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* DisguisedHorrorStory: A work in the horror genre that masquerades as a non-horror work

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* DisguisedHorrorStory: A work in the horror genre that masquerades as a non-horror workwork.



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* UnexpectedlyDarkEpisode: A work that's generally a comedy, or at least played less than seriously, has an episode with a much darker tone than most or all of the rest of the work.

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Per TRS, the trope has been split.


The purpose of a horror story is to scare the audience and scares rely, on some level, on the element of surprise- the more unexpected the scare, the more impact it has. But there lies a problem- an audience experiencing a horror story fully expects to be scared or exposed to horror tropes, since that's what they came for. While this doesn't necessarily lessen the impact too much, as the story can still be effectively scary, an upcoming horror writer might decide they want to maximize the impact of the horror by making it as unexpected as possible.

Enter the Disguised Horror Story- a work in the horror genre that masquerades as a non-horror work. It sets up a bright, colorful, or serene tone and atmosphere to lure viewers into a false sense of security, then abruptly drops the facade for maximum impact. One such type of work is the SubvertedKidsShow, which often employs a stereotypical, SugarBowl-like aesthetic in order to make the subsequent twist even more jarring. The marketing can further enhance the effect by [[NeverTrustATrailer intentionally hiding the true nature of the work]] and playing up its saccharine elements- though just as many [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil give away the story's true nature]] in order to attract horror fans who might otherwise ignore it.

While these can show up in any genre, they are most frequently independently-produced Video Games and Visual Novels. Part of this is because big studios are frequently reluctant to take such a risk as deliberately misleading their audience as to the genre of a work, whereas indie games are far friendlier to experimentation. The other reason is that many such games take inspiration from the massively popular ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', which exploded in popularity for its macabre subversion of the DatingSim.

Compare SurprisinglyCreepyMoment, which is a horror-like moment or section of an otherwise non-horror work.

'''By the nature of this trope, entries below will be SPOILERS.''' Even just seeing a work listed is a spoiler in and of itself.

----
!Examples:
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The initial setup for ''Manga/IWantToHoldAonoKunSoBadlyICouldDie'' makes the story seem like it's going be a simple story about [[ABoyAndHisX a girl and her ghost boyfriend]]. Maybe a little bittersweet, but probably very SliceOfLife, right? This lasts for most of the first chapter... until Aono demands that Yuri allow him to possess her toward the end of the first chapter. It starts to become clear that not only is something ''very'' wrong with Aono now that he's become a ghost, but there are heavy hints that our protagonist has some psychological problems herself.
* ''Manga/MadeInAbyss'' appears, on the surface, to be a cute manga with adorable protagonists exploring a giant cave. Then we start learning more about the Curse of the Abyss... and then the cute little protagonist [[spoiler:gets her arm poisoned and the resulting amputation horribly botched.]] Once [[spoiler:Bondrewd]] appears, all bets are off and the story takes a nosedive into some of the most horrifying instances of BodyHorror and AndIMustScream ever illustrated.
* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': The show initially appears to be, and was marketed as, just another cutesy MagicalGirlWarrior series, to the point that the creators actively tried to hide the involvement of Creator/GenUrobuchi (a writer famous for his grim and depressing stories). In the series, a {{Ridiculously Cute|Critter}} WeaselMascot [[CartoonCreature or whatever]] offers to make a deal to [[MakeAWish grant a young girl's wish]] and give her powers beyond imagination in return for fighting evil entities and saving the world. But the protagonists are fighting Witches that look like [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] and can MindRape innocent people until they're DrivenToSuicide, and it becomes a GenreDeconstruction that shows just how psychologically damaging their job actually is.
* ''Manga/SchoolLive'' is an excessively saccharine SliceOfLife [[SchoolgirlSeries high school anime]] for almost all of the first episode. There are hints here and there that it won't stay that way, but everything still seems relatively normal... until the very end of the episode, where it's revealed that [[spoiler:there's a ZombieApocalypse afoot]]. Only then does the true nature of the series become apparent, and it doesn't get any better from there. It's disturbing not just because of what's going on, but also because of ''why'' it was so sweet and cutesy until then: [[spoiler:one of the central protagonists lost her grip on reality and is imagining everything as it was, rather than as it is]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/CupcakesSergeantSprinkles'' is going for this, but nearly everybody in the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fandom [[ItWasHisSled already knows about the twist.]] It starts out innocently, with Pinkie Pie inviting Rainbow Dash over to bake cupcakes, [[spoiler:but then Pinkie takes her to the basement to graphically slaughter her.]]
* ''VideoGame/RegularPasta'' seems to be more comedic despite being inserted into a {{creepypasta}}-themed contest. Mario is chilling in a pasta restaurant and decides to go find Peach, who went inside a painting to an alternate pasta dimension where all their pasta is from. At first, everything seems relatively fine. Then Mario [[spoiler:finds Bowser's mutilated, dismembered corpse]] and learns that reality itself is being torn apart, and it gets darker from there culminating in a fight against [[spoiler:the princess herself having turned into a MechanicalAbomination]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Ribbit}}'': Starts out as a spiritual successor to Deltarune Repainted, with pretty much every single sprite and line of dialog replaced with a meme. It starts to go downhill when [[spoiler: Susie and Lancer reveal the true nature of [[AdaptationalNameChange Prince Noyno]]]]. Then [[spoiler: Susie kills Lancer]] and not a moment after that is played for anything but horror.
* The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fangame ''VideoGame/StoryOfTheBlanks'' starts out as a nice, interesting little game starring cute little Apple Bloom finding a town full of blank flank ponies in the Everfree Forest. [[spoiler:Then you find a skeleton in the fireplace. And that's just how the scary part STARTS.]]
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioDolor'' [[StylisticSuck intentionally looks like]] a typical cheap, low-effort fangame like so many of them, with the same ExcusePlot of Mario rescuing Princess Peach from King Bowser. Then in the first stage, he reaches the exit only to abruptly run out of time and die, and when retrying the stage, it suddenly turns into a nightmarish hellscape of blood, red textures, and eyes. The rest of the levels jump between typical Mario fare and SurrealHorror, with a subtle deeper plot in the background about [[spoiler:Mario suffering from depression after the death of his brother Luigi]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* The first episode of ''Series/WandaVision'' starts off as a simple sitcom made in the style of ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow''. However, during a [[DinnerWithTheBoss dinner with Vision's boss and wife]], Mr. Hart asks where Wanda and Vision came from, beginning the unsettling, true nature of the show as Wanda hesitates to answer, Mr. Hart nearly chokes to death on his food, and his wife repeats "stop it" to both her husband and soon Wanda like a broken record. While the tonal shift was brief, it doesn't last for long.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/AiToYuukiToKashiwamochi'', from the same creator as ''Irisu'', is another puzzle game with a dark, dark secret. Ai-chan loves sweets and her boyfriend Yuki, and the game revolves around eating sweets. [[spoiler:Then the sweets turn into pills, Ai turns out to be a seriously-ill patient, and [[BigBad Yuki]] is a [[GrimReaper shinigami]] {{Yandere}} who is trying to kill Ai.]]
* ''VideoGame/AndysAppleFarm'': A game about a talking apple playing games with his friends sounds like it could be an ordinary kid's game... if it weren't for just how damn creepy everything is. Aside from the constant audio and visual skips, one of the first signs that something isn't quite right comes when his friends casually tell Andy that they're eating apples. [[DissonantSerenity Andy just keeps smiling.]]
* ''VideoGame/BaldisBasicsInEducationAndLearning'' looks like a cute 90s edutainment game, but it's in fact a terrifying survival horror title. That said, the surprise is mitigated by the game's opening screen which states outright that it's a horror game, not a real educational game.
* ''VideoGame/BonniesBakery'' is a cute {{animesque}} game where you bake pastries for your FunnyAnimal customers. [[spoiler: It then abrubtly shifts to being a SurvivalHorror game, where you are imprisoned in Bonnie's basement and must escape before she [[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies uses your flesh to make meat pies.]]]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Bubbaruka}}'', on the surface, is a ''Franchise/{{Tamagotchi}}''-style pet raising simulator where you pet, feed, and play with adorable creatures. For your first pet, you can play a skiing minigame where you collect coins in a snow world. If you collect 10, a side path opens to a cabin… which turns out to be a dark building where your pet's eerie footsteps can be heard. The game glitches and you are promptly booted out, but you can go back in to the house, which is actually a HauntedHouse. From then on, the game becomes an ExplorerHorror where you navigate various haunted areas, avoid the spirits haunting the game, and slowly piece together the mysterious disappearances of the game's developers through [[StoryBreadcrumbs notes]] they left.
* ''VideoGame/ConfessMyLove'': The game is pretty innocent for a while, until the player finds a knife, and [[spoiler:"Liza" tries to murder them]] in the "Mutated Room".
* The freeware game ''VideoGame/DreamingMary'' starts out, on the surface, in an adorable pastel-colored dream world where you play with a bunny, a penguin, a fox, and a boar, fulfilling certain tasks from the first three animals and eventually getting all four seeds necessary to join the boar behind the last door. You're told through the radio that there are only three doors in the hallway, and [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial you shouldn't look for]] [[ShmuckBait a fourth one]]. Obviously, there IS a hidden fourth door, and entering it will unlock an alternate version of the dream world that can be entered through the painting in your bedroom... [[spoiler:It's a shadowy, RealIsBrown, blood-stained living room with the plushies that three of the dream animals represent (each getting torn up after receiving a seed) and the stuffed head of a boar, and it's all pivotal to unlocking the GoldenEnding. Then you have to complete tasks to gain seeds; failing prompts the bunny and fox to make a horrifying NightmareFace. The boar, Boaris, is extremely creepy throughout, making disturbing innuendos towards Mary, and in the fourth room, Mari gets chased by a giant, crude, shadowy figure who calls her a "sweet girl" in his deep, uncanny voice. Worst of all, Boris and the Yeti shadow represent Mari’s father, and the whole thing is heavily implied to be a metaphor for ''ParentalIncest''.]]
* ''VideoGame/DuckSeason'' initially presents itself as a lovely VR-based homage to the old 80s games, especially ''VideoGame/DuckHunt''. [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment Antagonize the dog]], however, and the weird stuff begins to happen. [[spoiler:Namely, the game starts glitching out, the dog will manifest itself in the real world, threatening you, and after the Stage 8, your character's mother will be killed (outside the GameWithinAGame), as the dog taunts you to "come face me", and depending on the ending, it either [[AndIMustScream traps you inside the game forever]] or [[WouldHurtAChild attempts to kill you]], succeeding in one of the bad endings.]]
* In the first playthrough of ''VideoGame/DreamOfGluttony'', everything seems innocent enough- Sissy is a cute girl who goes through Food Town, a SugarBowl full of a quirky RagtagBunchOfMisfits who identify as [[CastOfPersonifications humanoid foods]] and act friendly to her. Then Sissy goes off on her own and encounters Chili, a SerialKiller who [[ImAHumanitarian devours her victims]], and she eats Sissy. The NewGamePlus has Sissy admit to being a human, and then all hell breaks loose as the inhabitants reveal themselves as misanthropic humans who try to kill her for fear that she will expose them to the world. Sissy ends up going through immense SanitySlippage while running for her life.
* The game ''VideoGame/FantasyMaidensOddHideout'' starts out cute and lighthearted, with young friends playing together in a house made of desserts, and fairies who live inside the house. Then the doorknob on the house's only exit is removed, and it and all the windows are boarded up, trapping them inside, and it all goes downhill from there. [[spoiler:Subverted with Bernd's story, which is more sad and depressing than scary.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'' starts out as a brightly-colored relentlessly cheerful platformer [[spoiler:and ends as a CosmicHorrorStory, with the player character either being or being ''eaten'' by an EldritchAbomination]]. Although if you know who Creator/HPLovecraft is, the opening screen serves as a warning about that, as the game starts off by quoting him.
* The home page of the ''VideoGame/FancyIsland'' site makes it look like a typical, cutsey anime game, with a Moe CatGirl going through the titular island and an also-cute cat spirit explaining the rules. But once you click on the image leading to the rest of the site, you are immediately greeted with what looks like the entrance door to a haunted house, and entering greets you with the unnerving head of what appears to be a StringyHairedGhostGirl (or, sometimes, a CreepyDoll head which cries blood and creepily laughs if you click on it). And it all goes downhill from there, with NightmareFace after NightmareFace and plenty of SurrealHorror.
* ''VideoGame/HungryLamu'' is a game where you need to find fruit the feed to the titular llama. Things get a little weird as the fruit happens to be sentient, but at least it appears willing to be eaten. [[spoiler:It then turns out that the "fruit friends" are humans, and as the final survivor you must escape from Lamu before he devours you too.]]
* ''VideoGame/IrisuSyndrome''. On the surface: a cutesy, if NintendoHard, FallingBlocks game, starring bunny girl Irisu. [[spoiler:Who is a mentally unstable bunny girl who has to fight off her urge to kill her friends (which the block game symbolizes), an urge that her crush/boyfriend [[BigBad Uujima Satoshi]] tries to encourage, and in the bad endings, she gives in to her urges.]]
* ''VideoGame/NeedyStreamerOverload'' starts off as a colorful and peppy raising SIM where you aim to turn a girl called Ame into an internet celebrity, with a fittingly cheerful theme song, "Internet Overdose". Once you go further in however, the game starts showing its true nature as a [[RealismInducedHorror depressingly realistic portrayal of a mentally ill girl struggling to manage herself and how far people can go on the internet]]. Then you reach some of the endings, which [[spoiler:feature nasty stuff among the lines of Ame committing suicide, losing her mind over haters and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking starting a conspiracy cult]]]]... and once you have the fortitude to unlock all the endings, you reach the true ending, which [[TheEndingChangesEverything changes everything you know upside-down]]. [[spoiler:Ame was actually a schizophirenic who invented your in-game identity "P-Chan" as the voice on your head and you ''are'' Ame all along. This automatically puts a darker and cynical twist to the meanings of many endings, including ones that are seemingly optimistic.]]
* At first glance, ''VideoGame/MrTomatos'' seems like a harmless-looking {{Expy}} of the "Hungry Pumpkin" Flash game, but should you anger the eponymous tomato enough times or feed him enough food with his anger meter below 10, [[spoiler:the game, especially Mr. Tomatos himself, suddenly takes on a more sinister and creepy atmosphere]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'', despite being billed as a horror game and having an eerie beginning, starts out innocuously as the titular protagonist meets his quirky friends and an equally quirky cast of characters at the playground. After a skirmish with a HarmlessVillain and some [[TheGoomba Sprout Moles]], Basil shows off his photo album to everyone, detailing their fun memories. Everything seems fine and child-friendly… until Basil drops one photo, looks at it, and starts freaking out, a shadow appears under him, and the screen glitches. Then Omori, back in White Space, ''stabs himself with a knife''. You are then transported to a dark house where an EldritchAbomination called Something attacks you. The rest of the game [[MoodWhiplash alternates]] between more quirky fun and SurrealHorror dealing with themes like depression and suicide as the true nature of the game world slowly becomes apparent.
* Content warning at the beginning of the game notwithstanding, ''VideoGame/PromDreams'' begins as a fairly typical harem dating sim, complete with upbeat music, comedic scenes, and many of the genre's standard tropes. In fact, the player can win their chosen love interest's heart and make it to prom night without experiencing a single horrific element, [[spoiler:only for said love interest to be killed suddenly and brutally, without any way for the player to avoid it. From there, the game "resets" itself several times, sans the girl killed in each previous loop, with the atmosphere becoming more horrific as the dating sim plot gives way to a supernatural murder mystery.]]
* ''VideoGame/Shipwrecked64'': If not for the warning at the start of the game, you might mistake this game for a typical mascot platformer... at least, until some of the "artifacts" like disturbing images of Bucky start popping up.
* ''VideoGame/SpookysJumpScareMansion'' presents itself as a DefangedHorrors [[AffectionateParody parody]] of horror games, where you navigate the house of the titular CuteGhostGirl, and at most you get startled by [[PokeThePoodle cute cardboard cutouts]]. That is until you progress further into the game, where you encounter the ''actual'' monsters and come across [[ApocalypticLog various notes left by previous travelers]]. Spooky herself is also heavily implied to be [[CuteAndPsycho not what she seems]].
* In ''VideoGame/SuperSurpriseParty'', the colors and visuals are all cute and sweet, from the smiling party-guests to the gumdrop rain. But the actual game is a PsychologicalHorror, with a creepy, short-tempered narrator and a location-tracking gimmick.
* ''VideoGame/YummyBreakfast'' starts out cute and simple, with a girl just trying to make herself a "yummy breakfast". It takes a turn for the creepy as she gets more and more desperate for food, resorting to eating live animals and [[spoiler:a girl.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* Although ''VisualNovel/CookingCompanions'' is openly advertised as a Horror story, it starts off rather cutesy with its Chompette mascots and bonding with your fellow hikers before the inevitable craving for fresh meat arises...
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', ostensibly a cutesy RomanceGame, ''starts'' with requiring you to accept a warning for disturbing content, but the game remains light-hearted and cheerful for long enough that it still comes as a massive shock when [[spoiler:the player character finds Sayori's [[DrivenToSuicide hanging corpse]], and the game restarts. From that point onwards, the game starts getting ''very'' [[OminousVisualGlitch glitchy]] and bloody as the girls reveal their {{Dark And Troubled Past}}s and deteriorate into {{Yandere}}s]]. Becomes blackly HilariousInHindsight once you find out that [[spoiler:all the creepy glitching in Act 2 comes from the fact that [[BigBad Monika]] is trying to reprogram the game but is HopelessWithTech]].
* On the surface, ''VisualNovel/DontToyWithMe'' is a cute story about two adorable LivingToys learning to befriend each other in spite of their differences. [[spoiler:Then the owner starts playing favorites and antagonizing the other toy, and it eventually leads to one of them snapping and murdering the other, with one of the routes revealing that the owner has previously killed other toys for not getting along with Dahlia.]]
* ''VisualNovel/FromTheSunToTheMoon'' starts out like your standard cute dating simulator, only to rapidly shift into themes of BodyHorror, child abuse and CosmicHorror as the plot progresses.
* ''VisualNovel/HowToDateAMagicalGirl'', A cute game about going to a school for magical girls and looking for love until it suddenly becomes a murder mystery game.
* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' has an ominous intro but otherwise starts off as a brightly colored visual novel about a teenage boy and his friends in their early '80s rural village. But ''Higurashi'' is not a ComingOfAgeStory and is especially not a romance visual novel. It's a mystery-murdery franchise, which becomes more obvious when Keiichi finds a newspaper talking about a murder that happened a few years ago.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''WebVideo/{{Petscop}}'' is a fictional LetsPlay series wherein Paul plays what starts as a fun [[ObviousBeta (albeit unfinished)]] game about collecting pets and finding them homes, with a colorful pastel environment called the Gift Plane, happy music, and overall looking every bit like the kid-friendly time-waster that was so common in the [=PS1=] era. There are a few hints of something off (like the fact that the pets are scared of the PlayerCharacter), but it seems harmless. Until, that is, Paul enters a cheat code in the room of one of the pets. The music [[SuddenSoundtrackStop suddenly stops]], and Paul ventures outside Even Care to find not the peaceful-looking Gift Plane, but a darker, mysterious new world called the Newmaker Plane. From then on, ''Petscop'' moves to a dark and twisted story involving themes of child abuse/neglect and cryptic events that [[spoiler: Paul himself]] is a key figure in.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSER3yml1iM Pokopokopikotan]] is an adorable stop motion video of two little paper girls on a bright setting. At least, at first...
* The entirety of the ''WebVideo/DontHugMeImScared'' series. It starts out innocently enough, with ''Series/SesameStreet'' style puppets discussing different themes in a really catchy song. By the end... well, let's just say things go [[SurrealHorror a bit too far]].
-->[[LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain "Now let's all agree / To never be creative again."]]
[[/folder]]

to:

The purpose of a horror story is to scare the audience and scares rely, on some level, on the element of surprise- the more unexpected the scare, the more impact it has. But there lies a problem- an audience experiencing a horror story fully expects to be scared or exposed to horror tropes, since that's what they came for. While this doesn't necessarily lessen the impact too much, as the story can still be effectively scary, an upcoming horror writer might decide they want to maximize the impact of the horror by making it as unexpected as possible.

Enter the Disguised Horror Story- a
"Surprise Creepy" may refer to:

* DisguisedHorrorStory: A
work in the horror genre that masquerades as a non-horror work. It sets up a bright, colorful, or serene tone and atmosphere to lure viewers into a false sense of security, then abruptly drops the facade for maximum impact. One such type of work
* SurprisinglyCreepyMoment: A
work is the SubvertedKidsShow, which often employs a stereotypical, SugarBowl-like aesthetic in order to make the subsequent twist even more jarring. The marketing can further enhance the effect by [[NeverTrustATrailer intentionally hiding the true nature of the work]] and playing up its saccharine elements- though just as many [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil give away the story's true nature]] in order to attract horror fans who might otherwise ignore it.

While these can show up in any genre, they are most frequently independently-produced Video Games and Visual Novels. Part of this is because big studios are frequently reluctant to take such a risk as deliberately misleading their audience as to the genre of a work, whereas indie games are far friendlier to experimentation. The other reason is that many such games take inspiration from the massively popular ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', which exploded in popularity for its macabre subversion of the DatingSim.

Compare SurprisinglyCreepyMoment, which is a horror-like moment or section of an otherwise non-horror work.

'''By the nature of this trope, entries below will be SPOILERS.''' Even just seeing a work listed is a spoiler in and of itself.

----
!Examples:
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The initial setup for ''Manga/IWantToHoldAonoKunSoBadlyICouldDie'' makes the story seem like it's going be a simple story about [[ABoyAndHisX a girl and her ghost boyfriend]]. Maybe a little bittersweet, but probably very SliceOfLife, right? This lasts for most of the first chapter... until Aono demands that Yuri allow him to possess her toward the end of the first chapter. It starts to become clear that not only is something ''very'' wrong with Aono now that he's become a ghost, but there are heavy hints that our protagonist
has some psychological problems herself.
* ''Manga/MadeInAbyss'' appears, on the surface, to be
a cute manga with adorable protagonists exploring a giant cave. Then we start learning more about the Curse of the Abyss... and then the cute little protagonist [[spoiler:gets her arm poisoned and the resulting amputation horribly botched.]] Once [[spoiler:Bondrewd]] appears, all bets are off and the story takes a nosedive into some of the most horrifying instances of BodyHorror and AndIMustScream ever illustrated.
* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': The show initially appears to be, and was marketed as, just another cutesy MagicalGirlWarrior series, to the point that the creators actively tried to hide the involvement of Creator/GenUrobuchi (a writer famous for his grim and depressing stories). In the series, a {{Ridiculously Cute|Critter}} WeaselMascot [[CartoonCreature
scary or whatever]] offers to make a deal to [[MakeAWish grant a young girl's wish]] and give her powers beyond imagination in return for fighting evil entities and saving the world. But the protagonists are fighting Witches that look like [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] and can MindRape innocent people until they're DrivenToSuicide, and it becomes a GenreDeconstruction that shows just how psychologically damaging their job actually is.
* ''Manga/SchoolLive'' is an excessively saccharine SliceOfLife [[SchoolgirlSeries high school anime]] for almost all of the first episode. There are hints here and there that it won't stay that way, but everything still seems relatively normal... until the very end of the episode, where it's revealed that [[spoiler:there's a ZombieApocalypse afoot]]. Only then does the true nature of the series become apparent, and it doesn't get any better from there. It's
disturbing not just because of what's going on, but also because of ''why'' it was so sweet and cutesy until then: [[spoiler:one of the central protagonists lost her grip on reality and is imagining everything as it was, rather than as it is]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/CupcakesSergeantSprinkles'' is going for this, but nearly everybody in the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fandom [[ItWasHisSled already knows about the twist.]] It starts out innocently, with Pinkie Pie inviting Rainbow Dash over to bake cupcakes, [[spoiler:but then Pinkie takes her to the basement to graphically slaughter her.]]
* ''VideoGame/RegularPasta'' seems to be more comedic despite being inserted into a {{creepypasta}}-themed contest. Mario is chilling in a pasta restaurant and decides to go find Peach, who went inside a painting to an alternate pasta dimension where all their pasta is from. At first, everything seems relatively fine. Then Mario [[spoiler:finds Bowser's mutilated, dismembered corpse]] and learns
image, scene, portion, etc. that reality itself is being torn apart, and it gets darker from there culminating in a fight against [[spoiler:the princess herself having turned into a MechanicalAbomination]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Ribbit}}'': Starts out as a spiritual successor to Deltarune Repainted, with pretty much every single sprite and line of dialog replaced with a meme. It starts to go downhill when [[spoiler: Susie and Lancer reveal the true nature of [[AdaptationalNameChange Prince Noyno]]]]. Then [[spoiler: Susie kills Lancer]] and not a moment after that is played for anything but horror.
* The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fangame ''VideoGame/StoryOfTheBlanks'' starts out as a nice, interesting little game starring cute little Apple Bloom finding a town full of blank flank ponies in the Everfree Forest. [[spoiler:Then you find a skeleton in the fireplace. And that's just how the scary part STARTS.]]
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioDolor'' [[StylisticSuck intentionally looks like]] a typical cheap, low-effort fangame like so many of them,
clashes with the same ExcusePlot of Mario rescuing Princess Peach from King Bowser. Then in the first stage, he reaches the exit only to abruptly run out of time and die, and when retrying the stage, it suddenly turns into a nightmarish hellscape of blood, red textures, and eyes. The rest prior tone of the levels jump between typical Mario fare and SurrealHorror, with work.

If
a subtle deeper plot in direct wick has led you here, please correct the background about [[spoiler:Mario suffering from depression after the death of his brother Luigi]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* The first episode of ''Series/WandaVision'' starts off as a simple sitcom made in the style of ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow''. However, during a [[DinnerWithTheBoss dinner with Vision's boss and wife]], Mr. Hart asks where Wanda and Vision came from, beginning the unsettling, true nature of the show as Wanda hesitates to answer, Mr. Hart nearly chokes to death on his food, and his wife repeats "stop it" to both her husband and soon Wanda like a broken record. While the tonal shift was brief, it doesn't last for long.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/AiToYuukiToKashiwamochi'', from the same creator as ''Irisu'', is another puzzle game with a dark, dark secret. Ai-chan loves sweets and her boyfriend Yuki, and the game revolves around eating sweets. [[spoiler:Then the sweets turn into pills, Ai turns out to be a seriously-ill patient, and [[BigBad Yuki]] is a [[GrimReaper shinigami]] {{Yandere}} who is trying to kill Ai.]]
* ''VideoGame/AndysAppleFarm'': A game about a talking apple playing games with his friends sounds like it could be an ordinary kid's game... if it weren't for just how damn creepy everything is. Aside from the constant audio and visual skips, one of the first signs that something isn't quite right comes when his friends casually tell Andy that they're eating apples. [[DissonantSerenity Andy just keeps smiling.]]
* ''VideoGame/BaldisBasicsInEducationAndLearning'' looks like a cute 90s edutainment game, but it's in fact a terrifying survival horror title. That said, the surprise is mitigated by the game's opening screen which states outright that it's a horror game, not a real educational game.
* ''VideoGame/BonniesBakery'' is a cute {{animesque}} game where you bake pastries for your FunnyAnimal customers. [[spoiler: It then abrubtly shifts to being a SurvivalHorror game, where you are imprisoned in Bonnie's basement and must escape before she [[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies uses your flesh to make meat pies.]]]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Bubbaruka}}'', on the surface, is a ''Franchise/{{Tamagotchi}}''-style pet raising simulator where you pet, feed, and play with adorable creatures. For your first pet, you can play a skiing minigame where you collect coins in a snow world. If you collect 10, a side path opens to a cabin… which turns out to be a dark building where your pet's eerie footsteps can be heard. The game glitches and you are promptly booted out, but you can go back in to the house, which is actually a HauntedHouse. From then on, the game becomes an ExplorerHorror where you navigate various haunted areas, avoid the spirits haunting the game, and slowly piece together the mysterious disappearances of the game's developers through [[StoryBreadcrumbs notes]] they left.
* ''VideoGame/ConfessMyLove'': The game is pretty innocent for a while, until the player finds a knife, and [[spoiler:"Liza" tries to murder them]] in the "Mutated Room".
* The freeware game ''VideoGame/DreamingMary'' starts out, on the surface, in an adorable pastel-colored dream world where you play with a bunny, a penguin, a fox, and a boar, fulfilling certain tasks from the first three animals and eventually getting all four seeds necessary to join the boar behind the last door. You're told through the radio that there are only three doors in the hallway, and [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial you shouldn't look for]] [[ShmuckBait a fourth one]]. Obviously, there IS a hidden fourth door, and entering it will unlock an alternate version of the dream world that can be entered through the painting in your bedroom... [[spoiler:It's a shadowy, RealIsBrown, blood-stained living room with the plushies that three of the dream animals represent (each getting torn up after receiving a seed) and the stuffed head of a boar, and it's all pivotal to unlocking the GoldenEnding. Then you have to complete tasks to gain seeds; failing prompts the bunny and fox to make a horrifying NightmareFace. The boar, Boaris, is extremely creepy throughout, making disturbing innuendos towards Mary, and in the fourth room, Mari gets chased by a giant, crude, shadowy figure who calls her a "sweet girl" in his deep, uncanny voice. Worst of all, Boris and the Yeti shadow represent Mari’s father, and the whole thing is heavily implied to be a metaphor for ''ParentalIncest''.]]
* ''VideoGame/DuckSeason'' initially presents itself as a lovely VR-based homage to the old 80s games, especially ''VideoGame/DuckHunt''. [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment Antagonize the dog]], however, and the weird stuff begins to happen. [[spoiler:Namely, the game starts glitching out, the dog will manifest itself in the real world, threatening you, and after the Stage 8, your character's mother will be killed (outside the GameWithinAGame), as the dog taunts you to "come face me", and depending on the ending, it either [[AndIMustScream traps you inside the game forever]] or [[WouldHurtAChild attempts to kill you]], succeeding in one of the bad endings.]]
* In the first playthrough of ''VideoGame/DreamOfGluttony'', everything seems innocent enough- Sissy is a cute girl who goes through Food Town, a SugarBowl full of a quirky RagtagBunchOfMisfits who identify as [[CastOfPersonifications humanoid foods]] and act friendly to her. Then Sissy goes off on her own and encounters Chili, a SerialKiller who [[ImAHumanitarian devours her victims]], and she eats Sissy. The NewGamePlus has Sissy admit to being a human, and then all hell breaks loose as the inhabitants reveal themselves as misanthropic humans who try to kill her for fear that she will expose them to the world. Sissy ends up going through immense SanitySlippage while running for her life.
* The game ''VideoGame/FantasyMaidensOddHideout'' starts out cute and lighthearted, with young friends playing together in a house made of desserts, and fairies who live inside the house. Then the doorknob on the house's only exit is removed, and it and all the windows are boarded up, trapping them inside, and it all goes downhill from there. [[spoiler:Subverted with Bernd's story, which is more sad and depressing than scary.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'' starts out as a brightly-colored relentlessly cheerful platformer [[spoiler:and ends as a CosmicHorrorStory, with the player character either being or being ''eaten'' by an EldritchAbomination]]. Although if you know who Creator/HPLovecraft is, the opening screen serves as a warning about that, as the game starts off by quoting him.
* The home page of the ''VideoGame/FancyIsland'' site makes it look like a typical, cutsey anime game, with a Moe CatGirl going through the titular island and an also-cute cat spirit explaining the rules. But once you click on the image leading to the rest of the site, you are immediately greeted with what looks like the entrance door to a haunted house, and entering greets you with the unnerving head of what appears to be a StringyHairedGhostGirl (or, sometimes, a CreepyDoll head which cries blood and creepily laughs if you click on it). And it all goes downhill from there, with NightmareFace after NightmareFace and plenty of SurrealHorror.
* ''VideoGame/HungryLamu'' is a game where you need to find fruit the feed to the titular llama. Things get a little weird as the fruit happens to be sentient, but at least it appears willing to be eaten. [[spoiler:It then turns out that the "fruit friends" are humans, and as the final survivor you must escape from Lamu before he devours you too.]]
* ''VideoGame/IrisuSyndrome''. On the surface: a cutesy, if NintendoHard, FallingBlocks game, starring bunny girl Irisu. [[spoiler:Who is a mentally unstable bunny girl who has to fight off her urge to kill her friends (which the block game symbolizes), an urge that her crush/boyfriend [[BigBad Uujima Satoshi]] tries to encourage, and in the bad endings, she gives in to her urges.]]
* ''VideoGame/NeedyStreamerOverload'' starts off as a colorful and peppy raising SIM where you aim to turn a girl called Ame into an internet celebrity, with a fittingly cheerful theme song, "Internet Overdose". Once you go further in however, the game starts showing its true nature as a [[RealismInducedHorror depressingly realistic portrayal of a mentally ill girl struggling to manage herself and how far people can go on the internet]]. Then you reach some of the endings, which [[spoiler:feature nasty stuff among the lines of Ame committing suicide, losing her mind over haters and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking starting a conspiracy cult]]]]... and once you have the fortitude to unlock all the endings, you reach the true ending, which [[TheEndingChangesEverything changes everything you know upside-down]]. [[spoiler:Ame was actually a schizophirenic who invented your in-game identity "P-Chan" as the voice on your head and you ''are'' Ame all along. This automatically puts a darker and cynical twist to the meanings of many endings, including ones that are seemingly optimistic.]]
* At first glance, ''VideoGame/MrTomatos'' seems like a harmless-looking {{Expy}} of the "Hungry Pumpkin" Flash game, but should you anger the eponymous tomato enough times or feed him enough food with his anger meter below 10, [[spoiler:the game, especially Mr. Tomatos himself, suddenly takes on a more sinister and creepy atmosphere]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'', despite being billed as a horror game and having an eerie beginning, starts out innocuously as the titular protagonist meets his quirky friends and an equally quirky cast of characters at the playground. After a skirmish with a HarmlessVillain and some [[TheGoomba Sprout Moles]], Basil shows off his photo album to everyone, detailing their fun memories. Everything seems fine and child-friendly… until Basil drops one photo, looks at it, and starts freaking out, a shadow appears under him, and the screen glitches. Then Omori, back in White Space, ''stabs himself with a knife''. You are then transported to a dark house where an EldritchAbomination called Something attacks you. The rest of the game [[MoodWhiplash alternates]] between more quirky fun and SurrealHorror dealing with themes like depression and suicide as the true nature of the game world slowly becomes apparent.
* Content warning at the beginning of the game notwithstanding, ''VideoGame/PromDreams'' begins as a fairly typical harem dating sim, complete with upbeat music, comedic scenes, and many of the genre's standard tropes. In fact, the player can win their chosen love interest's heart and make it to prom night without experiencing a single horrific element, [[spoiler:only for said love interest to be killed suddenly and brutally, without any way for the player to avoid it. From there, the game "resets" itself several times, sans the girl killed in each previous loop, with the atmosphere becoming more horrific as the dating sim plot gives way to a supernatural murder mystery.]]
* ''VideoGame/Shipwrecked64'': If not for the warning at the start of the game, you might mistake this game for a typical mascot platformer... at least, until some of the "artifacts" like disturbing images of Bucky start popping up.
* ''VideoGame/SpookysJumpScareMansion'' presents itself as a DefangedHorrors [[AffectionateParody parody]] of horror games, where you navigate the house of the titular CuteGhostGirl, and at most you get startled by [[PokeThePoodle cute cardboard cutouts]]. That is until you progress further into the game, where you encounter the ''actual'' monsters and come across [[ApocalypticLog various notes left by previous travelers]]. Spooky herself is also heavily implied to be [[CuteAndPsycho not what she seems]].
* In ''VideoGame/SuperSurpriseParty'', the colors and visuals are all cute and sweet, from the smiling party-guests to the gumdrop rain. But the actual game is a PsychologicalHorror, with a creepy, short-tempered narrator and a location-tracking gimmick.
* ''VideoGame/YummyBreakfast'' starts out cute and simple, with a girl just trying to make herself a "yummy breakfast". It takes a turn for the creepy as she gets more and more desperate for food, resorting to eating live animals and [[spoiler:a girl.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* Although ''VisualNovel/CookingCompanions'' is openly advertised as a Horror story, it starts off rather cutesy with its Chompette mascots and bonding with your fellow hikers before the inevitable craving for fresh meat arises...
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', ostensibly a cutesy RomanceGame, ''starts'' with requiring you to accept a warning for disturbing content, but the game remains light-hearted and cheerful for long enough
link so that it still comes as a massive shock when [[spoiler:the player character finds Sayori's [[DrivenToSuicide hanging corpse]], and points to the game restarts. From that point onwards, the game starts getting ''very'' [[OminousVisualGlitch glitchy]] and bloody as the girls reveal their {{Dark And Troubled Past}}s and deteriorate into {{Yandere}}s]]. Becomes blackly HilariousInHindsight once you find out that [[spoiler:all the creepy glitching in Act 2 comes from the fact that [[BigBad Monika]] is trying to reprogram the game but is HopelessWithTech]].
* On the surface, ''VisualNovel/DontToyWithMe'' is a cute story about two adorable LivingToys learning to befriend each other in spite of their differences. [[spoiler:Then the owner starts playing favorites and antagonizing the other toy, and it eventually leads to one of them snapping and murdering the other, with one of the routes revealing that the owner has previously killed other toys for not getting along with Dahlia.]]
* ''VisualNovel/FromTheSunToTheMoon'' starts out like your standard cute dating simulator, only to rapidly shift into themes of BodyHorror, child abuse and CosmicHorror as the plot progresses.
* ''VisualNovel/HowToDateAMagicalGirl'', A cute game about going to a school for magical girls and looking for love until it suddenly becomes a murder mystery game.
* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' has an ominous intro but otherwise starts off as a brightly colored visual novel about a teenage boy and his friends in their early '80s rural village. But ''Higurashi'' is not a ComingOfAgeStory and is especially not a romance visual novel. It's a mystery-murdery franchise, which becomes more obvious when Keiichi finds a newspaper talking about a murder that happened a few years ago.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''WebVideo/{{Petscop}}'' is a fictional LetsPlay series wherein Paul plays what starts as a fun [[ObviousBeta (albeit unfinished)]] game about collecting pets and finding them homes, with a colorful pastel environment called the Gift Plane, happy music, and overall looking every bit like the kid-friendly time-waster that was so common in the [=PS1=] era. There are a few hints of something off (like the fact that the pets are scared of the PlayerCharacter), but it seems harmless. Until, that is, Paul enters a cheat code in the room of one of the pets. The music [[SuddenSoundtrackStop suddenly stops]], and Paul ventures outside Even Care to find not the peaceful-looking Gift Plane, but a darker, mysterious new world called the Newmaker Plane. From then on, ''Petscop'' moves to a dark and twisted story involving themes of child abuse/neglect and cryptic events that [[spoiler: Paul himself]] is a key figure in.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSER3yml1iM Pokopokopikotan]] is an adorable stop motion video of two little paper girls on a bright setting. At least, at first...
* The entirety of the ''WebVideo/DontHugMeImScared'' series. It starts out innocently enough, with ''Series/SesameStreet'' style puppets discussing different themes in a really catchy song. By the end... well, let's just say things go [[SurrealHorror a bit too far]].
-->[[LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain "Now let's all agree / To never be creative again."]]
[[/folder]]
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[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/GeometryDash https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/everythingisfine.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Oh, this looks like fun![[labelnote: Wait...]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/everythingisnotfine.png GAH! Nevermind![[/labelnote]]]]
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A work has a scary or disturbing image, scene, portion, etc. that clashes with the prior tone of the work. Sometimes it's brief and the rest of the work goes back to being the way it was before, while other times this thing happens to signal [[CerebusSyndrome the story getting much darker from then on]].

