And you thought she was scary...
As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- The opening credits
. The usual screeching noises, mixed in with a creepy circus theme and vastly unsettling stop-motion animation. - Twisty the Monster Clown is likely the scariest character of any American Horror Story series. An unwashed clown with a grinning mask, no bottom jaw, an unsettling stare and on close inspection appears to be wearing someone's scalp. With requisite Creepy Circus Music, of course.
- His introductory scene, where he barges in on a boyfriend and girlfriend having a picnic, knocks them both unconscious with his pins, and is then seen aggressively stabbing the boyfriend. Probably the scariest part is how Twisty runs after the fleeing girlfriend like a wild animal, with his feral grunting.
- Apparently after scenes with Twisty, actors had to regularly leave the set and complained about nightmares.
- His introductory scene
- Dandy. From his first appearance, he just seemed a bit unhinged but his second appearance, he is a budding psychopathic killer in the making, torturing animals from the neighborhood, has a explosive temper, and becoming Twisty 2.0.
- The death of Meep is horrifying as it is tragic. We have this tiny person who can't seem to talk and acts like a child, crying and confused while being thrown into a cell of prisoners who don't hesitate to kill him. After the deed is done, his body is unceremoniously dumped back at the freak show.
- Bette trapped in Dot's dream in which a doctor is kind enough to separate Bette's head from their body. The most frightening part is Dot's reaction to having been woken from a "beautiful dream." Her completely unapologetic attitude about the fact that she intends to have her sister killed so she can live a normal life is as creepy as anything Twisty does.
- Elsa revealing how she lost her legs. Courtesy of a depraved snuff film maker in 30s Germany. With a chainsaw. And a later episode reveals the fact this was Hans Gruper AKA Dr. Arthur Arden in his early days before the war, making what he did before it even more terrifying.
- Also, that spiked toilet seat in Elsa's flashback. And we get to see someone using it. Just... ugh.
- Twisty's backstory. Though more of a Tear Jerker, watching a once very kindhearted man slowly descend into insanity is not pretty. Also doubles as Nausea Fuel when you learn the story behind his mutilated mouth: he blew it off in a Bungled Suicide.
- It's not clear whether it happened or not at first, but in "Pink Cupcakes", Bette eats one of the titular cupcakes offered by Stanley and dies right next to Dot, foam bubbling from her mouth. Meanwhile, while Dot mourns her sister, Stanley suffocates her.
- Dandy's grisly murder of Andy, especially since the poor lad wasn't even dead yet—and was begging to be killed—when Dandy started chopping up his body. It's easily one of the show's most disturbing moments. It's particularly chilling if you yourself engage in casual sex, since the possibility of being brutally slain by a serial killer is always a distant concern.
- Del breaking the doctors' fingers- after he had already promised not to operate on Desiree. Then threatening to do the same to the doctor's grandchildren if he calls the police.
- The death scenes of each of the freaks in "Pink Cupcakes" : Paul dissected in a display case, the aforementioned poisoning of Bette and Dot, Ma Petite being drowned in formaldehyde. Even if they only turn out to be make-believe, that doesn't comfort the audience. Are they just imagined, or are they actually glimpses into the future?
- Penny's father couldn't stop his daughter from leaving to live with Paul, nor could he bring himself to kill her. What he could bring himself to do was make sure she would be unrecognizable as his child so that she couldn't bring shame to the family name. So he had a tattoo artist give her a reptilian face tattoo and a forked tongue. The sadistic nature of it all — not to mention the fact that a father would subject his daughter to such a thing — is terrifying. What makes it worse is that he's fucking ecstatic at seeing her horrified reaction, making it clear that what he really wanted was to get back at her for disobeying him by making her suffer as much as possible. It's enough to make one wonder what else a father like that must have done to her in the years she was forced to live alone with him, to make her so desperate to leave in the first place.
- Ma Petite's murder by the hands of Dell - the two of them are alone (and it doesn't help that Dell can easily overpower Ma Petite), and Dell lures Ma Petite into a false sense of security by giving her a nice dress as a present, and she thanks him with a hug. This allowed Dell to crush Ma Petite's neck during the embrace as the poor girl is struggling to free herself. The knife gets twisted in the wound when the episode ends with Ma Petite on display in the glass jar at the Museum of Morbid Curiosities.
- Pretty much all of Dandy's scenes in this episode. Unlike previous episodes where he had been portrayed as Laughably Evil and an over-the-top Large Ham, even by Large Ham standards, this episode plays him completely straight the whole time. Watching his interactions with Gloria in this episode is much harder because it shows just how the years of dealing with Dandy have taken a toll on her mental state, and there are no narmy tantrums to detract from any of this. Shortly after Gloria tells Dandy how she loved him and only him from the moment he was born, he coldly shoots her dead and then bathes in her blood.
- Although he deserved it, the tarring and feathering of Vince at the hand of the Freak Show ladies is still pretty scary.
- The opening to this episode: Dandy invites a random Avon Lady in, only to attack her with a candlestick a mere moment after she walks inside. He then takes her later decapitated head, and sews it onto his mother's body to make a mock version of Dot and Bette Tattler. He uses their dead bodies as a puppet, smiling all the while.
- How easily the cop turns on and kills Regina with the mere promise of money.
- The murder of Pepper's baby nephew. Her brother in law drags her out of the room. We hear the baby's screams while Pepper desperately bangs on the door. Then silence... Even worse is how easily her sister lies about it.
- Though we have only her word for it, the sister says the boy was born deformed. It's highly probable he was, given that she was almost 50 by the time of the birth and she had no idea she was pregnant. To make it worse, after the pregnancy she is seen drinking one martini after the other, which she might have done even through the pregnancy- leading to the deformity in the first place.
- Maggie getting sawed in half by Chester, complete with a big box of gore. Good lord.
- And the Freaks don't even care.
- Stanley's fate, though he kind of had it coming: The freaks gang up on him. He tries to run but cannot get away. The freaks chop off his arms and legs and force him to be the new geek.
- Chester's flashback revealing the details of his murder of his wife and her lover. They are beaten to death until they are bloody and their faces are unidentifiable.
- In the finale, Dandy massacring all of the freaks (except for The Twins, Jimmy, and Desiree). He waltzes calmly around the carnival in broad daylight, while humming "The Nutcracker Suite", and shoots them all in the head one by one while they're all either hiding, running, or oblivious to what's going on. It didn't help that, except for Ima Wiggles, none of the deaths were a Gory Discretion Shot.
- Dandy's fate, though he definitely had it coming, and it also counts as a Moment of Awesome for the Freaks: Drugged, stripped to his underwear, stuffed inside a glass box, and then drowned as Jimmy, The Twins, and Desiree slowly fill the box with water.
