Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
215,501
edits
Stephen King/Nightmare Fuel: Difference between revisions
added {{Darth Wiki}}
m (Mass update links) |
(added {{Darth Wiki}}) |
||
| (4 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{creator}}{{Darth Wiki}}
[[File:HighOctaneNightmareFuel-StephenKing_6202.jpg|
You saw it coming.
Line 12:
** Any scene of the film featuring Zelda was terrifying beyond words. The fact that Zelda was played by a deformed-looking man might be part of what makes her appearance so traumatic.
* ''[[Apt Pupil]]''. Get face-to-face with non-cartoonish and insidious Nazi evil.
** Todd Bowden was a [[They Look Just Like Everyone Else|pretty normal kid, with a paper route and reasonable grades]]. The poster child for all-American boyhood. There's just that obsession with concentration camps that you've got to watch out for.
** The part of the cat scene is that "Denker" mentions getting a dog for the same purpose. Later, he goes to an animal shelter and leaves with a puppy.
* ''[[Cujo]]'' and ''[[Misery]]'' are prime examples. Made all the scarier because they could actually happen. EEEEEE!
Line 18:
* ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' has several elements that seemed designed to remind the reader that King writes horror stories. From the first three books we have Norm of Tull, the end of Tull, the Slow Mutants, The lobstrosities, a man getting ''cut in half'' by [[More Dakka]], Odetta/Detta, Shardik, and the Pusher, who doesn't do drugs but pushes people in front of trains. Oh, and when Jake thinks he's going insane. And the Doorkeeper, who is a sentient, malevolent entity disguised as an abandoned ''house''. And Blaine the train, who is a real pain.
** Onward through the remaining four books, of which some of the more notable ideas and concepts include a procedure which ends up ''destroying little kids' minds'' because of what they extract. Bonus points for the fact a byproduct of the process is the accelerated growth of the kids to such a point you can ''hear their skulls expanding''. The pain is basically that of teething ... for a solid year or so. Dandelo; {{spoiler|Randall Flagg}} being psychically compelled to tear his own eyes out and then tear his own tongue out; Mordred the half-human, half-spider from the time of his birth; long pork at the Dixie Pig; ruminating on the sound of the {{spoiler|Crimson King}} screaming as he is {{spoiler|erased from existence}}; the can-toi; and, at the Battle of the Algul Siento, a hydrocephalic kid banging his head on the ground and ''dying'' with a sound like a watermelon being split in half.
* ''[['Salem's Lot]]''. The paranoia that permeates the whole story (a reflection of the real-life time period he was writing about, it turned out), the shortcut the Glick boys foolishly take home, seeing the ways all the townspeople are slowly turned - and the biggest shudder comes at the end, where Ben is looking at his old snow globe, {{spoiler|and seeing/imagining himself as a pale, bloodless, nearly brainless vampire, looking up at the real Ben from a window inside the house in the globe.}}
* "The Jaunt," another short story. ''[[And I Must Scream|"It's eternity in there..."]]'' Contains what is quite possibly the most gruesome and memorable ending to any of King's stories.
** Mentioned and not dwelt upon, but far worse, is using the Jaunt device (with no exit) as a murder weapon. Technically, the victim never dies. Ever. She is cut off from all external stimuli, alone, with no way of ever escaping. (But the court convicted him anyway.) The defense attorney made that exact argument (that it wasn't really murder since the wife wasn't dead), but when the jury thought of [[And I Must Scream|a human being stuck in that state forever]] it pretty much [[Complete Monster|cemented the husband's conviction.]]
* "[[1408]]", another short story. A haunted hotel room. It's more psychedelic than Gothic and ghostly, but the imagery (and the protagonist's increasingly disjointed comments) will still make you sleep under the covers. Same with the descriptions of the room's "effects" on visitors. Even if you're not creeped out by the long (''very'' long) beginning sequence where the hotel manager tries his best to convince Our Hero that he should just walk away, the room itself starts messing with reality before we've even seen the inside of it:
{{quote|
Not by a lot, but it was crooked, all right, canted just the tiniest bit to the left.
...
