Nightmare Fuel / Batman Returns

"Hiya Max, remember me?! I'm Fred's hand! You want to greet any other body parts?!"

"Welcome to the Oswald Cobblepot School of Driving. Gentlemen, START YOUR SCREAMING!"

Like its predecessor, this film was directed by Tim Burton. So it should come as no surprise that it has its fair share of unsettling, nightmarish imagery beyond what the source material already had.

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• The Villain Opening Scene, from the young Penguin's treatment at the hands of his Abusive Parents no matter how repulsive he is (opening with the sounds of a baby crying in a way that's not quite human and Lord Cobblepot's Oh, Crap! reaction at seeing exactly what his newborn son looks like....) to the fact that you never actually see his appearance (leaving you to wonder just what it is about him that warrants such horror and disgust) because his "crib" is a black cube with a caged slot as its single window, and the cat-killing and the attempted drowning are just the icing on the cake. Merry Christmas!
  • Cat lovers will also be disturbed by the Penguin's murder of the family cat. He just yanks the poor kitty inside his cage, and we don't see what he does to it.
  • Followed by an utterly chilling credits sequence of the baby's carriage traveling through the sewers accompanied by thoroughly eerie music.
• An ad with horrid face of The Penguin staring back at you. He's supposed to look like Uncle Pennybags without the mustache! Danny DeVito in a tux should look like a plump, cuddly penguin, not that monstrosity! ^note Not that Colin Farrell's Penguin is any prettier.
  • The Penguin is so unhealthy that bile constantly drips from his mouth, revealing a set of sharp, disgusting, stained teeth that were no doubt the result of tooth decay and eating only raw fish and garbage. No wonder Catwoman didn’t want to have anything to do with him beyond their mutual goals.
• The surprisingly gross, animalistic behavior The Penguin displays throughout the movie, from eating raw fish to viciously biting a man's nose. His slovenly, grotesque appearance (obese body, stained clothing, deformed hands, beak-like nose, stringy hair, chalk-white skin and black-ringed eyes) certainly doesn't help matters.
  • The scene where The Penguin gorily bites the nose of Josh — an image consultant who insults his looks — is horrific, even in a movie known for being full of disturbing images. How that whole sequence made it into a PG-13 film, even in the early 1990's, is anyone's guess.
    Josh: Not a lot of reflective surfaces down in the sewer, huh?
    (Penguin begins to laugh loudly. Nearby staff members join in)
    Penguin: Still! (glances around) Could be worse! My nose could be gushing blood!
    Josh: (stops laughing) Your nose could be... w-what do you mean by-
    Penguin: (chomps down on the man's nose, causing blood to spray)
• Whereas Alicia's leap to death in the previous movie takes place off-screen, the Ice Princess's Penguin-engineered plunge from a rooftop happens right before our eyes. And it's not enough for her to fall out of camera range. Noooo, we go with her as she screams all the way down and as she lands. And this is a PG-13 film. There are R-rated movies that don't go that far!
  • And when she hits the ground she sets off the Christmas tree lights, which flushes out a swarm of bats accompanied by some morbid music. The imagery is almost supernatural.
• Selina's mental breakdown when she returns home after getting shoved out the window of a high-rise building by Max Shreck for finding out about his scam with the proposed energy plant. Her sanity hanging by a thread, she staggers home and starts going through the motions. She has a ritual of calling out, "Honey, I'm home! Oh, wait. I'm not married"... which she now recites in a Creepy Monotone. She has a vacant, zombie-ish look... until a Shreck advert plays on her answering machine — and specifically mentions a "candlelight staff meeting for two" with her boss, who had just tried to murder her — and she just snaps completely; wildly flipping between sobbing, screaming and even laughing as she violently trashes her overly-cutesy apartment. It's the sheer emotion of the scene that gets you both terrified and emotional; not helped at all by the psycho string-backed soundtrack that effectively shows just how far off the deep end Selina has gone.
  • Her death scene is nothing to sneeze at, either. As with the Ice Princess's death, we end up following her all the way down, her body smashing through several awnings before she slams into the alleyway.
