Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan/Nightmare Fuel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Khan's "pets", the Ceti eels. Two to three-inch long worm-like creatures with pincers that burrow into a person's ear and attacking their brain, making them easily controlled and very susceptible to suggestion. Even worse is when the captain of the Reliant fights back against the creatures, and kills himself with a phaser set to disintegrate. That scene alone is why this troper hasn't watched that movie all the way through in years. Yuck.
    • Forget that's it's science fiction, the scene where Khan first puts the things in Chekov and Terrell qualifies Star Trek II as one of the best horror movies of all time.
      • Similar creatures make an appearance in the 2009 Star Trek film, used by Nero on Captain Pike. What could be worse than a bug being forced into your ear? A bug being forced into your mouth.
    • Captain Terrell, turning his own phaser on himself and firing. Its the way the actor plays it. He totally sells it. Truly horrifying.
  • There's actually a number of things in this movie that are unsettling: the hanging corpses in the space station, Khan's finale where his face is half burned...
  • Khan's Fate Worse Than Death speech when Kirk tells him to come down and fight:

I've done far worse than kill you... I've hurt you. And I wish to go on... hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her... marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet... buried alive... buried alive...

  • The crew of Regula One murdered and hung like sides of beef in a freezer. The novelization goes into detail about Khan's stop at Regula, which is even more nightmare-inducing.
  • Pay attention to the sound effect that plays when someone is vaporized with a phaser. It's not just the energize sound of the phasers. There is also the echoing sound of a scream.