Last Note Nightmare

So you're listening to a nice, pleasant song about bunnies and rainbows and running in the rain with your best lover by your side. Then the final note of the song falls and, instead of a nice soft resolution, it's a heavily played Sting note in a minor Scare Chord. Then the music fades into a series of dissonant arpeggios with a creepy mechanical voice muttering some nonsensical gibberish that sounds like Satan reciting an Edgar Allan Poe story. It's surely not the ending you expected this particular song to have — and if you happen to be really unlucky, it'll burrow into your mind playing itself over and over like some self-regenerating Nightmare Fuel. Musicians most likely put these kinds of stingers at the ends of their songs to make them memorable. They may even have been intended as humorous, showing that the artists don't take themselves too seriously.

Last Note Nightmare can be very comparable to a Jump Scare, especially of the Screamer Prank variety. The opposite of a Last Note Nightmare is Last Note Hilarity.

(Music geeks might be interested to note that there is an opposite technique, the "Picardy third," or "Tierce de Picardie" in which when a song that has been in minor the whole time goes into major on the very last chord.) Compare HA HA HA—No and Dark Reprise.

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Examples:

Media and artists with their own page:

• Music
  • The Beatles

Other Media:

Advertising

• "George and Betty", a public information film for electric blanket safety, starts off with a romantic jazzy theme as an old couple enjoys their night together and later get into bed. The music then suddenly becomes very screechy right at the end; the accompanying image (a picture of their burnt-out bed) and tagline ("Old Electric Blankets Can Kill") makes it even more terrifying.
• Early commercials for Verizon's Android offerings started with Mo Zella's upbeat, "It's Magic" to parody iPhone commercials, switching midway to a much darker theme, to establish Droid as a more serious operating system.
• The Nissan Juke commercials use Frederika Stahl's cover of a Nursery Rhyme, namely "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Said cover begins with a melancholy wail, but that alone is not nightmarish (and therefore not even one of the cases of "First note Nightmare"). However, some versions of the commercials use such an opening as their ending, thus not only coming off as mildly scary but also just plain sad.
• An old commercial for Hudson Toffeepops shows a young couple playing around the house while holding the biscuits, and eventually they recline on the sofa, as the commercial looks like it's wrapping up. Then the commercial cuts back to the scene and shows the couple has been devoured by the sofa, as it lets out a terrifying Evil Laugh and smiles.
• This landmine PSA created by Cinar features a little girl and her dog catching butterflies in the hills, accompanied by a gentle music box tune. Then the two jump on a landmine, and the music changes to a Drone of Dread.
• In a fireworks safety PSA by Dutch-based private advertiser SIRE, a pair of hands display shadow puppets of various animals (including a dog, bird, and swan) as whimsical, happy music plays in the background. But when the last animal shown is a "rund" (ox in Dutch, the equivalent of "ass" in English-speaking countries), the music suddenly takes a sinister twist as it's revealed that one of the puppeteer's hands is completely blown off while the other hand has a missing pinkie, splayed out to imitate an explosion.
• Many people might disagree about this one, so please be careful while reading this. ING in Poland made the ads from October 2014 to February 2020 with the Tagline "Liczą się ludzie" ("People matter" in English), and they have a song, that almost 10 seconds before the commercial was about to end, the notes suddenly changed to the creepy. All of these commercials were just completely normal, so it's clear that this song was not intended to look creepy at the end. For the 52 seconds,the music sounds actually calm and pretty cool, but at the end, as we said before, the music has a completely different tone and has a Drone of Dread-like sound. The fact, that the "scarier" part is louder than a few seconds before, doesn't help. This example can be found in this ad. Said ad was the first one, the normal commercials were obviously 30 seconds long and they have only a "scary" part of a song, there is no music before. There are othere variations, which may be even creepier.

Anime and Manga

• .hack//Legend of the Twilight plays background music normally and then as the Corrupted Mook is about to be summoned from the Chaos Gate, the music begins to slip.
• In Soul Eater, the soundtrack 'So Scandalous' has a creepy piano playing in between the techno/hip-pop/jazz number.
• "Reborn," the first ending song from Baki the Grappler, is a mellow guitar song with lyrics about love and happiness, while images of the various cast members who are clearly not thinking about love and happiness float by in the background—for example, Ando is gritting his teeth and swinging an axe. And then as a coup de grace, the song ends with a slightly eerie echo and an image of Yujiro looming over Baki.
• "Amusement Park", from the Cowboy Bebop boxed set. The song is a creepy carnival theme that fades out into a rather loud eerie note.
• There's a version of Pachelbel's Canon in D on disc 2 of the "Evangelion Symphony" album that is completely normal. Considering the popularity of the piece, your mind tunes it out as background music... until about five seconds before where it should end, there is a noise like a gunshot and all of the string instruments screech to a halt.
  • The track "Honeymoon with Anxiety" (Fuan to no Mitsugetsu) from the End of Evangelion soundtrack is a cool bit of music that ends with an unsettling... violin... thing.
  • And then from Rebuild 2.0, there's Kyou no Hi wa Sayounara (Farewell for Today). You know, that wonderfully sweet little song that was playing when EVA 01 ripped 03 apart with Asuka inside while Shinji begged his father to turn off the Dummy System. It's wonderful and sweet, but on the soundtrack, we get a weird little... thing at the end, which consists of a somewhat distorted repeat of part of the song... which then gets some absolutely chilling violin chords and echo effects.
• Higurashi: When They Cry has lots of character songs that start out happy, then turn... disturbing. The best example of Last Note Nightmare is Keiichi's song, Cool ni Nare! ~Keep On Our Love~, which is a Hot-Blooded appeal to Screw Destiny, the final line being Keiichi abruptly saying "Oops, I screwed up" (and, since this is Higurashi, presumably dying).
  • Actually, the line before that is "Yes, Hinamizawa", which is a reference to another character song that featured Keiichi (and Mr. Delicious). So, it was probably more of an "Ah crap, wrong lyrics" thing.
    • ... and that song has it's own Last Note Nightmare. It's a silly nonsensical rap mainly consisting of phrases from the anime... until Keiichi starts scratching out his throat. And it's played for laughs.
    • At the very end, you can hear Keiichi over the phone saying very quietly "Please, someone end this case", with the last word being cut off as soon as he says it. Then you hear a quiet scream. It's a goofy scream, but...
  • The anime gives us its own soundtrack and the track "Oyashiro Sama". It's already creepy on its own, but its creepiness has a musical pattern... and then the final note is not what you musically expect, it goes lower instead of higher and the percussion vanishes as if it wasn't even there in the first place. Absolutely nightmarish and fits the anime incredibly well.
• "Warera Gatchaman", the closing theme of Gatchaman II. The song itself is a rousing anthem about how awesome the Gatchaman team is and how they're going to defeat Galactor and save the day... but then, out of nowhere, the song ends with a sudden and nasty Scare Chord.
• Russia's version of "Marukaite Chikyuu" appropriately has the character singing the chorus cute as anything until his "Kolkolkol" chant comes out of nowhere, and then just goes right back into being cute again before you have the chance to process the horror of what you just heard. It also didn't help this was the first time the fans actually heard the chant.
  • Then, of course, there's the part where his voice dips to a deeper, not-so-much-cute-as-menacing tone as the end of the third repetition of the chorus.
  • Then there's the ending of his character song Winter, where there's chanting for the last roughly 40 seconds, and grows louder when the music itself ends. His Hatafutte Parade starts to be this trope too with some surreal echoing, but he stops and screams about Belarus at the last second, acting as Nightmare Retardant.
• School Days: Kanashimi no Mukou e is hardly a happy song; it's moody, depressive, almost heartbreaking. But when it's almost over, a very ominous and slightly out-of-place drum music starts playing... and you suddenly get the feeling that something has gone very, very wrong.
  • This song is inspired by School Days. The song is entitled "Nice Boat." Watch till the ending and be spooked.
• Misa's song from Death Note. It starts out slightly creepy, then evolves into a very heartwarming song, only at the end, the piano begins playing a goosebump-inducing minor chord. The lyrics also hint at Misa's suicide at the end of the series.
• Every episode of Ghost Hunt ends with a last note nightmare. After the slow, eerie ending song, a sudden burst of maniacal piano starts playing, then a voiceover Mai warns us about the next episode.
• Sailor Moon has Sailor Mars' song, "Sei Hi Ai" (or "Fire Soul Love"/"Holy Flame Love" in English). What is heard throughout the track is a nice, upbeat, "Rhythm Nation"-inspired tune that ends abruptly with the sound of glass shattering.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Diamond is Unbreakable: There's "Another Face, Same Mind", which starts out as an eerie reprisal of the main villain's theme... before abruptly turning into hardcore thrash metal. As silly as that may sound on paper, it's executed in such a way that it's scary as shit. One should expect nothing less from Yugo Kanno.
  • Golden Wind: Mista's theme song is chiefly an upbeat dance tune reflecting his formerly carefree existence until the sounds of the gunshots that began his life as a criminal intrude, causing what's left of the track to go heavier and darker.