This hits hard because you would ''never'' expect to see something like that in a work like this -- especially if said work hails from the AnimationAgeGhetto. It's one thing to see a work that advertises itself as outright horror, since it at least prepares the audience for what is yet to come. But it's another to see one that features cute little bunnies and elves on the cover, only for the setting to suddenly become a [[WarIsHell war-torn wasteland]] straight out of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI or a horrifying EldritchLocation, complete with characters having {{Cruel and Unusual Death}}s left and right.

Don't expect the publicity for the work to give away these moments, either.

Other works may deliberately invoke it by setting up a bright, colorful, or serene tone and atmosphere to lure viewers into a false sense of security, then abruptly dropping the facade for maximum impact. One such type of work is the SubvertedKidsShow, which often employs a stereotypical, SugarBowl-like aesthetic in order to make the subsequent twist even more jarring.

A SubTrope of MoodWhiplash and NightmareFuel. Related to WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids (works that are disturbing but family friendly), WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids (mistaking a work for being family friendly), CrapsaccharineWorld (when the contrast is intentional, usually the whole world setting or certain places), BleakLevel (when the Surprise Creepy is in the form of a stage), ArtStyleDissonance, BackstoryHorror and GutPunch (although this can be overlapped with this trope). Also compare with CuteCreatureCreepyMouth for individual characters.

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[[caption-width-right:350:Oh, this looks like fun![[labelnote: Wait...]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/everythingisnotfine.png GAH! Nevermind![[/labelnote]]]]
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A work has a scary or disturbing image, scene, portion, etc. that clashes with the prior tone
The purpose of the work. Sometimes it's brief and the rest of the work goes back to being the way it was before, while other times this thing happens to signal [[CerebusSyndrome the a horror story getting much darker from then on]].

This hits hard because you would ''never'' expect
is to see something like that in a work like this -- especially if said work hails from the AnimationAgeGhetto. It's one thing to see a work that advertises itself as outright horror, since it at least prepares scare the audience for what is yet to come. But it's another to see one that features cute little bunnies and elves scares rely, on some level, on the cover, only for element of surprise- the setting to suddenly become a [[WarIsHell war-torn wasteland]] straight out of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI or a horrifying EldritchLocation, complete with characters having {{Cruel and Unusual Death}}s left and right.

Don't expect
more unexpected the publicity for scare, the more impact it has. But there lies a problem- an audience experiencing a horror story fully expects to be scared or exposed to horror tropes, since that's what they came for. While this doesn't necessarily lessen the impact too much, as the story can still be effectively scary, an upcoming horror writer might decide they want to maximize the impact of the horror by making it as unexpected as possible.

Enter the Disguised Horror Story- a
work to give away these moments, either.

Other works may deliberately invoke it by setting
in the horror genre that masquerades as a non-horror work. It sets up a bright, colorful, or serene tone and atmosphere to lure viewers into a false sense of security, then abruptly dropping drops the facade for maximum impact. One such type of work is the SubvertedKidsShow, which often employs a stereotypical, SugarBowl-like aesthetic in order to make the subsequent twist even more jarring.

A SubTrope
jarring. The marketing can further enhance the effect by [[NeverTrustATrailer intentionally hiding the true nature of MoodWhiplash the work]] and NightmareFuel. Related playing up its saccharine elements- though just as many [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil give away the story's true nature]] in order to WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids (works attract horror fans who might otherwise ignore it.

While these can show up in any genre, they are most frequently independently-produced Video Games and Visual Novels. Part of this is because big studios are frequently reluctant to take such a risk as deliberately misleading their audience as to the genre of a work, whereas indie games are far friendlier to experimentation. The other reason is
that are disturbing but family friendly), WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids (mistaking a work many such games take inspiration from the massively popular ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', which exploded in popularity for being family friendly), CrapsaccharineWorld (when its macabre subversion of the contrast DatingSim.

Compare SurprisinglyCreepyMoment, which
is intentional, usually the whole world setting a horror-like moment or certain places), BleakLevel (when the Surprise Creepy is in the form section of a stage), ArtStyleDissonance, BackstoryHorror and GutPunch (although this can be overlapped with this trope). Also compare with CuteCreatureCreepyMouth for individual characters.
an otherwise non-horror work.



!!Examples:

to:

!!Examples:!Examples:






* ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'' is an initially charming HumongousMecha show with child protagonists. [[spoiler:All of those kids are going down, and you'd need to use factorials to calculate how many universes get completely destroyed over the course of the series]].
* ''Anime/DigimonTamers'' starts out with a more slice-of-life approach compared to the previous ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' series, with a heavy focus on Guilmon, Terriermon, and Calumon doing adorable things. After a little while you see a few hints at darker subjects, but nothing much worse than previous ''Digimon'' series. Then [[spoiler:that cute mischievous HarmlessVillain Impmon makes a DealWithTheDevil and kills off Jeri's partner Digimon. The D-Reaper shows up and tortures Jeri to feed on her grief. Cue CosmicHorrorReveal.]] Can you believe that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAiqmvP5uVs this clip]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL3_quHFUF8 this clip]] are from the same series?
* ''Anime/DoraemonTheRecordOfNobitasParallelVisitToTheWest'', for the most part, starts off really cutesy-looking like all previous Doraemon films, until the revelation that their time-traveling antics had changed the past, leading to a ripple effect where in the present, the world's population have been replaced by demons. First, their friends and parents start spouting horns. Then, Nobita's parents serves him fried frogs and lizard soup. Later on, Nobita's Sensei publicly turns into a green-skinned, red-eyed, ferocious horned demon in a moment worthy of a JumpScare, and it gets worse form there.
* ''Manga/GingaNagareboshiGin'', being a Shounen manga about dogs and with an anime adaptation made by Creator/ToeiAnimation (''Franchise/DragonBall'', ''Anime/SailorMoon'', etc), it can be easily mistaken for your typical kid-friendly adventure involving [[TalkingAnimal cute talking dogs]]. Then you meet [[BearsAreBadNews the bears]], and that misconception gets cleared up very, ''very'' fast...
* ''Manga/GoodnightPunpun'' has a cartoony bird-looking protagonist who starts off as an optimistic little boy. But, as the chapters go on, the more mature elements of the ComingOfAgeStory come to light. It also has creepy visuals, especially when Punpun feels dark.
* If all you know about ''[[VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry Higurashi]]'' is the cover, you will be very surprised by the beginning of the first episode, and troubled by the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRtsIJXrhqc vaguely sinister]] opening credits, but the bulk of the episode will seem like a typical SliceOfLife comedy featuring a boy who has recently moved to a cheerful small town and befriended four female classmates... but before the first episode is over, the boy has realized he's living in a TownWithADarkSecret, and everything starts spinning out of control, and by the end of the fourth episode, [[spoiler: ''half of the main characters have died gruesomely, including the DecoyProtagonist'', and you realize the beginning of the first episode ''[[HowWeGotHere showed you that this was going to happen]]'']]. And then the fifth episode begins with one of the younger main characters [[spoiler: stabbing herself to death with a huge knife for no apparent reason]], and after the opening credits, [[MoodWhiplash it's back to light-hearted comedy.]]
* ''Manga/HunterXHunter'' starts off seeming like your typical Shonen adventure series...until people start dying horribly. The series in general has a dark and gritty tone, macabre imagery, mentally disturbed characters (some good, some bad, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality some all over the place]]), and violence that's graphic, even by Shonen standards. The creepiness even extends to the main protagonist, an [[{{Moe}} adorable]] young boy with a dark side of his own.
* ''Anime/ImGonnaBeAnAngel'': Painfully sweet, cutesy, silly and looks like it was made for some toy store line. By the end of the series, the darkness and creepiness, will make many cringe off. [[spoiler:And there's a pretty explicit yaoi innuendo going on there too.]]



* The ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' series certainly ''looks'' like your average innocuous MagicalGirl series at first, but quickly turns into an illustration of the darker sides of real life and what having superpowers [[WithGreatPower can actually mean]], as well as how the innocence of youth can be easily torn away. The scene with [[spoiler:Precia Testarossa ''mercilessly whipping Fate'' for [[YouHaveFailedMe failing her]] ]] was one hell of a wakeup call.



* ''Anime/MagicalWitchPuniechan'' features a magical princess sent to a high school in the human world as part of her princess training. She has a cute talking animal side-kick, a magic wand, and the ability to animate vegetables into evil minions (or to jump into whatever she's cooking). This adorable little girl wrestles opponents with the intention of breaking bones, says "submission is a princess's way!", and her animal sidekick, who was forced to be her pet after she kicked the tar out of him, constantly wants to kill her. Within the magical kingdom, not everything is so magical; for instance, an army of slaves is used to move trains. None of this is ever shocking to Puni, but her normal human companions are often either stunned or frightened.
* ''Anime/MasterOfMartialHearts'' seems to just be a typical PantyFighter tournament series for the first four episodes, but there are hints that the Platonic Heart tournament is NotJustATournament. The final episode comes with the grisly reveal that [[spoiler:all the losers are kidnapped and drugged to become {{Sex Slave}}s, and the losers of this tournament are shown in full detail having been drugged so thoroughly that they are laughing like crazy, completely brain dead as their handers treat them like pets, and Aya is aghast at what has been done to them (especially since one of them is her chemistry teacher)]], all while creepy music plays in the background.
* One morning, NHK aired an anime with a scene of a cute adorable angel, which suddenly transforms into a [[HumanoidAbomination creepy demonic form]]. And yes, it was part of a [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids kids' show]]. Must be [[https://honeysanime.com/the-horrifying-childrens-anime-that-aired-on-morning-nhk/ seen]] to be believed.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** Ah, ''Manga/PokemonAdventures''. It's one of the closest adaptations in terms of spirit, so it's probably a kid-friendly story about an eleven-year-old who roams the countryside to be a Pokémon mast- holy shit, is that a rotting Psyduck zombie?! [[spoiler:Oh, God. Are the [[KnightTemplar Elite Four]] planning to commit genocide [[WellIntentionedExtremist in order to preserve the world for Pokémon]]?!]] And who's that creepy masked guy?!
** ''Manga/PokemonDiamondAndPearlAdventure'' is a fairly normal ''Pokémon'' story about a friendly WildChild going on an adventure with his Piplup. Partway through the series is when the more unnerving elements begin popping up. Namely, Mitsumi's DarkAndTroubledPast as [[spoiler:a CreepyChild orphan raised by Team Galactic's leader Cyrus as a TykeBomb]]. It's as disturbing as it sounds. Mitsumi is then blackmailed by Team Galactic into siding with them again, where she's forced to give a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown to Hareta's Pokémon ''and'' Hareta himself. The arc ends with Mitsumi [[spoiler:attempting to [[DrivenToSuicide invoke]] RedemptionEqualsDeath]], but luckily she's [[InterruptedSuicide saved]].
* ''Anime/PrincessTutu'' starts off looking like a sugary-sweet, very cute ballet-themed MagicalGirl show in a very picturesque town that has Cat instructors, and [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins a Penguin that plays piano]] - then the crows come, then let's not get into [[WhamEpisode the Finale of Season One]] [[MoodWhiplash or all of]] [[CerebusSyndrome Season Two]]
* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': A {{Ridiculously Cute|Critter}} WeaselMascot [[CartoonCreature or whatever]] offers to make a deal to [[MakeAWish grant a young girl's wish]] and [[MagicalGirlWarrior give her powers beyond imagination.]] Every episode after [[MoodWhiplash the third]] is a WhamEpisode. Even before then, it's still quite creepy, as the protagonists are fighting Witches that look like [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] and can MindRape innocent people until they're DrivenToSuicide.
* ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena,'' which poses so convincingly as a bog-standard MagicalGirl series that the first company to try translating it marketed it as such ... then changed their mind hurriedly [[WhamEpisode at the start of the second season]]
* ''Manga/SatouKashiNoDanganWaUchinukenai'' starts off with a thirteen year old girl who befriends her {{cloudcuckoolander}} new classmate. It ends with [[spoiler:the classmate being killed and dismembered by her abusive dad]].
* ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'' starts out as a cute teenage love story about a guy trying to get a girl with help from his friend. When he does finally get her, he does a bad thing, and things spiral out of control as the series gets much darker and depressing and loses all traces of its cheerfulness. This all culminates in the final episode with [[spoiler: is girlfriend, having just murdered his own friend, snuggling his disembodied head.]]

to:

* ''Anime/MagicalWitchPuniechan'' features a magical princess sent to a high school in the human world as part of her princess training. She has a cute talking animal side-kick, a magic wand, and the ability to animate vegetables into evil minions (or to jump into whatever she's cooking). This adorable little girl wrestles opponents with the intention of breaking bones, says "submission is a princess's way!", and her animal sidekick, who was forced to be her pet after she kicked the tar out of him, constantly wants to kill her. Within the magical kingdom, not everything is so magical; for instance, an army of slaves is used to move trains. None of this is ever shocking to Puni, but her normal human companions are often either stunned or frightened.
* ''Anime/MasterOfMartialHearts'' seems to just be a typical PantyFighter tournament series for the first four episodes, but there are hints that the Platonic Heart tournament is NotJustATournament. The final episode comes with the grisly reveal that [[spoiler:all the losers are kidnapped and drugged to become {{Sex Slave}}s, and the losers of this tournament are shown in full detail having been drugged so thoroughly that they are laughing like crazy, completely brain dead as their handers treat them like pets, and Aya is aghast at what has been done to them (especially since one of them is her chemistry teacher)]], all while creepy music plays in the background.
* One morning, NHK aired an anime with a scene of a cute adorable angel, which suddenly transforms into a [[HumanoidAbomination creepy demonic form]]. And yes, it was part of a [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids kids' show]]. Must be [[https://honeysanime.com/the-horrifying-childrens-anime-that-aired-on-morning-nhk/ seen]] to be believed.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** Ah, ''Manga/PokemonAdventures''. It's one of the closest adaptations in terms of spirit, so it's probably a kid-friendly story about an eleven-year-old who roams the countryside to be a Pokémon mast- holy shit, is that a rotting Psyduck zombie?! [[spoiler:Oh, God. Are the [[KnightTemplar Elite Four]] planning to commit genocide [[WellIntentionedExtremist in order to preserve the world for Pokémon]]?!]] And who's that creepy masked guy?!
** ''Manga/PokemonDiamondAndPearlAdventure'' is a fairly normal ''Pokémon'' story about a friendly WildChild going on an adventure with his Piplup. Partway through the series is when the more unnerving elements begin popping up. Namely, Mitsumi's DarkAndTroubledPast as [[spoiler:a CreepyChild orphan raised by Team Galactic's leader Cyrus as a TykeBomb]]. It's as disturbing as it sounds. Mitsumi is then blackmailed by Team Galactic into siding with them again, where she's forced to give a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown to Hareta's Pokémon ''and'' Hareta himself. The arc ends with Mitsumi [[spoiler:attempting to [[DrivenToSuicide invoke]] RedemptionEqualsDeath]], but luckily she's [[InterruptedSuicide saved]].
* ''Anime/PrincessTutu'' starts off looking like a sugary-sweet, very cute ballet-themed MagicalGirl show in a very picturesque town that has Cat instructors, and [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins a Penguin that plays piano]] - then the crows come, then let's not get into [[WhamEpisode the Finale of Season One]] [[MoodWhiplash or all of]] [[CerebusSyndrome Season Two]]
* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': A The show initially appears to be, and was marketed as, just another cutesy MagicalGirlWarrior series, to the point that the creators actively tried to hide the involvement of Creator/GenUrobuchi (a writer famous for his grim and depressing stories). In the series, a {{Ridiculously Cute|Critter}} WeaselMascot [[CartoonCreature or whatever]] offers to make a deal to [[MakeAWish grant a young girl's wish]] and [[MagicalGirlWarrior give her powers beyond imagination.]] Every episode after [[MoodWhiplash imagination in return for fighting evil entities and saving the third]] is a WhamEpisode. Even before then, it's still quite creepy, as world. But the protagonists are fighting Witches that look like [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] and can MindRape innocent people until they're DrivenToSuicide.
* ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena,'' which poses so convincingly as
DrivenToSuicide, and it becomes a bog-standard MagicalGirl series GenreDeconstruction that the first company to try translating it marketed it as such ... then changed shows just how psychologically damaging their mind hurriedly [[WhamEpisode at the start of the second season]]
* ''Manga/SatouKashiNoDanganWaUchinukenai'' starts off with a thirteen year old girl who befriends her {{cloudcuckoolander}} new classmate. It ends with [[spoiler:the classmate being killed and dismembered by her abusive dad]].
* ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'' starts out as a cute teenage love story about a guy trying to get a girl with help from his friend. When he does finally get her, he does a bad thing, and things spiral out of control as the series gets much darker and depressing and loses all traces of its cheerfulness. This all culminates in the final episode with [[spoiler: is girlfriend, having just murdered his own friend, snuggling his disembodied head.]]
job actually is.



* ''Manga/ShadowStar'' seems at first like a cute little story about a girl and her pet dragon-thingy. Then it starts going horribly wrong...
* The ''Anime/TamaAndFriends'' anime adaptation ''Do You Know my Tama?'' is a slice of life anime featuring dogs and cats playing together. Although lighthearted in nature, that doesn't mean it doesn't have its creepy moments. For example, there's a VerySpecialEpisode in which a curse is put upon the people of the third district regarding a little girl and her dog Shiro, who tragically ended up being two of the 129,000-226,000 casualties of the bombings. Tama's owner Takeshi has nightmares about her in the [[AChristmasCarol Christmas Carol]]-type first part. The girl's ghost even holds Tama hostage and threatens to kill him.
** In the episode's second part, Pochi is possessed by a haunted collar, which belonged to Shiro before he and his owner were killed by one of the atomic bombs. Shiro is revealed to be a really terrifying-looking ghost dog once the collar is taken off of Pochi by Takeshi - essentially exhausting the former and causing him not to be able to see it. Thankfully, his ghost owner changes him back to the kind of loving dog he was when he was alive and apologizes for all the trouble they caused.
** Although this take on one of the events that ended the second world war was [[LighterAndSofter much tamer]] compared to Barefoot Gen - especially being a kids' anime, you can see why Creator/FourKidsEntertainment decided to skip the episode when they acquired the series due to it being inspired by such a nightmarish true event. And fittingly enough, the creators of the ''Tama & Friends'' franchise, {{Creator/Sony}}, helped rebuild Japan when they were founded after both the war and the bombings.
* The ''Manga/{{Unico}}'' manga series by Creator/OsamuTezuka is a children's fantasy series about a baby unicorn who wants to be friends and has the PowerOfLove and able to spread happiness to others. While [[SugarWiki/AwesomeArt the setting and locations is beautifully designed]], the villains are terrifying and do some [[BodyHorror messed up stuff to]] [[AndIMustScream Unico his friends]]. The two animated Unico movies by [[Creator/{{Sanrio}} Sanrio Animation]] dials up the manga's creepy imagery with the second film (''Anime/UnicoInTheIslandOfMagic'') [[DarkerAndEdgier containing a much darker storyline]] compared to the previous film.
* ''Manga/WingsOfVendemiaire'' is about charming little living puppets going through horrible, horrible things.



[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/GhostRider'' is creepier than expected from the Franchise/MarvelUniverse. With a gallery of mostly upbeat superheroes like ''ComicBook/IronMan'' and ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'', you suddenly come across a leather-wearing, flaming, living skeleton.
* If you go by (especially early) advertisements and fan descriptions of ''Comicbook/LokiAgentOfAsgard'' it's a light-hearted, colorful, fanservicey comic where Loki turns into a unicorn (issue #8) or goes speed dating (issue #2) while trying to earn their redemption. Besides what can possibly be creepy in a comic that opens with a shower scene and a filked song from Theatre/{{Wicked}}? Well, let's take a look at the cover of [[http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20150316004454/marveldatabase/images/a/a9/Loki_Agent_of_Asgard_Vol_1_12.jpg issue #12.]] The first surprise creepiness actually comes at the end of issue #1 where the [[VileVillainSaccharineShow villain is revealed]] and then the series systematically trolls the readership and slowly but surely spirals downward into the darkness that reaches its "peak" in issues #10-#12 subsequent issues being a rebound but still rife with creepy *cough*[[AndThenJohnWasAZombie legions-of-Hel]]*cough*.
* ''ComicBook/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicIDW''. The cartoon has its DarkerAndEdgier moments, but they're few and far between. The first story arc has Ponyville being invaded by [[TheFairFolk Changelings]], the Cutie Mark Crusaders being imprisoned (although this is somewhat PlayedForLaughs), and ''genocide'' of some {{Ridiculously Cute Critter}}s (yes, really). The second arc features the ponies being ForcedToWatch [[MindRape their worst nightmares]] whenever they fall asleep and [[spoiler:Rarity]] being corrupted by an EldritchAbomination. If you want cute and funny stories about ponies, you're better off getting the ''ComicBook/MyLittlePonyMicroSeries''.
* ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'': Hey look, a comic with Donald Duck as a superhero. Man, this is [[AffectionateParody gonna be so funny]]... Wait, did those alien vampires just conquer an alien world and transform everybody into zombies? And now they are heading toward Earth?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' has its moments, often due to freaky imagery and [[https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a3/3b/12/a33b128670a070ad90b8226feb862297.jpg disturbing scenarios]] [[https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/31/6f/54/316f54d548e85b09ce1dfc82b891a376.jpg from Calvin's imagination]].
* The week-long ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' StoryArc where he wakes up one morning and finds his home inexplicably empty and decrepit, as though no one has lived there for years, and images of the people he knows fade into nothingness as he approaches them. Yeah, Jim Davis was really going for a FormulaBreakingEpisode in those strips.
[[/folder]]



* ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainBlossomverse'':
** ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainBlossomingTrail'' initially starts off with Chloe Cerise heading on a brand new adventure on the Train with a corgi king and a paper book that's dressed up as the TallDarkAndHandsome boy of Chloe's dreams (er, nightmares). Then Act 2 and 3 add psychological horror aspects into the mix and Chloe's end goal eventually goes from "finding herself and hoping to stop an evil cult" to, "saving said cult and three other trainers from being sacrificed within the ''Franchise/SilentHill'' car".
** ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainKnightOfTheOrangeLily'', the prequel to ''Blossoming Trail'' is about Gladion wanting to prove that he's a knight and hope to end the Apex. But not even the ''fourth car'' into the story does it change from him valiantly stopping the Apex to delving into nightmares with his group in an atttempt to stop the Apex from killing other denizens and Act 2 has them visit the Silent Hill car...with the events there ''even darker'' than what Chloe ever had to face.
* ''[[https://www.deviantart.com/whiskersdadeviantkat/art/Luffy-Selects-the-Bees-905670607 Luffy Selects the Bees]]'' starts out as a CrackFic, then [[spoiler: Luffy is dragged off to a "[[BeeAfraid Bee Room]]" where he undergoes several tasks. At the end, he decides to be sacrificed to a bee god to avoid undergoing an AndIMustScream fate where he would be turned into a bee and forced to gather pollen and nectar. Plus, the mysterious hooded figure known as the Hooded Beemaster that puts Luffy through all this is revealed to be Tony Tony Chopper.]]
* ''Fanfic/MarieDSuesseAndTheMysteryNewPirateAge'' starts off like a [[SelfInsertFic "Girl falls into]] ''Manga/OnePiece''" adventure, until the main character finds themselves alone on the ''[[GhostShip Thousand Sunny]]'' with the crew mysteriously gone missing. Then weird things start happening, a disembodied voice starts singing, and [[spoiler: the hostile Klabauterman shows up...]] Things only get darker and creepier from that point on. It's all the more unexpected because based on the first chapter and summary you would have thought the story was just a ParodySue rant.
* ''Blog/{{Moonstuck}}'', aside from the occasional appearance of [[EnemyWithout Dark Woona]], is a silly and fun romp across the moon with Woona making lots of friends and [[MST3KMantra things that don't make sense]]. The final boss fight -- and the lead up to it -- is shockingly dark and depressing even without comparing it to the rest of the story, with one of the most terrifying portrayals of [[spoiler:Discord]] that the fandom has ''ever'' produced.
* The prologue of ''VideoGame/PokemonRejuvenation'' starts off quite innocently, with you playing as a little girl in an adorable SliceOfLife. [[spoiler:Then the cultists appear.]]
** The actual game qualifies, too: it starts off with you and your mother on a cruise ship travelling to the Aevium Region (where the game takes place), which is filled with humorous little moments and easter eggs. [[spoiler:Then the villainous team, Team Xen, shows up and ''[[KnightOfCerebus detonates a bomb on the ship]]'', which causes the boat to sink and most of the people to get captured.]]
* The ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'' chapter "Playtime" is mostly lighthearted, focusing on [[spoiler:the Mane Cast talking with Princess Gaia as if she were simply Fluttershy and the foals that Ponyville has been turned into just playing around. Then Princess Gaia's facade shatters, [[OneWingedAngel revealing her true form]], [[BodyHorror Nightmare]] [[EldritchAbomination Whisper.]]]]

to:

* ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainBlossomverse'':
** ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainBlossomingTrail'' initially starts off with Chloe Cerise heading on a brand new adventure on the Train with a corgi king and a paper book that's dressed up as the TallDarkAndHandsome boy of Chloe's dreams (er, nightmares). Then Act 2 and 3 add psychological horror aspects into the mix and Chloe's end goal eventually goes from "finding herself and hoping
''VideoGame/RegularPasta'' seems to stop an evil cult" to, "saving said cult and three other trainers from be more comedic despite being sacrificed within the ''Franchise/SilentHill'' car".
** ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainKnightOfTheOrangeLily'', the prequel to ''Blossoming Trail'' is about Gladion wanting to prove that he's a knight and hope to end the Apex. But not even the ''fourth car''
inserted into the story does it change from him valiantly stopping the Apex to delving into nightmares with his group a {{creepypasta}}-themed contest. Mario is chilling in an atttempt to stop the Apex from killing other denizens a pasta restaurant and Act 2 has them visit the Silent Hill car...with the events there ''even darker'' than what Chloe ever had to face.
* ''[[https://www.deviantart.com/whiskersdadeviantkat/art/Luffy-Selects-the-Bees-905670607 Luffy Selects the Bees]]'' starts out as a CrackFic, then [[spoiler: Luffy is dragged off to a "[[BeeAfraid Bee Room]]" where he undergoes several tasks. At the end, he
decides to be sacrificed go find Peach, who went inside a painting to a bee god to avoid undergoing an AndIMustScream fate alternate pasta dimension where he would be all their pasta is from. At first, everything seems relatively fine. Then Mario [[spoiler:finds Bowser's mutilated, dismembered corpse]] and learns that reality itself is being torn apart, and it gets darker from there culminating in a fight against [[spoiler:the princess herself having turned into a bee and forced to gather pollen and nectar. Plus, the mysterious hooded figure known as the Hooded Beemaster that puts Luffy through all this is revealed to be Tony Tony Chopper.]]
* ''Fanfic/MarieDSuesseAndTheMysteryNewPirateAge'' starts off like a [[SelfInsertFic "Girl falls into]] ''Manga/OnePiece''" adventure, until the main character finds themselves alone on the ''[[GhostShip Thousand Sunny]]'' with the crew mysteriously gone missing. Then weird things start happening, a disembodied voice starts singing, and [[spoiler: the hostile Klabauterman shows up...]] Things only get darker and creepier from that point on. It's all the more unexpected because based on the first chapter and summary you would have thought the story was just a ParodySue rant.
* ''Blog/{{Moonstuck}}'', aside from the occasional appearance of [[EnemyWithout Dark Woona]], is a silly and fun romp across the moon with Woona making lots of friends and [[MST3KMantra things that don't make sense]]. The final boss fight -- and the lead up to it -- is shockingly dark and depressing even without comparing it to the rest of the story, with one of the most terrifying portrayals of [[spoiler:Discord]] that the fandom has ''ever'' produced.
* The prologue of ''VideoGame/PokemonRejuvenation'' starts off quite innocently, with you playing as a little girl in an adorable SliceOfLife. [[spoiler:Then the cultists appear.]]
** The actual game qualifies, too: it starts off with you and your mother on a cruise ship travelling to the Aevium Region (where the game takes place), which is filled with humorous little moments and easter eggs. [[spoiler:Then the villainous team, Team Xen, shows up and ''[[KnightOfCerebus detonates a bomb on the ship]]'', which causes the boat to sink and most of the people to get captured.]]
* The ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'' chapter "Playtime" is mostly lighthearted, focusing on [[spoiler:the Mane Cast talking with Princess Gaia as if she were simply Fluttershy and the foals that Ponyville has been turned into just playing around. Then Princess Gaia's facade shatters, [[OneWingedAngel revealing her true form]], [[BodyHorror Nightmare]] [[EldritchAbomination Whisper.]]]]
MechanicalAbomination]].



* ''VideoGame/SuperFillyAdventure'' is a fun little ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fangame that has you attend one of Pinkie Pie's parties and save Ponyville with your flank-kicking combat abilities. Even the "bad" ending where you become so obsessed with baking muffins that Ponyville burns down is far more silly than disturbing. [[spoiler:Then you discover the secret "Blank Flank" ending, which is accessible only if you play the game at a very late hour...]]



* While a few things about ''Fanfic/TokimekiPokeLiveAndTwinbee'' qualify, the most shocking moment for that universe by far is when [[WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM Sally]] [[ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics Acorn]] reveals that [[spoiler:Mobius was destroyed by an invasion of [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Ultra]] [[VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon Beasts]]]]! Quite possibly the most Nintendo-ish piece of MoodWhiplash to come from what is otherwise a fun, humorous adaptation of a mobile game based on an anime about idols who promote their school from [[{{Creator/Bushiroad}} a company]] that doesn't have much in the way of dark/edgy franchises!



