Nightmare Fuel / Dark (2017)

The time travel of Dark not only broke the mold of science fiction television but also managed to include many horrific and dark moments.

General

• As beautiful as Ben Frost's original musical score is, it inspires a feeling of dread due to its droning ambiance. It perfectly fits in with the show's dire settings and themes.
• The concept of children vanishing without a trace and a Serial Killer being on the loose is already unnerving on its own, but the idea that time predetermines your choices in life, even to the point of your thinking, is a much more existential fear.
• The openings. All of them. As intriguing as Apparat's "Goodbye" might be for the viewer and the various mirror effects, there is no doubt that the openings can be unsettling in their own right. Although, this type of nightmare fuel can be subsided for the rest of the season once you see the opening many times. That is until you watch the next one.

Season 1

Episode 1: Secrets

• The series' opening moments. Well, the first episode leaves a significant impact, showing the viewer what they are in for.
  • The first thing shown is the message "Der Unterschied zwischen Verganganheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft ist nur eine Illusion, wenn auch eine hartnäckige." In English, it means "The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." While not frightening, it can be unnerving that the show begins with that very quote from theoretical physicist Albert Einstein.
  • The middle part of the opening is far unsettling too: We hear a man (arguably The Stranger) who begins to discuss his theory about Time: That while we as humans interpret it as linear, it is actually a cycle and that eventually everything will repeat itself with no way of noticing it. While is being said philosophically, we see photos of what will be later on shown as the cast of the series, all connected in some way with threads to one another ala string theory, before the narrator finishes with "Alles ist miteinander verbunden" ^note "Everything is connected", one of the show's reoccuring Arc Words.....
  • And how it concludes, dear God... A man is seen licking an envelope while tense music plays, giving the indication that something is not right. He sets a chair on the floor, gets up, and puts his head around a noose. Then he kicks the chair. What makes it work is that we don't know what caused this man to take his own life.
• Erik Obendorf's disappearance. He had been missing for two whole weeks, and Winden's police force has been scrambling for answers. The fact that he disappeared for that long and left behind no trace is very alarming.
  • The episode's halfway point does reveal Erik's status. He is first shown waking up on the bottom bunk inside a room that looks eerily similar to a bunker. The walls being decorated in cute cartoon animals makes the atmosphere more bizarre. Oh, and having "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" playing on the television set does not make things any better. But what is it with that chair in the center of the room?
  • The ending of the episode makes Erik's situation a hundred times worse. He is strapped into that same chair in the center of the room, gagged by a hooded figure, hyperventilating. The episode ends with a mechanism clamping over his face, obscuring his eyes. Thinking back to the child found in the woods, will Erik suffer the same fate?
• At a rest home, Helge is sitting in his chair in a catatonic position, repeating "It's gonna happen again." The camera even pans to one of his ears, which is only scar tissue. What happened to his ear? And what is he inferring is "going to happen again"?
• When Jonas and his group stumble upon the cave, rumbling and whooshing sounds are heard. Shattering branches and the flickering flashlights add insurmountable amounts of tension for both the kids and the audience. Everyone makes a run for it. Mikkel and Jonas run together, but Jonas trips and falls. When he gets up, Mikkel is nowhere to be seen. The fact he was right there with Jonas, then just disappeared into thin air like that, invokes pure horror and makes the children disappearance situation even worse.
• When a child's body has been found in the forest, it's a very sad scene. However, it turns into pure Mood Whiplash when the child's eyes have been revealed to be charred and destroyed.
• When put in context, this entire episode is an exercise in Nothing Is Scarier. The man committing suicide, Erik's situation in the episode's end, Helge's Madness Mantra and scarred ear, what lies beyond the cave's entrance, and why that boy's eyes are singed and charred. To say that the entire series has started with a bang would be a gross understatement.