Eastern European Animation

• The popular czech cartoon The Little Mole has various catchy and upbeat tunes that accompany the episodes, since the cartoon has really little talking. Luckily this trope almost never appears and the episodes end with their main themes. The exception is the episode is literally the one called “The mole in a dream” After the titular dream ends the mole and a man (who had the dream) gets along and goes to a joyride, only to witness a that they are going to experience similar things like what was in a dream (The mole presents the same stone hammer to the man he found in the dream too). During the last frames of the episode an eerie melody takes over the lead and after the closing iris, it turns into a creepy tribal drumming. And it’s a cartoon that usually broadcasted as a bedtime story in Europe
• European kids might remember the polish cartoon Zaczarowany ołówek (The enchanted pencil). Its intro is a simple whiteboard that shows the credits while a soft guitar melody plays in the background but then comes a sudden loud orchestral part, along with the pencil (with the title flashing on it) suddenly zooming out. No wonder many kids always muted the television when they saw the show coming.

Fan Works

• In Dragon Ball Z Abridged after Cell asks the DJ to play "Video Killed the Radio Star", he breaks into the studio and kills them. The last DJ dies and the video cuts out with the last note from the song echoing.
  Pictures came and broke your heart...
• The ending of Something Broke (a fan-made rock opera based on Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles)). Tarby begins the song's last part singing in a fairly normal voice, but then you notice that the lyrics start to get a little disturbing. In the basement, not a sound/can be heard above the ground/so the ponies up above/can go on in peace and love/down below some tasty treats/being made for them to eat/granted at a friend's expense/they don't know it won't hurt them/so down in the dimly lit/down comes knife, another hit/draw it forth, eviscerate/soon they'll be on someone's plate. And before you can fully register this, he starts painfully screaming "HELP ME CHASE AWAY MY FEARS!! over a series of loud, abrasive Scare Chords before his voice abruptly cuts off mid-note. Doesn't help that this was a reprise of a much lighter part earlier in this.

Films — Animation

• The song "The Theatre" from Coraline's soundtrack. Now, quite a few songs on the soundtrack are rather creepy, but this one stands out. It starts with vaguely cheerful tinkling, accompanied by a distant-sounding snippet of the earlier track "Sirens of the Sea", progresses to some low-key Ambient noises, and then suddenly explodes into... some kind of discordant noise.
  • Here's the song. Just so you can hear firsthand how creepy it is. (Probably best not to turn the volume up too loud.)
• On the 2000 American DVD of Disney's Fantasia, the background music that plays on the Title Menu is the Toccata and Fugue in D minor (aka "stereotypical Halloween organ music"). Seeing as the last piece of the film is Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria", having the DVD cut straight back to the Toccata is rather jarring.
• Disney's Dinosaur: When the Pterodactyl drops the egg...
• The song "A Girl Worth Fighting For" from Mulan is a rather optimistic ditty sung by the soldiers during their march across the Chinese countryside about how they're trying not to go to war. The song ends with said soldiers arriving at the mountain village they're supposed to protect from the Huns, only to find out that said village was already burned to the ground. It should also be noted that after this scene, the movie is no longer a musical.
• At the end of Disney and Pixar's WALL•E, the end credits of the film starts off with some cute animations of the passengers and crew of the Axiom landing back on earth and re-civilizing and replenishing the earth's environment, followed by more animations of Wall-e and Eve playing around the scrolling credits with M-O while all being accompanied by Peter Gabriel's gentle and understated "Down to Earth". However, following the end of the obligatory Disney and Pixar end-film logos (complete with Luxo Jr.'s light going out, Wall-E replacing it, the "R" in "PIXAR" falling down and Wall-E coming over to replace the "R"), from out of nowhere we are suddenly greeted by a jarring Buy n Large Vanity Plate accompanied by the company's "BEEE-ENNN-EEELLLLL!!!!!" chant that accompanies every Buy n Large advertisement featured within the film's setting.
  Whereas at first, it might not seem like much, there is an air of this being scary both in-universe and in the meta-sense. The fact that such a company logo that represents a fictional Mega-cooperation within the film's own setting can just appear up alongside the logos of the actual companies that helped create the film's own setting (particularly after such soft-running credit music) not only comes off as unexpected but given that this is a film about a mega-cooperation essentially contributing to the mass-pollution and subsequent decline of the earth's livable environment (thus setting up for a premise about a lonely robot on earth still gathering up garbage while the humans in the Axiom starships are watched over by an extraordinarily reliant on-board ship A.I.), this logo and its upbeat chant becomes terrifying in its own right in that it indicates that Buy n Large is still in business and providing everything all the time. ...in a film developed by The Walt Disney Company. The fact that there are indicated to be more than one BnL starliners supposedly still in space doesn't help either.
• In The Lion King (2019), the version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" sung by Timon and Pumbaa in this version has them go up to the second verse ("In the village/the peaceful village..."), only to suddenly be interrupted by an adult Nala attacking them.

