of the entire film is pretty horrifying. There's a bunch of ancient demons running around trying to take over the world by possessing humans (including Mystery Inc.) and being led by a vengeful sociopath.
  • Speaking of the demons, whenever they're not being Played for Laughs, their behavior as humans is deep within the Uncanny Valley. Not only is their approximation of human behavior... questionably accurate, their possession is prone to showing itself to others.
• The first scene with the Luna Ghost can be pretty jarring. Not only is the monster pretty freaky, but the scene in general is kind of intense.
• Spooky Island in general is pretty... spooky. There's the symbols everywhere that are based off the demons and the whole place just has a sense of dread. It's like a Halloween-based theme park that completely forgot everything was supposed to be fake.
• The now-evil Scrappy-Doo's transformation into Scrappy Rex.

Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

• In a Deleted Scene, the 10,000 Volt Ghost electrocutes two security guards at the museum.
• The Tar Monster nearly drowns Mystery Inc. in his tar.
• The Pterodactyl Ghost's ear-shattering roar can terrify many.
• In a case of Black Comedy, Shaggy says "We're gonna die quickly!" as a way of thinking positive.
• The movie's tie-in website had a little game called Escape From the Coolsonian. It's a forgettable Point-and-Click Adventure Game with no real relation to the movie... that just so happens to contain one of the worst Jump Scares in an online Flash game. See it for yourself!
  • The whole thing is infamous enough to have whole threads dedicated to discussing how scarring it was.

Miscellaneous

• The escaped Circus Ape's introduction in Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers consists of him popping up out of nowhere and roaring straight at the camera, which can be startling for first-time viewers. Thankfully, he later turns out to be a Gentle Giant.