He pushed RECORD [on his minicorder] as he straightened up, saw the little red eye go on, and opened his mouth to say, "The door of room 1408 offers it own unique greeting; it appears to have been set crooked, tipped slightly to the left."
He said ''The door'', and that's all. If you listen to the tape, you can hear the words clearly, ''The door'' and then the click of the STOP button. Because the door ''wasn't'' crooked. It was perfectly straight. Mike turned, looked at the door of 1409 across the hall, then back at the door of 1408. Both doors were the same, white with gold number-plaques and gold doorknobs. Both perfectly straight.
Mike bent, picked up his overnight case with the hand holding the minicorder, moved the key in his other hand towards the lock, then stopped again.
The door was crooked again.
This time it tilted slightly to the right. }}
** Stephen King actually reads 1408 on an audiobook called Blood and Smoke. It's even worse hearing his weird, creepy voices than it was reading the text!
** "This is nine. Nine. We have killed your friends. Every friend is now dead."
* ''"[[IT]]"'' has [[IT/Nightmare Fuel|its own page]], for very good reason.
* ''[[The Stand]]'' now [[The Stand/Nightmare Fuel|has its own page]] as well.
* ''[[
** {{spoiler|HE WAS IN THE BACK OF HER CAR}}!!!
* ''[[Cell]].'' The idea of people going berserk worldwide.
** And on top of that, the ''[[Hive Mind]]'' they develop...
** The worst is that if you see someone bite some guy's ear off randomly in the street, what would you do? Call the police, your mom, the news, {{spoiler|with your cell phone of course, without giving any second thought!}}
** The mental domination of people that forced them to put the cell phones to their ears and dial ''knowing that they were doomed as they did so''.
* There were two things about ''[[Dream Catcher]]'': The part where someone plays a tape of the "aliens" imitating celebrities and telling people that they're not dangerous, and the part where the first alien appears, because it was so sudden, Jonesy just turns around and he sees it, no previous signs to warn the reader.
** ''Mr. Gray is utterly terrifying.'' Also, Blue Unit is just a slightly nicer version of [[Prototype (video game)|Blackwatch.]]
Line 45:
** ''"lady fingers they taste just like lady fingers." Brrr....''
* ''The Raft'': two college guys and their girlfriends go for a spur-of-the-moment swim at a remote lake. When they get to the raft in the middle of the lake, they see what looks like a dark patch of oil in the water. Needless to say, it isn't oil {{spoiler|but rather, a strange creature that dissolves and absorbs people.}} The tone makes it horribly creepy to begin with, but the idea of waiting alone, trapped, and without hope of escape from an alien death... . The way he describes the deaths is absolutely horrific.
* ''The Monkey'': another short story, which utilizes and heightens every trope you've ever seen connected to those creepy [[Cymbal Clanging Monkey|monkeys-with-cymbal toys]].
** ''Jang-jang-jang-jang'', who's dead this time?
* ''Trucks'': In which trucks rebel and destroy humanity, blaring demands to their new slaves via Morse code.
{{quote|
* ''[[The Regulators]]''. {{spoiler|The most graphically detailed description of [[Your Head Asplode|an exploding head]] since ''[[Scanners]]''.}}
** The scene where Tak "sweetens up" Audrey will make you never want to eat honey again.
* On the subject of ''[[Misery]]'', the thought of being held prisoner to someone ''that'' delusional and ''that'' fixated with you for a time span of nearly half a year is horrifying. {{spoiler|And made worse by the revelation that Annie is not afraid to mutilate Paul in order to keep him under control and is ''completely'' deaf to his pleas and begging. She even cuts off his thumb and serves it on a birthday cake as the candle.}} What's really about the {{spoiler|"special candle"}} wasn't just Annie's not-so-subtle threat to {{spoiler|make him eat it}}, but when the text suddenly went off for an entire page with no pauses, sounding almost sing-song at points. It shows how ''absolutely terrified'' Paul is.