[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain'' is a funny {{Claymation}} movie with lots of bright colors (although even the animation can be [[UnintentionalUncannyValley fairly creepy]]), but it takes a very dark turn after the kids encounter Literature/TheMysteriousStranger. That segment is so terrifying that it frequently gets cut from TV showings (but on the other hand, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntf5_ue2Lzw it went viral on]] Website/YouTube, precisely ''[[CreepyAwesome because]]'' it's so disturbing).
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBraveLittleToaster''. Right off the bat we have [[spoiler:Air Conditioner raging himself to death]], there's the NightmareSequence involving a MonsterClown, then they get trapped in a repair shop where the owner dismantles one of them in a scene framed like a horrific murder complete with a [[GoryDiscretionShot "Gore" Discretion Shot]] and a "corpse" dripping "blood", and then near the end of the film there's a musical number in which [[spoiler:anthropomorphic cars are singing about how worthless they are as they are being crushed to death, complete with one ''committing suicide''.]]
* The dead from ''WesternAnimation/CorpseBride'' are anything ''but'' scary or even creepy. They're lively, upbeat, and a hell of a lot more fun to be around than the so-called living. [[spoiler:Then they find out it was Lord Barkus who murdered Emily and suddenly careen ''rapidly'' into horror town, ending with Miss Plumm ominously saying "new arrival" as they literally [[DraggedOffToHell drag him to hell]].]]
* Creator/DonBluth films:
** ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNIMH'': Looks like a movie full of cutesy mice, [[spoiler:as well as several {{Family Unfriendly Death}}s, many of which are even ''bloody''.]]
** ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'': Looks like a movie with angel dogs: [[spoiler:all you have to do is watch the climax and Charlie's nightmare.]]
** ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'': Mostly fine, but Fievel's separation from his parents, whose hope in finding him wears thin quick, is rather sad. Then at the end, we see [[spoiler:the [[DerangedAnimation Giant Mouse Of Minsk]].]]
** ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'': Cute movie about dinosaurs... [[spoiler:The mother of one of them is killed by a T. rex, who in turn is drowned in a hot spring.]]
* Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon:
** ''WesternAnimation/MeetTheRobinsons''. The first 3/4s of the movie is full of colors, gleeful wackiness and literal bubbles. Then, just after what appears to be a daring rescue, the robot friend [[spoiler:gets speared through the chest and dies]], the main character's best friend[[spoiler:/future son disintegrates into nothingness]], the world has plummeted into despotic despair and slavery, and the main character's family, being [[spoiler:[[MindControl controlled via electronic hats]] that [[FacelessMooks cover their faces,]] starts trying to kill him by beating him off a very high fall.]] All in the space of about two minutes.
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}'' is the story of a cute little puppet boy and his journey to become human... which leads to the Pleasure Island subplot, which involves other boys getting lured into a seeming happy-looking place where they can misbehave and do what they want, [[spoiler:but then get turned into donkeys and shipped off to ''work themselves to death.'' We see a nightmare-inducing sequence where one boy screams and begs for help as he slowly and painfully transforms.]]
*** Even worse, unlike most Disney villains, the guy who runs Pleasure Island [[spoiler:[[KarmaHoudini gets off scot-free.]]]]
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Dumbo}}'' is a somewhat depressing story of a young elephant who is mocked for the size of his ears, but it's still presented in a cute and lighthearted fashion. [[spoiler:Then Dumbo gets drunk and starts to [[MushroomSamba hallucinate]], [[DerangedAnimation resulting in]] [[DisneyAcidSequence twisted]], [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs bizarre visions]] of [[PinkElephants ghost-like apparitions straight from Hell]].]]
-->Chase 'em away, chase 'em away! I'm afraid, need your aid, Pink Elephants on Parade...
** ''WesternAnimation/TheManyAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh''. It's a cute story about Pooh and his friends as they have adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood. Then Pooh falls asleep and [[spoiler:we get a NightmareSequence with [[DerangedAnimation technicolor shapeshifting elephants and weasels]].]]
*** And then there's the scene where Rabbit gets lost in the woods looking for Tigger, and all the woodland creatures' noises [[SanitySlippage start to get to him]]. As it turns out, this scene was animated by Creator/DonBluth.
*** Speaking of ''Winnie The Pooh'', ''WesternAnimation/PoohsGrandAdventure'' is a textbook example of this, as Pooh and his friends go through a NightmareFuel-filled quest that causes each one of their character traits to get completely deconstructed in a [[TearJerker heart-wrenching]] fashion.
** The Ichabod segment of ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfIchabodAndMrToad'' is lighthearted comedy...until the HeadlessHorseman shows up, at which point everything goes to hell.
** Disney movies, in general, can have this effect on people who have only ever heard of their reputation as family-friendly media.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Felidae}}'' starts cheerfully with the main feline protagonist, Francis, and his owner moving into a new neighborhood. [[spoiler:Then Francis [[MoodWhiplash encounters one of the many feline victims of a killing spree]] occurring throughout the film, has a nightmare involving marionettes made of ''cat corpses'', and the {{Big Bad}} gets his ''stomach cut open'' with his '''entrails falling out.''']]
* ''Anime/MomotarosDivineSeaWarriors'' starts out as a cutesy film with adorable animals, but once the title character shows up it turns into disturbing war propaganda.
* ''WesternAnimation/ParaNorman'' is mostly a FantasticComedy about hilariously ineffectual zombies and living characters who aren't any more competent, though the very realistic bullying Norman suffers stops it from being fully a comedy. Then the true nature of the "witch" is revealed, and suddenly everything in the film becomes a lot more horrifying.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rango}}'' starts out as a fairly light-hearted Western for kids, with only a few sinister villains to occasionally darken the skies. Then [[KnightOfCerebus Rattlesnake Jake]] shows up, a surprisingly intense and threatening villain for this kind of movie.
* ''Anime/RingingBell'', a movie (and children's book) aimed at children about a cheerful, [[SweetSheep adorable lamb with a bell around his neck]] frolicking in the meadows and having a very warm relationship with his mother. That is, until around the halfway point, where [[spoiler: the Wolf mentioned earlier bursts into the barn while his flock sleeps and kills some of the sheep, one of which is his mom, resulting in a heart-wrenching scene of him sobbing hysterically over her corpse. The lamb swears revenge and eventually gets groomed into a horrifying horned beast with a thirst for blood and a strong sense of nihilism. At the end, [[DownerEnding Chirin is driven away from his farm after killing the wolf.]]]] Not helping is that the story is based on Creator/TakashiYanase's experiences in World War II.
* The film version of ''Literature/WatershipDown'' starts out with a fun and interesting myth about the creation of the world by Frith and how the rabbits and other animals came to be. Then we flash to the main plot and get a group of animated rabbits, and it all looks like an enjoyable kid's movie about cute little bunnies until suddenly [[WaifProphet Fiver]] mentions something about the field being ''[[MoodWhiplash covered with blood]]''. It quickly [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids goes]] [[NightmareFuel downhill]] [[FamilyUnfriendlyViolence from]] [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath there]].

to:

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain'' is a funny {{Claymation}} movie with lots of bright colors (although even the animation can be [[UnintentionalUncannyValley fairly creepy]]), but it takes a very dark turn after the kids encounter Literature/TheMysteriousStranger. That segment is so terrifying that it frequently gets cut from TV showings (but on the other hand, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntf5_ue2Lzw it went viral on]] Website/YouTube, precisely ''[[CreepyAwesome because]]'' it's so disturbing).
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBraveLittleToaster''. Right off the bat we have [[spoiler:Air Conditioner raging himself to death]], there's the NightmareSequence involving a MonsterClown, then they get trapped in a repair shop where the owner dismantles one of them in a scene framed like a horrific murder complete with a [[GoryDiscretionShot "Gore" Discretion Shot]] and a "corpse" dripping "blood", and then near the end of the film there's a musical number in which [[spoiler:anthropomorphic cars are singing about how worthless they are as they are being crushed to death, complete with one ''committing suicide''.]]
* The dead from ''WesternAnimation/CorpseBride'' are anything ''but'' scary or even creepy. They're lively, upbeat, and a hell of a lot more fun to be around than the so-called living. [[spoiler:Then they find out it was Lord Barkus who murdered Emily and suddenly careen ''rapidly'' into horror town, ending with Miss Plumm ominously saying "new arrival" as they literally [[DraggedOffToHell drag him to hell]].]]
* Creator/DonBluth films:
** ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNIMH'': Looks like a movie full of cutesy mice, [[spoiler:as well as several {{Family Unfriendly Death}}s, many of which are even ''bloody''.]]
** ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'': Looks like a movie with angel dogs: [[spoiler:all you have to do is watch the climax and Charlie's nightmare.]]
** ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'': Mostly fine, but Fievel's separation from his parents, whose hope in finding him wears thin quick, is rather sad. Then at the end, we see [[spoiler:the [[DerangedAnimation Giant Mouse Of Minsk]].]]
** ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'': Cute movie about dinosaurs... [[spoiler:The mother of one of them is killed by a T. rex, who in turn is drowned in a hot spring.]]
* Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon:
** ''WesternAnimation/MeetTheRobinsons''.
The first 3/4s episode of the movie is full of colors, gleeful wackiness and literal bubbles. Then, just after what appears to be a daring rescue, the robot friend [[spoiler:gets speared through the chest and dies]], the main character's best friend[[spoiler:/future son disintegrates into nothingness]], the world has plummeted into despotic despair and slavery, and the main character's family, being [[spoiler:[[MindControl controlled via electronic hats]] that [[FacelessMooks cover their faces,]] ''Series/WandaVision'' starts trying to kill him by beating him off as a very high fall.]] All simple sitcom made in the space style of about two minutes.
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}'' is the story of
''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow''. However, during a cute little puppet boy [[DinnerWithTheBoss dinner with Vision's boss and his journey to become human... which leads to the Pleasure Island subplot, which involves other boys getting lured into a seeming happy-looking place wife]], Mr. Hart asks where they can misbehave Wanda and do what they want, [[spoiler:but then get turned into donkeys and shipped off to ''work themselves to death.'' We see a nightmare-inducing sequence where one boy screams and begs for help as he slowly and painfully transforms.]]
*** Even worse, unlike most Disney villains,
Vision came from, beginning the guy who runs Pleasure Island [[spoiler:[[KarmaHoudini gets off scot-free.]]]]
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Dumbo}}'' is a somewhat depressing story of a young elephant who is mocked for the size of his ears, but it's still presented in a cute and lighthearted fashion. [[spoiler:Then Dumbo gets drunk and starts to [[MushroomSamba hallucinate]], [[DerangedAnimation resulting in]] [[DisneyAcidSequence twisted]], [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs bizarre visions]] of [[PinkElephants ghost-like apparitions straight from Hell]].]]
-->Chase 'em away, chase 'em away! I'm afraid, need your aid, Pink Elephants on Parade...
** ''WesternAnimation/TheManyAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh''. It's a cute story about Pooh and his friends as they have adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood. Then Pooh falls asleep and [[spoiler:we get a NightmareSequence with [[DerangedAnimation technicolor shapeshifting elephants and weasels]].]]
*** And then there's the scene where Rabbit gets lost in the woods looking for Tigger, and all the woodland creatures' noises [[SanitySlippage start to get to him]]. As it turns out, this scene was animated by Creator/DonBluth.
*** Speaking of ''Winnie The Pooh'', ''WesternAnimation/PoohsGrandAdventure'' is a textbook example of this, as Pooh and his friends go through a NightmareFuel-filled quest that causes each one of their character traits to get completely deconstructed in a [[TearJerker heart-wrenching]] fashion.
** The Ichabod segment of ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfIchabodAndMrToad'' is lighthearted comedy...until the HeadlessHorseman shows up, at which point everything goes to hell.
** Disney movies, in general, can have this effect on people who have only ever heard of their reputation as family-friendly media.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Felidae}}'' starts cheerfully with the main feline protagonist, Francis, and his owner moving into a new neighborhood. [[spoiler:Then Francis [[MoodWhiplash encounters one of the many feline victims of a killing spree]] occurring throughout the film, has a nightmare involving marionettes made of ''cat corpses'', and the {{Big Bad}} gets his ''stomach cut open'' with his '''entrails falling out.''']]
* ''Anime/MomotarosDivineSeaWarriors'' starts out as a cutesy film with adorable animals, but once the title character shows up it turns into disturbing war propaganda.
* ''WesternAnimation/ParaNorman'' is mostly a FantasticComedy about hilariously ineffectual zombies and living characters who aren't any more competent, though the very realistic bullying Norman suffers stops it from being fully a comedy. Then the
unsettling, true nature of the "witch" is revealed, show as Wanda hesitates to answer, Mr. Hart nearly chokes to death on his food, and suddenly everything in the film becomes a lot more horrifying.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rango}}'' starts out as a fairly light-hearted Western for kids, with only a few sinister villains
his wife repeats "stop it" to occasionally darken the skies. Then [[KnightOfCerebus Rattlesnake Jake]] shows up, a surprisingly intense both her husband and threatening villain for this kind of movie.
* ''Anime/RingingBell'', a movie (and children's book) aimed at children about a cheerful, [[SweetSheep adorable lamb with a bell around his neck]] frolicking in the meadows and having a very warm relationship with his mother. That is, until around the halfway point, where [[spoiler: the Wolf mentioned earlier bursts into the barn while his flock sleeps and kills some of the sheep, one of which is his mom, resulting in a heart-wrenching scene of him sobbing hysterically over her corpse. The lamb swears revenge and eventually gets groomed into a horrifying horned beast with a thirst for blood and a strong sense of nihilism. At the end, [[DownerEnding Chirin is driven away from his farm after killing the wolf.]]]] Not helping is that the story is based on Creator/TakashiYanase's experiences in World War II.
* The film version of ''Literature/WatershipDown'' starts out with a fun and interesting myth about the creation of the world by Frith and how the rabbits and other animals came to be. Then we flash to the main plot and get a group of animated rabbits, and it all looks
soon Wanda like an enjoyable kid's movie about cute little bunnies until suddenly [[WaifProphet Fiver]] mentions something about a broken record. While the field being ''[[MoodWhiplash covered with blood]]''. It quickly [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids goes]] [[NightmareFuel downhill]] [[FamilyUnfriendlyViolence from]] [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath there]].tonal shift was brief, it doesn't last for long.



[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Movie adaptations of Creator/RoaldDahl's children's novels can reflect their source material in this manner depending on what's emphasized in the early going. While ''Literature/JamesAndTheGiantPeach'' and the 2005 version of ''Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' telegraph the darker undertones of the stories early on, consider 1971's ''Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory'': The sugary "The Candy Man" opening number and general down-to-earth aesthetic of the first half doesn't exactly prepare the audience for stuff like ''[[SurrealHorror the boat ride]]''... See also ''Film/{{Matilda}}'', with its freaky wide-angle close-ups and uncannily cartoonish torture/violence.
* ''Film/ChittyChittyBangBang'' starts out as a lighthearted family movie in the vein of ''Film/MaryPoppins''. Then, everything changes when the [[VileVillainSaccharineShow Child Catcher]] attacks.
* ''Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}}'', despite being about ghosts, is a lighthearted comedy...except for moments like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYjFKsJjCP0 the library scene,]] and any scene with [[EldritchAbomination Gozer]] and company.
* ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2'' starts off as a fun and hilarious follow-up to the first...[[spoiler: up until [[TheReveal we find out Ego's true intentions]] for Peter, then the film gets downright unsettling.]]
* The ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' movies are fun action-adventure films for the most part, but it seems like a nightmarish moment out of nowhere is required at least OncePerEpisode:
** ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' has a few moderately disturbing scenes scattered throughout, like the gruesome [[https://youtu.be/rmf6DdaWmSA booby]] [[https://youtu.be/aADExWV1bsM traps]] in the temple, the [[https://youtu.be/ClwIj3x24Q4 snake]]-[[https://youtu.be/ft-JkKhYHb8 infested]] Well of Souls (WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes), and any time Major Toht appears. But the ultimate SurpriseCreepy moment comes at the end when ThoseWackyNazis open the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0APF3SO9tqE Ark of the Covenant]].
** ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom'' turns creepy during the [[https://youtu.be/APyz8Ye0IxE banquet of eels, snakes, beetles, eyeballs, and monkey brains]], and the [[https://youtu.be/6ESLKWt5w4w tunnel of bugs scene]] soon after. The horror increases a thousandfold during the HumanSacrifice ritual, in which the BigBad rips a man's heart out and plunges him into the lava. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiE5mE0ZorA It has to be seen to be believed.]]
*** Incidentally, ''Temple of Doom'' was one of the movies that inspired the creation of the PG-13 rating, since, at the time, the [[UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications MPAA rating system]] went directly from PG to R without anything in between. Thus, in TheEighties, the PG rating covered a wider spectrum of "some material may not be suitable for children," ranging from a few cuss words in ''Film/Annie1982'' to...well...a guy getting his heart ripped out in ''Temple of Doom''. After the controversy surrounding movies like ''Temple of Doom'', ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'', and ''Film/{{Poltergeist|1982}}'' (all of which got PG ratings despite violence and scares), Creator/StevenSpielberg himself took the initiative to propose an intermediate rating between PG and R, which would clarify more precisely just how mature a movie was in the hopes of defying the SurpriseCreepy trope with future movies.
** ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'' has the moment when [[https://youtu.be/puo1Enh9h5k Donovan picks the wrong Grail]].
** In ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'', the chills start when [[https://youtu.be/vxkamWaya8k Indy gets trapped]] in a StepfordSuburbia filled with [[UncannyValley creepy plastic dummies]] (it doesn't help that it's actually a nuclear testing ground). The next majorly disturbing moment occurs when [[spoiler:Dovchenko]] gets [[https://youtu.be/adXeCWVYxCI devoured by army ants]]. And near the end, [[https://youtu.be/FqfVEE--ySA the terror culminates]] when [[spoiler:the aliens appear and kill Spalko by psychically flooding her mind]]. Say what you will about those [[spoiler:aliens]], but you've got to admit they were damn scary.
* ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife''. Oh, it's a Creator/MontyPython movie. How bad can it be? Well, you have the [[UncannyValley "Find the Fish" segment]], the [[OrganTheft "Live Organ Transplants" sketch]], the bit with [[NauseaFuel Mr. Creosote]], the ending with TheGrimReaper...The Mr. Creosote sequence is particularly noteworthy because it's the only movie scene that Creator/QuentinTarantino finds disturbing.
* ''Film/MysteryMen'' is a zany comedy with a team of unlikely superheroes, however the scene of Captain Amazing's death by "psychofrakulation", while treated comedically, is actually quite disturbing.
* ''Film/TheNeverendingStory'' seems like your typical kids' fantasy movie, but it pretty rapidly takes a turn for the creepy, with a fair amount of bizarre and disturbing imagery.
* Believe it or not, ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' fell into this category when it was first released. Modern audiences are well aware of what it involves, but at the time, most horror films were poorly-acted, badly-filmed messes. Audiences went in thinking it would be maybe a little creepy here and there but nothing special. ''Nobody'' went in expecting anything like [[spoiler:Tom and Judy's]] deaths, or worse, the zombie feasting that followed.
* ''Film/PeeWeesBigAdventure'' is...well...a Pee-Wee Herman movie for the most part, but then you have the infamous scene with [[https://youtu.be/lPMSGTfK4Aw Large Marge]].
* ''Film/ReturnToOz''. Although the original ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' arguably qualifies because of the [[VileVillainSaccharineShow Wicked Witch of the West]] and her eerie flying monkeys, Disney's unofficial sequel ''Return to Oz'' pulls out all the stops on the terror. Nowadays, the creepiness is probably too well known to qualify for this trope. But when ''Return to Oz'' first came out, moviegoers who hadn't seen the marketing or trailers expected it to be more in tune with the original movie. Boy, were they in for a nasty shock. This is a big part of why the movie was initially so poorly received, although today it's considered a CultClassic.
* The 1996 straight to video film The Sweeper is like your typical action film with a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, but a scene early into the film goes creepy with the death of Mark's family. Combined with the scary music, it doubles as a disturbing scene.
* ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' may be a classic comedy, but it turns super-disturbing any time [[KnightOfCerebus Judge Doom]] is on screen.

to:

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
[[folder:Video Games]]
* Movie adaptations ''VideoGame/AiToYuukiToKashiwamochi'', from the same creator as ''Irisu'', is another puzzle game with a dark, dark secret. Ai-chan loves sweets and her boyfriend Yuki, and the game revolves around eating sweets. [[spoiler:Then the sweets turn into pills, Ai turns out to be a seriously-ill patient, and [[BigBad Yuki]] is a [[GrimReaper shinigami]] {{Yandere}} who is trying to kill Ai.]]
* ''VideoGame/AndysAppleFarm'': A game about a talking apple playing games with his friends sounds like it could be an ordinary kid's game... if it weren't for just how damn creepy everything is. Aside from the constant audio and visual skips, one
of Creator/RoaldDahl's children's novels the first signs that something isn't quite right comes when his friends casually tell Andy that they're eating apples. [[DissonantSerenity Andy just keeps smiling.]]
* ''VideoGame/BaldisBasicsInEducationAndLearning'' looks like a cute 90s edutainment game, but it's in fact a terrifying survival horror title. That said, the surprise is mitigated by the game's opening screen which states outright that it's a horror game, not a real educational game.
* ''VideoGame/BonniesBakery'' is a cute {{animesque}} game where you bake pastries for your FunnyAnimal customers. [[spoiler: It then abrubtly shifts to being a SurvivalHorror game, where you are imprisoned in Bonnie's basement and must escape before she [[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies uses your flesh to make meat pies.]]]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Bubbaruka}}'', on the surface, is a ''Franchise/{{Tamagotchi}}''-style pet raising simulator where you pet, feed, and play with adorable creatures. For your first pet, you
can reflect their source material play a skiing minigame where you collect coins in this manner a snow world. If you collect 10, a side path opens to a cabin… which turns out to be a dark building where your pet's eerie footsteps can be heard. The game glitches and you are promptly booted out, but you can go back in to the house, which is actually a HauntedHouse. From then on, the game becomes an ExplorerHorror where you navigate various haunted areas, avoid the spirits haunting the game, and slowly piece together the mysterious disappearances of the game's developers through [[StoryBreadcrumbs notes]] they left.
* ''VideoGame/ConfessMyLove'': The game is pretty innocent for a while, until the player finds a knife, and [[spoiler:"Liza" tries to murder them]] in the "Mutated Room".
* The freeware game ''VideoGame/DreamingMary'' starts out, on the surface, in an adorable pastel-colored dream world where you play with a bunny, a penguin, a fox, and a boar, fulfilling certain tasks from the first three animals and eventually getting all four seeds necessary to join the boar behind the last door. You're told through the radio that there are only three doors in the hallway, and [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial you shouldn't look for]] [[ShmuckBait a fourth one]]. Obviously, there IS a hidden fourth door, and entering it will unlock an alternate version of the dream world that can be entered through the painting in your bedroom... [[spoiler:It's a shadowy, RealIsBrown, blood-stained living room with the plushies that three of the dream animals represent (each getting torn up after receiving a seed) and the stuffed head of a boar, and it's all pivotal to unlocking the GoldenEnding. Then you have to complete tasks to gain seeds; failing prompts the bunny and fox to make a horrifying NightmareFace. The boar, Boaris, is extremely creepy throughout, making disturbing innuendos towards Mary, and in the fourth room, Mari gets chased by a giant, crude, shadowy figure who calls her a "sweet girl" in his deep, uncanny voice. Worst of all, Boris and the Yeti shadow represent Mari’s father, and the whole thing is heavily implied to be a metaphor for ''ParentalIncest''.]]
* ''VideoGame/DuckSeason'' initially presents itself as a lovely VR-based homage to the old 80s games, especially ''VideoGame/DuckHunt''. [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment Antagonize the dog]], however, and the weird stuff begins to happen. [[spoiler:Namely, the game starts glitching out, the dog will manifest itself in the real world, threatening you, and after the Stage 8, your character's mother will be killed (outside the GameWithinAGame), as the dog taunts you to "come face me", and
depending on what's emphasized in the early going. While ''Literature/JamesAndTheGiantPeach'' and ending, it either [[AndIMustScream traps you inside the 2005 version of ''Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' telegraph the darker undertones game forever]] or [[WouldHurtAChild attempts to kill you]], succeeding in one of the stories early on, consider 1971's ''Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory'': The sugary "The Candy Man" opening number and general down-to-earth aesthetic of bad endings.]]
* In
the first half doesn't exactly prepare playthrough of ''VideoGame/DreamOfGluttony'', everything seems innocent enough- Sissy is a cute girl who goes through Food Town, a SugarBowl full of a quirky RagtagBunchOfMisfits who identify as [[CastOfPersonifications humanoid foods]] and act friendly to her. Then Sissy goes off on her own and encounters Chili, a SerialKiller who [[ImAHumanitarian devours her victims]], and she eats Sissy. The NewGamePlus has Sissy admit to being a human, and then all hell breaks loose as the audience inhabitants reveal themselves as misanthropic humans who try to kill her for stuff like ''[[SurrealHorror fear that she will expose them to the boat ride]]''... See also ''Film/{{Matilda}}'', world. Sissy ends up going through immense SanitySlippage while running for her life.
* The game ''VideoGame/FantasyMaidensOddHideout'' starts out cute and lighthearted,
with its freaky wide-angle close-ups young friends playing together in a house made of desserts, and uncannily cartoonish torture/violence.
fairies who live inside the house. Then the doorknob on the house's only exit is removed, and it and all the windows are boarded up, trapping them inside, and it all goes downhill from there. [[spoiler:Subverted with Bernd's story, which is more sad and depressing than scary.]]
* ''Film/ChittyChittyBangBang'' ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'' starts out as a lighthearted family movie brightly-colored relentlessly cheerful platformer [[spoiler:and ends as a CosmicHorrorStory, with the player character either being or being ''eaten'' by an EldritchAbomination]]. Although if you know who Creator/HPLovecraft is, the opening screen serves as a warning about that, as the game starts off by quoting him.
* The home page of the ''VideoGame/FancyIsland'' site makes it look like a typical, cutsey anime game, with a Moe CatGirl going through the titular island and an also-cute cat spirit explaining the rules. But once you click on the image leading to the rest of the site, you are immediately greeted with what looks like the entrance door to a haunted house, and entering greets you with the unnerving head of what appears to be a StringyHairedGhostGirl (or, sometimes, a CreepyDoll head which cries blood and creepily laughs if you click on it). And it all goes downhill from there, with NightmareFace after NightmareFace and plenty of SurrealHorror.
* ''VideoGame/HungryLamu'' is a game where you need to find fruit the feed to the titular llama. Things get a little weird as the fruit happens to be sentient, but at least it appears willing to be eaten. [[spoiler:It then turns out that the "fruit friends" are humans, and as the final survivor you must escape from Lamu before he devours you too.]]
* ''VideoGame/IrisuSyndrome''. On the surface: a cutesy, if NintendoHard, FallingBlocks game, starring bunny girl Irisu. [[spoiler:Who is a mentally unstable bunny girl who has to fight off her urge to kill her friends (which the block game symbolizes), an urge that her crush/boyfriend [[BigBad Uujima Satoshi]] tries to encourage, and
in the vein of ''Film/MaryPoppins''. Then, everything changes when the [[VileVillainSaccharineShow Child Catcher]] attacks.
bad endings, she gives in to her urges.]]
* ''Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}}'', despite being about ghosts, is a lighthearted comedy...except for moments like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYjFKsJjCP0 the library scene,]] and any scene with [[EldritchAbomination Gozer]] and company.
* ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2''
''VideoGame/NeedyStreamerOverload'' starts off as a fun colorful and hilarious follow-up peppy raising SIM where you aim to turn a girl called Ame into an internet celebrity, with a fittingly cheerful theme song, "Internet Overdose". Once you go further in however, the game starts showing its true nature as a [[RealismInducedHorror depressingly realistic portrayal of a mentally ill girl struggling to manage herself and how far people can go on the internet]]. Then you reach some of the endings, which [[spoiler:feature nasty stuff among the lines of Ame committing suicide, losing her mind over haters and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking starting a conspiracy cult]]]]... and once you have the fortitude to unlock all the endings, you reach the true ending, which [[TheEndingChangesEverything changes everything you know upside-down]]. [[spoiler:Ame was actually a schizophirenic who invented your in-game identity "P-Chan" as the voice on your head and you ''are'' Ame all along. This automatically puts a darker and cynical twist to the first...[[spoiler: up until [[TheReveal we find out Ego's true intentions]] for Peter, then the film gets downright unsettling.]]
* The ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' movies
meanings of many endings, including ones that are fun action-adventure films for the most part, but it seemingly optimistic.]]
* At first glance, ''VideoGame/MrTomatos''
seems like a nightmarish moment out of nowhere is required at least OncePerEpisode:
** ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' has a few moderately disturbing scenes scattered throughout, like the gruesome [[https://youtu.be/rmf6DdaWmSA booby]] [[https://youtu.be/aADExWV1bsM traps]] in the temple, the [[https://youtu.be/ClwIj3x24Q4 snake]]-[[https://youtu.be/ft-JkKhYHb8 infested]] Well of Souls (WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes), and any time Major Toht appears. But the ultimate SurpriseCreepy moment comes at the end when ThoseWackyNazis open the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0APF3SO9tqE Ark
harmless-looking {{Expy}} of the Covenant]].
** ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom'' turns creepy during
"Hungry Pumpkin" Flash game, but should you anger the [[https://youtu.be/APyz8Ye0IxE banquet of eels, snakes, beetles, eyeballs, and monkey brains]], and the [[https://youtu.be/6ESLKWt5w4w tunnel of bugs scene]] soon after. The horror increases a thousandfold during the HumanSacrifice ritual, in which the BigBad rips a man's heart out and plunges eponymous tomato enough times or feed him into the lava. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiE5mE0ZorA It has to be seen to be believed.]]
*** Incidentally, ''Temple of Doom'' was one of the movies that inspired the creation of the PG-13 rating, since, at the time, the [[UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications MPAA rating system]] went directly from PG to R without anything in between. Thus, in TheEighties, the PG rating covered a wider spectrum of "some material may not be suitable for children," ranging from a few cuss words in ''Film/Annie1982'' to...well...a guy getting his heart ripped out in ''Temple of Doom''. After the controversy surrounding movies like ''Temple of Doom'', ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'', and ''Film/{{Poltergeist|1982}}'' (all of which got PG ratings despite violence and scares), Creator/StevenSpielberg himself took the initiative to propose an intermediate rating between PG and R, which would clarify more precisely just how mature a movie was in the hopes of defying the SurpriseCreepy trope
enough food with future movies.
** ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'' has the moment when [[https://youtu.be/puo1Enh9h5k Donovan picks the wrong Grail]].
** In ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'', the chills start when [[https://youtu.be/vxkamWaya8k Indy gets trapped]] in a StepfordSuburbia filled with [[UncannyValley creepy plastic dummies]] (it doesn't help that it's actually a nuclear testing ground). The next majorly disturbing moment occurs when [[spoiler:Dovchenko]] gets [[https://youtu.be/adXeCWVYxCI devoured by army ants]]. And near the end, [[https://youtu.be/FqfVEE--ySA the terror culminates]] when
his anger meter below 10, [[spoiler:the aliens appear game, especially Mr. Tomatos himself, suddenly takes on a more sinister and kill Spalko by psychically flooding her mind]]. Say what you will about those [[spoiler:aliens]], but you've got to admit they were damn scary.
creepy atmosphere]].
* ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife''. Oh, it's ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'', despite being billed as a Creator/MontyPython movie. How bad can it be? Well, you have horror game and having an eerie beginning, starts out innocuously as the [[UncannyValley "Find titular protagonist meets his quirky friends and an equally quirky cast of characters at the Fish" segment]], the [[OrganTheft "Live Organ Transplants" sketch]], the bit with [[NauseaFuel Mr. Creosote]], the ending with TheGrimReaper...The Mr. Creosote sequence is particularly noteworthy because it's the only movie scene that Creator/QuentinTarantino finds disturbing.
* ''Film/MysteryMen'' is
playground. After a zany comedy skirmish with a team of unlikely superheroes, however the scene of Captain Amazing's death by "psychofrakulation", while treated comedically, is actually quite disturbing.
* ''Film/TheNeverendingStory''
HarmlessVillain and some [[TheGoomba Sprout Moles]], Basil shows off his photo album to everyone, detailing their fun memories. Everything seems fine and child-friendly… until Basil drops one photo, looks at it, and starts freaking out, a shadow appears under him, and the screen glitches. Then Omori, back in White Space, ''stabs himself with a knife''. You are then transported to a dark house where an EldritchAbomination called Something attacks you. The rest of the game [[MoodWhiplash alternates]] between more quirky fun and SurrealHorror dealing with themes like your depression and suicide as the true nature of the game world slowly becomes apparent.
* Content warning at the beginning of the game notwithstanding, ''VideoGame/PromDreams'' begins as a fairly
typical kids' fantasy movie, but harem dating sim, complete with upbeat music, comedic scenes, and many of the genre's standard tropes. In fact, the player can win their chosen love interest's heart and make it pretty rapidly to prom night without experiencing a single horrific element, [[spoiler:only for said love interest to be killed suddenly and brutally, without any way for the player to avoid it. From there, the game "resets" itself several times, sans the girl killed in each previous loop, with the atmosphere becoming more horrific as the dating sim plot gives way to a supernatural murder mystery.]]
* ''VideoGame/Shipwrecked64'': If not for the warning at the start of the game, you might mistake this game for a typical mascot platformer... at least, until some of the "artifacts" like disturbing images of Bucky start popping up.
* ''VideoGame/SpookysJumpScareMansion'' presents itself as a DefangedHorrors [[AffectionateParody parody]] of horror games, where you navigate the house of the titular CuteGhostGirl, and at most you get startled by [[PokeThePoodle cute cardboard cutouts]]. That is until you progress further into the game, where you encounter the ''actual'' monsters and come across [[ApocalypticLog various notes left by previous travelers]]. Spooky herself is also heavily implied to be [[CuteAndPsycho not what she seems]].
* In ''VideoGame/SuperSurpriseParty'', the colors and visuals are all cute and sweet, from the smiling party-guests to the gumdrop rain. But the actual game is a PsychologicalHorror, with a creepy, short-tempered narrator and a location-tracking gimmick.
* ''VideoGame/YummyBreakfast'' starts out cute and simple, with a girl just trying to make herself a "yummy breakfast". It
takes a turn for the creepy, with a fair amount of bizarre and disturbing imagery.
* Believe it or not, ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' fell into this category when it was first released. Modern audiences are well aware of what it involves, but at the time, most horror films were poorly-acted, badly-filmed messes. Audiences went in thinking it would be maybe a little
creepy here and there but nothing special. ''Nobody'' went in expecting anything like [[spoiler:Tom and Judy's]] deaths, or worse, the zombie feasting that followed.
* ''Film/PeeWeesBigAdventure'' is...well...a Pee-Wee Herman movie for the most part, but then you have the infamous scene with [[https://youtu.be/lPMSGTfK4Aw Large Marge]].
* ''Film/ReturnToOz''. Although the original ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' arguably qualifies because of the [[VileVillainSaccharineShow Wicked Witch of the West]] and her eerie flying monkeys, Disney's unofficial sequel ''Return to Oz'' pulls out all the stops on the terror. Nowadays, the creepiness is probably too well known to qualify for this trope. But when ''Return to Oz'' first came out, moviegoers who hadn't seen the marketing or trailers expected it to be
as she gets more in tune with the original movie. Boy, were they in and more desperate for a nasty shock. This is a big part of why the movie was initially so poorly received, although today it's considered a CultClassic.
* The 1996 straight
food, resorting to video film The Sweeper is like your typical action film with a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, but a scene early into the film goes creepy with the death of Mark's family. Combined with the scary music, it doubles as a disturbing scene.
* ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' may be a classic comedy, but it turns super-disturbing any time [[KnightOfCerebus Judge Doom]] is on screen.
eating live animals and [[spoiler:a girl.]]