Episode 2: Lies

• When the episode begins, it has been 9 hours since Mikkel's disappearance. A mysterious man is walking in the forests, finding a dead bird. The man's raggedy appearance and the reason why this bird died can instill a sense of fear in the viewer.
• The boy's first autopsy. Aside from the eyes, the boy's eardrums have burst, and his entire inner ear is destroyed. The camera panning over his eyes and all the detail regarding what happened to him is horrific.
• At the halfway point, in what might be a throwback to the first episode, we see Erik again strapped to the chair. However, the screen doesn't cut to black, but the chair is heard whirring as Erik hyperventilates. Also, instead of a song, the television broadcasts what might be a documentary about black holes and how they can be used for traveling and distorting time and space. it's this bit of dialogue that really sets the tone for the entire series, and not in a calming way either.

Host: And so at least hypothetically, because of this massive gravitational influx that occurs within a black hole, it appears quite possible that it can actually distort both space and time. So the question is, once we cross the event horizon, will we be able to travel through a black hole to see what lies in the beyond? And if we were to do this, what price would we pay? How far would scientists go?

• Poor Mikkel has been thrust quite a few years into the past, panicking as his key doesn't work on his home, and later being bullied by his own father. Meanwhile as Present!Ulrich is getting into some illegal means to find out about what happened to his little boy.

Episode 3: Past and Present

• Jana manhandling Mikkel (her grandson) in 1986 in hopes for finding out if he knows anything about Mads's disappearance. Mikkel understandably never returned to the Nielsen home again.

Episode 6: Sic Mundus Creatus Est

• This episode can be this for claustrophobic watchers, as the possible Portal to the Past is an extremely narrow corridor fit for only one at a time, although properly ventilated.

Episode 8: As You Sow, so You Shall Reap

• Ulrich bludgeoning young Helge with a rock. Not only is the damage to Helge's face shown in graphic detail, but the fact that Ulrich — who, for all his flaws, is still a loving father and chose to become a police officer out of a genuine desire to help people — would be desperate enough to resort to child murder is extremely disturbing. And when Ulrich is done (he thinks Helge has died at this point), he takes the boy, throws him in the bunker and locks the door, leaving him to rot.

Episode 10: Alpha and Omega

• The ending. When Jonas and 1953!Helge touch between the gap of time and space, Helge ends up in 1986, but Jonas? He is in a completely different world. Not 1953, not 1986, not 2019. As he wanders around this desolate land, he stumbles upon signs in various languages and apocalyptic camps. When a camp seizes him, Jonas spots a plane with a very futuristic look. His suspicions are confirmed when the group's leader says, "Welcome to the future.". This indicates that Jonas has been transported to futuristic Winden, in the year 2052. What the hell happened that plunged Winden in such a desolate state?

Season 2

Episode 1: Beginnings and Endings

• The first episode of Season 2 shows the Crapsack World of 2052 after an apocalyptic event, with Winden in ruins, dead bodies hanging from trees, and a ruthless cult of survivors (under the leadership of a heavily scarred, middle-aged Elisabeth) who publicly execute everyone who tries to enter the "dead zone" surrounding the ruins of the power plant.
• The newly christened Noah kills his fellow miner when the latter loses his trust on Adam and not believing any of his stories of 'Paradise', and the latter takes it without any change in his expression. It becomes even more nightmarish when we reach the penultimate episode of the series...
• At the end of the episode, we see Jonas entering the power plant and discover what exactly the survivors are guarding: an unstable wormhole that appears as a constantly shifting, swirling mass of dark matter, moves as if it were a living creature and emits an extremely unsettling roaring noise.
• Adam, the leader of the Sic Mundus cult, has a frightening appearance: He dresses very elegantly — but his face is horrifically burned, which is later revealed to be the result of the endless time travel he once did. As Jonas Kahnwald.

Episode 2: Dark Matter

• Jonas getting hanged for daring to sneak into the nuclear power plant. If Elisabeth didn't take pity on him at the last moment, it would have been the end of him.
• The God Particle, implied to be the cause of the Apocalypse, just... revolving on its own without anything to power it. Claudia even states the Particle simply breaks the laws of physics by simply existing.

Episode 5: Lost and Found

• Ulrich being tortured in the asylum when he is recaptured in the 80s. He is immensely old at this point, yet being shown no relaxation.