Films — Live-Action

• Alien³ had the standard 20th Century Fox fanfare, right up until the final bar. Instead of finishing the triumphant ditty, it hangs and turns into something quite the opposite.
  • Repeated with Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.
  • Something similar happens in Speed 2: Cruise Control.
  • A similar example happens in the 2012 remake of Frankenweenie. When the Disney logo settles down and you hear the soft notes of "When You Wish Upon a Star" play, suddenly the music changes (on where "star" would be heard) into a Scare Chord. Also, the logo's color is sucked out and fog forms around the castle.
  • Again from a Tim Burton film: The Geffen logo at the beginning of Beetlejuice features an upbeat but somewhat hollow chorus of "Day-O" that swings into a hauntingly creepy minor key halfway through, just in time to introduce Danny Elfman's main theme. Here, have a listen.
• Similarly, Event Horizon has the typical opening Paramount fanfare, but then hits a sour note before lifting into space with an aggressive, dark string section.
• The soundtrack for Ghost Ship has the track titled "The Souls Ascend", which is the hauntingly beautiful score in which Maureen defeats the Big Bad, frees all the lost souls trapped on the ship, and is later rescued by a passing ship. The score gently fades, as if to say the worst is finally over... but NOPE! We're suddenly greeted by a blaring Scare Chord to indicate the film's ending.
  • Funny enough, the Scare Chord isn't in the film proper, but we still get Mood Whiplash as the score suddenly cuts to Mudvayne's "Not Falling".
• The end of the music playing over the credits of Jurassic Park ends on a creepy, deeply unsettling note. It gives the impression that something survived.
• The grand opening music of Star Wars ends in a dark ominous tone once the narrative text begins to fade.
  • The soundtrack album for Revenge of the Sith provides a different variation - instead of trailing off like the other movies, the music launches immediately into a brassy fanfare for the Action Prologue (the movie cuts this and uses a Dramatic Timpani instead).
  • The full theme continues the dark theme and switches tempo and timbre several times before ending.
  • Anakin's Theme is sweet, soft, and innocent except in the last part which we hear the notes of the Imperial March. Punctuated when played over the end credits of The Phantom Menace; after the final fadeout, the last sound in the movie is Vader's breathing.
  • Not so much in the movie itself, but when on its own, Han Solo and the Princess becomes this.
  • In an instance of a First Note Nightmare, Rogue One literally begins with a Scare Chord. Making it even more jarring is that it follows the obligatory "A long long time ago..." Text, so more than one person who is used to being jumpscared by a loud horn definitely was in for a nasty surprise.
• In Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the final note of the upbeat "The Candy Man" is off-key. Tellingly, it's on that note that the audience first sees poor Charlie Bucket, who's apparently been on the outside of the shop looking in all along. Later, one of the many variations of "Pure Imagination" plays as the boat starts down the chocolate river, and when it enters the psychedelic tunnel, the music appropriately turns ominous.
  • Parodied somewhat in the scene just before the Grandmaster's introduction in Thor: Ragnarok.
• A milder, but still significant example: At the end of West Side Story (1961), there is a touching reprise of the song "Somewhere," but just as the scene is ending and the music is calming down, dissonant, deep chords start playing in the background...
• The soundtrack to The Wicker Man (1973) is a great find as it includes all the Celtic folk songs featured in the movie, including the classic round "Sumer Is Icumen In," which is sung by the townsfolk at the film's climax. It takes a turn for the horror however when that track on the album ends with Sargent Howie screaming, "Oh, God! Oh, Jesus Christ!" in absolute terror as he sees the wicker man.
  • Here.
• Two words: "Withnail's Theme." The melody itself is haunting and fitting for a Sad Clown but the flat note at the very end of the movie makes you wince every time.
• "Nature Boy (reprise)" from the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack. The instruments are creepy enough as is, but the ending was edited to sound like the CD was scratched, for a very strange effect.
  • There's also the other version on that soundtrack, in which David Bowie is singing along very nicely until the last word, which is about a million decibels louder than the last song, accompanied by an intensely creepy swell of music.
• "The Hunt Builds" from the soundtrack to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Not only does it end with 4 scare chords, but sad music can also simultaneously be heard playing as well.
• The scene where Cyclops reunites with Jean Grey in X-Men: The Last Stand starts off with a romantic/melancholic theme...then quickly delves into a loud dramatic chorus combined with drum heartbeats.
• The famous The Pink Panther Theme Tune ends suddenly loud with a jarring chord.
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: the track "Kirk's Explosive Reply" from the soundtrack album. It's somewhat averted in the film itself, as the music fades out by about 3:30 of that track as the film cuts from the bridge of the Enterprise to an exterior shot showing the ship's damage. However, on the album track, we're bombed at 3:32 with a four-note Scare Chord that repeats once, before fading out on a final note.
• The opening theme for Star Trek: First Contact is a warm, slow and dramatic one. Then as it fades into silence...WHAM.
• After the credits of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry says "Mischief Managed... Nox." The map parchment folds and we see the film's title and the seven iconic notes of the Potter theme. The screen fades to black, and after 20 seconds of silence, Peter Pettigrew's eerie theme can be heard. Sure to scare a few.
  • The Chamber of Secrets' Theme ends with no less than four Scare Chords, each when you think that the piece is ending. Made even more unsettling in the film proper, which is followed by a creepy silent Post-credits scene.
• The opening to Star Trek (2009) (while you watch the Vanity Plates) starts with a warm horn-and-strings combo (a slow variation on the main theme). Roughly 40 seconds in, you see the Bad Robot vanity plate (which is a bit creepy) while the music lets a little dissonance pop in. About 55 seconds in, the music just slams and cuts off—right as the movie begins.
• "Furious Angels" by Rob Dougan (from The Matrix Reloaded) ends with unsettlingly loud and distorted violins. The fact that Rob sounds a lot like Tom Waits doesn't help.
• The end credits piece from the Jurassic Park soundtrack. It starts out with the epic Island theme, then transitions into a soft, gentle version of the main theme. However, it ends on a rendition of the rather unsettling Raptor theme.
• The theme from Poltergeist (1982) is a soft, pleasant tune with children singing...that ends with some very creepy high-pitched laughter. Not that surprising when you consider the source material.
• "I See Dead People In Boats" from the soundtrack for Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End. Instead of having the violins play the last note, it's done by an organ.
• "528491" from the Inception soundtrack has a 'kick' at the end of the song, followed by the sound of a train.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) has the hip hop song "T-U-R-T-L-E Power" which for the most part is a pretty steady-paced dance number... and then the last "Power" hits in the song and a very chilling, nails-on-the-chalkboard echo follows it (it's even louder in the end credit version compared to the one on the soundtrack).
• "A Swan Song (For Nina)" from Black Swan is mainly a paraphrase of the swan lake ballet theme: it begins as a mourning piano piece, but around halfway through the music slows down considerably, the ballet theme barely recognizable, the tune and instruments becoming gradually darker and ominous, until the final note, that fades in an unexpected, truly unsettling high pitched wail-like sound. In the movie itself, although not in the soundtrack, the wail is coupled by a fluttering of wings.
• "Vide Cor Meum" from Hannibal. A beautiful and calming classical opera piece. In the version for the soundtrack of the film, it all goes well until you reach the end. For those who wanna know, check it here.
• "Overtones" from The Master is a lush, orchestral track up until the end, where it has a Fakeout Fadeout and ends with a sound that could be best described as a cross between a train pulling into a station and an orchestra suffering collective heart attacks.
• "You Baby" by Neil Diamond from the remake of The Jazz Singer falls into this trope, especially if you're listening to the soundtrack instead of watching the film. An upbeat pop number ends with the sounds of glass and wood breaking, screams, and a siren — which makes sense in the film as the song ends with a bar fight.
• The Norliss Tapes does this for the film itself. It closes with a shot of the main character listening to tape 2 of the titular tapes during the credits.....but then, all of a sudden, it jump scares the living daylights out of you by suddenly cutting to shots of the vampires from the movie. And as if that weren't enough, the movie ends with a slow zoom-in on the vampire's Nightmare Face, complete with horrifying eyes, which continues throughout the credits as the background score intensifies beyond belief.
  • A similar thing happens in Caligula. The film's last scene is Caligula and his entire family being slaughtered by Roman soldiers. The film's final shot is Caligula's corpse with a panicked and bloody face, and said shot accompanies the entire end credits. Lessened in the Italian release Io, Caligola, where the film's final shot is his horse running away.
• The Sixth Sense has some of the more relaxing musical cues that appear in the film played over the end credits. However, the credits end with a reprise of the film's opening theme... And as the credits finish rolling, the Spanish ghost voice from the tape earlier in the film frightenedly yells "¡No me quiero morir!" ("I don't want to die!") one more time.
• In The Terminator, as the Terminator homes in on Sarah for the kill at Tech Noir and the action goes into Slow Motion, the driving dance number "Burning in the Third Degree" slowly fades to a metallic Drone of Dread.
• In the soundtrack version of Judas's death in the 1973 film version of Jesus Christ Superstar, there's a Fake-Out Fade-Out with a chorus droning out "SOOOOOOO LOOOOOOONG, JUDAAAAAAAS. POOOOOOR OOOOOOOOLD JUDAAAAAAAS. In the film, it comes after Judas kills himself, but the soundtrack lets you hear his final words as the choir sings, which are a Madness Mantra of "YOU HAVE MURDERED ME! MURDERED ME! MURDERED ME! MURDERED ME! MURDERED ME!"

Literature

• Invoked in The Ship Who Sang. The protagonist, a sentient "brain ship", is captured and forced to sing by her captors. She sings the song fairly normally, then makes the last note of the song "pure sonic hell", knocking out many of her captors and even killing some of them in the process. Last Note Nightmare indeed...

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who:
  • Reversed with regard to the first note of the opening and closing theme music which, in the 1970s and early '80s, and again in the revival series of 2005-date, is an electronic "scream"-like sound.
  • Just as the Master and the Time Lords disappear back into the Time War in "The End of Time", and the Tenth Doctor thinks he's somehow managed to avoid his own prophesied demise, we hear four knocks, and the chords played by the strings appropriately fall apart and gliss down with tons of dissonance, mirroring the Doctor's own sinking realization.
  • In "The Pandorica Opens", when the Doctor is sealed in the Pandorica, a beautiful score begins playing and swooping, then the camera zooms out and shows the universe exploding... and the music suddenly stops... mid-note...
• Lost's soundtrack is full of these, most notably at the end of the episode in which Aaron is born. They can be rather jarring when you're listening to an emotional piano piece, only for it to end with some creepy twinkling followed by a loud brass note.
• BBC's Sea Monsters ends with an epic credits theme on each episode... when suddenly the final credits pop up with a loud shocking theme.
• The Bub-Bubs music video from the Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! kind of has this more for the video than for the music itself, because the part dancing fetuses at the end can be very disturbing, especially since the music already ended at that part, so the only noise being made was from the dancing fetuses and the woman's man dancing in the open womb.
• The "My Lovely Horse" Dream Sequence from Father Ted is a happy song about the eponymous horse, and how the owner wants to shower him with sugar lumps, with random pool and table tennis scenes. Then it suddenly cuts to a picture of the horse's head with rainbow-colored outlines coming out while a creepy distorted saxophone plays.
  Ted: We have to lose that sax solo!"
• Reversed with the opening credits of CSI: Miami which features The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" and begins with a blood-curdling scream. Many a poor mook has been blown out of bed by a 3 am rerun after leaving the TV on and having that come on.
• The opening credits for the US broadcasts of the UK series Danger Man (carrying the new title Secret Agent) feature Johnny River's rock and roll hit "Secret Agent Man". Those familiar with the song are likely caught off-guard when the opening credits of the series end with the song being suddenly cut off mid-note by a loud gunshot! (Note: the very first episode of Secret Agent does not do this, only subsequent episodes.)
• A skit from The Benny Hill Show involves a golddigger marrying a member of the British royal family, maybe a king, for money. The sketch ends on a close-up of the now widowed and rich woman having married her real lover. The soundtrack playing The Wedding March ends on a Scare Chord as she realizes her husband is killing her the same way she killed her old husband.
• Sugarfoot - After a rather uncharacteristic episode of dark ghostly doings, the final sting is the camera moving silently in on a guitar (which had a major part in the episode) sitting upright against the wall. The sting is about a minute of silence with the camera pulling in closer and closer to the guitar until only the strings and soundboard are visible. At that exact moment, one of the guitar strings breaks with a loud, discordant, and really scary sound. The camera pulls back quickly and the normal light theme music ushers you out of the episode in the normal way.
• The opening credits of Married... with Children feature Frank Sinatra's rendition of "Love and Marriage"...which is abruptly cut off at the end by a slamming door.
  • The DVD version, however, ends normally, followed by a less startling clang.
• Bar Rescue - Done subtly at the end of the Jazz Katz/Back Beat Piano Bar episode. After the rescue, the closing scene is Taffer overlooking the pianist playing to a packed bar. As the scene fades out, the very last chord of the song is edited to sound dissonant before a negative "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue appears.
• The original version of the St. Elsewhere Grand Finale's credits involving Mimsie the Cat, MTM Enterprises' mascot. The credits show her unconscious and hooked up to an IV and end on her flatlining.
• The jaunty-yet-sinister theme to I, Claudius ends with an unsettling metallic shriek at the end of the closing credits.
• Daredevil: In "The Devil You Know," Wilson Fisk puts on his iconic white suit for the first time as the penthouse where he is under house arrest is redecorated, accompanied by the Courante from Bach's Suite for Cello Solo No. 1 in G (the Prelude to the same piece had previously underscored Fisk's morning routine in season 1). As the piece ends and the camera pans up on Fisk's face, the tempo and notes stretch and scratch as if all this beauty and refined luxury can't help but be corrupted by Fisk himself.
• Helix: The intro credits theme starts off as something resembling The Elevator from Ipanema, but the last note suddenly reverses itself to indicate that something ugly is lurking beneath the surface.
• The image of Commander Balok staring directly at you at the very end of Star Trek: The Original Series' end credits sequence has unnerved many throughout the decades, serving as a kind of visual last note nightmare.