** Annie {{spoiler|killing the young cop}}. Especially when she {{spoiler|''mowes'' '''his head'''}}.
** She {{spoiler|MADE HIM DRINK ''MOP WATER!!!''}}She also made him {{spoiler|burn the only copy of his manuscript of}} {{spoiler|''Fast Cars''.}} It's a little harder to connect to that since typewriters aren't used that much anymore, but {{spoiler|to lose every last page of work}} is a writer's worst fucking nightmare.
* ''[[Desperation]]''. How about the fact that {{spoiler|the whole FREAKIN TOWN has been killed in various gruesome and disgusting ways.}} Or the fact that {{spoiler|all the animals left alive in the town are under Tak's control}} including the spiders and snakes, which are everybody's favorite animals in the world. Or how about the way that {{spoiler|Tak possesses people, with their bodies eventually just sloughing off until all that's left is a bloody mess.}}
Line 59:
* Any Stephen King stories involving vehicles. ''Maximum Overdrive'', ''[[Christine]]'', and ''[[From a Buick 8]]'' are all damn freaky when you consider this is stuff we live with and depend on, and then BOOM! You're running from an 18 wheeler that wants to enslave you, a car with a ghostly rider, and a car that, for all intents and purposes, shouldn't exist.
** The scene in ''Christine'' where Leigh is choking on a hamburger and she sees [[Glowing Eyes of Doom|glowing green eyes]] from Christine's dashboard.
* A short story called ''The Road Virus Heads North'' where a writer buys a painting at a tag sale called, appropriately, ''The Road Virus Heads North'', which depicts a man with teeth that are filed to a point and an evil smirk on his face driving in his car. Then things get nightmarish. {{spoiler|The picture starts to move. Subtly at first. His arm moves to reveal a tattoo, which the protagonist writes off as his fault for not noticing it. Then it moves back. Then he sees that the car in the painting is moving along familiar roads. It stops at the tag sale where he bought it, and viciously slaughters the woman who sold it to him. The protagonist throws the painting in a fire and goes to sleep. When he wakes up, the painting is back, and the car is outside his house. And empty. As he attempts to hide from the killer, he notes that the final change has been made. The car has fresh blood in the driver's seat, and he realizes that this is what is about to happen to him.}}
* ''The Library Policeman'', that is, Sam Peeble's very own library policeman. {{spoiler|Prepubescent Sam is graphically raped by a pasty, flushed [[Complete Monster]].}} It is a pretty painful scene.
** Ardelia Lortz. {{spoiler|A beetle-like thing that will remind you strongly of ''IT'', who possesses people and feeds off the misery of little children.}} Fuck.
Line 65:
* The description of the eponymous character in ''Rose Madder'', specifically how she looks right before she deals with Norman. The mental image of the 'rot' that seems to move ''beneath her skin'' is equal parts [[Nightmare Fuel]] and [[Squick]]. Then again, King seems to love hopping over the line between the two. What happens with Norman and the mask could count, too; {{spoiler|It ''fuses to his face''. Fortunately for him, he doesn't live much longer than that.}} Rose and Norman's marriage itself is a more reality-based example, since Norman is practically the poster-boy for a [[Complete Monster]].
* In ''You Know They Got a Hell of a Band'' a young couple finds an idyllic little [[Norman Rockwell]] town, and it just happens to be populated by every dead rock-n-roll star! [[Kurt Cobain]], Cass Elliot, Janis Joplin, Elvis, Buddy Holly, [[John Lennon]]... you name 'em, they're there! And they even put on an incredible show every single night, a show that keeps building and never seems to end! Everyone who visits gets to live there, forever young! It seems like every rocker's fantasy... except it's really [[Nightmare Fuel]]: {{spoiler|The rock-n-roll icons are all rotten, indestructible corpses who prevent anyone from leaving. All living people are given menial jobs around town, and are required to attend the concert every night. If you try to help a newcomer escape, you get a finger amputated. Everyone eventually turns into a blank, hopeless shell that can never escape the town, not even through death.}}
* The scene in ''The Dark Half'' when they operate on Thad, only to find {{spoiler|what they assumed to be a brain tumor was actually the living remains of his twin brother, absorbed/digested while in utero. Nothing but a pulsing pile of flesh, teeth, and one blinking eyeball.}}
** Also {{spoiler|George Stark's slow and painstakingly described decomposition, followed shortly thereafter by his being pecked to death by sparrows.}} In [[The Movie]], his skin is pecked down to his bones, his jaw is moving in a ''silent scream.''
