The Hunger Games (novel)/Nightmare Fuel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Books

  • The Games themselves are this. These books do not skimp on the terrifying deaths. There's also the effects of Tracker Jackers on Katniss (who survives) and the careers (some of whom don't), and Finnick's death.
    • Throwing teenagers into a death match is bad enough. But turning them into celebrities beforehand, putting them into social situations where they even eat with the people they will eventually kill or be killed by, and even forcing those from the same District to fight against each other, destroying any camaraderie or prior relationship they might have is just plain monstrous. And that's not even getting into what happens to the victors AFTER the Games.
  • Cato's death, where his flesh was devoured by mutant wolves made out of the bodies (or minds) of the deceased tributes.
  • "Tick, tock." There is something deeply unsettling about the whole "the arena is a clock" idea.
  • The Hanging Tree song.

"Are you, are you, coming to the tree... Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me..."

      • Katniss' explanation of the song doesn't help.
  • Glimmer's face being melted off from the tracker jacker venom.
  • The giant lizard mutts in the Capitol in Mockingjay. Even before the reader sees exactly what they can do, they're described to smell like blood and roses (Snow's signature scent) and are able to say the word "Katniss" in the most frightening way possible.

Films

  • When the mutts first appear in the arena in the movie. All you see are Peeta and Katniss running together through the dark woods, then the mutts jump out at you from NOWHERE. One can only imagine if that was in 3D...
  • All the other incidents of violence—the mutts, Thresh and Clove, Glimmer's death—are all either really violent so as to be almost unbelievable, covered up with a Jittercam, or not particularly scary, like Rue's death by spear or Foxface's poisoning. The death of the District 3 boy is so senseless, happens so quickly and is done with such little emotion that it's shocking.
  • The Career tributes, Clove and Cato in particular. One of the most disturbing scenes is after Katniss's leg has been burned and she's soothing it in the lake. The disturbing part: They're glad that they're about to kill somebody. This is also Fridge Horror when you realize that these people probably reflect their districts.
  • The Tracker Jackers. Everything about them, from watching them swarm around Glimmer as she screams to Katniss's hallucinatory run from them, is terrifying.
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