Podcasts

• Everything Everywhere Daily from Glassbox Media concludes each episode's subject with a loud sound that could easily come from a horror movie score.
• Random Assault: The ending of Episode 050. Ties into the story to Episode 051, after all.

Software

• The Vocaloid song "Alice Human Sacrifice" is a rather creepy parody of carnival music - which ends with the music getting slower and slower, and then just one note that is creepily off-key.
  • And don't forget the Nico Nico Chorus version of "Daughter of Evil". At the song's end, a few bars start to play from the sequel song, "Servant of Evil", until they're brutally cut off by a terrifying, realistic guillotine sound. Literal Last Note Nightmare, there.
  • DYE by AVTechNO! is at its loudest and busiest near the end, and then the song ends abruptly. It's not as bad in this upload because of the ending credits, but on the version that can be found on [DYE] -synthesis-, the sudden stop is the last thing you hear on the track.
  • Inverted with Kemu's Invisible. It starts six or so seconds of soft piano, which is promptly interrupted by some heavy guitar work that continues throughout the song.
• The Cyan Inc. logo from 1993 to 1997 has a creepy sounding tympani at the end of some peaceful sounding music.
• The "Chime of Death" used on older Macintosh computers to indicate that normal startup was not successful may very well count as an "all note nightmare", but for a few models, particularly the Macintosh Quadra, Centris, Performa, LC, and the Macintosh Classic, the Chime of Death consists of four upward notes, followed by four more notes of a descending and dissonant sound.
• The Amiga sequencer software Music X started up by playing a short arpeggio, and then very quickly playing a single note on every MIDI channel in turn, no matter how your MIDI setup was configured. This could easily become a Last Note Nightmare depending on the instrument configuration (or the exact opposite if you had something goofy like a culca or a honky horn on the highest channel)

Theater

• "Music of the Night," from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version of The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom has lulled Christine almost to sleep, the song's soft, everything's pleasant, then DUN! DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN loud discordant organ. Especially seizure-inducing if you're listening to the song at night in bed and do not expect the ending.
  • Phantom has another example in the song Masquerade. Most of the song is a cheery, fun, ballroom dance, but the Phantom's theme plays right at the end, jarring viewers (and characters) and shocking them into reenterng the plot.
• More frightful fun from Webber: The opening of Jesus Christ Superstar (just before "Heaven on Their Minds") is a First Note Nightmare. It's 10 meandering notes played on a slightly distorted "Middle Eastern" guitar, repeated four times, then followed up immediately by a wailing, ghostly Moog synthesizer. It's guaranteed to give you the heebie-jeebies, especially if you're sitting in a theater and are expecting some nice "Broadway" music to open the show.
  • At least one recording of the comical "Herod's Song" (performed by Jack Black at a one-night benefit performance) has Herod still acting fairly mellow, if put out, when he decides that Jesus is nothing but a fraud, starts effeminately shooing him away — and then, suddenly, he screeches, "GET OOOOOUT!"
• The song "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" on the Cabaret 1998 Broadway Cast Recording is already kind of creepy since it's intentionally made to sound low-quality and distorted. Then it stops and the MC harshly whispers the last two words. At least they give you a few seconds to brace yourself.
  • Also from the 1998 cast, there is the beginnings of a lovely reprise of "Married" between the sweet old couple. Which is then promptly interrupted by a brick being "thrown" through a shop window. Well, there go all the good feelings.
• The song "So Happy" from Into the Woods starts out nice and happy... until halfway through when there's a crashing noise and the number takes a very dark, eerie turn. Then there's the blood-curdling scream that occurs after you've think the song has faded out. Something similar occurs with the bouncy, romantic "It Takes Two" abruptly switching to "Stay With Me" (which opens with a blood-curdling scream!) Stephen Sondheim loves this trope.
  • The witch's version of "Children Don't Listen" after Rapunzel's death is a flowing albeit sad song. The last note ends with the witch's voice breaking causing the song to go very sharp.
• The song "Three-Five-Zero-Zero" from the musical Hair is a Last/First VERSE Nightmare, combined with Lyrical Dissonance. It begins with a melancholy and gory description of war wounds, switches to an upbeat tune about "beginning to kill", then reprises the first verse.
• The rehearsal version of a A Chorus Line's "One", is a joyful and optimistic song throughout, but the final four shrieks of the word "one" over a terrifying major chord take the cake.
• The loud factory whistle that screams at seemingly random times in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Definitely something you don't want to be listening to with headphones. In the show, the whistle blows every time the title character kills someone - there's no such siren-like sound in songs without Sweeney Todd. Most of the victims have no lines, so the audio recording provides no warning for the shrieking whistle. That Sweeney is slitting throats casually while singing about other things adds to the nightmarish quality of the recordings.
• Occurs at the end of Javert's final soliloquy in Les Misérables, after he kills himself. The orchestra plays a soaring reprise of "Stars," his "I Want" Song from earlier in the play, which ends on a horribly dissonant note, revealing it to be not a reprise, but an Ironic Echo.
• In Pokémon Live!, Giovanni's reprise of "Everything Changes" ends on a creepy minor key. This is exacerbated onstage, where helicopter sounds are played over it as Delia and Professor Oak are captured.
  • The first version of "Everything Changes" ends on minor key violins as Team Rocket enters, interrupting Delia and Oak.
• "School Song" from Matilda starts as a reprise of "Miracle", then at the line "Mum says I'm an angel", a series of scare chords lead into the main body of the song, where the upper-class students warn the newcomers of the terror that Miss Trunchbull will bestow upon them. At the climax of the second act, "Chalk Writing" inverts this trope when it segues into "Revolting Children".

