Nightmare Fuel / Cinderella

• During the prologue, Lady Tremaine's Establishing Character Moment is chilling: her ice-cold smirk as she watches little Cinderella weep at her dead father's bedside. It's bad enough that this is her response to being widowed for the second time and watching a child grieve. But even worse is the open question of why she looks so smug. Is she just glad to be rid of the husband she never really loved, with his fortune now entirely in her hands and her hated stepdaughter at her mercy? Or might she have poisoned her husband?
• This scene in Lady Tremaine's bedroom. There is no music, Cinderella speaks low, and Lady Tremaine suddenly shouts, giving her Death Glares.
  • Lady Tremaine overall is a rare case of a Domestic Abuser played disturbingly straight in a family film. And because of it, she's considered one of the most frightening villains in Disney's library, right up there with freaking Maleficent.
• The scene where the stepsisters viciously rip Cinderella's homemade ball gown to shreds, with disorienting closeups and intensifying music as Cinderella tries in vain to protect herself. Said dress was also one of her last mementos of her biological mother.
  • Earlier in the scene, Lady Tremaine slowly approaches Cinderella and agrees to let her go to the ball, all while politely talking about how she always keeps her word. As she does, Cinderella's eyes go wide and fearful for the first time—as if she knows what's coming. As the insincerity of her words is quite clear to both her and to anyone watching the film, it just makes the coming threat behind them feel even more insidious.
• Lady Tremaine's spiteful little smile and goodnight after her daughters rip up Cinderella's dress. This woman is completely unmoved by two girls attacking a third; worse yet, on top of being pleased about what just went down, she, in the most chillingly subtle way possible and imaginable, provoked her daughters into viciously attacking her stepdaughter by saying that Drizella's beads were the perfect finishing touch for the dress Cinderella was going to wear for the ball. The sheer fact that Lady Tremaine, purely out of spite, was more than willing to have her stepdaughter get her dress violently ripped of by, albeit indirectly, provoking her own daughters into doing the cruel deed really seals just how inhumane her hatred towards her own stepdaughter really is.
• The scene when Cinderella is leaving the ball at the stroke of midnight, when she is chased by those scary-looking palace guards on those black horses. The music really makes the scene scary, with For Doom the Bell Tolls as the clock chimes faster and faster.
• The King going Ax-Crazy after he learns they lost Cinderella, nearly killing the Grand Duke with his sword. His mood swings in general can be scary, too. The King even threatens to have the Grand Duke beheaded if he doesn't bring back the first woman whom the glass slipper would fit (whether or not it's the same girl from the ball).
• Lady Tremaine's Death Glare when she finds out that it was Cinderella who attended the ball. The shadows make it more scary than it should have. While it was originally simply supposed to be menacing, the animators managed to make Lady Tremaine's trip up the shadowy stairs after Cinderella scary.
• When Lady Tremaine locks Cinderella in her room. The smirk Tremaine gives for half a second before she slams and locks the door is quite disturbing.
• Gus's point of view of Lucifer roaring at him forces the viewers to see how much of a monster this cat can be to someone so little.
• Bruno chasing after Lucifer in the climax. Just by looking at his face when he saw the cat, it almost looked like he was ready to kill him. Even if he was chasing the cat away to free Cinderella, it does make you think about how dark the concept was.

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