* "The Moving Finger": A man goes to the sink and sees a finger sticking out of the plughole. Just tapping around. Then it {{spoiler|grows until it has about ''ten knuckles'' and starts attacking him. He pours drain cleaner down the plughole in an attempt to destroy it and then chops it to bits with some hedge-clippers, which only makes the situation worse. Eventually someone calls the cops on the guy, and the story ends with the guy gibbering about the finger. Then ''the toilet seat moves''. And the last line is about one of the cops lifting the lid.}}
* ''Blockade Billy'' has a piece of HONF at the end when Billy, after his secret has been found out, reveals what the hell is under that Band-Aid on his middle finger when he goes to talk to the umpire who screwed him earlier in the game. It doesn't end well.
* One of King's short stories, ''The Gingerbread Girl'', tells the story of a woman who moves to her father's summer home in Florida after having a fight with her husband. Not scary yet? Well while there she discovers there is an insane madman who brings women there just so he can rape and murder them. The entire later half of the story is her escaping the same insane madman.
Line 76:
* Possibly some of the scariest parts of King's works are the point in his career where he published "The Bachman Books". To whit:
** ''Rage'' - A high school loser finally snaps and guns down two teachers and holds his class hostage. Eventually, they all get a case of Stockholm Syndrome, and the one poor bastard who doesn't fall for it winds up catatonic for his troubles. Add to the fact that it was found in the possession of multiple school shooters, and you see why King had it pulled.
** ''The Long Walk'' - An easy comparison to make to ''[[Battle Royale]]'' and ''[[The Hunger Games]]'', an alternate universe America has 100 teen boys pulled from all fifty states to compete in "The Walk".
** ''Roadwork'' - After losing his son, one man takes "There's no place like home" too far.
** ''The Running Man'' - The origin of the Arnold movie, a desperate man tries to win the money needed to keep his wife and daughter alive. Now put yourself in his shoes and see how long you'd last.
Line 82:
* The short story "Gray Matter" has {{spoiler|a man turn into a giant fungus or bacteria after drinking spoiled beer and begins to eat children}}.
* One word- no, one ''letter'': "[[Cosmic Horror Story|N]]." That one was based on an 1894 story by [[Arthur Machen]] called ''[[The Great God Pan]]''. King considers it one of the single best horror stories ever written and even claimed it kept him up at night!
* There was one story from the ''Everything's Eventual'' collection called "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French" about a woman who {{spoiler|kept reliving one moment of her life.}}
* ''Full Dark, No Stars''. First off, the first story has a man being bitten to death by rats (in first person). Plus, Beadie... Just, Beadie, ok?
* There's a short story ''Word Processor of the Gods''. While the story itself isn't that scary, instead working the angle of drama, look at modern social networking. The pressing of a single key can effectively change reality. Imagine the power, or even the knowledge, if it were to be used by someone now.
Line 88:
* From "Skeleton Crew", a number of stories: "The Reaper's Image", especially the ending with the narrator waiting for his buyer to reappear. "Uncle Otto's Truck" had the eponymous vehicle ''slowly'' creeping up on Otto until it was ''right outside his fucking window''. His death was also pretty fucked. And "Morning Deliveries" had the most fucked up milkman I have ever seen.
* ''Autopsy Room 4'', from ''Everything's Eventual''. Live burial is a common horror subject, but leave it to King to come up with {{spoiler|live-[[And I Must Scream|but-paralyzed]] ''autopsy''}}. The funnier bits may seem to lighten up the story until you consider the protagonist's final comments:
{{quote|
And similar to some mentions above, you may not able to listen to the Rolling Stones for a while after reading this.
* Pretty much the whole plot of ''[[The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon]]'', involving a small girl lost in the woods for several days with little food, being pursued by '''something''', {{spoiler|later '''ambiguously''' revealed to be a bear}}, but especially this little gem:
| |||