Video Games

• Happens in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door when you win but your partner's at 0 HP. The victory music can be quite chilling.
• Magic School Bus: Ocean is guilty of this, of all games. The short theme for the diatom puzzle is peaceful and relaxing, but the end note is very dark.
• 111.mp3, "Good Morning" from Ragnarok Online starts off as a peaceful and upbeat piano tune, then at 1:06 onwards starts to slip. It makes more sense when you consider the place where this song plays in-game.
• Eversion's World X-8 theme is very creepy and filled with "Psycho" Strings, but there are no surprises and it's actually quite calm. Then the music slowly fades out... All of a sudden, there's this really loud, startling drum. It's hard to describe, but really creepy.
• Silent Hill:
  • In the secret "Revenge" ending of Silent Hill 3, the "Silent Hill Song" ends with the singers being shot to death with a machine gun. It's actually kind of funny, because of how ludicrous and over-the-top that whole ending was.
  • Silent Hill 2: The end of the track ''Null Moon'' fades down to the chime chords, then the instrument shifts to an ominous tone in the last couple of phrases.
• Much of the music in Endgame: Singularity sounds like this; it starts out one place and goes somewhere else entirely. This holds particularly true for the music that plays when you win, which starts out something like the twilight zone theme and somehow manages to get more chilling.
• Persona 5 Royal: During the cutscene in the bad ending that plays upon accepting Maruki's world, an ominous note plays as Joker looks down near the end, heavily implying he regrets taking the deal.
• Spelunky has the moderately cheerful background music trick you into thinking it's just an endless loop like the title and boss music. Then, at the 2-minute mark, the music plays backwards for a second or two and then proceeds to play normally again, except that it's much lower, much slower, and bizarrely warped. You WILL jump five feet into the air the first time you hear it. With such a piece of utterly bizarre warning music, it makes you wonder why they need an ultimate invincible enemy coming in at 2:30 to encourage you to hurry up.
• The song from the End Credits of Resident Evil 4 springs to mind. As the song starts, it's a pleasant recap of how village life used to be when everything was pleasant...and then the Plagas showed up.
• When you get a Time Paradox in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the music goes on for a while until the whole screen reverses color and plays a loud noise followed by a gunshot when the letters become "TIME PARADOX".
• Sugary Spire: The Sugar Rush theme, "Glucose Getaway" starts out as a fast-paced, chaotic drum & bass song, but eventually, at the end, it slows down humongously into a creepy Drone of Dread, which is fitting, given that you're now being chased by Coneball.
• The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask:
  • The title demo sequence. It originally shows various scenes of Clock Town and its inhabitants, with a peaceful-sounding rendition of the Clock Town theme playing in the background. But at the last 30 seconds, the scene shifts toward the Skull Kid and the falling moon in the night sky, and at this point, the Clock Town theme starts to blend into the ominous theme of the Skull Kid, before transforming into it completely. A definite change from the simplistic yet cheery demo of Ocarina of Time (the previous N64 Zelda title), reflecting this game's comparatively darker atmosphere.
  • Termina Field starts off as an off-kilter but upbeat and catchy remix of the series' main tune, up until the very end, where the chord progression starts repeating itself over and over again, sounding increasingly depressing and ominous for each repetition.
• Mother:
  • EarthBound (1994)'s "Pokey Means Business"/ Sounds like a fairly epic 8-bit final boss music, and just when it should end (or start looping), cue the heavy metal section.
  • From Mother 3, Tazmily Village's two themes from Chapter 4: "A Railway Through Our Village?" and "Happy Town?". Their final notes really capture the Uncanny Atmosphere the village now has...
• Animal Crossing: Wild World: One of the many songs you can play in your house is "K.K. Lullaby" which is basically what it sounds like - a calm music box tune. The version you hear sung in the coffee shop is normal, but then when you bring the CD home it's a case of Last Note Nightmare; the song goes for about 2 minutes before suddenly devolving into four screechy notes and then abruptly cuts of. Then starts looping the pretty music box tune again as nothing happened. This is probably the tape rewinding, but it still comes off as unexpected.
  • ...how can you tape-rewind A CD?
  • A certain note from the normally calm and quiet song that plays at 11 PM in the original (Wild World for the DS and City Folk for the Wii use a different soundtrack) has a similar effect, as well as the unexpected (during the first time hearing it) and bizarre sneezing sound effect in K.K. Cruisin'.
  • K.K. Swing has an effect very similar throughout the whole song.
• The track "Showdown at Hollow Bastion" from the Kingdom Hearts II OST. The abrupt transitions are heart-quickening (no pun intended) and can be slightly nightmarish: it begins with a mild little score, suddenly picks up the tempo and sounds like montage music, and THEN suddenly becomes all-out battle music complete with a choir that has a similar effect to Ominous Latin Chanting. And the entire piece is under a minute long.
• Pac-Man World 2 features a boss fight called "Pinky's Revenge." The BGM starts out as a very upbeat piece meant to evoke happy feelings about the snowy surroundings ... but then a dissonant chord strikes, followed by a couple more ... then it gets back into the happy groove again. But at 0:53, it totally breaks down, with blaring "Psycho" Strings and sudden hard percussion as the whole thing turns absolutely horrifying. It gets a little Narm-y when it starts using Stock Sound Effect muted-trumpet hits later on, but overall it's quite effective.
• The Final Fantasy series:
  • Final Fantasy VI has the soundtrack version of Ghost Train theme. While the entire song is basically a funeral march, the song ends with a loud, piercing train whistle. It also starts with that same whistle; the ending is the first few seconds of the song, slowly fading out.
  • Most versions of "One Winged Angel" from Final Fantasy VII have the instrumental break segue right into "Veni, veni, venias" (the creepiest part of the song, but okay if you have buildup to it). This even goes for the Advent Children version that you hear in the movie. However, a new release of the Advent Children version on iTunes kicks it up a notch. The instrumental segue fades into another instrumental, this time a reprise of the verse and chorus that is almost corny. Then it ends, or so you think. Then after a few seconds of dead silence, MI FILI VENI VENI...
  • Final Fantasy VIII's "Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec," from the orchestral arrangement album of the same name, has a beautiful, dramatic rendition of this iconic piece... and ends, about a minute before the final note, with a horrific, ear-piercing wail with unintelligible (and honestly quite infernal-sounding) lyrics. Even people who know to expect it are jolted by its sudden intrusion.
• Chrono Trigger has the soundtrack version of the Last Battle, which ends with Lavos's cry of agony and the noise of the dimension it created crumbling and fading white. Similar to Final Fantasy VI above, it starts with Lavos' bloodcurling scream.
• Touhou Project:
  • Two particular remixes of "U.N. Owen Was Her?" included (1) gradually overlapping lines followed by a somewhat sudden cutoff of the voices, with the music slowing down to normal after the overlapping voices have been building to a more and more frenetic pace, and (2) putting in an increasingly less subtle creepy laugh. Then you remember that this is Flandre's theme... Do you really want to lose your sanity!?
  • Listen to "U.N. Owen Was Her?" again. Doing it right now? Lah lah lah lah la-lalalalah~
  • The original song has a last note nightmare of its own, ending with a disturbing piano crash that is very out of place in a high-energy techno track.
  • "Marisa Stole The Precious Thing" also features a nasty bit near the end, where the song pauses for a moment so loud static can be played. It's all techno popping along and suddenly DRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
  • IOSYS's (the fellows who brought you "Marisa Stole The Precious Thing") "Blue Cirno" is an extremely jovial song that sounds like a mix of upbeat Latin music and happy Christmas music. That is until it ends off with a Last Note Nightmare that makes people think their souls are being sucked out.
  • DRR you say?
  • "Sleeping Terror", Yuuka's stage 5 boss theme in Lotus Land Story is this. Starts out creepy, then a pause, and the real song starts. Are you not afraid yet?
  • "Bewildering Impending Spiriting Away ~ Border of Death" is not frightening, right? Now, get that stereo headphones or earplugs. Can you hear Her singing behind you? Guess who made this remix.
• Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards:
  • The "bad" ending that you see if you don't get all of the crystal shards is a nice, happy, appropriately victorious song... which happens to end on the creepiest five notes you will ever hear in a ''Kirby'' game, synced up with the fairy queen's Psychotic Smirk.
  • This also applies to the music in the cutscenes where Dark Matter possesses Waddle Dee, Adeleine, and Dedede. The first two end with a Scare Chord, the latter shifts to a darker tone when Dark Matter shows up.
  • Also from Kirby 64 comes the OST version of the 100-Yard Hop theme. It's a rendition of the classic Gourmet Race tune, and it plays exactly as you'd expect it to... until the final seconds, where it ends abruptly with a loud crashing noise.
• Halo:
  • Halo 2
    • The "Antediluvia" movement of the High Charity Suite starts off the same as "Wage" from Delta Halo Suite, but then is interrupted by a Scare Chord and dark ambient noises, as the Flood arrive on High Charity and infect the Prophet of Mercy. BTW, the title is Latin for "before the flood".
    • "Epilogue" from the game's end credits for the most part is mournful, starting with some plaintive strings accompanied by a lonesome electric guitar, followed by a solemn rendition of Respite. The track then concludes with a freaky crescendo of distorted electronic noises and roaring, before petering off into a silent void, which plays alongside a short cutscene of the Gravemind approaching Cortana in High Charity's High Council Chamber.
  • Halo 3:
    • The last movement of "Black Tower" starts with a series of ascending Ethereal Choir notes, but then the choir switches to a tear-jerking dirge-style tune, which is the music heard during Cmdr. Keyes's death cutscene.
    • "Halo Reborn" starts with an Ethereal Choir remake of "Under Cover of Night", then becomes a dark drum and bass piece, then finally a rendition of the "Psycho" Strings piece "Shadows", before concluding with a Scare Chord.
    • Similarly, "Roll Call" begins with a triumphant remake of the Halo title theme, followed by a medley of "Farthest Outpost" and "Under Cover of Night", but the last movement is a sad piano and strings tune, similar to the Easter Egg music "Siege of Madrigal". Apparently to underscore Master Chief's absence from the "roll call", and his presumed death.
    • Then last, but not least, there's "Legend", the Legendary bonus cutscene music, which starts off the peaceful drifting music similar to the opening scene, transitioning into "Psycho" Strings before abruptly ending with this.