[[folder:Literature]]
%%* ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland''
* When unhappy or unpleasant truths intrude on the relatively peaceful lives of characters in the ''Literature/AuntDimity'' CozyMystery series, they often do so in this way. Open a box expecting to see maybe an heirloom—find fully dressed human remains. Heave a sigh of relief that the "murder" turns out to have been an accident—well, that's jolly nice, but [[HeroicBSOD your hero has just had a flashback to a real murder he witnessed and is near catatonic]]. Similar mood dynamics occur when solutions are given and the culprit turns out to be obsessed and/or insane.
%%* ''Literature/TheCandyShopWar'' by the same author as ''Literature/{{Fablehaven}}'' has an arguably more kid-friendly cover but is just as dark.
* The fantasy novel series ''Literature/{{Fablehaven}}.'' Despite its bright and cheerful kid-aimed covers, it gets smacked upside the head by our friend [[CerebusSyndrome Cerebus]] remarkably quickly. Each book is darker than the last, but the covers remain cute and inviting. [[http://brandonmull.com/category/fablehaven/ A recent reprint]] has rectified this with darker, more action-oriented covers that better fit the contents.
* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' books most definitely qualify, particularly before Creator/JKRowling wrote ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'' and abandoned all pretense of ''Harry Potter'' being a whimsical children's series. [[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone The first book]] had a huge three-headed HellHound and a man with a second face on the back of his head (and, as the author herself noted, opened with a double murder but is still considered a kids' book). [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets The second book]] introduced {{giant spider}}s, blood graffiti, a possessed diary, and a fifty-foot death snake that can kill you with a glance. [[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban The third book]] had Harry being hunted by an escaped convict believed to be a deranged mass murderer, who is, in turn, being pursued by even worse soul-sucking {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.
* The ''Literature/LandOfOz'' books can have this effect on people only familiar with the LighterAndSofter adaptations. This is a big part of why ''Film/ReturnToOz'' (see the {{Film}} section above) was so freaky -- it was more in tune with the original ''Oz'' books than [[Film/TheWizardOfOz the 1939 adaptation]] was. For example, ''Literature/GlindaOfOz'' discusses how people can't die in Oz, but only after mentioning various terrible things that can occur to Dorothy (for example, she can be beheaded or chopped up and scattered, but it won't hurt and [[AndIMustScream she won't die]]).
* ''Literature/TheLastDragonChronicles'' start as a light hearted story about clay dragons and squirrels. By the third book, the main character is speared through the heart, malevolent extradimensional beings with body-stealing powers are wrestling for control of the universe, and the stakes are going through the roof. This gets taken up to eleven in ''Dark Fire'', the fifth book of the series, which includes a wildly gory sequence in which an innocent civilian has her organs pushed through her chest by dragon claws and another character is melted by a cascade of dragon urine. The sheer scale of the violence and horror compared to the innocence of the series’ start is staggering.
* There is an old nonfiction children's book called ''Model a Monster''. The first three-quarters or so teach children [[http://babbletrish.blogspot.com/2010/09/lets-read-model-monster.html how to create adorable balsa-wood and papier-mache models of prehistoric animals]]. Things very suddenly take a turn for the deeply strange [[http://babbletrish.blogspot.com/2010/09/lets-play-extinction-game-wait-what.html in the last quarter...]]
* ''Olivia Kidney'' has a title protagonist who appears on the cover as an adorable, cartoony little girl. She [[ISeeDeadPeople talks to ghosts]] all the time, including her beloved dead brother. There's the ever-present implication that everything that's happening ''might'' just be a product of an extremely overactive imagination. Or maybe it's all real. They never really let you know for sure, and it's not clear which would actually be worse.
* Creator/HenrikDrescher's book ''Literature/PatTheBeastie'' ended with [[spoiler:Paul and Judy being eaten by the titular Beastie]].
* ''Literature/{{Redwall}}'' starts out seeming like a sweet little LowFantasy series about cute fuzzy animals in a pretty woodland setting. Then some pretty damn ''horrifying'' things happen to them. It says quite a bit about this ''children's'' series that it was the first work of literature to get its own [[Monster/{{Redwall}} Complete Monster page]].
* Creator/RoaldDahl was one of the great masters at this in his stories/novels for both adults and kids -- but ''especially'' the kids' stuff. Consider ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'': The first third of the book is a light story about a mysterious candy factory and the mostly wacky, grotesquely bratty kids who get the chance to visit it...and the remaining two-thirds reveal it to be a setup for a morality play in which said brats meet a variety of dreadful fates -- getting sucked into pipes, thrown down rubbish chutes, etc. And it's PlayedForLaughs, with the Wonka Factory effectively a positive portrayal of a CrapsaccharineWorld. A BlackComedy for kids was virtually unheard of in 1964, and the book was controversial for years afterward, with MoralGuardians appalled by its cavalier attitude towards children getting imperiled.
* ''Literature/TailchasersSong'' starts off as a fantasy story about a kitten who must go on an adventure to find his missing love and find out why cats are disappearing. The first several chapters are normal fantasy fare but then Roofshadow mentions something sinister about the disappearances: many cats do disappear, but others are found torn apart instead. Roofshadow lost her entire clan this way (with Roofshadow only surviving because she went for a walk). The main antagonists, the Clawguard, aren't introduced until halfway through. Prior to that, all we know is that the mysterious killers [[NothingIsScarier lurk in the shadows and attack at random]]. When the Clawguard ''do'' capture Tailchaser and his friends, [[spoiler:they beat them up, drag them underground to their master Hearteater, and force Tailchaser into slavery]].
* Creator/DrSeuss peppered his children's books with surprisingly dark imagery from time to time. For example, ''Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose'', which ends in [[spoiler:Thidwick's unwanted guests being killed and taxidermized.]]
* ''Literature/VarjakPaw'' is about a kitten named Varjak who must venture outside his house to find a dog and save his family. While out, he learns that there are a string of disappearances involving stray cats around the city. The creepy part comes in when it's revealed that [[spoiler:someone is killing cats, turning them into taxidermy, and selling them to unwitting people as "realistic toys".]]

to:

[[folder:Literature]]
%%* ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland''
[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* When unhappy or unpleasant truths intrude on the relatively peaceful lives of characters in the ''Literature/AuntDimity'' CozyMystery series, they often do so in this way. Open Although ''VisualNovel/CookingCompanions'' is openly advertised as a box expecting to see maybe an heirloom—find fully dressed human remains. Heave a sigh of relief that the "murder" turns out to have been an accident—well, that's jolly nice, but [[HeroicBSOD Horror story, it starts off rather cutesy with its Chompette mascots and bonding with your hero has just had a flashback to a real murder he witnessed and is near catatonic]]. Similar mood dynamics occur when solutions are given and fellow hikers before the culprit turns out inevitable craving for fresh meat arises...
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', ostensibly a cutesy RomanceGame, ''starts'' with requiring you
to be obsessed and/or insane.
%%* ''Literature/TheCandyShopWar'' by
accept a warning for disturbing content, but the same author as ''Literature/{{Fablehaven}}'' has an arguably more kid-friendly cover but is just as dark.
* The fantasy novel series ''Literature/{{Fablehaven}}.'' Despite its bright
game remains light-hearted and cheerful kid-aimed covers, it gets smacked upside the head by our friend [[CerebusSyndrome Cerebus]] remarkably quickly. Each book is darker than the last, but the covers remain cute and inviting. [[http://brandonmull.com/category/fablehaven/ A recent reprint]] has rectified this with darker, more action-oriented covers for long enough that better fit it still comes as a massive shock when [[spoiler:the player character finds Sayori's [[DrivenToSuicide hanging corpse]], and the contents.
* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' books most definitely qualify, particularly before Creator/JKRowling wrote ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire''
game restarts. From that point onwards, the game starts getting ''very'' [[OminousVisualGlitch glitchy]] and abandoned all pretense of ''Harry Potter'' being a whimsical children's series. [[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone The first book]] had a huge three-headed HellHound and a man with a second face on the back of his head (and, bloody as the author herself noted, opened with a double murder girls reveal their {{Dark And Troubled Past}}s and deteriorate into {{Yandere}}s]]. Becomes blackly HilariousInHindsight once you find out that [[spoiler:all the creepy glitching in Act 2 comes from the fact that [[BigBad Monika]] is trying to reprogram the game but is still considered a kids' book). [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets The second book]] introduced {{giant spider}}s, blood graffiti, a possessed diary, and a fifty-foot death snake that can kill you with a glance. [[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban The third book]] had Harry being hunted by an escaped convict believed to be a deranged mass murderer, who is, in turn, being pursued by even worse soul-sucking {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.
HopelessWithTech]].
* The ''Literature/LandOfOz'' books can have this effect on people only familiar with On the LighterAndSofter adaptations. This surface, ''VisualNovel/DontToyWithMe'' is a big part of why ''Film/ReturnToOz'' (see the {{Film}} section above) was so freaky -- it was more in tune with the original ''Oz'' books than [[Film/TheWizardOfOz the 1939 adaptation]] was. For example, ''Literature/GlindaOfOz'' discusses how people can't die in Oz, but only after mentioning various terrible things that can occur to Dorothy (for example, she can be beheaded or chopped up and scattered, but it won't hurt and [[AndIMustScream she won't die]]).
* ''Literature/TheLastDragonChronicles'' start as a light hearted
cute story about clay dragons and squirrels. By the third book, the main character is speared through the heart, malevolent extradimensional beings with body-stealing powers are wrestling for control of the universe, and the stakes are going through the roof. This gets taken up to eleven in ''Dark Fire'', the fifth book of the series, which includes a wildly gory sequence in which an innocent civilian has her organs pushed through her chest by dragon claws and another character is melted by a cascade of dragon urine. The sheer scale of the violence and horror compared to the innocence of the series’ start is staggering.
* There is an old nonfiction children's book called ''Model a Monster''. The first three-quarters or so teach children [[http://babbletrish.blogspot.com/2010/09/lets-read-model-monster.html how to create
two adorable balsa-wood LivingToys learning to befriend each other in spite of their differences. [[spoiler:Then the owner starts playing favorites and papier-mache models antagonizing the other toy, and it eventually leads to one of prehistoric animals]]. Things very suddenly take a turn them snapping and murdering the other, with one of the routes revealing that the owner has previously killed other toys for the deeply strange [[http://babbletrish.blogspot.com/2010/09/lets-play-extinction-game-wait-what.html in the last quarter...not getting along with Dahlia.]]
* ''Olivia Kidney'' has a title protagonist who appears on the cover as an adorable, cartoony little girl. She [[ISeeDeadPeople talks to ghosts]] all the time, including her beloved dead brother. There's the ever-present implication that everything that's happening ''might'' just be a product of an extremely overactive imagination. Or maybe it's all real. They never really let you know for sure, and it's not clear which would actually be worse.
* Creator/HenrikDrescher's book ''Literature/PatTheBeastie'' ended with [[spoiler:Paul and Judy being eaten by the titular Beastie]].
* ''Literature/{{Redwall}}''
''VisualNovel/FromTheSunToTheMoon'' starts out seeming like a sweet little LowFantasy series your standard cute dating simulator, only to rapidly shift into themes of BodyHorror, child abuse and CosmicHorror as the plot progresses.
* ''VisualNovel/HowToDateAMagicalGirl'', A cute game
about cute fuzzy animals in a pretty woodland setting. Then some pretty damn ''horrifying'' things happen going to them. It says quite a bit about this ''children's'' series that it was the first work of literature to get its own [[Monster/{{Redwall}} Complete Monster page]].
* Creator/RoaldDahl was one of the great masters at this in his stories/novels
school for both adults magical girls and kids -- looking for love until it suddenly becomes a murder mystery game.
* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' has an ominous intro
but ''especially'' the kids' stuff. Consider ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'': The first third of the book is a light story about a mysterious candy factory and the mostly wacky, grotesquely bratty kids who get the chance to visit it...and the remaining two-thirds reveal it to be a setup for a morality play in which said brats meet a variety of dreadful fates -- getting sucked into pipes, thrown down rubbish chutes, etc. And it's PlayedForLaughs, with the Wonka Factory effectively a positive portrayal of a CrapsaccharineWorld. A BlackComedy for kids was virtually unheard of in 1964, and the book was controversial for years afterward, with MoralGuardians appalled by its cavalier attitude towards children getting imperiled.
* ''Literature/TailchasersSong''
otherwise starts off as a fantasy story brightly colored visual novel about a kitten who must go on an adventure to find his missing love and find out why cats are disappearing. The first several chapters are normal fantasy fare but then Roofshadow mentions something sinister about the disappearances: many cats do disappear, but others are found torn apart instead. Roofshadow lost her entire clan this way (with Roofshadow only surviving because she went for a walk). The main antagonists, the Clawguard, aren't introduced until halfway through. Prior to that, all we know is that the mysterious killers [[NothingIsScarier lurk in the shadows and attack at random]]. When the Clawguard ''do'' capture Tailchaser teenage boy and his friends, [[spoiler:they beat them up, drag them underground to friends in their master Hearteater, early '80s rural village. But ''Higurashi'' is not a ComingOfAgeStory and force Tailchaser into slavery]].
* Creator/DrSeuss peppered his children's books with surprisingly dark imagery from time to time. For example, ''Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose'',
is especially not a romance visual novel. It's a mystery-murdery franchise, which ends in [[spoiler:Thidwick's unwanted guests being killed and taxidermized.]]
* ''Literature/VarjakPaw'' is
becomes more obvious when Keiichi finds a newspaper talking about a kitten named Varjak who must venture outside his house to find a dog and save his family. While out, he learns murder that there are happened a string of disappearances involving stray cats around the city. The creepy part comes in when it's revealed that [[spoiler:someone is killing cats, turning them into taxidermy, and selling them to unwitting people as "realistic toys".]]few years ago.



