The Dark Knight Saga/Nightmare Fuel

File:Hanging2 3655.jpg

Let's put a smile on that face!

---

Batman Begins

• Batman Begins asks the question: "Would you like to see Dr. Crane's mask?" It doesn't help that he's using a chemical that could literally be called Nightmare Fuel.
  • Batman's whole shtick is to be Nightmare Fuel to his enemies.
  • The end sequence where the Narrows are just teeming with Fear Toxin, and all the escaped convicts see Batman flying above. Their collective hallucination paints Batman as a huge black shadow with GLOWING RED EYES! It then distorts his voice to an even more horrible growl... Though it is quite the subversion in that it's the HERO that's terrifying.
  • Also, Crane's vision of Batman while on the toxin.
    • "Dr. Crane isn't here right now. But if you'd like to make an appointment..."
  • And Batman's vision of Crane when he got sprayed with the toxin.
  • BUF Special Effects (the team who created the Scarecrow effects for the film) released an FX reel after the film came out that highlighted several sequences from the film. One of them is a deleted shot featuring Rachel's perspective of Crane when the elevator doors open in Arkham. In the theatrical cut, Crane immediately grabs her when the doors open. In the FX reel, Crane stands there staring straight into the screen with a passive look while maggots fall off of his face.
  • How about that poor guy that used drugs that Crane tampered with in The Dark Knight, who rolls around pleading "Get them off!" while clawing at himself?
  • Some of the songs on the soundtrack are downright creepy, like "Artibeus" and the middle of "Macrotus." Whispering can be heard in some of them. The sound of bats can be heard in one of these songs too. It makes sense, but it's still really freaky.
  • When the Narrows and almost everyone in it, is driven insane by Scarecrow's toxin. Oh so many things are freaky in this scene. The riots, the images of Batman from the points of view of the insane citizens, Zsasz walking towards Rachel Dawes with a knife, the crowds of people attacking Batman, the monorail once built to help Gotham being used to drive the city insane and more.

The Dark Knight

• From the sequel, The Dark Knight: A fat lunatic complains of stomach pains and rants that the Joker told him that a light would come from his stomach in this high, childish tone. It comes out of his stomach all right...in the form of a bomb the Joker implanted inside of him.
  • The Joker himself is a potent combination of Nightmare Fuel and premium Paranoia Fuel. If he's after you then he will get to you somehow, no matter how impossible it should be, and carve a smile onto your face with a knife.
  • If the Joker ever asks if you want to see a magic trick, the correct answer is and always will be no. He'll do it anyway, but at least you saw it coming.
    • (Rim shot.)
    • But how would the guy see the magic trick with that pencil...oh.
    • Ever notice that the Joker actually stabbed the sharp end into the table? That means he forced the dull, rubber end through the guy's skull.
    • One of the most terrifying Joker-related scenes comes from when Batman interrogates him and the Joker reveals he's kidnapped Rachel in addition to Harvey, and they both have mere minutes to live. Batman goes berserk and starts trying to beat their location out of the Joker, up to bashing his head against a reinforced glass window so hard the window actually cracks. All Batman's severe beating does to Joker? It only makes him laugh HARDER!
      • It only gets worse when you think about the Joker's line, "Do you actually think you can do anything to me?" Just think about what must have happened to the Joker for that to be true.
    • On the same note - right at the very end, when Batman throws the Joker off the rooftop. Joker's reaction? Laughing maniacally every inch of the way... and being disappointed when Batman saves him.
    • The scene that really horrifies is the scene where the Joker tells Rachel the second scar story. Something about the whole scene reeks of sexual predation, and to make it even more horrible, there's the fact she knees him in the nuts, which is usually the best defense a woman has against a male attacker, and he actually LIKES it!
    • One of the most Nightmare Fuel-filled moments was surprisingly one of the most low-key; when the Joker is videotaping/shooting his nightmare-porn of Brian the Batman Impersonator and orders Brian to "Look at me! Look! At! Me!"
      • That was the scene that, aside from the Magic Trick, made everyone in the theater sit up and take notice of Ledger's performance.
        • That scene gets worse when Brian is done delivering the Joker's message and is of no more use to him. The camera cuts out just as Joker descends on the panicked hostage.
        • "Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in. Oh, and everyday he doesn't people will die. Starting tonight. I'm a man of my word." *laughs*
        • The Joker's little Would You Like to Hear How They Died? speech.
  • The defining moment for the Joker was standing in the street as the Batpod race towards him muttering "Come on, come on, I want you to do it, I want you to do it." He is utterly prepared to actually die just to corrupt the Batman. After that, you realize that there was really no stopping him. The only way to beat the Joker for real is to straight-up kill him, and the Joker would be all for it!
  • The Joker pales in comparison to Two-Face's scar-ified half of his face. What is keeping his EYEBALL in the SOCKET!?
    • The first iterations of Two-face were much more realistic, with less extensive damage; test audiences actually found the more subdued, realistic damage to be so unsettling, to the point of unintentional Nausea Fuel, that the Two-Face we currently see was used instead.
    • The optic nerve and the eye muscles, which apparently did not receive any damage from the fire, since he can move his left eye just as well as the right one.
  • The worst part about Two-Face was when he kidnapped Gordon's family, and Commissioner Gordon, whom many tropers strongly identify as a father figure, cried and begged helplessly for their lives. The thought of a father being unable to protect his children is just pure Nightmare Fuel.
    • It says a lot that, in a movie featuring the most terrifying version of the Joker ever, the scariest scene is one that he's not even in.
  • How about where Batman drops the guy off the balcony and (presumably) shatters the guy's legs?
• This line from the Joker. Granted, he was more or less saying it to screw with the cops, but still:

"Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick, you can't savor all the.....little emotions. You see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I knew your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?"

• Alfred's speech on being in Burma, just because of how true it felt.

Alfred: A long time ago, I was in Burma, my friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never found anyone who traded with him. One day I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away. Bruce: Then why steal them? Alfred: Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

• • Important to note, when Alfred later finishes the story with how they caught the bandit, he flatly states, "We burned the forest down." Who watched the world burn? Alfred did. He was once a man so cold and unrelenting that he would burn everything around him to get at his objective.
• Some premature Fridge Horror here, if that makes sense: as of the end of The Dark Knight, Gotham blames Batman just as much as the Joker for the events of the film, so much so that they are willing to throw Batman to the dogs (both proverbially and literally) on the off-chance that the Joker will keep his word and leave Gotham. And now, as of the Rises trailer, the police department is now willing to forgive Batman of the murders he took credit for if he stops Bane. Not only is this a neat little parallel of the situation before, but more terrifyingly, consider the implications of them wanting to bring back Batman: there is someone more terrifying and destructive than the Joker.
• Three words: "Why so serious?"
• Harvey Dent screaming in silent agony in the hospital after realizing that Rachel died. From there his Sanity Slippage is evident, especially following The Joker's disturbing Hannibal Lecture on him.
  • The Joker handing Harvey Dent a gun and telling him to unleash chaos on the city, even holding the gun to his head in a further attempt to corrupt Dent.
• The Joker aims to destroy Gotham City from the inside out, and part of his "plan" involves attempts to corrupt the city's heroes — Batman and Harvey Dent — by making their lives hell until they snap...thankfully he doesn't succeed with Batman, with Harvey Dent he's more successful however...

The Dark Knight Rises

• The weird monk chanting and riot videos from The Dark Knight Rises' Alternate Reality Game, where, in the latter, we see how far down Gotham is gone in becoming chaos.
• The chanting in both trailers.

Deshi, deshi, basara, basara! Deshi, deshi, basara, basara!!

• • "Deshi basara" means "rise" (literally "come quickly") in Moroccan Arabic.
• The new teaser poster, a stark B&W shot of Bane's back facing the camera and Batman's smashed cowl on the floor. Considering that Bane is canonically the only one who has "Broken the Bat"...
  • It gets worse in the third trailer: There's a shot of Bane throwing away Batman's shattered cowl. To all appearances, Bane will break the Bat.
• The scene in the second trailer where Bane is shown lurking nearby during a football game and presses the button on what is presumably a detonator. Next, we see a football player running to make a touchdown, not noticing that the entire frigging field is collapsing behind him. And for added affect, we get to watch the opposing team fall into the massive pit this creates.
  • And then he turns around. The way he drops the ball conveys the shock.
• Five words that chill this troper to the bone when Bane says them: "Do you feel in charge?"
• A scene in the third trailer shows that Bane will have a wounded and beaten Bruce Wayne at his mercy. The scene is made chilling by this exchange:

Bruce: Why don't you just kill me? Bane: Your punishment must be more severe.