• From Portal 2, "I AM NOT A MORON," which shifts from upbeat techno to horrifying orchestra when Wheatley betrays you.
• Doom:
  • At the end of the game, you're teleported back to Earth after fighting through the legions of Satan and the fires of Hell itself, treated to a scenery shot of a frolicking meadow before noticing that the demons got here first. The music reflects this.
  • This remix of a song from the original soundtrack basically keeps the same tone as the original song, which is more quiet and mysterious than anything else, but at the end the song begins to rather literally break down and some unidentifiable but hellish noise plays in the background.
  • "Sweet Dead Little Bunny" gives a real "Sudden Downer Ending" feel (or rather, an "Earn Your Happy Ending In The Sequel" feel).
  • The soundtrack to the Game Mod My House, referencing Leyland Kirby's "Everywhere At The End of Time", begins as the standard Doom II Level 1 theme "Running From Evil", then upon transitioning to the GZDoom-enhanced house, the instrumentation begins to fall off-kilter, and in subsequent iterations of the house, it completely disintegrates into Drone of Dread and chaotic Harsh Noise.
• The J-core song "to luv me I *** for you" by t+ Pazolite starts off with a sorrowful, gentle melody, then kicks into an extremely fast tune that borders on scary, and ends with the same melody, only playing at a slower tempo and stopping one measure before it were to completely finish playing.
• In Scratches, when quitting the game before finishing it, you are taken to a rolling credits screen with soft piano music, at the end of it there's a very unsettling Scare Chord.
• The worst ending in Myst III: Exile starts with the return to Tomahna theme (just like two of the other endings), which is a soft wind-instrument piece. Bt then it's interrupted by a violent, percussion-heavy Scare Chord right when your character is hit and killed from behind by the Big Bad, who then goes onto likely kill Atrus and his family. In the official soundtrack, this piece is appropriately titled, You've Been Followed.
• The Donkey Kong Country series Nightmare Fuel page cites the death-against-K-Rool music to have been cut (from a game with so much Nightmare Fuel, no less) because it was too scary.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • The European/Japanese version of Sonic the Hedgehog CD's Game Over theme starts as a low-pitched Dark Reprise of You Can Do Anything, but it ends with a high-pitched sound resembling a scream. The US version, though, is entirely Nightmare Fuel.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog has a slightly inverted case of this in the form of its ending theme "Never Turn Back", which starts out as a slow, sad and somewhat pleasant piano cover of 'I Am... All Of Me' before the drums abruptly kick into the main song.
  • The final boss music for Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The song looping comes with blaring klaxons.
    • In the mirror section of Amy's Twinkle Park stage, the music initially starts out as cute, quiet, and innocent... Then the music seems to take a darker turn, becoming much tenser, you can also hear a child laughing for a brief moment.
    • An inversion in the Egg Golem/King Boom Boo boss fight music: just before the main melody starts, a sudden hushed voice asks "who's there?" *guitars*
• While not entirely a Last Note Nightmare, because the transition happens only a third of the way in, the Team Fortress 2 Engineer's theme More Gun qualifies. The song starts out as the pleasant guitar riff (Taken from the Wilco song "Someone Else's Song") that the Engineer plays throughout his Meet the Team video. At 0:54, however, the song quickly changes gears, with a sudden shift from major chords to minor ones, with a louder, deeper, and more ominous guitar riff overshadowing the original and a low, foreboding trumpet playing backup.
  • From the Expiration Date short comes It Hates Me So Much, a twangy pseudo-surf-rock number playing on the dance floor Scout sets out. The song becomes altogether more sinister near the end, at the part where Soldier reveals that he has been teleporting bread for three days straight, after having learned that teleporting bread monster-izes it.
• "The Rowhouses" from Medal of Honor: Frontline starts with a continuation of the "Nijmegen Bridge" theme from the prior OST track, adding a jaunty oboe motif to it a third of the way through, but then the ominous Panzer leitmotif starts to creep in, completely taking over in the last third.
• The Mars Maze theme in The Journeyman Project slows down as your Oxygen Meter depletes, decaying to a Heartbeat Soundtrack and heavy breathing that progressively speeds up prior to the Game Over flatline sound.
• Minecraft actually features one of these. In the record "11", all that can be heard is the sounds of what could be a man loading a gun, or simply shifting around in his chair. For the most part, it's a quiet song, devoid of any music and comprised absolutely of ambiance. Near the end, however, the music abruptly shifts to the man walking down a path, then breaking into a run. As the music builds, we hear some type of inhuman noise roar at the man before it abruptly cuts out, switching to a soft beeping noise before going completely silent.
• The last few seconds of "Alexander's Suicide" in King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow. It gets coupled up with Heartbeat Soundtrack, as it is incurred by Alex's heartbeat slowing down to a stop via "Drink Me" potion.
• In The Path, "forest theme" sounds perfectly soothing and calm in-game. But when you listen to it in the soundtrack, the last two minutes end with a rasping screeching echoey voice screaming repeatedly "and I will eat you!" for the rest of the track without any music playing. Also, the in-game version of "the girl in red" ends with a disconcerting staticy scream overtakes the whole song.
• DanceDanceRevolution:
  • The Final Boss song of X2, "Valkyrie dimension", ends with a sudden jump to 744 BPM and, on its hardest charts, a sudden stream of notes that can result in stage failure for unsuspecting players.
  • X3 has perhaps one of the most literal examples. The boss song "Tohoku Evolved", primarily played as an Encore Extra Stage. The entirety of the song is difficult, but the ending is what makes it fit this trope. You land on a jump hold and keep it held for a few seconds. The doors have not closed signifying the end, and (for those that use the screen darkening mods) the screen is still dark. You know something is coming. That something is a random jump that scrolls up at about 3 times its speed. Considering that this song's BPM is 340, that means having to GUESS at where the note lands since it's very hard to even try to read notes at that speed. Factor in that the Encore Extra Stage is in forced One-Hit-Point Wonder mode, and you have the worst note in the game to hit.
  • Also from X3, "PARANOIA Revolution" pays tribute to past songs in the "PARANOIA" song series, including samples of Announcer Chatter from DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX. The song seems to end with a clip of the announcer saying, "I'm so impressed I could cry! Thank you very much for your best dance!"...but one final drumroll hails the actual end of the song. For those playing on Expert, which is a mishmash of past DDR charts, this final section is hailed by a replica of "Valkyrie dimension"'s ending stream of doom.
• "Drok" from Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge seems to stop at 2:20 before playing a slow, droning track plays for a few moments.
• Fallout 3 begins with "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" playing on an old radio, which fades into the ominous main game theme as the camera zooms out to reveal the landscape of the Capital Wasteland.
• Metroid: Other M makes this with a loud self-destruction siren interrupting a low, sad tone that interrupts Samus while she was hugging Adam's helmet.
• Mass Effect 3 uses a variation for dramatic effect in the song "Leaving Earth" early in the game. It is a quietly sad piano piece as Shepard watches the evacuation of Earth. Suddenly, a Reaper fires its main cannon, making its trademark BWOOOOOOORRRRRNNNGH sound, which is quite shocking. It happens several more times over the course of the song. Also played straight with the Scare Chord at the end of "An End Once and For All", when the Crucible's beam catches up to the Normandy. Inverted if Extended Cut is installed and you have sufficiently high EMS.
• Luna Game 3's soundtrack starts with Eurobeat Brony's remix of "At The Gala", but it progressively slows down as the world darkens, ending with a static Scare Chord followed by a Drone of Dread.
• The Town with No Name: Among many other reasons the song that plays after the line, "Do you have the right time, old man?" assails the player's ears.
• An extended and potentially terrifying variation occurs in the Good Ending of Dreaming Mary. You're congratulated for helping Mari escape in the real world. Mary is shown passing through a diorama of the dream seen in the game, accompanied by peaceful yet exulting music. Then halfway through, everything goes to hell when the question arises: "Is this the real world, or is this still a dream?" The title theme is reprised, twisted by nightmarish dissonances.
• Probably the heaviest use of this trope is Tamura from the game The Silver Case. One wonders why they would put something that sounds like a dialing revolver at the end of such a lighthearted track.
• The battle theme to OFF, Pepper Steak, is a very cheerful electro-swing theme. In-game the horns and percussion loop normally twice, and on the third time, only the horns play for a few seconds before the percussion gets three heavy BANG BANG BANGs in and then the entire song loops. In the OST version of the song, however, the song ends with the first few seconds of the song being played five times over, slowed and pitched down each time until the song is reduced to a grating, dragging nightmare of a sound.
• "Restoring the Light, Facing The Dark" from Ori and the Blind Forest is initially a Theme Music Power-Up as Ori escapes the rising waters of the Ginso Tree, then it turns sinister when Kuro appears at the top and attacks Ori.
• In Brütal Legend, Eddie falls asleep while preparing for a stage battle and dreams of sharing romantic moments with his Love Interest Ophelia (read: skipping down a beach together holding hands while slaughtering Tainted Coil demons), set to the suitably romantic "Holiday" by Scorpions. As the dream ends and Eddie wakes up, the music transitions into a particularly screamy part of "So Frail" by Mirrorthrone, which becomes the background music during the stage battle against Drowned Ophelia.
• A weird, fairly Downplayed example is z30huri2ba0tt12le1110 from Xenoblade Chronicles X. It's an utterly terrifying, loud, unpleasant song that violently abuses Scare Chords throughout, but by far the part of it that's strangest is the ending, where it very abruptly goes from creepy orchestra to near-silence and some strange clicking noise.
• Chapter 2 of Celeste has the music track "Resurrections", which is a very upbeat piano tune with some drum machines for good measure, albeit a tune with a creepy edge (due to it playing while your character is being chased by her cynical subconscious given human form). At the end of the stage, where it's revealed that most of what Madeline just experienced may have been a dream sequence, we get a synthesized Drone of Dread followed by a Scare Chord to cap everything off.
• In the prologue of Ori and the Will of the Wisps, "Ku's First Flight" begins with a Triumphant Reprise of her leitmotif as she takes to the skies with Ori onboard, but gives way to the sinister theme of Shriek when the two are caught in a Decay-induced thunderstorm over Niwen and separated.
• On Furi's OST, the last song, "19:07" by Danger, abruptly ends with a Flatline tone.
• The ending song of Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, "Torikago ~In This Cage~" is an awesome J-Rock song that ends on a pleasant calming piano solo... until the very last note, which is a very abrupt slam on the piano.
• Stardew Valley has "The Smell of Mushroom," one of the seasonal tracks that plays during Fall. It's a very relaxing and nostalgic song, which perfectly captures the feel of exploring an autumn forest on a windy day. But as the song fades, it ends with a few seconds of just the wind, an odd grinding noise... and then a very faint, impish giggling can be heard right as the wind dies.
• In Destiny 2 there is "Deep Stone Lullaby", which plays at around the halfway point of the Deep Stone Crypt raid. It starts off as a Lonely Piano Piece, gradually building up with other instruments, strings soaring as you explore the outside of the space station you've infiltrated, but shortly before it ends, the strings and brass take on a very ominous tone, hinting that something is about to go horribly wrong. It does, as the next encounter immediately after this is the Nuclear Descent Protocol.
• Skullmonkeys: More like Middle Note Nightmare, in "Little Bonus Room Song".
  There are no monsters here — hey, wait, look over there... [LOUD DISTORTED GUITAR NOISES ACCOMPANIED BY PAINED SCREAMS]
  I was just kidding, don't be scared.