[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
%%* ''Series/TheElectricCompany1971'': You wanna talk about "My Lollipop is Following Me"? Because ''I don't''.%%It's a Administrivia/ZeroContextExample if you don't actually talk about it
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' is a wacky ScienceFiction show that largely runs on {{camp}} and NarmCharm (particularly in respect to the [[SpecialEffectsFailure often laughable special effects]]).
** A lot of the episodes are pretty lighthearted to boot. That said, the show has been known to take abrupt turns for the extremely dark and disturbing. Remember, the Daleks were envisioned as [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Nazi analogues]], and several stories have a body count ranging from [[EverybodyDiesEnding most to the entire cast]]. The new series also gives us the Doctor [[spoiler:dealing with destroying his own people (which does get reversed later, but he didn't know that at the time)]], monsters based on childhood fears, and the Series 9 [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven three]]-[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent part]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent finale]], in which the Doctor is put through a TraumaCongaLine.
** After watching the episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink Blink]]", you'll have PTSD attacks around statues and won't be sleeping with the lights out anytime soon. It may also result in stained pants. It's no wonder that the episode was originally broadcast with a warning stating that it is far scarier than other episodes in the season and parent supervision is advised if children are watching.
* ''Series/KamenRiderWizard'' is fairly average in terms of seriousness as far as the ''Franchise/KamenRider'' franchise is concerned, still dealing with monsters that want to kill innocent civilians but featuring plenty of light-hearted comedy to keep it from getting too dark. And then late in the series, we're told [[spoiler:that Sora/Gremlin, the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Phantom]] who had spent most of his screentime being goofy, quirky and mysterious, was a SerialKiller who murdered countless young women '''before''' he ever became a Phantom. Is it any wonder he ends up becoming the FinalBoss?]]
* ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' was whimsical for the most part but could turn really creepy at times, in no small part due to the DerangedAnimation and occasional SurrealHorror.
* ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' is the LighterAndSofter spin-off of ''Series/DoctorWho''. That does not stop it from being loaded with teenage anxieties, and the possibility of losing your child comes up a lot. And then there's any story featuring [[KnightOfCerebus the Trickster]], which would not look out of place in the parent show.
* ''Series/SesameStreet'' is often notorious for featuring segments that would creep out younger viewers, especially during the classic era. One minute, the show would be teaching children the alphabet and numbers and the next minute, you have some disturbing imagery and moments throughout some segments such as the infamous roaring dandelion from the ''Daddy Dear'' segment and the DerangedAnimation in the animated ''Bird'' segment.
* The first episode of ''Series/WandaVision'' starts off as a simple sitcom made in the style of ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow''. However, during a [[DinnerWithTheBoss dinner with Vision's boss and wife]], Mr. Hart asks where Wanda and Vision came from, beginning the unsettling, true nature of the show as Wanda hesitates to answer, Mr. Hart nearly chokes to death on his food, and his wife repeats "stop it" to both her husband and soon Wanda like a broken record. While the tonal shift was brief, it doesn't last for long.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* Music/TheBeatles are mostly known for {{silly love song}}s in the early pop days and for cerebral experimental music after GoingCosmic. But then you have SurrealHorror in tracks like "Revolution 9," and a disturbing portrayal of a CrazyJealousGuy in "[[LyricalDissonance Run For Your Life.]]"
* Jamiroquai's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JkIs37a2JE "Virtual Insanity"]] features upbeat music and some neat dancing in a strangely bleak room with a moving floor. Near the end of the song, the camera suddenly pans down to [[GoryDiscretionShot blood gushing in from an unseen portion of the room,]] and pans up to show even more blood covering the floor which the singer himself pays absolutely no attention to while he keeps dancing.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC-bVtpIMd4 "MopeMope"]] by [=LeaF=] and Optie, starts off sounding like a cute children's jingle, before occasionally "glitching out" and turning into a hellish droaning sound, before dropping the saccharine facade entirely and turning into a hardcore arrangement of itself. All while the music video features cute dancing flowers and spherical hopping creatures...that turn into horrible abominations who have [[SlasherSmile creepy grins]] instead of faces.
* [[WebAnimation/MysterySkullsAnimated Mystery Skull's]] "Ghost" starts off as a cute and colorful homage to ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' accompanied by an upbeat dance number with some [[LyricalDissonance unexpectedly gloomy lyrics]]. By the end of the video, viewers have been treated to [[spoiler: DemonicPossession, MindScrew, a brutal murder, and a shockingly sad backstory to the "villain" of the video,]] though the upbeat music stays consistent throughout.
* Pretty much every song by PEPOYO could be this. The characters look cute ([[https://vocadb.net/Artist/Picture/95264?v=8 Look at the artist's UTAU, Poyoloid!]] Isn't that adorable?!), but watch the music videos (or even some of the other videos), and you'll see some pretty fucked-up stuff, to say the least. Examples of such fucked-up stuff includes:
** In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvCb8J6Hl3o Miku solo version of ±0]], Miku SHOOTS BOTH POYOLOID AND VY1.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buZVYkIt2TQ This]] has Kai Yuuki (several versions of her, actually) being brutalized in very sickening ways. AND THIS IS REPRESENTING HER AS AN EGG.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KAtn-N0sWw A non-music example by this artist.]] Poyoloid [[DrivenToSuicide commits suicide via gun following the death of her guest.]]
** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luqeDKM4TAQ Rakuraku annrakushi.]]'' Literally about euthanasia. No, really. [[https://vocaloidlyrics.fandom.com/wiki/%E3%82%89%E3%81%8F%E3%82%89%E3%81%8F%E5%AE%89%E6%A5%BD%E6%AD%BB_(Rakuraku_Anrakushi)?so=search Look at the title.]] ''[[https://vocaloidlyrics.fandom.com/wiki/%E3%82%89%E3%81%8F%E3%82%89%E3%81%8F%E5%AE%89%E6%A5%BD%E6%AD%BB_(Rakuraku_Anrakushi)?so=search Look at the lyrics.]]''
* Part 1 of the ''Music/PutinP'' series using Music/{{Vocaloid}} appears to introduce the story as light, slightly odd pop songs about Rin and Len's romance and her jealousy of Miku's prominence. The ending of track 1, a song about her wanting to be with Len, features her babbling dementedly over and over again, "Don't leave me alone", and track 2 features, at the end of her song where she sings with children, Red Rin repeatedly saying "I hate children". Things only get darker from there.
* The music of Music/WeirdAlYankovic can go from [[MoodWhiplash lighthearted lyrics to morbid]] BlackComedy and back faster than you can say LyricalDissonance. One of the best examples is "Good Old Days," a gentle [[Music/JamesTaylor James Taylor-esque]] guitar song where the narrator reminisces about his childhood... which happens to include [[spoiler: torturing animals, burning down a corner store and beating up its owner, and (possibly) murdering his prom date]].
** The music video for “Don’t Download This Song” features the main character being sent to the electric chair. While “The Night Santa Went Crazy” and “Nature Trail To Hell” are played straight with more cartoony violence, this comes unexpectedly. Seriously, who gets put on death row for song piracy?!
** “I’m Fat”’s music video might come across as BodyHorror for some.
** “Headline News” features a line about a man’s penis being cut off.
** "That's Your Horoscope For Today" has this couplet:
--> ''Saggitarius!''\\
All your friends are laughing at you behind your back.\\
''[[{{Beat}} music stops]]''\\
'''[[VoiceOfTheLegion Kill them!]]'''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* Even when the show did horror back in the ''Podcast/CoolKidsTable'' game ''Creepy Town'', it was mostly played for laughs. In the ''Podcast/CoolKidsTable'' game ''Bloody Mooney'', Alan spares no detail when describing [[spoiler: the half-eaten corpse of Keri's mother, and Mooney happily jumping over to eat more of her]].
* When ''Podcast/MythsAndLegends'' covered ''The Boy Who Drew Cats'', it starts off as a silly story that's ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, but then [[spoiler: the protagonist is almost killed by a rat demon and only saved by his cat drawings coming to life and eating said demon.]] Jason doesn't hesitate to lampshade this.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* The Broadway version of ''Theatre/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' is possibly an even stronger example of this trope than the original novel, simply because the first half of the first act (dealing with Charlie and his family) is so sweet and everything that comes next, involving the wicked kids, is exaggerated. The children and their parents are quite unsettling in how extreme their personality defects are, and their punishments in the factory have much less ambiguity than in other depictions. For instance, [[spoiler: Violet simply keeps inflating until she violently explodes into mush, while Veruca is literally torn to pieces]]. By comparison, the original West End version of the show had a much more consistent, [[BlackComedy blackly comic]] tone.
* ''Theatre/{{Pippin}}'': The songs, the poster, even the characters will try and convince you this is a musical comedy "coming of age" tale. It's '''not.'''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theme Parks]]
* Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Ride/DisneyThemeParks (now only in California) is made of this. What's billed as a simple fairground-like kids ride ends with Mr. Toad being sentenced for his recklessness by a mean-looking judge, having an implied fateful run-in with a train, and taking riders with him to his fate in the depths of Hell. Fire and brimstone are all around, cartoon demons jeer at the riders, and the room gets a little bit hotter. [[SoundtrackDissonance All while jaunty music plays!]] Not to mention the fact that hell is the ''last room.'' Mr. Toad drags his audience to hell with him and ''that's the ending!''
* The Disneyland Railroad is just a slow-moving transportation ride around the circumference of Disneyland Park with a few stations along the way--not something that would seem too dramatic. However, at least one part near New Orleans Square involves travelling through a dark tunnel with mysterious [[ByTheLightsOfTheirEyes eyes]] poking out, and the stretch between Tomorrowland and Main Street features a Prehistoric world diorama (actually from the 1964-65 World's Fair) inspired by a scene of ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}''. In it, a T. rex and Stegosaurus stand locked in vicious battle while other dinosaurs face imminent death at the hands of drought and disaster. Really, Disney parks can do this trope in their sleep.
* Tokyo Disneyland had the innocently named Cinderella Castle Mystery Tour, seems to be an easygoing tour of the iconic Cinderella Castle. Instead, guests dive through the castle's dark dungeons where Disney villains reign, filled with skeletons, dragons, swinging axes, and [[WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs the Magic Mirror]] taunting you along the way. It leads to a climactic encounter with the skeletal [[WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron Horned King]], who proclaims he'll sacrifice the guests to Satan's cauldron to add to his army of the dead. Oh, and the whole thing was advertised as a rank D ride, [[note]] rides are ranked from E to A based on how thrilling they are [[/note]] leading unwitting guests to believe it's as thrilling as the Country Bear Theater.
* The Noah's Ark at Kennywood looks like a friendly ride on the outside but on the inside, it has things like a loud elevator, flashing monkey faces, and it makes you think you're going to drown at the end.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* [[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird-news/lists/dollar-store-toy-wand-has-hidden-picture-of-demonic-child-cutting-herself-with-a-kitchen-knife-9850505.html The Evil Stick]]. It looks like a typical pink plastic children's wand, but it emits an evil, cackling laugh when waved. As if that wasn't enough, when the silver reflective card is removed, it reveals a hidden image of a [[NightmareFace demonic child]] slashing her wrists.
* [[http://www.wmctoys.com/products/feisty-pets Feisty Pets]] are plush animals that look cute and sorrow at first, but when you squeeze them, their faces become angry and reveal [[FangsAreEvil Evil Fangs]].
* Before the Feisty Pets, there was the Were Bears, adorable, colorful [[Franchise/CareBears Care Bear]]-esque teddy bears that if you flipped their faces and paws inside out would become werewolves. Even the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_UBZCelJdE introductory story tape]] is like this, starting with the bears' InUniverse creator making the bears only to turn into a werewolf (somehow passing the curse to the bears, which is why they transform in the first place). However, the story mellows down the creepiness as the creator still retains his sentience as a wolf.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games -- Other]]
* ''VideoGame/FortyWinks'' was intended to be a pseudo-nightmare played in a way that was positively adorable. Even though the "scary" aspects of the game were mild, the completely innocuous music and eerie simlish were complete NightmareFuel.
* ''VideoGame/AiToYuukiToKashiwamochi'', from the same creator as ''Irisu'', is another puzzle game with a dark, dark secret. Ai-chan loves sweets and her boyfriend Yuki, and the game revolves around eating sweets. [[spoiler:Then the sweets turn into pills, Ai turns out to be a seriously-ill patient, and [[BigBad Yuki]] is a [[GrimReaper shinigami]] {{Yandere}} who is trying to kill Ai.]]
* ''VideoGame/AndysAppleFarm'': A game about a talking apple playing games with his friends sounds like it could be an ordinary kid's game... if it weren't for just how damn creepy everything is. Aside from the constant audio and visual skips, one of the first signs that something isn't quite right comes when his friends casually tell Andy that they're eating apples. [[DissonantSerenity Andy just keeps smiling.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Aquaria}}'' follows a similar premise as ''Ecco'', only this time the protagonist is a [[FishPeople fish girl]]. She finds herself utterly alone and starts to explore the ruined civilizations, [[spoiler: and eventually meets their crazy gods and the BigBad who made them]]. And yes, just like in ''Ecco'', there are {{Womb Level}}s in ''Aquaria''.
* ''VideoGame/BonniesBakery'' is a cute {{animesque}} game where you bake pastries for your FunnyAnimal customers. [[spoiler: It then abrubtly shifts to being a SurvivalHorror game, where you are imprisoned in Bonnie's basement and must escape before she [[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies uses your flesh to make meat pies.]]]]
* The indie PC game ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}'': A quirky puzzler with cute, bumbling enemies and brightly colored scenery. And then you get to the end and discover that [[spoiler:the character you are playing is not the hero out to rescue the DamselInDistress, but rather a crazy StalkerWithACrush]]. Also, there might be [[spoiler:AnAesop about the atom bomb]], depending on [[MindScrew how you interpret it]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Bubbaruka}}'', on the surface, is a ''Franchise/{{Tamagotchi}}''-style pet raising simulator where you pet, feed, and play with adorable creatures. For your first pet, you can play a skiing minigame where you collect coins in a snow world. If you collect 10, a side path opens to a cabin… which turns out to be a dark building where your pet's eerie footsteps can be heard. The game glitches and you are promptly booted out, but you can go back in to the house, which is actually a HauntedHouse. From then on, the game becomes an ExplorerHorror where you navigate various haunted areas, avoid the spirits haunting the game, and slowly piece together the mysterious disappearances of the game's developers through [[StoryBreadcrumbs notes]] they left.
* ''VideoGame/BugFables'' is mostly about a fantasy world of cute, cartoony bugs, but it's also an {{homage}} to the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' games, which means there's a freakiness lurking beneath the cute exterior. This culminates in the Giant's Lair, a human house on the eastern outskirts of Bugaria. What do you find in this house? [[spoiler:Piles of long-abandoned human garbage like food packages and toys, a purple miasma fogging up the area, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FVt4870JKI ominous music]], and the [[EldritchAbomination Dead Landers]], gruesomely misshapen creatures that have only the faintest resemblace to bugs. Late-game lore also talks about how the [[HumansAreCthulhu "giants"]] who once lived in this lair and the surrounding lands [[HumanitysWake suddenly disappeared]] around the same time that bugs became sapient and civilized, [[UncertainDoom but what exactly happened to them is unknown]] -- and [[NothingIsScarier how and why the Dead Landers moved in is unclear as well]].]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Bugsnax}}'' at first appears to be a cartoonish game about catching bug-food hybrids, giving them to the locals to eat, and transforming various parts of their body into food. And it is, make no mistake. Then Filbo and the player finally find Lizbert, who tells them the truth: [[spoiler: the Bugsnax are a parasitic species that cause everyone who eats them to become addicted and keep eating them until eventually they just turn into inanimate snak matter altogether. Oh, and the island you're on? It's made ''[[ThatsNoMoon entirely of Bugsnax and the remains of everybody who came before you]]''.]]
* ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuest'':
** ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheShiftedSpires'' is a pretty lighthearted meme game overall, but one secret area in Skype is noticeably creepier than the rest of the game. In Skype, you can come across an abandoned house in bad shape, and entering it and going down into the basement leads to a creepy hallway with ominous music leading to a red door that asks you in a chilling voice "what is the color of light?", all in a big ShoutOut to the Dark Brotherhood of ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''.
** ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm'' initially looks to be another innocuous meme game like its predecessor; though not without drama and intrigue, it is mainly a satire of Internet culture. But the game is significantly DarkerAndEdgier, and has a habit of setting up areas to be innocuous only to reveal the terror within, with plenty of SurrealHorror, multiple cases of FateWorseThanDeath, {{Ominous Visual Glitch}}es, a secret character named Amelie and her creepy hidden churchyard, and other things. These are just a few of the most prominent areas:
*** The first time the darker nature of the game becomes apparent is in the end of Chapter 3, where [[spoiler:Wikipedia]] is destroyed and a bizarre colorful void is left in its place, while it's citizens are turned into the Overtaken, big zombie-like monsters that are tough to fight at the level you are.
*** /x/ is an area visited after the funny 4chan, so it looks like it will be a parody of {{Creepypasta}} (which originated there), but nope, it is a straightforward tribute with scary monsters, a dark atmosphere of dread throughout, SurrealHorror, and quite a bit of gore.
*** The Tower of Plot is in the middle of the humerous [=GameFAQs=] area and starts with a peaceful village, so it looks to be nothing bad. But even before you enter, a kid is crying because his father went in and disappeared. The Tower has a secret area home to Lady Ny'agai, who turns innocent children into Ny'agai, villagers that decide to BurnTheWitch and then turn into skeletons who case you, and a "silly" war plotline that ends with bloodshed no matter what you do.
*** The Deep Web, after the catacombs, opens to what looks like a generic lava dungeon, but soon becomes the most unsettling place in the game, with terrifying enemies and bosses, a dreary town filled with people [[AndIMustScream cursed to stand still like statues]], and references to dark legends of the Deep Web like the Lolita Slave Doll story (with you even being attacked by living {{Murderous Mannequin}}s) and child trafficking.
* ''Videogame/CalmTime'' starts relatively normal, with a party being held at a house in the countryside and the guests enjoying it and socializing. Then a girl in the kitchen asks you if you can hand her over the knife so she can cut the bread. Already from the way the main character holds the knife can you deduce that something is amiss, and shortly after that, [[FromBadToWorse shit gets]] ''[[FromBadToWorse real]]''.
* ''VideoGame/{{Camping}}'' starts off with a fun premise of camping, staying at a hotel, or being invited to a dinner party at the mansion, but then the Monster or Murderer attacks. [[FromBadToWorse Things get worse from there]].
* ''VideoGame/CanYourPet'' is a cute online Tamagotchi-style game in which you dress up, feed, bathe, and play with a baby chicken. [[spoiler:Then you unlock the bicycle. It's not a bicycle, but saw blades that will kill the chicken you so lovingly raised.]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnjBNYKVXi0 Carrots and Cream]] is about digging up carrots, and grating them to make [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin carrots and cream.]] [[spoiler: Then you play as a worm avoiding the gardener's spade, before hiding in a carrot bigger than the others. [[SchmuckBait And then you grate more carrots...]]]]
* The ''VideoGame/CattoBoi'' series of games starts off with an adorable feline title protagonist collecting biscuits/pearls needed to progress through the colorful, vibrant levels. But then it becomes utterly creepy and horrific around the second half, with an unknown entity corrupting the entire world around him.
* ''VideoGame/CaveStory'' has a BadassAdorable player character and his ActionGirl [[ImpliedLoveInterest partner]], RidiculouslyCuteCritter [=NPCs=], and a RecurringBoss made of [[LargeHam ham]] and [[WordOfGod soap]], with a few sinister implications as to the plans of the Doctor. Then said Doctor reveals himself to be irredeemably evil in [[PlayerPunch the worst way possible]], the whole supporting cast is dead, captured or incapacitated, and in order to prevent a repeat of [[GreatOffscreenWar the war ten years ago]] the characters either have to destroy the whole island (Normal ending) or [[spoiler:[[BrutalBonusLevel go to Hell]] and kill the island's prisoner]] (Best ending).
* ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'' is a mostly lighthearted AffectionateParody of UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks. That is until you encounter the "Aftershock" missions in which you're dragged into a hell dimension and have to save UNTIL agents stranded there along with you. Even so, none of this is particularly bad, up until the part where you are tasked with [[BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind entering the tortured psyche of Elspeth Macalister]] and rescuing her from the malevolent memory of her [[AxCrazy mentally ill]] mother, who having killed Ellie's father is now dead set on [[OffingTheOffspring doing the same to her own daughter]]. As if this weren't nightmarish enough, the mental projection of Ellie's childhood home is covered in [[WombLevel throbbing organic-looking red veins]] and there is an ever-present HeartbeatSoundtrack thrumming in the background, punctuated by Ellie's heart-wrenching pleas for help and her mother's shrill calls for her daughter to show herself. In amongst this madness, you must [[StealthBasedMission stealthily]] [[EscortMission lead Ellie to safety]] without her mother spotting her. If you fail, Elspeth will become BrainwashedAndCrazy in the real world and you'll be forced to kill her alongside the StringyHairedGhostGirl responsible for her mind rape.
* ''VideoGame/ConfessMyLove'': The game is pretty innocent for a while, until the player finds a knife, and [[spoiler:”Liza” tries to murder them]] in the "Mutated Room".
* The webgame ''VideoGame/CookieClicker'' starts off mundane, then moves to ridiculous, then suddenly turns creepy when you unlock the "grandmapocalyse", with progressively warped images of grandmas appearing on the page background, creepy status/news updates that keep getting worse and worse from "unnerving" to "apocalyptic", and some disgusting worm-like things raiding your cookie stash, which you have to fend off.
* ''VideoGame/CorruptionOfLaetitia'' is mostly a fantasy YuriGenre RPG starring cute girls out to defeat an EvilOverlord and his CorruptChurch. But in one segment, Malayna's home becomes taken over by embodiments of sin, and Celeste has to save Malayna by navigating it. The entire place is overrun by shadows, some of which will pop out and kill you instantly. And strange versions of Malayna come out to taunt Celeste. The entire segment resembles games like ''VideoGame/{{Ib}}'' and ''VideoGame/MadFather''.
* ''VideoGame/CrimzonClover'' seems like your typical BulletHell shooter, with massive tanks, bombers, and mechs to destroy, nothing that would really scare the average player (except in a [[NintendoHard "this game is too hard" way]])...for the first two stages. Then comes stage 3 which features the only "organic" enemies in the game: deadly giant flowers and ''spiders''. Thankfully for the arachnophobic and botanophobic, the game goes back to the usual mech enemies after that stage.
* ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'' has this in spades. Being a BossRush game based on cartoons from the 1930s, everything is trying to kill you, has crazy physics and once they reach their OneWingedAngel phase, the NightmareFuel starts pumping. Special mention to Hilda Berg for her [[NightmareFace clockwork crescent moon phase]] and The Devil.
** ''The Delicious Last Course'' gets even worse when it comes time to face the FinalBoss: [[spoiler:the EvilAllAlong Chef Saltbaker. Between his psychotic SlasherSmile, his omnious theme song that constrasts with the rest of the game's soundtrack, and the way he butchers sentient ingredients during the fight, he can be described as the ''Cuphead'' equivalent to WesternAnimation/TheMadDoctor]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'', the official follow-up to Undertale, has quite a bit of this.
** The first chapter is mostly quite lighthearted, with the main characters exploring a quaint ''Literature/AliceInWonderland''-inspired world to seal the dark fountain that threatens both that world and the world the player characters originate from. However, the final boss, the King, is revealed to be a (seemingly) [[AbusiveParents abusive father]] who threatens to throw his son off a cliff if he gets in his way. In addition, the end of the first chapter culminates in everything seemingly wrapping up calmly... until the player character, Kris, gets out of bed, ''rips down their own SOUL'', and brandishes a knife while staring at the screen with red eyes. Thankfully, the second chapter indicates that the King may not be as abusive as he comes off and gives a rather comedic explanation for the final scene, but what that chapter introduces may not be much of an improvement.
** The "Weird Route" of the second chapter, also known by fans as the Snowgrave Route, may be one of ''the'' most extreme cases of this in ''any video game'', and manages to handily beat even ''Undertale'''s Genocide Route in how messed up ([[RealismInducedHorror and realistic]]) it is. To wit, during the very lighthearted plot mentioned above, [[spoiler:Kris can ally themselves with Noelle and order her to [[AnIcePerson freeze every Darkner]] they encounter, with their frozen forms remaining on screen. Kris can then lead Noelle on and imply they have feelings for her, something which makes her gain a dramatic level of trust in the player. They can then force Noelle to murder a shopkeeper to steal a magic ring he has and gift it to her. This incident shakes Noelle to her core so much that she hardly has any memory of it after it happens and after she remembers, she outright considers [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness killing Kris]] as payback, although she doesn't follow up on it. Kris can then force Noelle to bypass puzzles by going next to high-voltage barriers at risk to her own life as she repeatedly begs Kris to stop while they order her to "PROCEED". She ultimately submits and manages to bypass them, which in turn causes her to [[StockholmSyndrome gain a sudden devotion]] to Kris, now seeing them as someone who is merely looking out for her and wants her to gain her full power. By the end of it, Noelle is now a broken shell of her former self, and talks about how she doesn't know what's going on anymore aside from her devotion to Kris and how all her memories are blurring together. When Berdly, Noelle's best friend, arrives, Noelle no longer recognizes him and asks Kris if she can freeze him like the others, shocking Berdly so much that he initiates a battle just to save her, right as Noelle realizes her mistake and begs him to leave. The player can then force Noelle to use a brand new power that she has no knowledge of as she once again begs them not to, but once again she relents, and this ends up freezing and killing Berdly, something that causes her to run away in tears. After a BigDamnHeroes moment where she saves Kris from an even more maniacal version of Spamton NEO, the cast wake up in their own world beside Berdly's motionless body, and Noelle runs away and tries to frantically reassure herself that the events were just a dream, while indicating the person giving her commands was not Kris after all, but the ''player themselves''. And Kris has the [[VideoGameCrueltyPotentail opportunity to tell her that it wasn't a dream]]...]]
* The freeware game ''VideoGame/DreamingMary'' starts out, on the surface, in an adorable pastel-colored dream world where you play with a bunny, a penguin, a fox, and a boar, fulfilling certain tasks from the first three animals and eventually getting all four seeds necessary to join the boar behind the last door. You're told through the radio that there are only three doors in the hallway, and [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial you shouldn't look for]] [[ShmuckBait a fourth one]]. Obviously, there IS a hidden fourth door, and entering it will unlock an alternate version of the dream world that can be entered through the painting in your bedroom... [[spoiler:It's a shadowy, RealIsBrown, blood-stained living room with the plushies that three of the dream animals represent (each getting torn up after receiving a seed) and the stuffed head of a boar, and it's all pivotal to unlocking the GoldenEnding. Then you have to complete tasks to gain seeds; failing prompts the bunny and fox to make a horrifying NightmareFace. The boar, Boaris, is extremely creepy throughout, making disturbing innuendos towards Mary, and in the fourth room, Mari gets chased by a giant, crude, shadowy figure who calls her a "sweet girl" in his deep, uncanny voice. Worst of all, Boris and the Yeti shadow represent Mari’s father, and the whole thing is heavily implied to be a metaphor for ''ParentalIncest''.]]
* ''VideoGame/DrawnToLife: The Next Chapter'' (DS Version) is, like its predecessor, a relatively lighthearted game. [[spoiler:And then the credits roll, and you see oil paintings of the fatal car accident that caused their world to come into existence.]]
* ''VideoGame/DuckSeason'' initially presents itself as a lovely VR-based homage to the old 80s games, especially ''VideoGame/DuckHunt''. [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment Antagonize the dog]], however, and the weird stuff begins to happen. [[spoiler:Namely, the game starts glitching out, the dog will manifest itself in the real world, threatening you, and after the Stage 8, your character's mother will be killed (outside the GameWithinAGame), as the dog taunts you to "come face me", and depending on the ending, it either [[AndIMustScream traps you inside the game forever]] or [[WouldHurtAChild attempts to kill you]], succeeding in one of the bad endings.]]
* ''VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin'' - A game starring a cute dolphin who has lost his family to [[EldritchAbomination extremely hungry aliens]]. He must go back and forth through time, battling past sharks, jellyfish, [[DemonicSpiders enormous spiders]], and [[GoddamnBats trilobites]], braving eerie music and disturbingly solemn, frightened fellow dolphins, to rescue them and the Earth. Later locales include a meat grinder scrolling level where you're continually molested by terrifying masses of chitin and blobs of acidic green goo and slime tubes in the sky that cause you to plummet five miles into roadpizza if you mess up and fall out. The final game in the series has you swim inside the body of a giant alien and attack its beating heart.
* ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'' starts out as a brightly-colored relentlessly cheerful platformer [[spoiler:and ends as a CosmicHorrorStory, with the player character either being or being ''eaten'' by an EldritchAbomination]]. Although if you know who Creator/HPLovecraft is, the opening screen serves as a warning about that, as the game starts off by quoting him.
* ''VideoGame/FableII'' has the infamous Winter Lodge. Behind one of the many Demon Doors, the Winter Lodge seems like a rather cozy place at first. It is a house in the middle of a beautiful snowy field with a nice glow over everything. However, as soon as you open the door [[spoiler:there is a ScareChord and everything suddenly changes. Inside the house, everything is decrepit and dirty and there are torture implements everywhere. And outside, everything is dark and there are multiple dead bodies.]] It isn't the only creepy moment in the game, but it definitely stands out.
* The game ''VideoGame/FantasyMaidensOddHideout'' starts out cute and lighthearted, with young friends playing together in a house made of desserts, and fairies who live inside the house. Then the doorknob on the house's only exit is removed, and it and all the windows are boarded up, trapping them inside, and it all goes downhill from there. [[spoiler:Subverted with Bernd’s story, which is more sad and depressing than scary.]]
* ''VideoGame/FreeRealms'': Merry Vale, the 24-hour party place where everyone has fun! [[spoiler:... too much fun to notice that their kids are getting abducted.]]
* ''VideoGame/FridayNightFunkin'':
** Week 5, "Red Snow", has you fight against Girlfriend's parents in a mall, with plenty of [[TheCameo cameos]] from various Website/{{Newgrounds}} media. At least, the first two songs do. The final one, [[spoiler:"Winter Horrorland", starts out with the Christmas Tree decked out with intestines and a severed head in Girlfriend's likeness as a startopper. The mall is abandoned, and the Girlfriend's parents have been replaced with a monster with a lemon for a head, singing about eating the Boyfriend and the Girlfriend.]]
** Week 6, "Hating Simulator", is about the Boyfriend and the Girlfriend being [[TrappedInTVLand getting trapped in a dating sim]], the protagonist of said sim cheerfully challenging Boyfriend to a sing off for Girlfriend's hand. By the second song, the "Senpai"'s polite personality is [[BitchInSheepsClothing revealed to be a facade]], and by the third, [[spoiler:his body bursts open to reveal a murky pink spirit, the colorful schoolyard becoming a dark, wavy location. The Spirit reveals that Daddy Dearest put him into the game, implied to be because he wanted to date the Girlfriend, and that he actually wants to steal Boyfriend's body so he can escape the game and get revenge for himself and all the other unfortunate suitors]].
** The mod VS Ghost Twins starts off very cute and harmless with the typical LighterAndSofter tones. Things start to become more dark and depressing [[spoiler: when The Ghost Twins become the entity, Tanrie, who looks to be a EldritchAbomination. "Illustrious", however, sets the mod back to the start when the Twins are resurrected.]]
* ''VideoGame/GeometryDash'':
** Peaceful. At first, there are cute little monsters featured in the background, following your character as it moves along. However, the music will eventually corrupt, and the background will slowly transform into [[SceneryGorn a fleshy landscape full of trypophobia-introducing holes.]] A little while latter, the background becomes cute again, and the level ends. However, one final scare appears out of nowhere. Unsurprisingly, alongside the ridiculous amounts of lag, this level was never verified.
** [=ExtoPlasm=] has ''[[MeaningfulName too kiD frIEndly]]'', which, in contrast, has a more "slow-burn approach". Even with a couple shifts of tone, the level remains upbeat and jokey at times. It isn't until an ''entire city gets nuked and you get chased by a faceless version of one of the monsters at the beginning'' that it would reveal its real dark side. Then, after a rainbow-filled segment in FluffyCloudHeaven, it shows some of the monsters dying in various ways (such as accidentally dropping a lighter and setting themself on fire, getting hit by a car, hanging themselves, and getting murdered via an ''actual'' monster's tongue). The level continues with this darkly comedic setting, [[SoundtrackDissonance all set to the beat of an epic upbeat tune.]]
* The ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' series features this. Most of the games are standard Shoot 'Em Ups with little in the way of NightmareFuel, but the final bosses tend to be very disturbing, including things such as a disembodied, skinless head, a large brain with a face surrounded by several eerie, moaning faces, and a giant eye.
* ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'': So you've been shooting your way through plasma toting aliens for about half the game on a ring-shaped planet. So far, nothing too bad. Then Cortana starts freaking out, and yelling at you to find the captain as soon as you can. So you find Keyes' last known location, and find the she was so nervous... along with your own kind shooting you in confusion. [[spoiler:The Covenant came across some sort of parasite that turns people into zombie-like monster called the Flood, who are so powerful that one parasite can eventually multiply enough to turn a whole species extinct. Keyes followed suit and his squad and himself were horrifically mutated. Then they bust through the doors and try to overwhelm you as you try to get to the surface. The introduction of the Flood caught many people who were accustomed to the typical sci-fi story thus far off guard.]]
* [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] with ''VideoGame/HappyGame''. While it makes no secret how disturbing it will be, it is ''by far'' [[DarkerandEdgier the most disturbing game]] from Creator/AmanitaDesign.
* ''VideoGame/AHatInTime'' is a gleefully adorable GenreThrowback 3D platformer. Bright, colorful, cel-shaded, and generally the most cheerful thing you'll find. Except for Queen Vanessa's Manor, where the gameplay and tone start to look more like ''VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent'' or ''VideoGame/{{Outlast}}''. Here, you're scurrying from hiding spot to hiding spot as you try to make your way through the house, hiding from the Queen's tormented spirit lest she [[TakenForGranite make you an ice sculpture]], not to mention the notes describing her [[{{Yandere}} twisted life]].
* ''VideoGame/HungryLamu'' is a game where you need to find fruit the feed to the titular llama. Things get a little weird as the fruit happens to be sentient, but at least it appears willing to be eaten. [[spoiler:It then turns out that the "fruit friends" are humans, and as the final survivor you must escape from Lamu before he devours you too.]]
* ''VideoGame/HypnospaceOutlaw'' is a wacky, pastel-hued SimulationGame taking place in a pastiche of late-90s internet, and full of the sort of quirky but believably human characters you'd find wandering around the weird corners of something like [=GeoCities=]. Oh, and it's accessed by a BrainComputerInterface designed by IncompetenceInc. Things get rather dark as the game goes on.
* ''VideoGame/{{Iconoclasts}}'' starts off somewhat cheery, looking like a classic SNES adventure game with wrenches and pirates and an evil government being the BigBad. [[spoiler:Then you find out your character does her charitable job illegally, you get to watch TheDragon rip off your older brother's arm in rage, and watch an EldritchAbomination completely shatter the mind of one of your friends, leaving him nearly comatose and eventually left for dead on a collapsing moon base]].
* ''VideoGame/{{IMGCM}}'' seems like a vivid, ''Anime/PrettyCure''-like MagicalGirlWarrior game. However, there are two reasons why this game is rated 17+: Heavy FanService and huge amount of [[NightmareFuel/{{IMGCM}} nightmare fuel]], especially in the main story.
** It starts as a light-hearted, vivid, and colorful MagicalGirlWarrior game with [[DemonSlaying demon-exterminating action]] and FanService. [[spoiler:But then, things [[CerebusSyndrome start]] [[NightmareFuel to]] [[MindScrew go]] [[PlayerPunch to]] [[DarkerAndEdgier hell]] in the main story. From chapter 4 Episode 5 "The End of The Daily Life” onwards, when Kaori, one of the magical heroines, [[KillTheCutie dies from blood loss after being ambushed by a demon from behind]] and [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie is corrupted into a demon]] in a haunting [=CG=]-sequence that shows the audience the TransformationHorror and lets them hear how she screams from the pain. Then a GroundhogDayLoop ensues, a number of magical heroines die all over again (and in some cases, are corrupted into demons after they die), complete with the CG shots depicting their dooms. The last one is the worst: all the heroines die onscreen with [[DiesWideOpen open eyes]] and [[BlackBlood pink blood]] bleeding out from their dead bodies.]]
** The demons in general are already terrifying. They don't just [[SpaceTimeEater feed on humans' existences]], [[spoiler:[[TheVirus they also have a terrifying ability to turn the magical heroines into demons, right after killing them]]. Though, the chance of corruption is 50:50.]]
** To make things worse, [[spoiler:it’s later revealed that a few demons the heroines fight are the heroines' [[DeadAlternateCounterpart alternate selves from alternate universes who were previously slain]] ''and'' corrupted by demons and [[DemonOfHumanOrigin their demonized selves]] from other alternate universes, including ones who used to be in the protagonist's party. What's even worse is although Omnis is able to [[RealityWarper preserve the magical heroines' lives]] by [[MergedReality merging the his old universe with the universe]] [[RealityMaker he recently created with desired possibility]], he ''cannot'' undo the deaths of his heroines who are subsequently corrupted into demons because demons have certain immunity against merging. So there's nothing he can do for his dead heroines and their deceased alternate selves who are subsequently corrupted into demons [[KillingYourAlternateSelf besides killing them]] [[MercyKill for good]], unless he wins the Sabbath Arena and is promoted into the next Kamisaman.]]
** Exaggerated in the [[{{NSFW}} DX version]]. [[spoiler:It's loaded with {{Hentai}} scenes, detailed FanDisservice, GratuitousRape, TransformationHorror and {{gorn}}]]. Although most raunchy scenes take place in alternate universes, they’re still unsettling in content.
* ''VideoGame/IrisuSyndrome''. On the surface: a cutesy, if NintendoHard, FallingBlocks game, starring bunny girl Irisu. [[spoiler:Who is a mentally unstable bunny girl who has to fight off her urge to kill her friends (which the block game symbolizes), an urge that her crush/boyfriend [[BigBad Uujima Satoshi]] tries to encourage, and in the bad endings, she gives in to her urges.]]
* ''VideoGame/JimmyAndThePulsatingMass'' seems like a typical light-hearted RPG adventure through a dream-esque landscape, starring the titular Jimmy and his loving, quirky family. The FirstTown is Smile, an area populated by cute {{Funny Animal}}s, and the enemies are goofy creatures like a turtle with a box for a shell. And the “villains” are a group of petty thugs (who are even called the Petty Thugs) engaging in PokeThePoodle villainy and being StupidCrooks. Then you return to the Buddy Beehive and find it's suddenly turned into a nightmarish labyrinth of undead mutated bees, and it doesn't get any better from there:
** The titular BigBad who hired the Petty Thugs, the Pulsating Mass, is revealed to be an EldritchAbomination who hates Jimmy and wants to destroy his dream world, and it is played terrifyingly straight as a villain. It is the being responsible for the corruption of the Beehive. In addition, [[spoiler:the entire game turns out to be a DyingDream of a boy with terminal cancer, which the Pulsating Mass represents]].
** The majority of the game world is as quirky as the first world, but scattered about are Nightmare Zones, {{Bonus Dungeon}}s that are horror-themed. The first two are dark caves that limit your field of vision, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere, and one of them has a giant snake as a boss. Other common things found include grotesque enemies, blood and corpses, and a chilling soundtrack.
** A specific, and required, Nightmare Zone that does this is [[spoiler:Johnathon Bear’s Playtime Forest]], which starts off cutesy with the ShowWithinAShow’s saccharine theme song, everything made of wooden props, and the FunnyAnimal characters of the show serving as enemies. Then as you go further in, the level gets darker and the enemies become shadows with red eyes. Eventually, the level becomes grotesque, with body parts like eyes, brains, and a giant beating heart serving as scenery, while the enemies become mutated and bloody versions of their original selves, and it ends with a terrifying boss fight.
** Jimmy's mindset is explored a few times, and his internal thoughts are both creepy and depressing, [[spoiler: a lategame boss is Jimmy himself, representing all of his feeling at resentment towards his own weakness towards this disease, who gives a visceral TheReasonYouSuckSpeech... to himself. And the cutscene where Jimmy acquires the Phoenix transformation after a bonus dungeon implies that Jimmy has become a DeathSeeker who is looking forward to when the cancer finally takes him, so that way at least his family can move on.]]
* In the first episode of ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange'', there are definitely hints of some dark subjects - a missing girl, an innocent girl being bullied, a girl who tells a story about how she was drugged but got away in time - but for the most part, the game had an optimistic, teen indie air so a lot of people assumed it would have a pretty light air and only briefly touch on the darker stuff. Episode 2, in which [[spoiler:a girl describes how she was drugged and possibly raped and then attempts (or commits) suicide definitely brings the creepiness up]]. Then Episode 4 happens, in which [[spoiler:the player has to look around an underground bunker where girls were drugged and dragged to so they could be manipulated into sexual positions for photos, with those photos being shown to the player, before the episode ends with the protagonist being stabbed with a needle and drugged while her friend is shot in the head, and the ending teaser showing said protagonist tearfully trapped in that bunker again while the villain preps more needles]].
** Episode 5 picks up from there, with [[spoiler:the [[BitchInSheepsClothing kindly]] CoolTeacher Mark Jefferson explaining that he was the true BigBad and going into detail about his sickening obsession, taunting Max in a disturbingly calm voice that fluctuates into SuddenlyShouting. After Max is rescued, she and Chloe have to navigate through an incoming tornado and the carnage it has caused, with the whole city ruined and everyone screaming and running for their lives, and the whole thing ends with a SurrealHorror NightmareSequence and a final SadisticChoice]].
* ''Miss World '96 Nude'' is infamous as a horror game posing as a porn game. The gameplay consists of removing the obstructions that block your view of pictures of scantily-clad women. Take too long, and the image "turns" - the woman turns into a hideous monster as the gameplay gets harder. It's the ultimate in FanDisservice, and freaky.
* At first glance, ''VideoGame/MrTomatos'' seems like a harmless-looking {{Expy}} of the "Hungry Pumpkin" Flash game, but should you anger the eponymous tomato enough times or feed him enough food with his anger meter below 10, [[spoiler:the game, especially Mr. Tomatos himself, suddenly takes on a more sinister and creepy atmosphere]].
* A '''lot''' of ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' has this. Special mention goes to [[spoiler:the brothers' rooms]] in the first game, and ''VideoGame/MystIV'''s Serenia - a lovely world of glowing butterflies, literal stone forests, and magic memory-storing lotuses. And then comes the Spirit Ceremony and the [[{{Squick}} Big Bad's plan for Yeesha]].
%%* You'd think a video game series based off a character as sweet and wholesome as Franchise/NancyDrew would be sweet safe, right? '''[[NightmareFuel/NancyDrew GUESS AGAIN!]]'''
* ''VideoGame/NeedyStreamerOverload'' starts off as a colorful and peppy raising SIM where you aim to turn a girl called Ame into an internet celebrity, with a fittingly cheerful theme song, "Internet Overdose". Once you go further in however, the game starts showing its true nature as a [[RealismInducedHorror depressingly realistic portrayal of a mentally ill girl struggling to manage herself and how far people can go on the internet]]. Then you reach some of the endings, which [[spoiler:feature nasty stuff among the lines of Ame committing suicide, losing her mind over haters and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking starting a conspiracy cult]]]]... and once you have the fortitude to unlock all the endings, you reach the true ending, which [[TheEndingChangesEverything changes everything you know upside-down]]. [[spoiler:Ame was actually a schizophirenic who invented your in-game identity "P-Chan" as the voice on your head and you ''are'' Ame all along. This automatically puts a darker and cynical twist to the meanings of many endings, including ones that are seemingly optimistic.]]
* One game in the ''Videogame/NickelodeonClickamajigs'' catalogue is an infamous Halloween themed game known as Black Licorice. Like most clickamajigs, it involves a simple premise: giving adorable trick-or-treating kids candy. But, whatever you do, DO NOT give the kids the black licorice. If you do, which is bound to happen eventually since the good candies will start to dwindle after a little while, you will be in for a shock when you see how they react. Just always keep in mind:
--> THEY DON’T LIKE BLACK LICORICE...!
--> Oh yeah! I almost forgot... HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!
* ''VideoGame/NightsIntoDreams'' is a pretty, if slightly surreal game which involves prancing around dream worlds and battling weird monsters. Then you get to Wizeman. A colossal, looming shadow with no distinct face, a thundering voice, and six eyes, each one set into a separate, floating hand. His first direct interaction with the protagonists in the sequel is to suddenly appear in the hub world, tear apart the ground, and take out InvincibleHero [=NiGHTS=] by electrocuting them into unconsciousness and then dragging them with him into the Dark Sea.
* The classic 1988 ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'' is largely tongue-in-cheek and has you fighting human enemies as a ninja in the employ of the CIA. However the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVz9__a8x-I Game Over screen]] is total NightmareFuel: Ryu is tied down and surrounded by leering demons, pleading as a circular sawblade sinks down towards his chest. [[TheBadGuyWins Presumably, Jaquio was successful in opening the realm of chaos and demonkind have taken over the world, leaving the surviving humans as their playthings.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'': Most locations are vibrant with colorful characters, bright music, and thick-line artwork reminiscent of a Japanese scroll painting. The surprise comes mostly from two locations: the Sunken Ship and Yoshpet forest. They are ''creepy'' and quite jarring in contrast to the rest of the world. And there's also the BodyHorror parts where you go inside someone's body, which is as nasty-looking as you'd expect (particularly the stomach acid dripping from the water dragon).
** ''VideoGame/{{Okamiden}}'' even more so. The rating is lower, the player character is [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter painfully cute]], and then you see tank-sized skeletons made of the bones of murder victims and a PlayerPunch to end all {{Player Punch}}es.
* ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'', despite being billed as a horror game and having an eerie beginning, starts out innocuously as the titular protagonist meets his quirky friends and an equally quirky cast of characters at the playground. After a skirmish with a HarmlessVillain and some [[TheGoomba Sprout Moles]], Basil shows off his photo album to everyone, detailing their fun memories. Everything seems fine and child-friendly… until Basil drops one photo, looks at it, and starts freaking out, a shadow appears under him, and the screen glitches. Then Omori, back in White Space, ''stabs himself with a knife''. You are then transported to a dark house where an EldritchAbomination called Something attacks you. The rest of the game [[MoodWhiplash alternates]] between more quirky fun and SurrealHorror dealing with themes like depression and suicide as the true nature of the game world slowly becomes apparent.
* ''VideoGame/ThePancakesOfficialGameShow'', created by Dema Studios, is an innocent-looking first-person walkthrough experience that is initially absolutely hilarious to the player, involving pushing people off cliffs and solving math problems (the answer, of course, is [[spoiler:'Fish', as referenced in the previous game Bill's Hotel]]). It seems like you'll only get to keep having more fun killing people, [[spoiler:until the third game starts and you realize this isn't just a comedy, but a horror game. You're greeted with a warped, distorted version of the cheery opening theme as you walk through an incredibly dark house, only ending when you're chased through the basement by a deranged stick figure ringing a cowbell. This subversion of the killer becoming the victim will definitely catch you off guard.]]
* ''VideoGame/Payday2'' never pretended to be innocent, but other than nods to [[VideoGame/Left4Dead its inspiration]] and the odd HalloweenEpisode, it was never anything other than a heist simulator with a standard crime movie plot. [[spoiler:And then [[TheIlluminati the Kataru]] showed up... and things [[AncientConspiracy started]] [[HumanoidAbomination getting]] [[{{Reincarnation}} complicated]].]]
* Indie developer CC & SH loves this trope. It normally appears as an Easter Egg that you have to go and go very much out of your way to hunt down. For example, in their first ever game, ''Ping!'', clicking specific spots on the screen during the end credits will cause the game to suddenly go full-screen, showing a black background with pulsating Chinese text and a very disturbing noise. You can't even exit the game at this point without bringing up task manager, either.
* Content warning at the beginning of the game notwithstanding, ''VideoGame/PromDreams'' begins as a fairly typical harem dating sim, complete with upbeat music, comedic scenes, and many of the genre's standard tropes. In fact, the player can win their chosen love interest's heart and make it to prom night without experiencing a single horrific element, [[spoiler:only for said love interest to be killed suddenly and brutally, without any way for the player to avoid it. From there, the game "resets" itself several times, sans the girl killed in each previous loop, with the atmosphere becoming more horrific as the dating sim plot gives way to a supernatural murder mystery.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'', Milla's brain seems to contain nothing but fun and parties. However, if you manage to find a slightly out-of-the-way area, you discover that she used to work at an [[spoiler:OrphanageOfLove... which was destroyed and all the orphans killed in a house fire and continue to haunt her nightmares, crying out things like, "Save us, Milla," and "Milla, why won't you help us?"]] Reportedly, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the original plan was to have]] [[spoiler:Milla's nightmares attack Raz, from time to time-- this is where the GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere mini-bosses in the MilkmanConspiracy stemmed from.]]
* ''VideoGame/QuestFantasy'' is SoBadItsGood, and involves characters who go "oh es so kawaii" and reference the zelda cd-i games. [[spoiler:The second half of the game has characters dying and bleeding from their eyes and a boss that is a ShoutOut to Giygas. The next games feature the characters going about their business until the EldritchAbomination shows up and everything goes to hell, and the final game has the protagonist attempt to save the world from the entity. Then ''two more'' malicious otherworldly creatures show up, one wanting to TakeOverTheWorld and the other wanting to ''eat'' it.]]
* ''VideoGame/ReKuroi'': Despite the cute artstyle and the initially optimistic first arc of Kaito joining the wizard community, the story is quite dark [[spoiler:due to the Black Pearl overloading people with magic powers to turn them into monsters. There are also plot elements like unethical human experimentation and drug addiction.]]
* The ''VideoGame/SenranKagura'' series features pretty ninja girls beating the crap out of each other, with most of the fight scenes often seeing their clothing getting sliced up all for {{Fanservice}} moments. Then it starts dipping into the drama dealing with heavy themes like overcoming grief, survivors' guilt, and isolation. And then it cranks into horror with the heroines often having to fight terrifying {{Eldritch Abomination}}s filled with BodyHorror.
* ''VideoGame/SomaSpirits'': This game starts off cute, with both worlds featuring chibified pixel art characters, but the second half of the game has creepy elements.
** If the party obtains four of the same orb but none of the opposing orb, [[spoiler:one of the main characters will transform into a darker version of themselves with a spiral in place of their face, all while going through SanitySlippage. If the party gets more of the same orb, the corrupted party member manifests Absolution as a monstrous battle aura, and then destroys one of the worlds.]]
** In the true ending, [[spoiler:the FinalBoss, Absolution, starts as a set of monstrous eyes and a mouth, with the rest of their face covered in darkness. Once the darkness lifts, they're shown to have multiple eyes and tentacles, making them more grotesque than Heart and Soul's versions of Absolution from the worst endings.]]
* ''VideoGame/SonicDreamsCollection'' starts as a rather tame riff on the ''Sonic'' fandom, but as the levels and sequences progress, the scenarios become increasingly morbid, disturbing, and bizarre.
* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':
** ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' and ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' got the Surprise Creepy ball running for the series in general. Players expect the same old song-and-dance of Sonic stopping Eggman from taking over the world, but the former throws [[MoodWhiplash a curveball]] with the reveal that Eggman's new pet, Chaos, wiped out an ancient civilization (the circumstances leading up to it being pretty frightening in their own right) and almost does the same thing in the present day. The sequel sends things even further OffTheRails when it turns out someone was straight-up '''''KILLED''''' in the backstory, fueling a drive for revenge on the part of Eggman's grandfather that nearly destroys the world!
** ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' does have a surprisingly creepy villain in Mephiles, a manipulative character vaguely resembling Shadow who has no mouth, yet speaks. [[spoiler:Not helping matters is the fact that, in the endgame, [[HeroKiller he straight-up murders Sonic in the blink of an eye]]]].
** ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' has bright, vibrant, beautiful landscapes and a world full of unique and oftentimes humorous characters. Even the fact that ''the world is broken apart'' isn't as bad as it would seem. [[spoiler:Then you run into the final boss, Dark Gaia, a colossal EldritchAbomination that's more intimidating and monstrous than the likes of Perfect Chaos and Solaris. Then it becomes Perfect Dark Gaia, in a supremely gruesome transformation sequence that involves ''sprouting extra arms from its sides in a shower of blood and splitting its head open to reveal eyes and masses of tongues!'']]
** Long before that there was ''VideoGame/KnucklesChaotix'', a pretty whimsical game with a carnival theme and a matching color palette. Then you reach the final boss in which [[spoiler:Metal Sonic undergoes a OneWingedAngel transformation, becoming a giant blood-colored fanged monstrosity unlike anything else in the classic games[[https://info.sonicretro.org/images/6/64/MSKaiFight.png]]. Then if you beat the game without all Chaos Rings, you're treated to a credits scene in which he's shown hovering over a city in flames, implying he destroyed the place and killed millions...]]
* ''VideoGame/SpookysJumpScareMansion'' presents itself as a DefangedHorrors [[AffectionateParody parody]] of horror games, where you navigate the house of the titular CuteGhostGirl, and at most you get startled by [[PokeThePoodle cute cardboard cutouts]]. That is until you progress further into the game, where you encounter the ''actual'' monsters and come across [[ApocalypticLog various notes left by previous travelers]]. Spooky herself is also heavily implied to be [[CuteAndPsycho not what she seems]].
* ''VideoGame/{{SUPERHOT}}'' starts off as a fun, addicting game with the humorous song "SUPER. HOT." congratulating your successes. Then TheEndingChangesEverything, when it's revealed that [[spoiler:this is intentional, as it's a brainwashing simulator convincing you to pull a BrainUploading procedure, then convince your real life friends to play the game]]. The track above? [[spoiler:HAND. OVER. CONTROL.]]
* In ''VideoGame/SuperSurpriseParty'', the colors and visuals are all cute and sweet, from the smiling party-guests to the gumdrop rain. But the actual game is a PsychologicalHorror, with a creepy, short-tempered narrator and a location-tracking gimmick.
* ''Videogame/SurvivalCrisisZ'' starts out as a cookie cutter ZombieApocalypse scenario. The disturbing imagery during the intro to the story mode turns out to be a {{Foreshadowing}} for something worse to come.
** [[spoiler: Episode 2 is when the game starts being off. First there is a story quest involving checking out somebody who was ill. Rather than just turning into a zombie, the ill person grows large spider legs in a sudden boss fight. Then Episode 3 has a woman warn you about "the children". There will be a segment where you'll be attacked by hordes of CreepyChild zombies brandishing bloody knife. That's not to mention how starting from the end of Episode 2, the town you're in undergoing a ''Franchise/SilentHill'' esque otherworld transition...]]
* ''VideoGame/SWAT4'' on its surface is a TacticalShooter about leading a SWATTeam through a range of relatively mundane callouts. From this premise, the game leans hard into the RealismInducedHorror of the job: The creepy night time ambience of each mission goes well with the paranoia that there could be a suspect ready to ambush you around any corner. That's on top of how most of the crimes you deal with involve people with grounded motivations and actions. And that's not considering the handful of missions where the game fully embraces the pure horror of the worst things a SWAT Team may have to deal with.
** "Fairfax Household" tasks you with raiding the home of a suspected SerialKiller to rescue his most recent victim. It is the easiest mission in the game (the aforementioned killer is your only suspect, with a random chance that he may be accompanied by a single accomplice), but the focus of the mission is instead in you exploring the house: Stepping in to a regular suburban home and discovering a place of squalor occupied by the killer's frail mother, who insists that her son is innocent. Discovering hints of the killer's upbringing before finding that his bedroom has become a shrine to his media attention. [[spoiler:The mission ends with a pair of masterfully terrifying RevealShots: You discover a curtained off room, and as your turn the corner you discover a range of paper mache face masks and a woman laying on a soiled mattress. This isn't the victim you came to rescue; searching through a makeshift tunnel, you find a bunker containing your rescue target in the midst of a HeroicBSOD surrounded by scraps of food and an almost complete paper mache cast of herself]].
** "Children of Tarrone Tennament" has you raid the base of a DoomsdayCult. The cult's beliefs are highly detailed and grounded, with the entire building having been transformed into a commune for their activities and even the non-combatants responding to your arrival in a brainwashed state. [[spoiler:The RevealShot is that you find a set of child graves in the tenament's basement: The cult members had murdered their children under the orders of their leader in expectation for your arrival]].
** "St. Michael's Medical Center" has you respond to a terrorist attack at a hospital. You are LateToTheTragedy, and are treated to the realistic aftermath of a mass shooting, the only time in the game where many of the civilians you find are dead on arrival.
* ''VideoGame/TitanSouls'' is, for the most part, a colorful fantasy game where you fight standard monsters. Then [[spoiler: you fight the TrueFinalBoss. After defeating The Soul and entering the gate it was guarding, you wind up in an empty white void. Truth, a giant unblinking eye inside of two eye-covered wheels, then appears. When you damage it, the wheels move to the edges of the screen and become gates that fire black orbs with eyes and biting mouths at you, occasionally firing Truth at you. Once you hit Truth again, it briefly recoils before sprouting tentacles and beginning to chase you. While all of this is happening, the adventurous music of the rest of the game is replaced with atonal noise that wouldn't be out of place in a horror game.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'': The player's first night, most likely. Sure, it's a cheerful sandbox game that takes place in a cutesy SugarBowl world, but then night falls and the zombies and flying disembodied eyeballs show up...
** It can happen even before then if the player stumbles upon the Corruption or the Crimson, going from a cheerful, friendly forest environment to either a diseased land covered in thorns and inhabited by a host of flying nasties or an organic, fleshy-looking wasteland.
* Subverted with ''VideoGame/TykeAndSonsLumberCo''. The game does have cutesy segments that segue into horror segments, but instead of just using the cute segments to disguise a horror game, this game incorporates these segments to tell the majority of the story.
* ''VideoGame/{{ULTRAKILL}}'' is normally a fast-paced StylishAction game. The exception to this is [[BleakLevel one of the secret levels]], Something Wicked, a [[BlackoutBasement pitch-black]] labyrinth devoid of any music and full of terrifying, spindly, OneHitKill monsters.
* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' is a game where you meet a number of delightfully quirky characters who crack countless jokes and puns, including dog knights who just want to be petted and a LargeHam fish knight who believes that everything shown in anime is real. It's also a game where a cute little flower turns out to be a nightmarish and sadistic villain who believes that it's "kill or be killed"--and you see this at the ''very beginning of the game''. If you decide to go out of your way to slaughter every monster in your path, you can expect one hell of a bad time, and if you actually do a complete pacifist run you get to end on one hell of a happy ending, but not before you have to go through the [[AbandonedLaboratory True]] [[VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Lab]] which is like one of ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil Resident Evil's]]'' facilities if it popped up in ''Franchise/SilentHill''.
** If you meet up with Sans the Skeleton in the MTT Resort restaurant, you're treated to a soothing, relaxing atmosphere while bluesy jazz music plays and Sans chats with you. He's telling you the story of how he met this old lady in the woods through a massive door, and now they tell each other dumb knock-knock jokes (of course, Sans had to get back home in time to read Papyrus his bedtime story). Then Sans starts talking about how one day, she made him promise to protect any humans that came through, which can tug at the old heartstrings. And then:
-->Sans: do you get what i'm saying? that promise i made to her... you know what would have happened if she hadn't said anything?
-->Sans: ...buddy.
-->Sans: [[spoiler: [[BlackEyesOfEvil Y o u ' d b e d e a d w h e r e y o u s t a n d.]] ]]
** Depending on your Fun Value for a playthrough, there's a chance of an NPC appearing in Waterfall, who tells you that you should be friends with her neighbour's daughter, who you never get to meet in the game. She seems quite cheerful aside from her comments about fate. But then in the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch version, again determined by Fun Value, there's a chance that in the PlayableEpilogue, she'll tell you that "the time that you will meet her... is fast approaching." As she says this, she turns grey, her arms become more tentacle-like, [[FacelessEye and her face becomes just an eye]]. And then she disappears.
* ''VideoGame/TheUnfinishedSwan'' is a little adventure game about a boy chasing an Unfinished Swan through a world of white that you color by throwing balls of paint so you can see your way through. It's all well and good and positive... until you get to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-sgxdLx35Q the Forest]]. Suddenly, DarknessEqualsDeath and [[BlackoutBasement darkness is EVERYWHERE]], there are evil eyes glaring at you from everywhere, and only certain plants will light up the surroundings (and even then, not that much).
* The ''VideoGame/YoNoid'' FanSequel, ''VideoGame/YoNoid2EnterTheVoid'' starts off as a lighthearted spoof of the original game, with a [[StealthPun cheesy]] live-action opening cutscene, lots of puns, and a button dedicated to dabbing. Even after you enter the titular Noid Void, there are still plenty of fun anthropomorphic food characters and bright, cheery moments. [[spoiler:Then, during the second level, you find a [[OminousVisualGlitch rapidly glitching character]] who tells you that the whole world is just an illusion, and that "he" monitors everything, [[LovecraftLite although he can be stopped]]. Then, at the climax of the game, you find out who "he" is: Mike Hatsune, a [[UncannyValley disturbing]] HumanoidAbomination who seeks to replace the Noid with "a new Noid for a new age", speaks in text-to-speech (unlike every other character, mind you) and lives in [[BleakLevel a creepy television world without any of the charm or humor of the other levels]]. The worst part? ''[[TheBadGuyWins He actually succeeds]]'', replacing the Noid with Hatsune Miku... [[ForegoneConclusion just like]] [[RealLifeWritesThePlot in real life]]]].
* For the most part, ''VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack: [[VideoGame/TheJackboxPartyPack Full Stream]]'' is the same irreverent game of trivia as ever, with a bit more BlackComedy than usual now that fictional data-mining streaming service Binjpipe has acquired the show. However, one potential "episode" reveals that [[spoiler: [[TheHost Cookie Masterson]] has been trapped InsideAComputerSystem and Binjpipe is actually a front for an AssimilationPlot wherein all human life will be "[[DeadlyEuphemism turned into content]]". To twist the knife, Cookie is {{reset|ButtonEnding}} just as [[DownerEnding he figures out what's going and pledges to stop it]]]].
* ''VideoGame/YummyBreakfast'' starts out cute and simple, with a girl just trying to make herself a "yummy breakfast". It takes a turn for the creepy as she gets more and more desperate for food, resorting to eating live animals and [[spoiler:a girl.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games -- Nintendo]]
Creator/{{Nintendo}} and their development teams may well be the reigning champions of this trope. They have a family-friendly image, but quite a few of their games are clearly intended for ''brave'' kids.
* Hresvelgr from ''[[VideoGame/{{Boktai}} Boktai 3: Sabata's Counterattack]]'' basically looks like a VideoGame/PacMan ghost in a top hat. [[spoiler:Then he unfurls his wings and shows what he looks like underneath: a [[MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily maw filled with teeth]] and a single eagle's talon.]]
* In ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1'', the infamous GameOver [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060529084402/uncyclopedia/images/7/7d/DKC_gameover.png screen]] can come across as this. You're enjoying an upbeat, lighthearted game, only to lose your last life and get a depressing image of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong beat up over a black background. The music sounds depressing, too.
* ''VideoGame/EarthBound''. 99% Cartoon-y goofiness, 1% [[ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow incomprehensible cosmic horror]]. And it's the last 1%, too, [[spoiler: especially because of the final boss]]. You spend most of the game guiding a few adorable kids around a pastiche {{Eagleland}} fighting cartoonish monsters with bats, frying pans and rolling pins. At the end of the game, [[spoiler:the kids' souls are transplanted into the bodies of robots and they're fighting for their lives against a [[EldritchAbomination near incomprehensible creature made of pure hate and insanity]] who takes the form of a spectral hurricane with a demented screaming face in the center. This abomination, called Giygas, babbles incoherently while whacking them with incredibly powerful psychic attacks that are [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm impossible to grasp the true form of]]. Worth pointing out the developer of the game, Shigesato Itoi, based Giygas' terrifying visage on an experience he had as a child - [[HarmfulToMinors he unknowingly walked in on an adult film at the cinema]] and misinterpreted a sex scene turned murder as a rape scene. ]]
** While not as egregious, ''VideoGame/EarthboundBeginnings'' has some disturbing areas, such as the graveyard visited early in the game and the bleak and [[ThatOneLevel extremely difficult]] Mt.Itoi. The final boss sequence is also fairly disturbing, featuring the sudden appearance of a massive alien starship and the jarring ambient noise (rather than proper music)
** ''VideoGame/Mother3'' starts lightly, much like the other two, but the horror kicks in much earlier and persists throughout the game. New Pork City and anything to do with [[spoiler:Porky]] is especially disturbing.
* ''VideoGame/EndlessOcean'' starts off as a fun little semi-educational game where you swim around the ocean and look at and pet all kinds of fish. Then you start swimming in the deep parts of the ocean and encountering all the types of realistically detailed creatures that live down there. It's a bit surprising to go from swimming around a coral reef petting clownfish to swimming around a dark trench and running into a giant squid. In the sequel the last part of the story involves your fellow divers disappearing and when you find them being attacked by a giant deformed shark.
* The UsefulNotes/WiiU-exclusive ''[[VideoGame/WarioWare Game And Wario]]'' is a collection of fun, lighthearted minigames based around characters from the ''[=WarioWare=]'' series. One of the minigames, "Gamer", involves 9-Volt secretly playing [=WarioWare=] microgames whilst in bed. 9-Volt's mother 5-Volt occasionally checks in on him, and he must hide from the mother while simultaneously playing the game. At first glance, the game is not all that creepy, especially during the tutorial, and the mom is [[http://www.mariowiki.com/images/thumb/1/11/5Volt.png/100px-5Volt.png kinda cute looking]]. But the actual game has the mother check in on 9-Volt in several very creepy ways, including ''popping out of the television'' (with ominous static immediately beforehand) and sneaking past the bedroom window with a creepy, dissonant rising strings theme playing as she walks past. The mother may or may not open the window, adding to the tension. She also takes on an [[DeathGlare eerie shadowy look with glowing eyes]], and will [[NightmareFace change into a demented-looking demon]] if she catches you. This all happens while the [=WarioWare=] microgames are playing on the Gamepad, adding dissonance to the situation.
* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'':
** The games feature [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter cute]] [[WaddlingHead characters]], a [[CheerfulChild cheerful]] [[PlayerCharacter eponymous protagonist]], [[SceneryPorn colorful and fanciful levels]], and ''lots'' of frightening [[FinalBoss final bosses]]. One of them is actually named [[VideoGame/KirbysAdventure Nightmare]], and he's not even the scariest by a long shot! Perhaps most infamous among them are [[VideoGame/KirbySuperStar Marx Soul]], especially his [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe death]] [[HellIsThatNoise sequence]], and [[VideoGame/KirbysDreamLand3 0]], mostly for his ClippedWingAngel transformation which involves ''gouging its own eye out with blood spilling all over.'' Kirby 64 continues the tradition; while Dark Matter and especially the possession scenes are at least [[BodyHorror unsettling]], they still don't provide any good warning for the jarring final boss. Then there's [[VideoGame/KirbyMassAttack Necrodeus]], whose name literally means ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast death god]]''. It took ''VideoGame/KirbysReturnToDreamLand'' to finally jack up the age rating to E10+, and the games mentioned earlier only got an E10+ rating when ''[[MilestoneCelebration Kirby's Dream Collection]]'' was announced. For reference, that's over a ''decade'' since their original releases.
** The pause screens during the boss battles against the main villains and final bosses of ''[[VideoGame/KirbyTripleDeluxe Triple Deluxe]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/KirbyPlanetRobobot Planet Robobot]]'', especially in the NewGamePlus. There you learn the story of [[spoiler:Queen Sectonia going from a fair ruler to a tyrant because of her quest for beauty and eventually [[SanitySlippage losing herself]] to the point killing her is a MercyKill.]] Then there's [[spoiler:President Haltmann, who lost his daughter, wants nothing more than to see her again and ends up [[DeaderThanDead getting his soul destroyed]] when his super computer gains sentience and decides to take over.]]
** ''[[VideoGame/KirbyStarAllies Star Allies]]'' ups the ante even further. At first glance, a colorful and absolutely ''gorgeous'' game about Kirby running around making friends by throwing pink hearts at them would seem to conflict with the game's E10+ rating whose only justification is "Cartoon Violence." [[spoiler:And then you reach the end of the game and the actual probable reason for that rating: first, a completely insane cult leader who uses his female generals as bludgeons during his boss fight, then sacrifices them and himself to revive a god of destruction to wipe out the universe. Said god resembles [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Sachiel]] and has a phase which involves tearing open its heart, complete with blood dripping from the ceiling, culminating into a fight against its essence: a Kirby-like soul. The worst part is that the game implies that this thing and Kirby himself are connected somehow, which is only further compounded in The Ultimate Choice, where defeating an even harder version of it unlocks Kirby's original design from the first game.]]
** ''VideoGame/KirbyAndTheForgottenLand'' serves up a massive plate of whiplash for the final few stages of the main story. [[spoiler:After the blood-pumping battle with Forgo Dedede, you're treated to an unsettlingly pleasant exposition dump that details what happened to the previous residents of the New World. Following that, you meet ID-F86, AKA Fecto Forgo, a strange, fetus-like creature in a containment unit. In front of it is the Beast Pack's leader, Leongar, who plans to merge Forgo with a captive Elfilin and restore it to full power. After the subsequent boss battle and Elfilin's liberation, Fecto Forgo speaks through Leongar to go on a MotiveRant. And then? "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis EVERYTHING. SHALL BE. CONSUMED.]]" Forgo promptly escapes their confinement and takes on the form of an obscene amorphous blob by absorbing several members of the Beast Pack. The ensuing boss fight features Forgo as a harrowing AdvancingBossOfDoom. And then Forgo successfully absorbs poor Elfilin to become the real FinalBoss, Fecto Elfilis.]]
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': Primarily E-rated games. E-rated games that include, among other things, a temple dedicated to death, zombies that are trying to kill the protagonist, and the apocalypse. Probably the two most blatant examples are ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]''. The ESRB seems to have caught on by the time of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'', but even so its T rating was probably just because of the [[DarkerAndEdgier darker graphical style]], since ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'' has an E10+ rating despite not being too much more lighthearted.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' is bright, cartoony and disarming, but culminates in Link [[spoiler: stabbing Ganondorf in the ''brain'']]. When you consider how incredibly dark the backstory of this game is, it suddenly seems like the game's happy atmosphere was taunting the past and the people of ancient Hyrule, much like how the happy music in [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Clock Town]] seemed to taunt the people who stayed oblivious to their impending doom, only more subtle. This is all after the Earth Temple, which is full of Redeads, Floor- and Wallmasters, spooky fog, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking a weird-looking sun/moon face statue.]]
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' has its moments too, most notably in the Ancient Cistern. At first, it seems a bright and pleasant place with lots of clear water and green and gold scenery. And then you descend into the lower parts... [[spoiler:Which culminates in Link climbing a rope to escape only to find that a horde of zombies is also climbing that same rope... and then you learn that to continue, you have to go back down that same rope.]]
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' features a nice, happy looking world but [[spoiler: it is actually a post apocalyptic world resulting from Link and his allies failing to stop Ganon 100 years earlier.]] Ganon - called Calamity Ganon here -- is also an EldritchAbomination and this Zelda is one of the most tragic incarnations.
* ''[[VideoGame/MagicalVacation Magical Starsign]]'' is saccharine and kid-friendly through-and-through until [[spoiler:Semolina commits suicide through a carnivorous flower before you get a chance to protest, and becomes one of your [[CosmicKeystone Cosmic Keystones]]. And then Sorbet, one of your own party members, admits that if Semolna hadn't done it first, she would have done so herself.]] Later, you get to learn [[spoiler:the fate of Applepie, and/or every human in the universe once the robots start to run out of fuel: robots turn humans into "gummies", their battery cores. And that's ignoring the star-devouring abomination that is the FinalBoss...]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': More E-rated goodness that involves sending adorable little carrot-creatures to near-certain doom against beasts many times their size on a planet that -- WordOfGod states -- is Earth 250 million years in the future. In the first game, Olimar does this to survive. In the second, it's all about getting treasure. And in the third, it's to prevent an ApocalypseHow. Some of the more bizarre enemies in the game include a frog-shaped embodiment of poison, the [[HellIsThatNoise moaning]] intangible EldritchAbomination known as the Waterwraith, and [[spoiler:the immortal shape-shifting monstrosity that is the Plasm Wraith]]. Olimar actually does wonder:
-->''Would this have been a peaceful planet had I never come? No... surely the Pikmin lived like this before my arrival. They MUST have.''
* The mainline ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games themselves have started to get in on the fun, especially with the creepier Pokedex entries - see entries like Yamask and Shedinja's just for starters. Then there's ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite''... would you like a nice cup of horrific psychological abuse of a child with your cute monster battling?
** ''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum]]'' has pretty creepy moments as well. In all three games, there are fun adventures, cute friendly monsters, and an evil cult that wants to destroy all of existence so their leader can reshape the world in his image and become ''God''. Oh, and did we mention that Platinum contains an extra segment in the main storyline where you end up in a parallel universe and face off against a massive EldritchAbomination of a dragon?
** In ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum'', the main villainous team plans to turn Pokémon into fighting machines via MindRape and has essentially taken over two of the region's towns, coming surprisingly close to achieving their goals.
** In comparison to ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum'', ''Pokemon XD'' starts off much LighterAndSofter. [[spoiler:Then we find out that Cipher abducted a ship and [[FridgeHorror we still don't know where the crew went...]]]]
** Also from ''Pokemon XD'' is your first trip to Phenac City, which was a location in ''Colosseum''. Already strange is the fact that an NPC refuses to let you enter until you go waste some time at Realgam Tower, but once you come back it initially looks like the exact same city as the first game. Then [=NPCs=] start saying very strange things to you, the shop is randomly closed for a "holiday", and when you try to warn Justy of the upcoming Cipher attack like you were sent to do, he laughs and asks if you haven't just dreamed this up. All the while, the background music starts getting more and more distorted...
** ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'''s Lavender Town. Between the background music being more unnerving than it should be possible for any 8-bit song to be and the [[FridgeHorror sudden revelation]] that Pokemon can actually die, there's the entire origin story of Cubone/Marowak and its/their skull-helmet thing. Not to mention the Cinnabar lab and the vague bits of Mewtwo's backstory we learn there.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' brings us to the Kalos region, a lovely region where great emphasis is placed on beauty and harmony. [[spoiler: Then we find out about the various wars that took place there and one of those wars was ended with a giant superweapon because its creator went mad with grief. Oh, and the evil team wants to use that ancient superweapon to effectively ''nuke the entire country''.]]
** ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' takes things even further. Not even counting how downright gruesome and unnerving Pokedex entries have become[[note]]entries include souls leaking out of bodies, trainers dying from their Pokemon attempting to show affection, and the previous generation's Mega Evolution mechanic actually resulting in severe psychological damage to a Pokemon[[/note]], the game's plot brings up a number of SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome moments that reveal just how harsh the ''Pokemon'' world can be and the main story ends with [[spoiler:the player character and Lillie entering another dimension in order to coax Lillie's mother, Lusamine, back home, only for the woman to completely merge with one of the Ultra Beasts that inhabit that universe.]] The postgame features you helping the International Police to stop [[EldritchAbomination the Ultra Beasts]]. It is explicitly stated at one point that [[spoiler: the police are using you as bait and one of the Ultra Beasts is mentioned to have actually killed someone.]]
* The mobile spinoff ''VideoGame/PokemonMagikarpJump'' appears to be a simple, lighthearted virtual pet thing where you train a Magikarp's jumping ability until it can perform in the local Olympics. Once it reaches the level cap it'll retire peacefully whether or not it managed to win its last tournament run. The problem, though, is there are events that cause the permanent loss of your current fish. The first one you're likely to see already involves a Pidgeotto swooping in from out of nowhere and taking it as prey. Even if it is PlayedForLaughs due to the character's ButtMonkey nature, it's hard to see the game the same way [[PlayerPunch after it happens once.]]
* ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'':
** ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonRescueTeam'' was already pretty creepy, like when all your friends suddenly turn on you and chase you for what seems to be days, clearly intent on killing you. And then there's the tale of [[spoiler:Gardevoir's past]]...
** ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers'' starts out with cute little monsters, in particular, the nervous partner character, learning how to be good explorers. Starts getting a little uncomfortable when a child is abducted by a criminal, gets out and out distressing when [[spoiler:you get dragged into the future]], and the game really doesn't let up on the creepy for the rest of the story. You and your partner are encouraged to [[spoiler:''commit suicide'']] at one point! Yep, E-rated.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonGatesToInfinity'' certainly seems cheery at first, starring two Pokémon adventuring together and trying to make a home for themselves while exploring an uncaring world, and the whole thing is drenched in ThePowerOfFriendship. Eventually, [[spoiler:one of your allies is brutally murdered and you are beaten nearly to death, the QuirkyMinibossSquad is revealed to be a ''suicide cult'', and the world is threatened by an EldritchAbomination made of despair, hopelessness, and bitterness.]]
** ''VideoGame/PokemonSuperMysteryDungeon'' starts off with the hero and partner going to school together, and setting out to become members of the Expedition Society, but takes a slight turn for the dark when it's revealed Pokemon have been mysteriously turning to stone. [[spoiler: You eventually learn the truth behind the petrified Pokemon; that their life force was sucked out by the thralls of an EldritchAbomination, and to make things worse, that while in this state, their consciousness ends up in a twisted, hellish realm known as the Voidlands, where they're tormented by the otherworldly [[BlobMonster Void Shadows]] and shades of Pokemon manifested from dark emotions. The hero, their friends, and much of the world's populace fall victim before all is said and done, with the implication that they could've been trapped there ''forever'' had the aforementioned EldritchAbomination succeeded in destroying the world.]]
* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'':
** The series originally revealed via the final [[StoryBreadcrumbs Sunken Scrolls]] in [[VideoGame/Splatoon1 the first game]] to be distantly post-apocalyptic, set long after global warming and the rising sea levels ended the human race. The games would go on to treat this a fun factoid, leading to moments where you're watching the hosts do their usual banter until one of them says:
--> '''Pearl:''' I went digging in my backyard earlier today, and I found some old bones!\\
'''Marina:''' Human bones, huh? Yeah, those things are everywhere.
** ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' introduces Salmon Run, starring the Salmonids: essentially barbarian hordes trying to overrun (and possibly ''eat'') the Inklings. And that's not even getting into the fact that the Sunken Scrolls in this game include a passage from an Inkling religious text that states salmon swarms are harbingers of the apocalypse. Granted, dealing with them is viewed by the Inklings as a nice, if sketchy, part-time job for teenagers, but still.
** ''Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion'' is a bit DarkerAndEdgier to begin with, but still quite silly. At least until [[spoiler:the player character almost gets pureed in a blender and narrowly saves all life on Earth from being wiped out.]] Oh, and it's heavily implied that [[spoiler:the player character is the first one to avoid getting blended. The player character is also [[InferredHolocaust the 10,008th individual]] to get to that point.]] It's also revealed that [[spoiler:the ''Octo Expansion'' enemies, called "sanitized" Octarians, have been "disinfected" of free will and independent thought. They have no pulse or higher brain functions, being controlled like robots. However, it's hinted that something of their old mind is [[AndIMustScream still present]] and may eventually reawaken; the expansions music is in-universe [[ShoutOut written by]] [[Music/Deadmau5 dedf1sh]], a sanitized Octoling who nonetheless continues producing music despite being brainwashed.]]
* ''Videogame/StarFox'' has, if one wasn't spoiled yet, [[spoiler:nothing to foreshadow that the evil emperor slash mad scientist that you fight will be taking the form of an EldritchAbomination, either a giant mask that turns into a cube filled with his visage, or a giant head that eventually turns into a spaceship-sized brain with two eyes. And those things were fought in what appears to be an EldritchLocation or vortex.]]
* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** Most of ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' is a cheerful game set in brightly colored fields and mountains filled with goofy creatures and upbeat music. Then you get to Big Boo's Haunt--a drab, gloomy mansion in the middle of a dark forest, soundtracked by a DroneOfDread, where disembodied voices taunt you as you explore, trap doors dunk you into a mazelike basement with a haunted carousel providing CreepyCircusMusic, a fanged piano can try to bite you in half, and secret rooms contain giant staring eyeballs. Only the silly-looking Boo enemies and limited graphics really keep it out of outright horror territory. It's arguably the TropeCodifier for surprisingly creepy levels in video games, and undoubtedly inspired several other examples on this page.
** Mario gives Link a run for his money throughout the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' games, which end up a lot like ''Earthbound'' with the subject of murder ([[spoiler:though he was actually just unconscious]]) dealt with in the [[VideoGame/PaperMario64 first game]]; an EldritchAbomination appearing as the final boss of the [[VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor second]]; and the [[VideoGame/SuperPaperMario third's]] plot being explicitly that reality itself was being destroyed, later revealed that this includes [[spoiler:[[FridgeHorror The Afterlife]]]]. Also notable is ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' which is hours of compressed sheer joy -- [[spoiler:and then the universe is annihilated in a supermassive black hole]].
*** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheOrigamiKing'', the sixth ''Paper Mario'' game, takes it up to a new level. Don't be fooled by the goofy-looking origami enemies and the villain, King Olly, looking and acting like an immature angsty teenager--said villain is a RealityWarper fond of inflicting BodyHorror by forcibly and painfully folding up the paper characters, which is ''not'' PlayedForLaughs. Pretty early into the game, Mario starts finding Paper Macho enemies, large-sized papier-maché versions of enemies with empty holes for eyes and a stop-motion movement that looks uncannily out of place in the setting. It goes even further late into the game when Mario enters Bowser's Castle and sees what King Olly has done to it: Bowser's Castle has always been dark and foreboding, but it never had [[spoiler:Slender Man analogues peeling themselves off the walls, a giant Buzzy Beetle made up of the still-living mutilated fragments of Bowser's minions, or the giant sentient pair of scissors that created said Buzzy Beetle monstrosity and whose every attack is a OneHitKill]].
** The ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' series takes an abrupt dark turn in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime''. The whole plot is about a near genocidal AlienInvasion of the kingdom, with the captured Toads subjected to a fate worse than death and some of the most spectacular examples of SceneryGorn in an E rated game. In fact, Mario screams very often during the cutscenes, and you can't really blame him.
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' is a light-hearted romp through the world that includes dinosaurs, a giant garden, and a super jazzy New York stand-in. [[OhCrap Then you end up on a ruined medieval fantasy world and fight a hyper-realistic dragon]], all looking like they wandered in from ''VideoGame/DarkSouls''. This is despite the fact that the first area is a literal ghost town where you meet your spectral side-kick, which actually is rather pleasant and inviting if monochrome.
* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros for 3DS and Wii U'' decides to go this route with its TrueFinalBoss, having the shapeshifting EldritchAbomination known as Master Core burst out from within the regular boss Master Hand. Made even creepier with the addition of its Master Fortress form in the Wii U version, which is a [[WombLevel disturbingly organic]] platforming level that must be entered and destroyed by eliminating a series of pulsating red growths within.
* ''VideoGame/WarioLand4'' features a ''[[DarkerAndEdgier shockingly]]'' large number of these types of moments, especially during its boss fights. Also, don't even get us started on some of its songs, such as [[https://youtu.be/fihc2ONQ5v0 Hurry Up]] and [[https://youtu.be/zlQU-DM3Epg Yesterday's Words]].
* ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland'':
** In ''VideoGame/YoshisWoollyWorld'', the whole plot of the game is that after Kamek [[ForcedTransformation forcibly transforms all Yoshis on Yoshi's Island into]] [[TakenForGranite living wool]], basically kidnapping and disassembling them, forcing the survivors to rescue them. And why did he do this? [[spoiler: So he can weave their still-living "flesh" together to form a super-comfy kid-friendly castle for Baby Bowser. Yes, the plot of a ''Nintendo'' game involves magically mutating an entire race to build a new house ''from their bodies'' for the BigBad.]]
** ''VideoGame/YoshisCraftedWorld'' meets the quota of the dino's series being cheerful, colorful, all-around happy games. Then, after the Cheery Valley world, you head over to Shadowville, play the first level, and [[spoiler:''proceed to be chased by several [[{{OurSlashersAreDifferent}} slasher-like]] {{Creepy Doll}}s brandishing huge axes that emit [[HellIsThatNoise hellish screams]] whenever they see Yoshi'']]. Even the hint-giving Message Boxes have been given a foreboding upgrade:
-->[-If [[ImplacableMan he]]-]
---->sees you,
-->[-run-]
---->away...
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', ostensibly a cutesy RomanceGame, ''starts'' with requiring you to accept a warning for disturbing content, but the game remains light-hearted and cheerful for long enough that it still comes as a massive shock when [[spoiler:the player character finds Sayori's [[DrivenToSuicide hanging corpse]], and the game restarts. From that point onwards, the game starts getting ''very'' [[OminousVisualGlitch glitchy]] and bloody as the girls reveal their {{Dark And Troubled Past}}s and deteriorate into {{Yandere}}s]]. Becomes blackly HilariousInHindsight once you find out that [[spoiler:all the creepy glitching in Act 2 comes from the fact that [[BigBad Monika]] is trying to reprogram the game but is HopelessWithTech]].
* ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'' is typically very light-hearted, but there are two instances of this. First is the ending of Shuu's route, where [[spoiler:he kills you and has carried your disembodied head around with him for a while, and ends with him asking if you love him with the only answer being yes]]. Second is the ''entirety'' of the Bad Boy's Love route, which takes a bit to unlock. By the time you get to it, the difference between it and just about everything else you've experienced will make it hit even harder. Then there's the backstory...
* ''VisualNovel/HowToDateAMagicalGirl'', A cute game about going to a school for magical girls and looking for love until it suddenly becomes a murder mystery game.
* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' has an ominous intro but otherwise starts off as a brightly colored visual novel about a teenage boy and his friends in their early '80s rural village. But ''Higurashi'' is not a ComingOfAgeStory and is especially not a romance visual novel. It's a mystery-murdery franchise, which becomes more obvious when Keiichi finds a newspaper talking about a murder that happened a few years ago.
* ''VisualNovel/RootLetter'' has a pretty comfortable premise: The main character travels to his childhood penpal's hometown to meet her or find out why she stopped writing to him. The story combines elements of comedy, mystery and romance stories in an enjoyable manner, and one of the routes outright ends with the main character and his childhood penpal getting married. However, choosing the first answer on every letter gives the player [[spoiler:the "Cursed Letter" route, which, as the name indicates, is not a happy ending, with the penpal's classmates being brutally killed off one after another with the main character being killed off last. After the credits, another person receives a letter from the penpal, indicating that the entire cycle is starting over.]]
* ''VisualNovel/ShallWeDateWizardessHeart'': [[spoiler:Azusa]]'s route. It starts out very sweet and romantic, with a little underlying mystery later...and then you get to the part where you can choose whether or not to tell him about [[spoiler:the magic earrings. If you tell him, Azusa summons a Nue that actually kills the protagonist. She immediately time-travels back so she'll survive this time, but daaaang]]. This actually can happen ''more than once'', and then, later, [[spoiler:Azusa shows his true colors and basically becomes an abusive boyfriend]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
%%* ''Website/{{Bogleech}}'': [[http://bogleech.com/comics/life.png The gwound is made of tasty!]] Although this was intended to be an inversion.
* ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'': It starts off with a lighthearted and goofy atmosphere that it never sheds, but has a ''lot'' of BlackHumor, even to DeathAsComedy levels. The [[CerebusSyndrome dramatic story arcs]] are also often quite dark. In this sense, it mimics the storytelling style of ''Videogame/{{Kirby}}''.
* ''Webcomic/DotX'' is a lighthearted webcomic about children playing together. Up until ''Night Terror'', that is: [[spoiler: a millennia-old demon is trying to take control of the main character's body. And it ''succeeds.'' ''[[WouldHurtAChild And tries to kill a child.]]'']]
* ''Webcomic/{{Fortuna}}'': Starts off as a very light-hearted and childish adventure of space furries, with a neat artstyle and a simple story; the hints of what's to come are rather subtle and easy to dismiss. And then, at the end of your tutorial game, you have [[spoiler:a medium-aware AI ripping your characters to shreds, staring directly at you and begging you to stay with him forever like some sort of yandere.]] The rest of the webcomic also has quite a few scary moments, but this one takes the cake due to how much of a mood whiplash it is.
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': So, it's about a bunch of kids trying to play a videogame? Cool! [[http://www.homestuck.com/?s=6&p=003763 And]] [[http://www.homestuck.com/?s=6&p=003846 then]] [[http://www.homestuck.com/?s=6&p=004828 the]] [[http://www.homestuck.com/?s=6&p=005200 deaths]] [[http://www.homestuck.com/?s=6&p=005233 start]] [[http://www.homestuck.com/?s=6&p=005247 happening]]... and then [[http://www.homestuck.com/?s=6&p=003844 the blood]]... and then [[http://www.homestuck.com/?s=6&p=005255 THIS]] and [[http://www.homestuck.com/?s=6&p=005258 THIS]] happens and you're having nightmares from this [[MemeticMutation RELENTLESSLY LIGHTHEARTED]] webcomic.
** The [[ShowWithinAShow Squiddles]] practically have this as their mission statement. The theme is exemplified in [[http://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/squiddle-song this tune]].
* ''Webcomic/M9Girls'': For a comic with pretty MagicalGirl designs and [[Main/ShoujoDemographic Shojo]] influences, the BigBad and his cronies are pretty freaky-looking and disturbing.
* ''Webcomic/MonsterPulse'': It's all fun and games until [[spoiler: someone gets their head bashed in with a rock]]. Although the entire premise of "organs being ripped from the body and turning into giant monsters" might also fit the bill.
* ''Webcomic/MilkAndMocha'' is almost always adorable, except for ''one'' comic in which the [[TheStoic smile-free but otherwise friendly]] bear Mocha offers to smile for Milk. Milk eagerly gets the camera and... [[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/771030398690026867/ an utterly]] ''terrifying'' NightmareFace. [[spoiler:It turns out to be AllJustADream, thankfully; suffice it to say ''nobody'' in the fanbase wants to see Mocha smile for real.]]
* ''Webcomic/MyDeepestSecret'' has an adorable art style and seems like it's setting up to tell the story of a cute, wholesome romance between Emma and her boyfriend, Elios. And then it's revealed at the end of the first episode that Elios is a violently protective yandere, and likely a sociopath.
* Issues 8 and 10 of ''Webcomic/{{Sonichu}}''. The former explores the titular species' sexuality in disturbing detail, and the latter has [[spoiler:AuthorAvatar Chris-Chan eliminating everything she hates, from homosexuality to Encyclopedia Dramatica and Website/FourChan (represented by Chris-Chan destroying ''an entire building full of people''), and finally brutally murdering the four people behind ''Webcomic/{{Asperchu}}'' [[DisproportionateRetribution just for making fun of her]].]] All in a webcomic [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids supposedly meant for children]].
[[/folder]]