    • The build-up to her death is disturbing — not just Shreck threatening Selina, but the casual, almost conversational tone with which he does it. He fakes her out initially by pretending he was joking, allowing Selina to calm down and laugh with him at the conversation. Shreck then turns and begins to walk away with a smile... right before he suddenly shoves her backwards through the window. It doesn't help that Shreck is played by Christopher Walken, Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant extraordinaire.
      Shreck: What did curiosity do to the cat?
  • Selina's apartment is pretty creepy in itself. The whole thing is painted pastel pink and filled with toys and decorations that an adult woman should have outgrown. But when you get a closer look, you can see that there's a big metal I-beam hanging overhead painted in the same garish pink. The details make you realise that despite working for a conglomerate, Selina's living in a slum whose upkeep isn't being properly maintained.
  • The decor also hints that Selina was always a bit mentally unstable, even before her near-murder.
• Those who have ailurophobia, or a fear of cats, were caught off-guard the many times Catwoman and her cats in general hunt down Batman.
  • The resurrection scene will give you the shivers, even if you don't have a fear of cats. A hoard of stray cats appear from every direction and surround Selina's lifeless body, licking at her wounds and crawling all over her. Several of them appear to breathe into her mouth, while one of them gnaws on her fingers hard enough to draw blood. Then Selena's eyes roll back in her head and flutter open, and she stares with a dead-eyed, lifeless gaze. At that point, you know there's something seriously wrong with her.
• The mugger who corners the woman in the alley way and attempts to rape her...... Fortunately for the audience it’s also the same scene in which Catwoman makes her debut and easily hands the mugger his ass but for anybody who’s been a victim of rape or who was a near-rape victim? Its very unsettling to watch.
  • Though it's safe to say we won't miss the mugger, how Catwoman deals with him is rather disturbing, too; taking her time in dragging her claws — made from razor-sharp sewing implements — across his face, then apparently stabbing him in both eyes.
  Catwoman: (slashes once) Tic... (twice) Tac... (violently stabs his eyes) TOE.
• You thought The Joker was the only Batman villain who employed evil clowns? The Penguin has an entire gang made up of demented ex-circus performers, including several side show freaks. It's hinted that their circus was shut down due to accusations of child abduction.
  • A careful look at the newspaper clippings reveals that their circus sideshow included an "Aquatic Bird Boy". Penguin's been at the child abduction game for a very long time.
  • During their attack on the Gotham Plaza, a few unlucky Gothamites are seen burning alive.
• Max Shreck's Family-Unfriendly Death: Catwoman shoves her stun gun into his mouth and kisses him, frying him alive. The sight of his charred remains is also pretty horrifying and most certainly WILL catch viewers off guard.
  • Also the way that Catwoman taunts Max despite being shot numerous times and the way she sings “All good girls go to heaven” is VERY creepy and it shows that her thirst for revenge has completely drove her insane.
  • An interesting mention goes to a Call-Back to the first Batman film with Joker's Joy Buzzer scene. Anyone remembering that will get a real pleasant memory of that scene when watching Max Shreck's demise.
• The Penguin's death scene is also unpleasant. During his fight with Batman, he falls through a window and lands in a deep pool poisoned with industrial chemicals: he emerges from the water several minutes later. Burned, bleeding, with carcinogens pouring from his nose and mouth in a black sludge and making horrible gurgling sounds similar to a death rattle as he breathes, slowly and unflinchingly walking toward his umbrella stand with enormous, expressionless eyes. When he fails to kill Batman by mistakenly picking up one of his non-armed umbrellas, Penguin finally succumbs to his injuries and dies.
  Penguin: Oh, shit! I picked the cute one! This heat's getting to me... I'll murder you momentarily. But first... I need a cool drink. Of iced... water. (rattles as he collapses on the spot)
  • Afterward, the Penguin's body is solemnly pulled into the water by his six Emperor Penguins: slowly sinking into the depths with a close-up of his eyes open and rolled back, and a cloud of black bile spreading from his nose and mouth.