Web Animation

• The song "Such Arrogance..." from RWBY which is used at the end of the episode "Heroes and Monsters".

Web Comics

• "Let The Squiddles Sleep (End Theme)", from the "Squiddles!" album, a collection of songs meant to be the soundtrack to a made-up kid's TV show that exists in the Homestuck universe. It's especially jarring after the rest of the sickeningly adorable songs. It somehow becomes even worse when used for the "Jade: Wake Up" Flash update.
  • From Volume 5 of the music for Homestuck itself, "Savior of the Waking World" plays like a grand, orchestrated version of the theme for the Land of Wind and Shade. Even if not totally upbeat, it's at least somewhat hopeful sounding, especially with the title. And the song gets to its end, the melody becomes the same as the original song, except heavily distorted by static, and it fades into nothing as a deep gong sounds three times.
  • In an inversion of this trope, Hardchorale starts with the word "MEOOOOOOOOOOOOW" screamed at the top of the vocalist's lungs.
    • Technically could also be viewed as playing it straight - both Hardchorale and the previous song (Happy Cat Song) are remixes of the same song, both with cats meowing. So you're just listening to the happy (if slow) Happy Cat Song, it ends, and then... "MEOOOOOOOW!"
  • While not whiplash-tastic, Midnight Calliope from the Alterniabound soundtrack (also used in one of the flashes) may also qualify for this, as what starts out as a vaguely spooky carnival tune descends into a low, menacing drone. And just as the track fades out... HONK.
  • Also on Alterniabound, the track "Killed by BR8K Spider!!!!!!!!" is an awesome-sounding tune that gives a healthy serving of Vriska's cocky badassery. However at around twenty seconds from the end the notes turn sharp, the guitar playing gets sloppy, the tempo slows, and it ends with one last, faltering note that echoes into silence.
  • A Picardy third is used in Calamity at the very end - then again, Calamity was an upbeat minor action song from the start...
  • Octoroon Rangoon starts out as an active orchestral piece, only for the last thirty seconds or so to move into a menacing piano refrain culminating in a heavily distorted "Make her a member of the Midnight Crew..." that sounds rather like it was remixed in hell.
  • Inverted with Umbral Ultimatum. The song is scary intense, but then the song ends with a light refrain, which is uplifting compared to the circumstances of the rest of the flash.
• The VG Cats comic "A Magical Wonderland". Even more so here (6:08)

Web Videos

• From Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the ending of "Everything you Ever" goes from bold and triumphant to Tear Jerker. And then it ends. To elaborate, the final verse of the song is Doctor Horrible singing triumphantly as he finally joins the Evil League of Evil after accidentally killing Penny, the only person he loved in an attempt to kill Captain Hammer.
  (Doctor Horrible walks into the chamber of the Evil League of Evil, putting on his costume...)
  Doctor Horrible: Now the nightmare's real!
  Now Doctor Horrible is here to make you quake with fear,
  To make your whole world kneel!
  Chorus: Everything you ever...
  (The doors to the chamber begin to close before the viewer's eyes, a la The Godfather's ending... The instruments build to a crescendo.)
  Doctor Horrible: And I won't feel...
  (The instruments cut off abruptly, cut back to Billy, Doctor Horrible's alter-ego staring blankly at the viewer.)
  A thing.
  (Smash Cut to black. Roll credits.)
• Slender Man's rendition of "Still Alive" from Portal. He sings the last bit normally, and then the very last "STILL ALIVE" gives the impression that he's right behind you.
  And believe me I am still alive.
  I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
  I feel FANTASTIC and I'm still alive.
  While you're dying I'll be still alive.
  And when you're dead I will be still alive.
  Still alive
  STILL ALIVE!!!
• Nico Nico Douga's first medley. Everything is fast, upbeat, and happy, but then a little bit of silence, and following that is a very off-key, very off-beat, 8-bit rendition of Sakura Sakura.
• Don't Hug Me I'm Scared:
  • The whole second half of the original video is a collection of scary moments put together to make up one big Last Note Nightmare. First, there is a sudden switch in the animation, and there's a continuous, soul-crushing long chord. It switches back to "live action" but only to show the cast do art projects with human hearts, cut pies made with gore, and painting the word "DEATH". All while playing horribly distorted music that will stick to your mind for days. After all that, you think everything goes back to normal, but the notepad with a face sings "Let's all agree to never be creative again!" right before the song surprisingly closes out on a regular Last Note Nightmare within an extended LNN. Even after the music video, it also shows credits play with ink coming out of a mouse hole while what sounds like Squidward's clarinet plays in the background.
  • The third episode's song is the most cheerful of the show, even in the last part where Shrignold presents Yellow Guy to their leader, but when he wakes up, all we hear behind is a sinister choir.
• The Living Tombstones Five Nights at Freddy's Song has the final chorus be abruptly cut off by the animatronics' signature screech. An attentive listener can see it coming, since it's also played at the end of the first chorus, softly.
• This protest video against BP's greenwashing at the 2012 Olympics. The music starts out with peaceful piano, but when the BP cyclist shows his true colors and starts turning the environment into a Crapsack World, the music changes to a dark industrial tune accompanied by dissonant 8-bit-style jingles reminiscent of "game over" music.
• Brentalfloss's DK Rap 2018 shows how all the protagonists of the game are doing. Eventually, we get to Chunkey, who's dead.
• While this one is Accidental Nightmare Fuel, Yello - Oh Yeah is playing the background in Dog on Rollercoaster and the video ends during a scary part of the song.
• Ace's Adventures' tour of the dead Mountaineer Mall in Morgantown, WV is set to heartwarming vintage Muzak until the "Coming Soon" teaser at the end, which shows a shot of the darkened mall interior at night accompanied by creepy ambient music and Anthony shouting "Hello?" into the darkness, followed by a flash to color bars and static.
• Dead By Bed Spread's What if Pokemon were CREEPYPASTAS? inverts this trope. After an entire video of some pretty terrifying Pokemon, it ends on a moment of hilarity with the Pizza theme playing over a Tangrowth based on sphagetti that's literally called the Creepy Pasta Pokemon. It plays even over the patreon credits - though the video does end proper on a final Jump Scare.