* ''[[https://youtu.be/Td2x8s9GZlo BLUE_CHANNEL: THALASIN]]'' is an AnalogHorror video that, at first glance, appears to just be an old-timey commercial advertizing a fantasy product dubbed Thalasin, which forces you to have certain emotions, but when the second half of the video kicks in, it advertises Thalasin Plus, which supposedly adds new emotions to your brain... but these emotions [[FacialHorror happen to distort your face into eldritch horrors]], if the implications of the video are to judge by.
* ''WebVideo/BrandonRogers'': His videos are pretty much always BlackComedy and many don't shy away from BloodyHilarious stuff, but no one expects when the videos get outright nightmarish and creepy. Special mention goes to "Christmas is HELL" video, which is a standard dark comedy about a dysfunctional family, [[spoiler:up until the very last moments reveal that it's an IronicHell, forcing the protagonist to relive the day his family died, and the old woman nobody recognizes shows up and creepily reveals herself to be the devil]].
* ''WebVideo/BoardJames'' started off as a cheery guy showing off and playing board games. Even the ''Mr. Bucket'' episode was styled as a {{Narm}}y horror pastiche. Come the ''Dream Phone'' episode, and ''Board James'' has taken a turn for the surprisingly scary, what with [[spoiler:James' friends being murdered, James becoming quite unhinged, and the implication that he may have killed his friends himself]].
* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXvsl8xgRxc Counting Song]]" by Adam Buxton starts off as an ordinary, kids sound about numbers set in a SugarBowl. It quickly turns into a lament about [[GrowingUpSucks how terrible the adult world is]], all while keeping its cute look (albeit a lot more grey).
* Website/{{Cracked}}:
** The site did an article about [[http://www.cracked.com/article_23716_6-beloved-childrens-series-that-went-insane.html 6 Bafflingly Dark Moments In Beloved Children's Book Series]], including:
*** ''[[Literature/TheBerenstainBears Berenstain Bears]]'' books dealing with school shootings, drug trafficking, and child predators on the Internet.
*** A ''[[Literature/TheMagicTreehouse Magic Tree House]]'' book in which the kids meet UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln and his family, knowing full well that their new friends are going to die horribly in the future.
*** The final ''Literature/MaryPoppins'' book, in which Mary and the kids rescue a child slave.
*** ''Literature/TheLastBattle'', the bleak GainaxEnding to ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia''.
%%*** ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' (because of its penchant for {{nightmare sequence}}s and the UncannyValley)
%%***''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh'' (because of its freaky stories that often pertain to loss of identity and existential dread).
** They also discussed other unexpectedly dark children's books. For example, ''[[http://www.cracked.com/article_21762_5-insane-childrens-books-that-will-ruin-your-child_p2.html The Lonely Doll]]'' is about a doll who gets adopted by two teddy bears who spank her and treat her like a prisoner. (The fact that the book is illustrated entirely with creepy black-and-white photographs doesn't help at all.) ''[[http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-kids-books-that-teach-good-lessons-in-terrible-ways_p2/ The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings]]'' is also shockingly bleak, as the rabbit [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor gets his wish but is then ostracized by his mother and neighbors who don't recognize him]].
* The Website/CollegeHumor video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgBDdDdSqNE "The New iPhone is Just Worse"]] starts out as a typical one of their Apple parodies, with Tim Cook and Johnny the voiceover guy trying to justify releasing a new [=iPhone=] model that's objectively worse than the previous one. About two thirds in, [[spoiler:the music starts to turn creepy, and Tim Cook breaks down and confesses that he and the rest of the design team are being held hostage by Johnny.]]
* While loaded to the brim with extremely vulgar humor, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWdUTr6TZ7o the first]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzBlGSPQ9Jo two chapters]] of [[AudioPlay/DirtyPotter Dirty The Pooh]] are mostly just silly, light, and harmless. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHOZfc1WF4M The third chapter, however...]]