Western Animation

• The triumphant end credits theme for The Dragon Prince concludes with an ominous flute sound, signifying the dark threats that lurk within the otherwise amazing world of Xadia.
• At the end of some 1990 Disney VHS tapes such as The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, after a split second of silence, the copyright screen appears with the chime tune from the 80s/90s Walt Disney Television logo (usually if the copyright screen is replacing said logo) that can startle you and catch you off guard, especially if you have your television at high volume. Here is one example.
  • In fact, this was actually more common on releases outside North America, namely the "Walt Disney Cartoon Classics" releases over there, so its certain this would have definitely scared quite a few children all over the world.
• Unsurprisingly, the song "Source Music of Doom" from the Invader Zim soundtrack has this. Not at the end, only about 30 seconds in, but definitely worth mentioning. Starts out with a strange tune about tacos before going into light flute-ish tune that seems very happy and cheerful before an out-of-place chord blares in your ears and kids sing "Bloaty's Pizza Hog!" over and over in your ears.
• "Rock-A-Bye Baby" in the Crashcup segments of The Alvin Show, namely the ones where he invents the bed and the baby. Played at the end of the episode - normally the first time around, then as things go awry for good it repeats - but "rolls" like a warped record.
• The recorder song in South Park's "World Wide Recorder Concert". Everyone in the WORLD will remember the last note of that song...
• Oddly enough, Muppet Babies features one of these in its ending credits theme from the second season onward: the very last part where Spider-Man jumps down onto the Marvel logo segues from the cheery instrumental theme to a dissonant, screechy horn. It was actually the theme to "Muppets, Babies and Monsters", the short-lived hourlong pairing of Muppet Babies and its unsuccessful companion show Little Muppet Monsters, which was a live-action show with animated segments about three "kid" Muppets airing a TV station from the basement of the Muppet house. The theme for that combined the two individual shows' themes into a medley (remixed slightly with castanets and the aforementioned trumpet solo). Little Muppet Monsters was yanked from the CBS schedule after only three episodes, but they kept the ending theme as the Muppet Babies ending theme until the show ended in 1991.
• Happens at the end of the closing sequence in The Flintstones, just after Fred screams, "WIIIIIIIILLLLLLMAAAAAAAAAA!", while continuing to pound the door.
  • Also, in the episode "Hot Lips Hannigan", Fred sings "Do Re Mi" to Wilma. He holds the final "Do" for a ridiculously long time, causing the Flintstones' glassware to shatter.
• Similarly, the original closing sequence for The Jetsons has George crying out to Jane for help as he gets caught in Astro's dog-walking treadmill.
  • Even the later syndicated reruns of the 1980s, which feature just static shots of the characters over an instrumental of the theme, can be abrupt as the last note of the theme is followed by the loud spinning star logo used for Hanna-Barbera at the time.
• A "three-note nightmare" happens in Jem. It occurs right after the end of the PSA's^note  "Doing the right thing makes you a superstar", and before the "JEM!" at the end.
• "The 'O' Song", an old animation from Sesame Street, ends with one of these.
• Rupert and the Frog Song, which is a cartoon about a little bear cub and several cute singing frogs, actually ends with a demonic-looking owl swooping down and scaring away all of the singing frogs.
• Some of the BGM from The Ren & Stimpy Show can come across as this. Notable examples include "Maniac Pursuit" and "Terror".
• For your consideration, Inspector Gadget. Wonderful cartoon, catchy theme song, but that last low note sounds rather ominous compared to the rest of the tune. Even more frightening with the end credits variation with Dr. Claw's booming voice saying, "I'll get you next time, Gadget, next time!"
• The short version Season 1 theme for Young Justice was a triumphant and brash brass-led flourish. The Season 2 theme is the same until it suddenly switches to a somber dirge for the Title In of the "Invasion" subtitle.
• Rugrats:
  • The music that plays during the end credits of the episode "Under Chuckie's Bed/Chuckie Is Rich" has one of these. It's a very elegant and mellow-sounding piece but abruptly ends with a brutal symphonic crash.
  • Another one at the end of "Dust Bunnies/Educating Angelica". It is a very triumphant superhero-like theme that ends with some creepy dissonant notes.
  • Also the ending to "A Visit from Lipshitz/What the Big People Do", where the latter short ended with a long Scare Chord that echoed into the first few seconds of the usual credits theme.
  • The original pilot episode, "Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing", ends this way as well; towards the end of the credits the sound of Stu, Didi, and Grandpa Lou arguing fades back into the music and continues to play over the Nickelodeon logo.
• A variation of this: During Season One of Doug, the closing credits music would abruptly change when Porkchop donned his headphones (usually to the central theme of the first of the episode's two sub-episodes). That could be pretty spooky sometimes (which is probably why this was dropped after S1).
  • Related, there is also the first Jumbo Pictures logo after the credits, which was still, indigo blue, had a relatively low singing of "Do-do-do, do-do-do!" and was accompanied by some scatting. This was also dropped after season two with the second "sunrise" Jumbo Pictures logo, which was a yellow-orange color, animated (to resemble a sunrise shining over the logo), and more light-hearted, cornball horn playing.
• Happens almost literally in the Looney Tunes short "Long-Haired Hare." Giovanni's final note during his performance (where he holds the same high note for a ridiculously long time, consequential disasters happen, and then he STILL has to hold it one last time) definitely ends in a nightmare for the poor singer!!!
• For the original mini-series that started G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, the end credits theme starts out as an instrumental version of the theme song only to suddenly turn into a very loud, booming noise by the end.
• Lovely Scenery C from SpongeBob SquarePants. Don't let the title fool you.
• In the original The Pink Panther show, the moment where any short ends and the screen goes black with the credits for "A Mirisch-Geoffrey-Depatie Freleng Production" while that creepy and loud music sounded. Check it near the end here.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has this in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" when the Sonic Rainboom interrupts Fluttershy's "So Many Wonders" song and scares away the animals.
• "Telegraph Line" from Schoolhouse Rock!, a cheerful ditty about how the nervous system works. Then you get to the part where "THE END" displays on a telegram, accompanied by two oddly dissonant notes that stick out way more than the rest of the song.
• Steven Universe:
  • In "The Message", the fourth-to-last episode of the first season, the usually calming end credits theme is suddenly drowned out by creepy static. The ending for the following episode, "Political Power", is nothing but static getting louder, especially at the end, which is emphasized by a Scare Chord.
  • "Lion's Mane" is a very ethereal song used when Steven explores the Pocket Dimension within Lion's mane that supposedly belonged to his mother. The last few seconds of the song become panicked as Steven runs out of air and scrambles to get out of the mane before he suffocates.
  • Synchronize/Sugilite starts with Amethyst and Garnet's themes being remixed together. When the music reaches the point where they fuse into Sugilite, the themes combine into a distorted bass with an echoing diving beat that emphasizes just how menacing Sugilite herself is. The scene in "Cry for Help" where she briefly reappears manages to make it even worse, due to her uncharacteristically quiet rage.
• The ending to each Action League NOW! short has this, with a slightly higher-toned version of the show's signature fanfare theme suddenly becoming a menacing Scare Chord.
• Hazbin Hotel: In spite of being a serious scene overall, the song "You Didn't Know" is largely uplifting and triumphant until its last few seconds where Adam reveals that Vaggie used to be an Exterminator. The song ends with a few Scare Chords that sound like they were ripped right out of the climax of an opera.

Other

• At the end of his "Guitar Fever" review, an episode which established numerous standards that have been in place on the channel ever since (such as the iconic "Hello!" intro and the use of Sad Onions) Ashens puts a monstrous sound of 8-bit terror. It's actually code for a ZX Spectrum computer, so he didn't put it there to be mean.
• Maybe this doesn't count as a last note, but look on YouTube for video people have taken of the US analog TV switch-off. It's just creepy, as most of them went from everything as normal, to static. As if all of civilization had just suddenly collapsed.
  • Goodbye. TSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH
  • Can we make a pun without mentioning "Fade To Black" here?
  • "Let's flip the switch right now-- WHAM
• Music boxes, especially older ones that have been played many times, will often distort the sound as they wind down. No matter how cheerful the song, the final notes will often sound creepily off-key.
• The Paramount Television logo used from the late '60s to the mid-'70s is infamous for its jarring music, combined with its in-your-face animation. It has been nicknamed as the "Closet Killer" logo, mainly due to said theme sounding quite suitable for a horror movie scene where a serial killer jumps out of a closet.
• The Morgan Creek DVD logo, wherein the logo's normally triumphant and uplifting theme is suddenly cut off midway by three loud clangs.
• The Surround Sound Vanity Plate from 1996 to 2007, in which the logos music starts off with a loud clang, followed by a haunting choir that takes its time to fade out completely.
• Porter Robinson and Madeon's live version of Goodbye To A World (In Anime/Shelter World Tour), with the instrumentals and vocals, both skipping, then they fade out, only to fade back in instantly, followed by degrading distortion and an audio version of Nothing Is Scarier, before going to the next song, Language.
  • In General, some people, considered the vocal of Vocaloid character, AVANNA, becoming more fuzzy and distorted at the end of the song to be Nightmare Fuel and Tearjerker combined, when you realize that it's literally simulating the destruction of rin's planet, with her suffering from ElectronicSpeechImpediment, before she sings one final, long note, only to be cut of by a faint, long beep. Many, if not all, even stated, that it makes the Mood Whiplash of Shelter, both emotional and Heartwarming, than it already is. Although, this mostly because people thinking that, Rin (the character she portrayed) almost died. Fortunately, she didn't.
• Roald Dahl wrote several poetry collections based around subverting and/or Grimmifying fairy tales with his trademark dark humour, including Revolting Rhymes and Dirty Beasts. In the 1980s, they were released as audiobooks with musical introductions for each poem; most of the introductions were synthesiser renditions of nursery rhymes (eg "Boys and Girls Come Out to Play", "Humpty Dumpty") which, in keeping with the theme of the poems, ended by collapsing into dissonance or suddenly using a much louder or darker synthesiser track.
• The Wallace & Gromit Thrill-O-Matic dark ride at Blackpool Pleasure Beach ends with a surprise Jump Scare courtesy of a roaring Were-Rabbit.
• The Droid Room song that played in the queue for Disney's Star Tours ride ends in a loud keyboard chord, mix with an atmospheric example of Letting the Air out of the Band. This audializes the moment the system detects a malfunction in sector two, initiating an ''Factory Shutdown'' scenario.
• Over the Garden Wall: Done in the second part of "Come, Wayward Souls", where the angelic and heavenly chorus suddenly ends on a flat tone.

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..and so that's how TV Tropes will ruin your LIIIIIFE!!!

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