to:

* ''[[https://youtu.be/Td2x8s9GZlo BLUE_CHANNEL: THALASIN]]'' ''WebVideo/{{Petscop}}'' is an AnalogHorror video that, at first glance, appears to just be an old-timey commercial advertizing a fantasy product dubbed Thalasin, which forces you to have certain emotions, but when fictional LetsPlay series wherein Paul plays what starts as a fun [[ObviousBeta (albeit unfinished)]] game about collecting pets and finding them homes, with a colorful pastel environment called the second half Gift Plane, happy music, and overall looking every bit like the kid-friendly time-waster that was so common in the [=PS1=] era. There are a few hints of something off (like the fact that the pets are scared of the video kicks in, it advertises Thalasin Plus, which supposedly adds new emotions to your brain... PlayerCharacter), but these emotions [[FacialHorror happen to distort your face into eldritch horrors]], if it seems harmless. Until, that is, Paul enters a cheat code in the implications room of one of the video are to judge by.
* ''WebVideo/BrandonRogers'': His videos are pretty much always BlackComedy
pets. The music [[SuddenSoundtrackStop suddenly stops]], and many don't shy away from BloodyHilarious stuff, Paul ventures outside Even Care to find not the peaceful-looking Gift Plane, but no one expects when a darker, mysterious new world called the videos get outright nightmarish Newmaker Plane. From then on, ''Petscop'' moves to a dark and creepy. Special mention goes to "Christmas is HELL" video, which twisted story involving themes of child abuse/neglect and cryptic events that [[spoiler: Paul himself]] is a standard dark comedy about a dysfunctional family, [[spoiler:up until the very last moments reveal that it's an IronicHell, forcing the protagonist to relive the day his family died, and the old woman nobody recognizes shows up and creepily reveals herself to be the devil]].
key figure in.
* ''WebVideo/BoardJames'' started off as a cheery guy showing off and playing board games. Even the ''Mr. Bucket'' episode was styled as a {{Narm}}y horror pastiche. Come the ''Dream Phone'' episode, and ''Board James'' has taken a turn for the surprisingly scary, what with [[spoiler:James' friends being murdered, James becoming quite unhinged, and the implication that he may have killed his friends himself]].
* "[[https://www.
[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXvsl8xgRxc Counting Song]]" by Adam Buxton starts off as com/watch?v=rSER3yml1iM Pokopokopikotan]] is an ordinary, kids sound about numbers set in a SugarBowl. It quickly turns into a lament about [[GrowingUpSucks how terrible the adult world is]], all while keeping its cute look (albeit a lot more grey).
* Website/{{Cracked}}:
** The site did an article about [[http://www.cracked.com/article_23716_6-beloved-childrens-series-that-went-insane.html 6 Bafflingly Dark Moments In Beloved Children's Book Series]], including:
*** ''[[Literature/TheBerenstainBears Berenstain Bears]]'' books dealing with school shootings, drug trafficking, and child predators on the Internet.
*** A ''[[Literature/TheMagicTreehouse Magic Tree House]]'' book in which the kids meet UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln and his family, knowing full well that their new friends are going to die horribly in the future.
*** The final ''Literature/MaryPoppins'' book, in which Mary and the kids rescue a child slave.
*** ''Literature/TheLastBattle'', the bleak GainaxEnding to ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia''.
%%*** ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' (because of its penchant for {{nightmare sequence}}s and the UncannyValley)
%%***''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh'' (because of its freaky stories that often pertain to loss of identity and existential dread).
** They also discussed other unexpectedly dark children's books. For example, ''[[http://www.cracked.com/article_21762_5-insane-childrens-books-that-will-ruin-your-child_p2.html The Lonely Doll]]'' is about a doll who gets adopted by two teddy bears who spank her and treat her like a prisoner. (The fact that the book is illustrated entirely with creepy black-and-white photographs doesn't help at all.) ''[[http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-kids-books-that-teach-good-lessons-in-terrible-ways_p2/ The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings]]'' is also shockingly bleak, as the rabbit [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor gets his wish but is then ostracized by his mother and neighbors who don't recognize him]].
* The Website/CollegeHumor
adorable stop motion video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgBDdDdSqNE "The New iPhone is Just Worse"]] starts out as a typical one of their Apple parodies, with Tim Cook and Johnny the voiceover guy trying to justify releasing a new [=iPhone=] model that's objectively worse than the previous one. About two thirds in, [[spoiler:the music starts to turn creepy, and Tim Cook breaks down and confesses that he and the rest of the design team are being held hostage by Johnny.]]
* While loaded to the brim with extremely vulgar humor, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWdUTr6TZ7o the first]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzBlGSPQ9Jo two chapters]] of [[AudioPlay/DirtyPotter Dirty The Pooh]] are mostly just silly, light, and harmless. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHOZfc1WF4M The third chapter, however...]]
little paper girls on a bright setting. At least, at first...



* The viral 2015 [[Website/YouTube YouTube]] parody short film [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyd51lvu3xw Every 90s Commercial Ever]] starts out as the title suggests - your average cheesy 1990's children's advertisement. Complete with basic clichés such as TotallyRadical clothing, lingo, music and editing. [[spoiler: Then the CG-enabled [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome teleporting accident]] [[BodyHorror happens]]....]]
* ''WesternAnimation/FollowTheSun''. It's all fun and games at the snack bar [[spoiler:until the box of popcorn accidentally steps on the jelly with the trumpet and passes out. And then a blood-like liquid drips on the sun, pisses it off, and starts to ''set the earth on fire'']]! Think ''Don't Hug Me I'm Scared'' [[JustForFun/XMeetsY meets]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_All_Go_to_the_Lobby Let's All Go to the Lobby]].
-->[[WordSaladHorror "Popcorn for all! Hell's on its way!"]]
* The whole point of ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' is taking {{Ridiculously Cute Critter}}s [[SugarBowl living their lives gaily]] and subjecting them to every CruelAndUnusualDeath imaginable, with [[BloodyHilarious blood and guts galore]].
* Inverted with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHH2DFDcpH8 "Hi Stranger"]]--it starts out with a naked UncannyValley claymation figure speaking [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou to you]] like a StalkerWithACrush as well as displaying bizarre abilities and briefly drawing you for no apparent reason...but then he([[AmbiguousGender ?]]) proceeds to give you a heartfelt and sincere "YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre" speech, politely sees you off and thanks you for spending some time with him and gently tells you that he loves you.
* In the ''WebVideo/JennyNicholson'' video ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OXylWiZ-9c&t=444s Better Disney Theme Park Movies]]'' her pitch for a ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'' movie based on the [[RecursiveAdaptation theme park]] turns into a short second-person horror story before abruptly returning to the original tone.
--> They start to slowly roll out of the buildings toward you.
--> "You're a bad car."
--> You don't know what they'll do if they get close but you don't want to find out.
--> [[MoodWhiplash Number 8, Space Mountain!]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjOF89lOZyI Ибражы (Ibrazhy)]] is definitely this. It starts with a girl who gets drunk on the said drink and enjoys herself in another world, and ends with her having a bad trip and ending up in an asylum.
* ''WebVideo/LesleyThePonyHasAnAPlusDay'' is pretty self-explanatory, detailing the pony happily prancing through the kingdom to see the duke. About a third of the way through, the music stops completely and the duke starts lecturing Lesley about being late. They're both portrayed through detailed illustrations with SynchroVox mouths and robotic voices, which is pretty eerie. But then the video [[FromBadToWorse spirals into horrifying]] as Lesley goes completely mad and self-destructive.
* [[WebVideo/TheMusicVideoShow The Music Video Show]] has this trope in [[https://youtu.be/zHk864SsYuE Episode 89]] due to a [[Main/DeathGlare Death Glare]] after a [[Main/DomesticAbuse Domestic Abuse]] joke. Considering the rest of the episode's dark jokes, this is [[Main/MoodWhiplash especially jarring.]]
* [[http://koshiandoh.com/flash-gallery01/natsumi-step/ Natsumi]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw4LstqkNcw STEP!]] On the surface, it's an adorable animation about a girl who goes to a magical world full of kittens and puppies. That is until you go to the second link where [[spoiler:it shows Natsumi, our cheerful protagonist [[MoodWhiplash crying]]]]. If you go back and observe the animation, as well as viewing the SWF file of that second link, you will learn the real story behind this seemingly cute film. It's actually about [[spoiler:Natsumi going to hell after killing her boyfriend and committing suicide]].
* [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kefwVjNmEtI Nursery Rhymes of Death]] may look like an episode of your average YoutubeKidsChannel at first, but there's a good reason why the title adverts NeverSayDie - [[spoiler:it all shows the gory deaths of various animals ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Humpty Dumpty]]) at the end of every nursery rhyme. [[GainaxEnding Oh, and don't forget about the ending...]]]]
* In the opening skit before his [[Recap/TheNostalgiaCriticS9E3 review]] of ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'', WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ypgzzDvZS4 discusses the sheer amount of creepiness]] in kids' movies from TheEighties. Some of the movies referenced in the skit (''Literature/SomethingWickedThisWayComes'', ''Film/LittleMonsters'', and ''Film/TheWitches1990''[[note]]which was technically released in 1990, but culturally speaking, it wasn't quite TheNineties yet[[/note]]) are more upfront about being scary, but the others (''WesternAnimation/WatershipDown''[[note]]although that one was actually from [[TheSeventies 1978]][[/note]], ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNIMH'', ''Film/TheNeverendingStory'', ''Film/ReturnToOz'', ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', and ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'') are less obvious, or at least they were at the time of release. The skit also points out that the creepiness in these movies can be unexpected to modern audiences partly because of the different UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications at the time -- specifically, [[SameContentDifferentRating the PG-13 rating didn't exist yet, so the PG rating had more weight than it does now]].
* ''WebVideo/{{Petscop}}'' is a fictional LetsPlay series wherein Paul plays what starts as a fun [[ObviousBeta (albeit unfinished)]] game about collecting pets and finding them homes, with a colorful pastel environment called the Gift Plane, happy music, and overall looking every bit like the kid-friendly time-waster that was so common in the [=PS1=] era. There are a few hints of something off (like the fact that the pets are scared of the PlayerCharacter), but it seems harmless. Until, that is, Paul enters a cheat code in the room of one of the pets. The music [[SuddenSoundtrackStop suddenly stops]], and Paul ventures outside Even Care to find not the peaceful-looking Gift Plane, but a darker, mysterious new world called the Newmaker Plane. From then on, ''Petscop'' moves to a dark and twisted story involving themes of child abuse/neglect and cryptic events that [[spoiler: Paul himself]] is a key figure in.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSER3yml1iM Pokopokopikotan]] is an adorable stop motion video of two little paper girls on a bright setting. At least, at first...
* ''WebAnimation/PonyAndBoy'' has an ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''-like art design, but then there's creepy scenes like the nightmare sequence of the boy taking out his pony's heart. The short ends on an ominous note with [[spoiler:the boy being sacrificed to something by the pony.]]
* [[Website/SCPFoundation SCP]]-[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3867 3867]] seems like a cute anomaly, a website that tells whomever accesses it what their pet is doing when they access it. Aside from its omniscience, it seems harmless enough. It still manages to be cute when talking about a researcher's long dead pet playing around in the afterlife while waiting for her. And then it gives an absolutely chilling account of a pet being BuriedAlive from the perspective of said pet as it happened when the SCP foundation send one of their CannonFodder personnel who had been chosen specifically for his history of animal abuse.
* Quite a few series in Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos use this trope. Several start out as ordinary video or web blogs that seem perfectly normal for the first few entries, only for things to go creepy when Tall Dark And Faceless pops up.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdYaTa_lOf4 Teddy Has An Operation]] starts out reasonably cute, with all the "cute" things one might find inside a teddy bear. Then we get to [[{{Squick}} the deeper layers, figuratively and literally]]. At least it ends on a positive (and arguably rather adorable) note, unlike most examples on this page.
* ''WebAnimation/TokyoMagicStar'' starts out as a normal magical girl fanime. Things go downhill from there.
* A somewhat frequent occurrence in WebAnimation/YouTubePoop, whether [[PlayedForLaughs for the sake of a joke]], or, more rarely, as a genuine plot element in more story-based [=YTPs=]. One of the more notable examples is ''WebAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmasWhoSkellingtonsRevenge'' by Creator/MoBrosStudios. The first half of the video is simply the typical YTP [[HilarityEnsues hilarity ensuing]] as WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants and other characters get ready for Christmas. Halfway through, though, [[spoiler: [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas Jack Skellington]] decides to try taking over Christmas again, summons a massive demon called the Black Hiver, and spirits [=SpongeBob=], Patrick, WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy, [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Fluttershy]], and the ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' mercs away into an AcidTripDimension. The rest of the video is them all fighting to save Christmas from being destroyed forever, and [[AnyoneCanDie Anyone Can (and does) Die]] doing so save for [=SpongeBob=]. [[EarnYourHappyEnding Luckily, SpongeBob saves the day, everyone who was killed gets revived, and they all make it home just in time for Christmas morning]].]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatianStreet'':
** The episode "Doggy Da Vinci" starts off simple enough, being a story about Da Vinci suffering burnout from being forced to paint t-shirts to make money. However, when the humans of Camden find out that the "mystery artist" painting the shirts is a ''dog,'' they give chase, prompting a NightmareSequence. Said sequence goes from the humans being enveloped in dark fog to a surrealist reconstruction of the park, and ends off with Da Vinci ''nearly drowning.'' The fact that Hunter[[note]]The main villain of the first season, who is constantly chasing down the dalmatians for then-unknown reasons[[/note]] is in this episode certainly does not help.
** "Better the De Vil You Know" is this for the whole show. Up to this point, even the most dangerous situations the pups were put into (including pest control and the aforementioned Hunter) were resolved through typical cartoon antics. This episode, however, [[spoiler:officially introduces the show's true BigBad, Cruella De Vil. Her design is even more unnerving than in previous media, and she's spent around ''sixty years'' chasing down the same family of dogs to make her treasured fur coat. What's worse, we see that Hunter has been on the receiving end of some serious emotional abuse from her; at the end of the episode, she very nearly ''hits him with her car.'' And those were just her actions in ''this'' episode.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' looks like such a fun and childish show, and most of the time it genuinely is. Then comes [[NightmareFuel/AdventureTime the mountains of Nightmare Fuel]], loads of BackstoryHorror, and numerous [[VileVillainSaccharineShow Vile Villains]].
** "Holly Jolly Secrets" is by far the most infamous example. A two-part episode composed mostly of Christmas-like hijinks and watching Ice King's embarrassing video diaries, it ends with the most shocking and depressing reveal in the entire series, forever changing the nature of a main character. [[WhamLine "My name is Simon Petrikov."]]
** "Beautopia" is nowhere near as bad, but when those inflatable pool floaties turn out to be anything but, even the characters are terrified.
** "Finn the Human"/"Jake the Dog" begins in an AlternateUniverse where Finn is a normal kid with a normal dog and deals with normal family problems, trying to help his parents with a gang of thugs. Cue [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters the Destiny Gang]] burning down Finn's house with his family ''still inside'', Finn [[spoiler:becoming the Ice King]] and losing it in a ''horrifying'' way, and the origin of [[WalkingWasteland the Lich]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' episode "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS4E31TheNight The Night]]" has two examples: the first is in what looks like Anais having a nightmare that she's {{swapped roles}} with her Daisy the Donkey doll, who is alive and abuses an Anais doll while [[CruelMercy refusing to end its suffering]]. Then it turns out that it wasn't Anais' nightmare, but her Daisy doll really is alive and it was her dream of revenge. The second is in Alan's nightmare, which is full of disturbing imagery that he doesn't seem to be bothered by.
* ''WesternAnimation/BottersnikesAndGumbles'' is a lighthearted, unashamedly silly cartoon show adapted from a children's book of the same name that revolves around the cute and friendly Gumbles and the filth-loving Bottersnikes with BlackAndWhiteMorality. It's all fun and games until you learn one of the Gumbles has a questionably jarring backstory in which he was just as outgoing as the other Gumbles before getting into [[DarkAndTroubledPast an incident so horrific that he went from bold to withdrawn and fearful]] and [[DumbStruck permanently lost his ability to speak]], with strong implications that only one other Gumble knows about it who keeps it a secret from others. Said character also gets an episode that looks into his thoughts consisting of InnerMonologue, [[CreepyMonotone which barely express any emotions at all]] (except for fear and disgust) and include speech that sounds like something coming from a person with PTSD.
* By Creator/VanBeurenStudios, [[https://youtu.be/ZU71qHtAaY8 "Circus Capers"]], a cartoon that [[{{CaptainErsatz}} blatantly plagiarizes the designs of Mickey and Minnie Mouse]], starts off pretty generic and happy... then Minnie is revealed to be cheating on Mickey with the obvious villain of the cartoon. Mickey discovers this and almost instantly becomes fat and depressed. He begins to sing "Laugh Clown, Laugh" with a horribly wrinkled and disfigured face. In response, Minnie realizes her horrid mistake, attempting to return to Mickey. He rejects her, and, out of nowhere, '''his face detaches from his body, enlarges, winks at the screen and inflates, covering the entire screen'''. What follows in several prints of the cartoon is a quick cut to a bunch of happy dancing ducks from the unrelated short The Booze Hangs High. A couple of prints give a "The End" screen instead of said ducks, but one wonders if that wasn't the actual ending.
* ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'', taking cartoony premises and villains and making them genuinely horrifying. Katz is probably the most frequent source, as when his latest overly elaborate DeathTrap fails he usually just resorts to ''strangling'' Courage.
* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' easily fits under this category, with a thorough mix of sweetness and [[NightmareFuel horrifying creatures.]]
** "The Inconveniencing" is rather light-hearted until a horrifying creature resembling the nervous system shows up. Dipper slams the door shut on it, an appropriate reaction.
** "Sock Opera" contains this as well, with [[spoiler:[[GrandTheftMe Bipper]]]] jabbing forks into his arms, pouring soda into his eyes, and throwing himself down the stairs, resulting in injuries so bad that [[spoiler:Dipper asks to go to the hospital once he's got his body back]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': The episode "Let's Play Trap-Trap". It starts off with a seemingly normal plot where Kaeloo, Stumpy, Quack Quack, and Mr. Cat play a nice game of Trap-Trap, with the beginning being so sweet that Kaeloo even gives Mr. Cat a hug. Then, halfway through the episode, Quack Quack [[MakesSenseInContext goes insane]] and tries to cannibalize Kaeloo and Stumpy, [[spoiler: and successfully eats half of Kaeloo's brain, leaving her unintelligible]], and Mr. Cat has to step in and save the day.
* ''WesternAnimation/LegendOfTheThreeCaballeros'' is [[VileVillainSaccharineShow a light-hearted, brightly-coloured Disney show, yet many of its antagonists are extremely creepy undead or demonic entities]] and the main characters actually die at one point.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack'' is also like this. One episode showed what appeared to be a cute child turn out to be a creepy looking older guy.
** Another episode repeatedly cuts away to a terrifying picture of a live-action cat's face with large black pits for eyes and a round mouth with needle-like teeth.
* The original ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'' pilot, "Rescue at Midnight Castle". Starts off with rainbow ponies playing around and a cute song, and then suddenly switches to ponies being kidnapped by the dragon-like minions of a demonic centaur. It only gets worse after that with the ponies being turned into monsters, and the villain threatening to decapitate a baby dragon.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' continues the series' fine tradition of cute cartoon ponies facing dangerous situations and [[VileVillainSaccharineShow sinister evil-doers]].
** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E25PartyOfOne Party of One]]" has Pinkie Pie become depressed because she thinks her friends don't like her anymore, but she [[SanitySlippage starts going insane]], having a party with some {{Companion Cube}}s and getting {{Twitchy Eye}}s, accompanied with [[SurrealHorror abstract flickering backgrounds]] and enough CreepyCircusMusic to make you think the makers of ''Franchise/SilentHill'' were behind the scene.
** "The Return of Harmony" introduces Discord, a goofy-looking MixAndMatchCritter [[TheTrickster trickster]] villain who starts causing chaos in Equestria by making a cotton-candy-and-chocolate storm, and sets up a game for the ponies to play in order to defeat him. Said game has him gleefully [[BreakTheCutie break]] and [[CorruptTheCutie corrupt]] five of them, and [[TheGMIsACheatingBastard deliberately rig the game to make it impossible for him to lose]]. The first part ends with him ''[[TheBadGuyWins winning]]'', and he spends most of the second part turning Equestria into a WorldOfChaos and rubbing Twilight's face in her failure until she (temporarily, thankfully) crosses the DespairEventHorizon.
** "Lesson Zero", infamously so. The series is no stranger to {{Sanity Slippage}}s, but Twilight's descent into paranoia and insanity, complete with an endless parade of {{Nightmare Face}}s, is immensely disturbing.
** In "Hearth's Warming Eve'', the play starts out somewhat serious, but still not that bad. Then come the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s that feed off the founders' FantasticRacism and attempt to freeze the entire world. Keep in mind that the play is based directly off of the history of Equestria's founding, so it most certainly did happen in "real life".
%%** "Baby Cakes", mostly a run-of-the-mill BabysittingEpisode, but in one scene Pinkie momentarily loses track of the foals, and it's accompanied with PsychoStrings.
** "A Canterlot Wedding:" Twilight Sparkle has apparently messed up big time, and she's sad, but it looks like Cadance and she will make up. [[spoiler:Then we see that "Cadence" ''is'' evil.]] Part 2 ratchets up the horror even further, with [[spoiler:a full scale ''invasion of Canterlot'' by bug-like shape-shifting monsters.]]
** [[spoiler:The Chimera from the episode "Somepony To Watch Over Me"]] in season 4 was definitely a big surprise. She is arguably the creepiest villain in the whole show and is especially surprising because it is the first time a truly scary villain has ever shown up in any episode that wasn't either a season opener or a season finale, and that episode seemed like a typical comedic SliceOfLife episode at first.
** Sweetie Belle's nightmare in "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils" is surprisingly disturbing for an otherwise mundane SliceOfLife episode.
** The Season 5 premiere "The Cutie Map" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgMD1Kc7bAQ makes it seem like the original target audience was an afterthought]]. It features a WellIntentionedExtremist KnightTemplar as the villain, who literally tears the cutie marks right off the flanks of ponies and completely breaks them with imprisonment and psychological abuse until they comply and are willing to live in her town that looks troublingly like a concentration camp. She tops it off with a VillainSong based on World War II propaganda music and some [[LyricalDissonance incredibly dark lyrics]]:
--> "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioDuLqK_LuY You can't have a nightmare if you never dream.]]"
** While not ''as'' messed up as Sweetie Belle's, Apple Bloom's nightmare in "Bloom and Gloom" is quite dark as well.
** "The Cutie Re-Mark" has Starlight Glimmer traveling into the past to make sure the Mane Six never united and throws Twilight into a series of {{Bad Future}}s where one of the previous villains had won. Each is darker and more messed up than the last, beginning with King Sombra putting mind-control helmets onto every last citizen of the Crystal Empire and the lands he's conquered to make them fight to the death for him. Even the Bad Future pertaining to Flim and Flam turns out to be quite unsettling, as the brothers have turned Equestria into an industrial wasteland with the sky a dark orange from the pollution.
** The Season 9 premiere starts out with the return of Grogar and a VillainTeamup between all the surviving {{Big Bad}}s ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Sombra]], who was resurrected), with Sombra striking out on his own to take down Equestria. Though if you were expecting him to get sealed away or turned to stone or sent flying, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, get a load of Twilight Sparkle and her friends ''[[https://trixiebooru.org/images/2004578 graphically killing]]'' King Sombra on screen, complete with his skin being torn off his body as he screams in agony. It is ''very'' evident the show's crew knew this was their final season and that they didn't have to hold back.
* ''WesternAnimation/OverTheGardenWall'' is a charming story of two brothers trying to get home, meeting a bunch of colorful characters while being periodically menaced by whatever creatures the forests can throw at them, but ends up being a DoubleSubversion. For the first half all the supposedly creepy things and people turn out to be either harmless or outright helpful, and most of the conflict comes from Wirt unintentionally making things harder for himself. Then a witch that tries to brainwash them is melted and an evil possessing spirit tries to eat them. Then [[VileVillainSaccharineShow the Beast]] takes center stage, and [[KnightOfCerebus everything goes to hell very quickly]].
** There's also the ending Cartoon Network logo which features our two heroes looking like dark spirits with soulless eyes, [[spoiler:[[FromBadToWorse which is actually a reference to the fact that they're in a purgatory world and are facing death.]]]] And since that's the end credits logo that means we get Surprise Creepy ''after every episode''.
* The ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted!" starts as a typical episode, but it all changed when their mother actually finds out about the boys' shenanigans. From then on, it becomes ''way'' darker and morbid than a typical episode. [[spoiler:It turned out to be AllJustADream at the end, but still.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'' has the infamous episode "Speed Demon." The Powerpuffs decide to race home from school... and go so fast that they warp into [[DarkWorld a strange, warped and destroyed version of Townsville.]] There, they see that the townspeople have gone insane. The Mayor is dead and Miss Bellum blames herself. The Professor (their father figure) is obsessed with futilely recreating his girls (and attacks the real things when he thinks they're hallucinations). And their kind-hearted schoolteacher just stands in place, right where she was waving goodbye to the Powerpuff Girls before [[TheReveal they vanished for over 50 years.]] It's at this point that the already-creepy villain known only as Him shows up and reveals [[TheDevil his true form,]] informing the girls that because they weren't around to save the day, this nightmare world is all their fault. They manage to go back in time so they can stop the BadFuture by being there to save the day, but the FridgeHorror of the episode is palpable.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' and ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' jump from SurrealHumor to SurrealHorror with jarring speed and are both very fond of the GrossUpCloseUp and other terrifying imagery.
* There was a short called [[https://youtu.be/GISnfWcROTo "The Snow Man"]], which was the former page image. Starts off really cutesy, with a human and his animal friends building a snowman and dancing around, but all hell breaks loose when the snowman comes to life and goes on a rampage. The snowman eats a fish whole along the way, but it's set free when the snowman melts at the end. All's well that ends well... until the fish lets out a sinister laugh that sounds exactly like the snowman. There are a couple of other strange things in the short, like the fact that the animal skin the boy has on his bed for warmth ''comes to life'' and licks the boy's face, being just portrayed as an animal giving its owner a sweet good-night kiss. Later the boy is riding a polar bear and makes the animal come to a complete stop. As he does so, he grabs the polar bear's tail and pulls, which makes the ''skin and fur'' slide off the bear's body before snapping back, as if the fur and skin were just clothes. It's an old cartoon and was meant to be silly, but old cartoons did some creepy things back in the day, all without meaning to, thanks to the old cartoon rule of everything being sentient, goofy, happy and cute.
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse''. On the surface, it looks like a fantasy series about a group of warriors and the boy trying to understand his powers, while they fight [[MonsterOfTheWeek monsters of the week]]. It's mostly ''very'' heartwarming and lighthearted, but Steven nearly gets himself turned into a grotesque cat monster (confirmed to be a reference to, of all things, ''Manga/{{Akira}}'') by being unable to control his shapeshifting powers once, the aforementioned monsters are really [[spoiler:Gems like the heroes that have been corrupted in some way]], there was an episode that ended with Steven watching several copies of him turn to dust and die for real, a colossal monster inhabiting the inside of Earth threatening to destroy it and all living things, and the rotten cherry on top is in the episode "Chille Tid" where Steven has a dream (an obvious reference to old sitcoms). Everything goes pretty normal for the most part. Steven is waiting for Connie for his first dance. He opens the door and...a two-eyed Garnet wearing sunglasses comes in and gives him advice for it. The second time he opens the door, instead of Connie we get [[http://41.media.tumblr.com/93720c1dc8a9a0def8d63abb382a35d8/tumblr_nq7ppoZ9Hp1tseldro1_500.jpg this terrifying picture.]] It's agreed through the fandom that it was ''one of the most unsettling moments of the entire series''. Luckily, the series manages to ''still'' be strong SugarWiki/SweetDreamsFuel on countless levels.
** And let's not forget the one time Steven and Garnet go off alone and uncover a homeworld lab where gem shards have been forcibly fused together for millennia. Once you realize the underlying symbolism of this, it becomes genuinely disturbing on all levels. Even [[TheStoic Garnet]] almost comes undone over this one.
[[/folder]]
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to:

* The viral 2015 [[Website/YouTube YouTube]] parody short film [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyd51lvu3xw Every 90s Commercial Ever]] starts out as the title suggests - your average cheesy 1990's children's advertisement. Complete with basic clichés such as TotallyRadical clothing, lingo, music and editing. [[spoiler: Then the CG-enabled [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome teleporting accident]] [[BodyHorror happens]]....]]
* ''WesternAnimation/FollowTheSun''. It's all fun and games at the snack bar [[spoiler:until the box of popcorn accidentally steps on the jelly with the trumpet and passes out. And then a blood-like liquid drips on the sun, pisses it off, and starts to ''set the earth on fire'']]! Think ''Don't Hug Me I'm Scared'' [[JustForFun/XMeetsY meets]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_All_Go_to_the_Lobby Let's All Go to the Lobby]].
-->[[WordSaladHorror "Popcorn for all! Hell's on its way!"]]
* The whole point of ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' is taking {{Ridiculously Cute Critter}}s [[SugarBowl living their lives gaily]] and subjecting them to every CruelAndUnusualDeath imaginable, with [[BloodyHilarious blood and guts galore]].
* Inverted with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHH2DFDcpH8 "Hi Stranger"]]--it starts out with a naked UncannyValley claymation figure speaking [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou to you]] like a StalkerWithACrush as well as displaying bizarre abilities and briefly drawing you for no apparent reason...but then he([[AmbiguousGender ?]]) proceeds to give you a heartfelt and sincere "YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre" speech, politely sees you off and thanks you for spending some time with him and gently tells you that he loves you.
* In the ''WebVideo/JennyNicholson'' video ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OXylWiZ-9c&t=444s Better Disney Theme Park Movies]]'' her pitch for a ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'' movie based on the [[RecursiveAdaptation theme park]] turns into a short second-person horror story before abruptly returning to the original tone.
--> They start to slowly roll out of the buildings toward you.
--> "You're a bad car."
--> You don't know what they'll do if they get close but you don't want to find out.
--> [[MoodWhiplash Number 8, Space Mountain!]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjOF89lOZyI Ибражы (Ibrazhy)]] is definitely this. It starts with a girl who gets drunk on the said drink and enjoys herself in another world, and ends with her having a bad trip and ending up in an asylum.
* ''WebVideo/LesleyThePonyHasAnAPlusDay'' is pretty self-explanatory, detailing the pony happily prancing through the kingdom to see the duke. About a third of the way through, the music stops completely and the duke starts lecturing Lesley about being late. They're both portrayed through detailed illustrations with SynchroVox mouths and robotic voices, which is pretty eerie. But then the video [[FromBadToWorse spirals into horrifying]] as Lesley goes completely mad and self-destructive.
* [[WebVideo/TheMusicVideoShow The Music Video Show]] has this trope in [[https://youtu.be/zHk864SsYuE Episode 89]] due to a [[Main/DeathGlare Death Glare]] after a [[Main/DomesticAbuse Domestic Abuse]] joke. Considering the rest of the episode's dark jokes, this is [[Main/MoodWhiplash especially jarring.]]
* [[http://koshiandoh.com/flash-gallery01/natsumi-step/ Natsumi]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw4LstqkNcw STEP!]] On the surface, it's an adorable animation about a girl who goes to a magical world full of kittens and puppies. That is until you go to the second link where [[spoiler:it shows Natsumi, our cheerful protagonist [[MoodWhiplash crying]]]]. If you go back and observe the animation, as well as viewing the SWF file of that second link, you will learn the real story behind this seemingly cute film. It's actually about [[spoiler:Natsumi going to hell after killing her boyfriend and committing suicide]].
* [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kefwVjNmEtI Nursery Rhymes of Death]] may look like an episode of your average YoutubeKidsChannel at first, but there's a good reason why the title adverts NeverSayDie - [[spoiler:it all shows the gory deaths of various animals ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Humpty Dumpty]]) at the end of every nursery rhyme. [[GainaxEnding Oh, and don't forget about the ending...]]]]
* In the opening skit before his [[Recap/TheNostalgiaCriticS9E3 review]] of ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'', WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ypgzzDvZS4 discusses the sheer amount of creepiness]] in kids' movies from TheEighties. Some of the movies referenced in the skit (''Literature/SomethingWickedThisWayComes'', ''Film/LittleMonsters'', and ''Film/TheWitches1990''[[note]]which was technically released in 1990, but culturally speaking, it wasn't quite TheNineties yet[[/note]]) are more upfront about being scary, but the others (''WesternAnimation/WatershipDown''[[note]]although that one was actually from [[TheSeventies 1978]][[/note]], ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNIMH'', ''Film/TheNeverendingStory'', ''Film/ReturnToOz'', ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', and ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'') are less obvious, or at least they were at the time of release. The skit also points out that the creepiness in these movies can be unexpected to modern audiences partly because of the different UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications at the time -- specifically, [[SameContentDifferentRating the PG-13 rating didn't exist yet, so the PG rating had more weight than it does now]].
* ''WebVideo/{{Petscop}}'' is a fictional LetsPlay series wherein Paul plays what starts as a fun [[ObviousBeta (albeit unfinished)]] game about collecting pets and finding them homes, with a colorful pastel environment called the Gift Plane, happy music, and overall looking every bit like the kid-friendly time-waster that was so common in the [=PS1=] era. There are a few hints of something off (like the fact that the pets are scared of the PlayerCharacter), but it seems harmless. Until, that is, Paul enters a cheat code in the room of one of the pets. The music [[SuddenSoundtrackStop suddenly stops]], and Paul ventures outside Even Care to find not the peaceful-looking Gift Plane, but a darker, mysterious new world called the Newmaker Plane. From then on, ''Petscop'' moves to a dark and twisted story involving themes of child abuse/neglect and cryptic events that [[spoiler: Paul himself]] is a key figure in.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSER3yml1iM Pokopokopikotan]] is an adorable stop motion video of two little paper girls on a bright setting. At least, at first...
* ''WebAnimation/PonyAndBoy'' has an ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''-like art design, but then there's creepy scenes like the nightmare sequence of the boy taking out his pony's heart. The short ends on an ominous note with [[spoiler:the boy being sacrificed to something by the pony.]]
* [[Website/SCPFoundation SCP]]-[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3867 3867]] seems like a cute anomaly, a website that tells whomever accesses it what their pet is doing when they access it. Aside from its omniscience, it seems harmless enough. It still manages to be cute when talking about a researcher's long dead pet playing around in the afterlife while waiting for her. And then it gives an absolutely chilling account of a pet being BuriedAlive from the perspective of said pet as it happened when the SCP foundation send one of their CannonFodder personnel who had been chosen specifically for his history of animal abuse.
* Quite a few series in Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos use this trope. Several start out as ordinary video or web blogs that seem perfectly normal for the first few entries, only for things to go creepy when Tall Dark And Faceless pops up.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdYaTa_lOf4 Teddy Has An Operation]] starts out reasonably cute, with all the "cute" things one might find inside a teddy bear. Then we get to [[{{Squick}} the deeper layers, figuratively and literally]]. At least it ends on a positive (and arguably rather adorable) note, unlike most examples on this page.
* ''WebAnimation/TokyoMagicStar'' starts out as a normal magical girl fanime. Things go downhill from there.
* A somewhat frequent occurrence in WebAnimation/YouTubePoop, whether [[PlayedForLaughs for the sake of a joke]], or, more rarely, as a genuine plot element in more story-based [=YTPs=]. One of the more notable examples is ''WebAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmasWhoSkellingtonsRevenge'' by Creator/MoBrosStudios. The first half of the video is simply the typical YTP [[HilarityEnsues hilarity ensuing]] as WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants and other characters get ready for Christmas. Halfway through, though, [[spoiler: [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas Jack Skellington]] decides to try taking over Christmas again, summons a massive demon called the Black Hiver, and spirits [=SpongeBob=], Patrick, WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy, [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Fluttershy]], and the ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' mercs away into an AcidTripDimension. The rest of the video is them all fighting to save Christmas from being destroyed forever, and [[AnyoneCanDie Anyone Can (and does) Die]] doing so save for [=SpongeBob=]. [[EarnYourHappyEnding Luckily, SpongeBob saves the day, everyone who was killed gets revived, and they all make it home just in time for Christmas morning]].]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatianStreet'':
** The episode "Doggy Da Vinci" starts off simple enough, being a story about Da Vinci suffering burnout from being forced to paint t-shirts to make money. However, when the humans of Camden find out that the "mystery artist" painting the shirts is a ''dog,'' they give chase, prompting a NightmareSequence. Said sequence goes from the humans being enveloped in dark fog to a surrealist reconstruction of the park, and ends off with Da Vinci ''nearly drowning.'' The fact that Hunter[[note]]The main villain of the first season, who is constantly chasing down the dalmatians for then-unknown reasons[[/note]] is in this episode certainly does not help.
** "Better the De Vil You Know" is this for the whole show. Up to this point, even the most dangerous situations the pups were put into (including pest control and the aforementioned Hunter) were resolved through typical cartoon antics. This episode, however, [[spoiler:officially introduces the show's true BigBad, Cruella De Vil. Her design is even more unnerving than in previous media, and she's spent around ''sixty years'' chasing down the same family of dogs to make her treasured fur coat. What's worse, we see that Hunter has been on the receiving end of some serious emotional abuse from her; at the end of the episode, she very nearly ''hits him with her car.'' And those were just her actions in ''this'' episode.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' looks like such a fun and childish show, and most of the time it genuinely is. Then comes [[NightmareFuel/AdventureTime the mountains of Nightmare Fuel]], loads of BackstoryHorror, and numerous [[VileVillainSaccharineShow Vile Villains]].
** "Holly Jolly Secrets" is by far the most infamous example. A two-part episode composed mostly of Christmas-like hijinks and watching Ice King's embarrassing video diaries, it ends with the most shocking and depressing reveal in the entire series, forever changing the nature of a main character. [[WhamLine "My name is Simon Petrikov."]]
** "Beautopia" is nowhere near as bad, but when those inflatable pool floaties turn out to be anything but, even the characters are terrified.
** "Finn the Human"/"Jake the Dog" begins in an AlternateUniverse where Finn is a normal kid with a normal dog and deals with normal family problems, trying to help his parents with a gang of thugs. Cue [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters the Destiny Gang]] burning down Finn's house with his family ''still inside'', Finn [[spoiler:becoming the Ice King]] and losing it in a ''horrifying'' way, and the origin of [[WalkingWasteland the Lich]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' episode "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS4E31TheNight The Night]]" has two examples: the first is in what looks like Anais having a nightmare that she's {{swapped roles}} with her Daisy the Donkey doll, who is alive and abuses an Anais doll while [[CruelMercy refusing to end its suffering]]. Then it turns out that it wasn't Anais' nightmare, but her Daisy doll really is alive and it was her dream of revenge. The second is in Alan's nightmare, which is full of disturbing imagery that he doesn't seem to be bothered by.
* ''WesternAnimation/BottersnikesAndGumbles'' is a lighthearted, unashamedly silly cartoon show adapted from a children's book of the same name that revolves around the cute and friendly Gumbles and the filth-loving Bottersnikes with BlackAndWhiteMorality. It's all fun and games until you learn one of the Gumbles has a questionably jarring backstory in which he was just as outgoing as the other Gumbles before getting into [[DarkAndTroubledPast an incident so horrific that he went from bold to withdrawn and fearful]] and [[DumbStruck permanently lost his ability to speak]], with strong implications that only one other Gumble knows about it who keeps it a secret from others. Said character also gets an episode that looks into his thoughts consisting of InnerMonologue, [[CreepyMonotone which barely express any emotions at all]] (except for fear and disgust) and include speech that sounds like something coming from a person with PTSD.
* By Creator/VanBeurenStudios, [[https://youtu.be/ZU71qHtAaY8 "Circus Capers"]], a cartoon that [[{{CaptainErsatz}} blatantly plagiarizes the designs of Mickey and Minnie Mouse]], starts off pretty generic and happy... then Minnie is revealed to be cheating on Mickey with the obvious villain of the cartoon. Mickey discovers this and almost instantly becomes fat and depressed. He begins to sing "Laugh Clown, Laugh" with a horribly wrinkled and disfigured face. In response, Minnie realizes her horrid mistake, attempting to return to Mickey. He rejects her, and, out of nowhere, '''his face detaches from his body, enlarges, winks at the screen and inflates, covering the entire screen'''. What follows in several prints of the cartoon is a quick cut to a bunch of happy dancing ducks from the unrelated short The Booze Hangs High. A couple of prints give a "The End" screen instead of said ducks, but one wonders if that wasn't the actual ending.
* ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'', taking cartoony premises and villains and making them genuinely horrifying. Katz is probably the most frequent source, as when his latest overly elaborate DeathTrap fails he usually just resorts to ''strangling'' Courage.
* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' easily fits under this category, with a thorough mix of sweetness and [[NightmareFuel horrifying creatures.]]
** "The Inconveniencing" is rather light-hearted until a horrifying creature resembling the nervous system shows up. Dipper slams the door shut on it, an appropriate reaction.
** "Sock Opera" contains this as well, with [[spoiler:[[GrandTheftMe Bipper]]]] jabbing forks into his arms, pouring soda into his eyes, and throwing himself down the stairs, resulting in injuries so bad that [[spoiler:Dipper asks to go to the hospital once he's got his body back]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': The episode "Let's Play Trap-Trap". It starts off with a seemingly normal plot where Kaeloo, Stumpy, Quack Quack, and Mr. Cat play a nice game of Trap-Trap, with the beginning being so sweet that Kaeloo even gives Mr. Cat a hug. Then, halfway through the episode, Quack Quack [[MakesSenseInContext goes insane]] and tries to cannibalize Kaeloo and Stumpy, [[spoiler: and successfully eats half of Kaeloo's brain, leaving her unintelligible]], and Mr. Cat has to step in and save the day.
* ''WesternAnimation/LegendOfTheThreeCaballeros'' is [[VileVillainSaccharineShow a light-hearted, brightly-coloured Disney show, yet many of its antagonists are extremely creepy undead or demonic entities]] and the main characters actually die at one point.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack'' is also like this. One episode showed what appeared to be a cute child turn out to be a creepy looking older guy.
** Another episode repeatedly cuts away to a terrifying picture of a live-action cat's face with large black pits for eyes and a round mouth with needle-like teeth.
* The original ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'' pilot, "Rescue at Midnight Castle". Starts off with rainbow ponies playing around and a cute song, and then suddenly switches to ponies being kidnapped by the dragon-like minions of a demonic centaur. It only gets worse after that with the ponies being turned into monsters, and the villain threatening to decapitate a baby dragon.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' continues the series' fine tradition of cute cartoon ponies facing dangerous situations and [[VileVillainSaccharineShow sinister evil-doers]].
** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E25PartyOfOne Party of One]]" has Pinkie Pie become depressed because she thinks her friends don't like her anymore, but she [[SanitySlippage starts going insane]], having a party with some {{Companion Cube}}s and getting {{Twitchy Eye}}s, accompanied with [[SurrealHorror abstract flickering backgrounds]] and enough CreepyCircusMusic to make you think the makers of ''Franchise/SilentHill'' were behind the scene.
** "The Return of Harmony" introduces Discord, a goofy-looking MixAndMatchCritter [[TheTrickster trickster]] villain who starts causing chaos in Equestria by making a cotton-candy-and-chocolate storm, and sets up a game for the ponies to play in order to defeat him. Said game has him gleefully [[BreakTheCutie break]] and [[CorruptTheCutie corrupt]] five of them, and [[TheGMIsACheatingBastard deliberately rig the game to make it impossible for him to lose]]. The first part ends with him ''[[TheBadGuyWins winning]]'', and he spends most of the second part turning Equestria into a WorldOfChaos and rubbing Twilight's face in her failure until she (temporarily, thankfully) crosses the DespairEventHorizon.
** "Lesson Zero", infamously so. The series is no stranger to {{Sanity Slippage}}s, but Twilight's descent into paranoia and insanity, complete with an endless parade of {{Nightmare Face}}s, is immensely disturbing.
** In "Hearth's Warming Eve'', the play starts out somewhat serious, but still not that bad. Then come the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s that feed off the founders' FantasticRacism and attempt to freeze the entire world. Keep in mind that the play is based directly off of the history of Equestria's founding, so it most certainly did happen in "real life".
%%** "Baby Cakes", mostly a run-of-the-mill BabysittingEpisode, but in one scene Pinkie momentarily loses track of the foals, and it's accompanied with PsychoStrings.
** "A Canterlot Wedding:" Twilight Sparkle has apparently messed up big time, and she's sad, but it looks like Cadance and she will make up. [[spoiler:Then we see that "Cadence" ''is'' evil.]] Part 2 ratchets up the horror even further, with [[spoiler:a full scale ''invasion of Canterlot'' by bug-like shape-shifting monsters.]]
** [[spoiler:The Chimera from the episode "Somepony To Watch Over Me"]] in season 4 was definitely a big surprise. She is arguably the creepiest villain in the whole show and is especially surprising because it is the first time a truly scary villain has ever shown up in any episode that wasn't either a season opener or a season finale, and that episode seemed like a typical comedic SliceOfLife episode at first.
** Sweetie Belle's nightmare in "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils" is surprisingly disturbing for an otherwise mundane SliceOfLife episode.
** The Season 5 premiere "The Cutie Map" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgMD1Kc7bAQ makes it seem like the original target audience was an afterthought]]. It features a WellIntentionedExtremist KnightTemplar as the villain, who literally tears the cutie marks right off the flanks of ponies and completely breaks them with imprisonment and psychological abuse until they comply and are willing to live in her town that looks troublingly like a concentration camp. She tops it off with a VillainSong based on World War II propaganda music and some [[LyricalDissonance incredibly dark lyrics]]:
--> "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioDuLqK_LuY You can't have a nightmare if you never dream.]]"
** While not ''as'' messed up as Sweetie Belle's, Apple Bloom's nightmare in "Bloom and Gloom" is quite dark as well.
** "The Cutie Re-Mark" has Starlight Glimmer traveling into the past to make sure the Mane Six never united and throws Twilight into a series of {{Bad Future}}s where one of the previous villains had won. Each is darker and more messed up than the last, beginning with King Sombra putting mind-control helmets onto every last citizen of the Crystal Empire and the lands he's conquered to make them fight to the death for him. Even the Bad Future pertaining to Flim and Flam turns out to be quite unsettling, as the brothers have turned Equestria into an industrial wasteland with the sky a dark orange from the pollution.
** The Season 9 premiere starts out with the return of Grogar and a VillainTeamup between all the surviving {{Big Bad}}s ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Sombra]], who was resurrected), with Sombra striking out on his own to take down Equestria. Though if you were expecting him to get sealed away or turned to stone or sent flying, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, get a load of Twilight Sparkle and her friends ''[[https://trixiebooru.org/images/2004578 graphically killing]]'' King Sombra on screen, complete with his skin being torn off his body as he screams in agony. It is ''very'' evident the show's crew knew this was their final season and that they didn't have to hold back.
* ''WesternAnimation/OverTheGardenWall'' is a charming story of two brothers trying to get home, meeting a bunch of colorful characters while being periodically menaced by whatever creatures the forests can throw at them, but ends up being a DoubleSubversion. For the first half all the supposedly creepy things and people turn out to be either harmless or outright helpful, and most of the conflict comes from Wirt unintentionally making things harder for himself. Then a witch that tries to brainwash them is melted and an evil possessing spirit tries to eat them. Then [[VileVillainSaccharineShow the Beast]] takes center stage, and [[KnightOfCerebus everything goes to hell very quickly]].
** There's also the ending Cartoon Network logo which features our two heroes looking like dark spirits with soulless eyes, [[spoiler:[[FromBadToWorse which is actually a reference to the fact that they're in a purgatory world and are facing death.]]]] And since that's the end credits logo that means we get Surprise Creepy ''after every episode''.
* The ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted!" starts as a typical episode, but it all changed when their mother actually finds out about the boys' shenanigans. From then on, it becomes ''way'' darker and morbid than a typical episode. [[spoiler:It turned out to be AllJustADream at the end, but still.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'' has the infamous episode "Speed Demon." The Powerpuffs decide to race home from school... and go so fast that they warp into [[DarkWorld a strange, warped and destroyed version of Townsville.]] There, they see that the townspeople have gone insane. The Mayor is dead and Miss Bellum blames herself. The Professor (their father figure) is obsessed with futilely recreating his girls (and attacks the real things when he thinks they're hallucinations). And their kind-hearted schoolteacher just stands in place, right where she was waving goodbye to the Powerpuff Girls before [[TheReveal they vanished for over 50 years.]] It's at this point that the already-creepy villain known only as Him shows up and reveals [[TheDevil his true form,]] informing the girls that because they weren't around to save the day, this nightmare world is all their fault. They manage to go back in time so they can stop the BadFuture by being there to save the day, but the FridgeHorror of the episode is palpable.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' and ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' jump from SurrealHumor to SurrealHorror with jarring speed and are both very fond of the GrossUpCloseUp and other terrifying imagery.
* There was a short called [[https://youtu.be/GISnfWcROTo "The Snow Man"]], which was the former page image. Starts off really cutesy, with a human and his animal friends building a snowman and dancing around, but all hell breaks loose when the snowman comes to life and goes on a rampage. The snowman eats a fish whole along the way, but it's set free when the snowman melts at the end. All's well that ends well... until the fish lets out a sinister laugh that sounds exactly like the snowman. There are a couple of other strange things in the short, like the fact that the animal skin the boy has on his bed for warmth ''comes to life'' and licks the boy's face, being just portrayed as an animal giving its owner a sweet good-night kiss. Later the boy is riding a polar bear and makes the animal come to a complete stop. As he does so, he grabs the polar bear's tail and pulls, which makes the ''skin and fur'' slide off the bear's body before snapping back, as if the fur and skin were just clothes. It's an old cartoon and was meant to be silly, but old cartoons did some creepy things back in the day, all without meaning to, thanks to the old cartoon rule of everything being sentient, goofy, happy and cute.
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse''. On the surface, it looks like a fantasy series about a group of warriors and the boy trying to understand his powers, while they fight [[MonsterOfTheWeek monsters of the week]]. It's mostly ''very'' heartwarming and lighthearted, but Steven nearly gets himself turned into a grotesque cat monster (confirmed to be a reference to, of all things, ''Manga/{{Akira}}'') by being unable to control his shapeshifting powers once, the aforementioned monsters are really [[spoiler:Gems like the heroes that have been corrupted in some way]], there was an episode that ended with Steven watching several copies of him turn to dust and die for real, a colossal monster inhabiting the inside of Earth threatening to destroy it and all living things, and the rotten cherry on top is in the episode "Chille Tid" where Steven has a dream (an obvious reference to old sitcoms). Everything goes pretty normal for the most part. Steven is waiting for Connie for his first dance. He opens the door and...a two-eyed Garnet wearing sunglasses comes in and gives him advice for it. The second time he opens the door, instead of Connie we get [[http://41.media.tumblr.com/93720c1dc8a9a0def8d63abb382a35d8/tumblr_nq7ppoZ9Hp1tseldro1_500.jpg this terrifying picture.]] It's agreed through the fandom that it was ''one of the most unsettling moments of the entire series''. Luckily, the series manages to ''still'' be strong SugarWiki/SweetDreamsFuel on countless levels.
** And let's not forget the one time Steven and Garnet go off alone and uncover a homeworld lab where gem shards have been forcibly fused together for millennia. Once you realize the underlying symbolism of this, it becomes genuinely disturbing on all levels. Even [[TheStoic Garnet]] almost comes undone over this one.
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* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioDolor'' [[StylisticSuck intentionally looks like]] a typical cheap, low-effort fangame like [[SturgeonsLaw so many of them]], with the same ExcusePlot of Mario rescuing Princess Peach from King Bowser. Then in the first stage, he reaches the exit only to abruptly run out of time and die, and when retrying the stage, it suddenly turns into a nightmarish hellscape of blood, red textures, and eyes. The rest of the levels jump between typical Mario fare and SurrealHorror, with a subtle deeper plot in the background about [[spoiler:Mario suffering from depression after the death of his brother Luigi]].

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* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioDolor'' [[StylisticSuck intentionally looks like]] a typical cheap, low-effort fangame like [[SturgeonsLaw so many of them]], them, with the same ExcusePlot of Mario rescuing Princess Peach from King Bowser. Then in the first stage, he reaches the exit only to abruptly run out of time and die, and when retrying the stage, it suddenly turns into a nightmarish hellscape of blood, red textures, and eyes. The rest of the levels jump between typical Mario fare and SurrealHorror, with a subtle deeper plot in the background about [[spoiler:Mario suffering from depression after the death of his brother Luigi]].
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* [[Wiki/SCPFoundation SCP]]-[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3867 3867]] seems like a cute anomaly, a website that tells whomever accesses it what their pet is doing when they access it. Aside from its omniscience, it seems harmless enough. It still manages to be cute when talking about a researcher's long dead pet playing around in the afterlife while waiting for her. And then it gives an absolutely chilling account of a pet being BuriedAlive from the perspective of said pet as it happened when the SCP foundation send one of their CannonFodder personnel who had been chosen specifically for his history of animal abuse.

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* [[Wiki/SCPFoundation [[Website/SCPFoundation SCP]]-[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3867 3867]] seems like a cute anomaly, a website that tells whomever accesses it what their pet is doing when they access it. Aside from its omniscience, it seems harmless enough. It still manages to be cute when talking about a researcher's long dead pet playing around in the afterlife while waiting for her. And then it gives an absolutely chilling account of a pet being BuriedAlive from the perspective of said pet as it happened when the SCP foundation send one of their CannonFodder personnel who had been chosen specifically for his history of animal abuse.
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* ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'' starts out as a cute teenage love story about a guy trying to get a girl with help from his friend. When he does finally get her, he does a bad thing, and things spiral out of control as the series gets much darker and depressing and loses all traces of its cheerfulness. This all culminates in the final episode with [[spoiler: his girlfriend, having just murdered his own friend, snuggling his disembodied head.]]

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* ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'' starts out as a cute teenage love story about a guy trying to get a girl with help from his friend. When he does finally get her, he does a bad thing, and things spiral out of control as the series gets much darker and depressing and loses all traces of its cheerfulness. This all culminates in the final episode with [[spoiler: his is girlfriend, having just murdered his own friend, snuggling his disembodied head.]]



** Week 5, "Red Snow", has you fight against your girlfriend's parents in a mall, with plenty of [[TheCameo cameos]] from various Website/{{Newgrounds}} media. At least, the first two songs do. The final one, [[spoiler: "Winter Horrorland", starts out with the Christmas Tree decked out with intestines and a severed head in Girlfriend's likeness as a startopper. The mall is abandoned, and the Girlfriend's parents have been replaced with a monster with a lemon for a head, singing about eating the Boyfriend and the Girlfriend.]]
** Week 6, "Hating Simulator", is about the Boyfriend and the Girlfriend being [[TrappedInTVLand getting trapped in a dating sim]], the protagonist of said sim cheerfully challenging Boyfriend to a sing off for Girlfriend's hand. By the second song, the "Senpai"'s polite personality is [[BitchInSheepsClothing revealed to be a facade]], and by the third, [[spoiler:his body bursts open to reveal a murky pink spirit, the colorful schoolyard becoming a dark, wavy location. The spirit reveals that Girlfriend's Father put him into the game, implied to be because he wanted to date the Girlfriend, and that he actually wants to steal Boyfriend's body so he can escape the game and get revenge for himself and all the other unfortunate suitors]].

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** Week 5, "Red Snow", has you fight against your girlfriend's Girlfriend's parents in a mall, with plenty of [[TheCameo cameos]] from various Website/{{Newgrounds}} media. At least, the first two songs do. The final one, [[spoiler: "Winter [[spoiler:"Winter Horrorland", starts out with the Christmas Tree decked out with intestines and a severed head in Girlfriend's likeness as a startopper. The mall is abandoned, and the Girlfriend's parents have been replaced with a monster with a lemon for a head, singing about eating the Boyfriend and the Girlfriend.]]
** Week 6, "Hating Simulator", is about the Boyfriend and the Girlfriend being [[TrappedInTVLand getting trapped in a dating sim]], the protagonist of said sim cheerfully challenging Boyfriend to a sing off for Girlfriend's hand. By the second song, the "Senpai"'s polite personality is [[BitchInSheepsClothing revealed to be a facade]], and by the third, [[spoiler:his body bursts open to reveal a murky pink spirit, the colorful schoolyard becoming a dark, wavy location. The spirit Spirit reveals that Girlfriend's Father Daddy Dearest put him into the game, implied to be because he wanted to date the Girlfriend, and that he actually wants to steal Boyfriend's body so he can escape the game and get revenge for himself and all the other unfortunate suitors]].

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** ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonRescueTeam'' was already pretty creepy, like when all your friends suddenly turn on you and chase you for what seems to be days, clearly intent on killing you. And then there's the tale of [[spoiler:Gardevoir's past]]...



** ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonRescueTeam'' was already pretty creepy, like when all your friends suddenly turn on you and chase you for what seems to be days, clearly intent on killing you. And then there's the tale of [[spoiler:Gardevoir's past]]...
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* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': More E-rated goodness that involves sending adorable little carrot-creatures to near-certain doom against beasts many times their size on a planet that -- WordOfGod states -- is Earth 250 million years in the future. In the first game, Olimar does this to survive. In the second, it's all about getting treasure. And in the third, it's to prevent an ApocalypseHow. Some of the more bizarre enemies in the game include a frog-shaped embodiment of poison, the [[HellIsThatNoise moaning]] intangible EldritchAbomination known as the Waterwraith, and [[spoiler:the immortal shape-shifting monstrosity that is the third game's final boss.]] Olimar actually does wonder:

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* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': More E-rated goodness that involves sending adorable little carrot-creatures to near-certain doom against beasts many times their size on a planet that -- WordOfGod states -- is Earth 250 million years in the future. In the first game, Olimar does this to survive. In the second, it's all about getting treasure. And in the third, it's to prevent an ApocalypseHow. Some of the more bizarre enemies in the game include a frog-shaped embodiment of poison, the [[HellIsThatNoise moaning]] intangible EldritchAbomination known as the Waterwraith, and [[spoiler:the immortal shape-shifting monstrosity that is the third game's final boss.]] Plasm Wraith]]. Olimar actually does wonder:
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** ''VideoGame/Mother3'' starts lightly, much like the other two, but the horror kicks in much earlier and persists throughout the game. New Pork City and anything to do with [[spoiler:[=Porky/Pokey=]]] is especially disturbing.

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** ''VideoGame/Mother3'' starts lightly, much like the other two, but the horror kicks in much earlier and persists throughout the game. New Pork City and anything to do with [[spoiler:[=Porky/Pokey=]]] [[spoiler:Porky]] is especially disturbing.
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An Axe To Grind is no longer a trope


** ''VideoGame/YoshisCraftedWorld'' meets the quota of the dino's series being cheerful, colorful, all-around happy games. Then, after the Cheery Valley world, you head over to Shadowville, play the first level, and [[spoiler:''proceed to be chased by several [[{{OurSlashersAreDifferent}} slasher-like]] {{Creepy Doll}}s brandishing [[AnAxeToGrind huge axes]] that emit [[HellIsThatNoise hellish screams]] whenever they see Yoshi'']]. Even the hint-giving Message Boxes have been given a foreboding upgrade:

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** ''VideoGame/YoshisCraftedWorld'' meets the quota of the dino's series being cheerful, colorful, all-around happy games. Then, after the Cheery Valley world, you head over to Shadowville, play the first level, and [[spoiler:''proceed to be chased by several [[{{OurSlashersAreDifferent}} slasher-like]] {{Creepy Doll}}s brandishing [[AnAxeToGrind huge axes]] axes that emit [[HellIsThatNoise hellish screams]] whenever they see Yoshi'']]. Even the hint-giving Message Boxes have been given a foreboding upgrade:
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!This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16678683070.24176800 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.
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* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain'' is a funny {{Claymation}} movie with lots of bright colors (although even the animation can be [[UnintentionalUncannyValley fairly creepy]]), but it takes a very dark turn after the kids encounter Literature/TheMysteriousStranger. That segment is so terrifying that it frequently gets cut from TV showings (but on the other hand, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntf5_ue2Lzw it went viral on]] Website/YouTube, precisely ''[[NightmareFetishist because]]'' it's so disturbing).

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* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain'' is a funny {{Claymation}} movie with lots of bright colors (although even the animation can be [[UnintentionalUncannyValley fairly creepy]]), but it takes a very dark turn after the kids encounter Literature/TheMysteriousStranger. That segment is so terrifying that it frequently gets cut from TV showings (but on the other hand, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntf5_ue2Lzw it went viral on]] Website/YouTube, precisely ''[[NightmareFetishist ''[[CreepyAwesome because]]'' it's so disturbing).



** A lot of the episodes are pretty lighthearted to boot. That said, the show has been known to take abrupt turns for the extremely dark and disturbing. Remember, the Daleks were envisioned as Nazi analogues, and several stories have a body count ranging from most to the entire cast. The new series also gives us the Doctor [[spoiler: dealing with destroying his own people (which does get reversed later but he didn't know that at the time)]], monsters based on childhood fears and the Series 9 three-part finale where the Doctor is put through a TraumaCongaLine.
** After watching the episode ''Blink'', you'll have PTSD attacks around statues and won't be sleeping with the lights out anytime soon. It may also result in stained pants. It's no wonder that the episode was originally broadcast with a warning stating that it is far scarier than other episodes in the season and parent supervision is advised if children are watching.

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** A lot of the episodes are pretty lighthearted to boot. That said, the show has been known to take abrupt turns for the extremely dark and disturbing. Remember, the Daleks were envisioned as [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Nazi analogues, analogues]], and several stories have a body count ranging from [[EverybodyDiesEnding most to the entire cast. cast]]. The new series also gives us the Doctor [[spoiler: dealing [[spoiler:dealing with destroying his own people (which does get reversed later later, but he didn't know that at the time)]], monsters based on childhood fears fears, and the Series 9 three-part finale where [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven three]]-[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent part]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent finale]], in which the Doctor is put through a TraumaCongaLine.
** After watching the episode ''Blink'', "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink Blink]]", you'll have PTSD attacks around statues and won't be sleeping with the lights out anytime soon. It may also result in stained pants. It's no wonder that the episode was originally broadcast with a warning stating that it is far scarier than other episodes in the season and parent supervision is advised if children are watching.



* ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' is the LighterAndSofter spin-off of ''Doctor Who''. That does not stop it from being loaded with teenage anxieties, and the possibility of losing your child comes up a lot. And then there's any story featuring [[KnightOfCerebus The Trickster]], which would not look out of place on the parent show.

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* ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' is the LighterAndSofter spin-off of ''Doctor Who''.''Series/DoctorWho''. That does not stop it from being loaded with teenage anxieties, and the possibility of losing your child comes up a lot. And then there's any story featuring [[KnightOfCerebus The the Trickster]], which would not look out of place on in the parent show.



* The first episode of ''{{Series/Wandavision}}'' starts off as a simple sitcom made in the style of ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow''. However, during a [[DinnerWithTheBoss dinner with Vision's boss and wife]], Mr. Hart asks where Wanda and Vision came from, beginning the unsettling, true nature of the show as Wanda hesitates to answer, Mr. Hart nearly chokes to death on his food, and his wife repeats "stop it" to both her husband and soon Wanda like a broken record. While the tonal shift was brief, it doesn't last for long.

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* The first episode of ''{{Series/Wandavision}}'' ''Series/WandaVision'' starts off as a simple sitcom made in the style of ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow''. However, during a [[DinnerWithTheBoss dinner with Vision's boss and wife]], Mr. Hart asks where Wanda and Vision came from, beginning the unsettling, true nature of the show as Wanda hesitates to answer, Mr. Hart nearly chokes to death on his food, and his wife repeats "stop it" to both her husband and soon Wanda like a broken record. While the tonal shift was brief, it doesn't last for long.

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** Long before that there was ''VideoGame/KnucklesChaotix'', a pretty whimsical game with a carnival theme and a matching color palette. Then you reach the final boss in which Metal Sonic undergoes a OneWingedAngel transformation, becoming a giant blood-colored fanged monstrosity unlike anything else in the classic games[[https://info.sonicretro.org/images/6/64/MSKaiFight.png]]. Then if you beat the game without all Chaos Rings, you're treated to a credits scene in which he's shown hovering over a city in flames, implying he destroyed the place and killed millions.

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** Long before that there was ''VideoGame/KnucklesChaotix'', a pretty whimsical game with a carnival theme and a matching color palette. Then you reach the final boss in which Metal [[spoiler:Metal Sonic undergoes a OneWingedAngel transformation, becoming a giant blood-colored fanged monstrosity unlike anything else in the classic games[[https://info.sonicretro.org/images/6/64/MSKaiFight.png]]. Then if you beat the game without all Chaos Rings, you're treated to a credits scene in which he's shown hovering over a city in flames, implying he destroyed the place and killed millions.millions...]]
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None

Added DiffLines:

** Long before that there was ''VideoGame/KnucklesChaotix'', a pretty whimsical game with a carnival theme and a matching color palette. Then you reach the final boss in which Metal Sonic undergoes a OneWingedAngel transformation, becoming a giant blood-colored fanged monstrosity unlike anything else in the classic games[[https://info.sonicretro.org/images/6/64/MSKaiFight.png]]. Then if you beat the game without all Chaos Rings, you're treated to a credits scene in which he's shown hovering over a city in flames, implying he destroyed the place and killed millions.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None


* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain'' is a funny {{Claymation}} movie with lots of bright colors (although even the animation can be [[UncannyValley fairly creepy]]), but it takes a very dark turn after the kids encounter Literature/TheMysteriousStranger. That segment is so terrifying that it frequently gets cut from TV showings (but on the other hand, it went viral on Website/YouTube, precisely ''[[NightmareFetishist because]]'' it's so disturbing).

to:

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain'' is a funny {{Claymation}} movie with lots of bright colors (although even the animation can be [[UncannyValley [[UnintentionalUncannyValley fairly creepy]]), but it takes a very dark turn after the kids encounter Literature/TheMysteriousStranger. That segment is so terrifying that it frequently gets cut from TV showings (but on the other hand, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntf5_ue2Lzw it went viral on on]] Website/YouTube, precisely ''[[NightmareFetishist because]]'' it's so disturbing).
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None


Other works -- as mentioned in the above quote -- may deliberately invoke it by setting up a bright, colorful, or serene tone and atmosphere to lure viewers into a false sense of security, then abruptly dropping the facade for maximum impact. One such type of work is the SubvertedKidsShow, which often employs a stereotypical, SugarBowl-like aesthetic in order to make the subsequent twist even more jarring.

to:

Other works -- as mentioned in the above quote -- may deliberately invoke it by setting up a bright, colorful, or serene tone and atmosphere to lure viewers into a false sense of security, then abruptly dropping the facade for maximum impact. One such type of work is the SubvertedKidsShow, which often employs a stereotypical, SugarBowl-like aesthetic in order to make the subsequent twist even more jarring.

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