Episode 7: The White Devil

• Egon's death is this and a Tear Jerker. 1986!Claudia was afraid that Ulrich would kill her father as retribution for Ulrich and Mikkel being separated again, and decided to be beside him to ensure that his death would not occur. However, when Egon becomes suspicious that she is hiding something, he tries to contact the authorities. This results in the two fighting for control over the phone, which results in Egon slipping and cracking his head open from blunt impact. His final words, "You're the White Devil" can send a chill down anyone's spine, and Claudia willing to leave her father to die to ensure the time loop remains stable is nothing but horrific.

Episode 8: Endings and Beginnings

• Holy crap, the ending, which is even more nightmarish than Season 1's ending. In it, all the conditions are fulfilled for the Apocalypse to take place. When Charlotte and Elisabeth touch hands between a rip in the spacetime continuum, that's what triggers the Apocalypse. The god particle forms in a dome over the power plant. When its transformation into a complete half-sphere is finished, it expands outwards, hellbent on causing destruction in its wake. Its rumbling and thunderous sounds during the process do not make things less unsettling. This plunges Winden (and possibly the world) into a desolate state.
• Not to mention Adam killing Martha to bring himself into existence, with her dying in Jonas's arms. Also doubles as a major Tear Jerker.

Season 3

Episode 1: Deja-Vu

• Helge of this universe has his left eye region burned off due to unknown reasons (possibly related to the kidnappings), which makes his loss of an ear in the first universe look downright tame.

Episode 2: The Survivors

• Tronte killing Regina, at Claudia's request, which is nightmarish enough if Tronte is her father.

Episode 4: The Origin

• The simple revelation that the strange man with his two counterparts are Jonas and Martha 2's son, who are acting as Eve's Time Police and securing that the timelines stay intact. Oh, and the fact they wrote the Book that Noah has been using the entire time.

Episode 5: Life and Death

• The entire sequence with the burglar breaking into Peter and Elizabeth's trailer while the latter is alone.
  • It already starts off unsettling, with Elizabeth being briefly knocked unconscious and having her hands tied behind her back. With her being deaf, she's unable to hear what the burglar is asking her, which results in an very uncomfortable situation where Elizabeth, a young girl, is left helpless and afraid around the presence of somebody older and stronger than her. However, the scene becomes genuinely frightening when the burglar begins grabbing at and pulling off Elizabeth's pants in an attempt to rape her. The fact that Elizabeth is only 9, and that she's entirely conscious during the attempt, makes this moment truly disturbing.
  • When Peter comes back Just in Time to stop the rape, only to get stabbed in the throat and die, Elizabeth retaliates by brutally beating the burglar to death with a fire extinguisher in a long series of sickening crunches. While the burglar absolutely deserved it, it's still a gruesome scene, even in spite of it being a Gory Discretion Shot.
• Katharina stalking Helene to steal her keycard in an attempt to free Ulrich, while pretty nightmarish enough, ends in Helene brutally murdering Katharina once she turns the tables, on the belief that she's her aborted child from Hell to torment her. She then disposes of her by sinking her into the lake, which gave rise to the legend of the 'Lady in the Lake'.

Episode 6: Light and Shadow

• The Apocalypse in Eva's world. Unlike the Apocalypse in Adam's world which required many events to happen, the Apocalypse was triggered here simply with the opening of the barrels. Katharina, Mikkel, Magnus and Franziska who survived in the first world due to time-traveling before the Apocalypse all die here, with Magnus and Franziska even having moments to realize what happened before the dark matter killed them.
• Adam trying to destroy the universes by unleashing energy of two Apocalypses down on Martha and her unborn child, as we hear her desperately appeal Jonas not to go through with it, as the Apocalypses swallows her whole.

Episode 7: Between The Time

• Jonas attempting suicide due to breaking down in despair, and the sheer defeated look he gives while he tries to hang himself. Made worse by the fact that as Adam exists, Jonas won't die, by his own hands or even by nature.
• Adult!Jonas in 1890 showing symptoms of becoming Adam, as he tries to threaten Bartosz into complying to destroy the worlds. Bartosz, having none of it, tries to leave him in order for a better life, only to fail due to Adam sending Silja back for the very purpose of stopping him.
  • An old Jonas, now completely scarred into his future look of Adam, meets his mother and half-sister, who just wanted to reunite with her son. His reaction was to promptly kill Hannah and kidnap Silja so that Elisabeth gets to raise her, and Silja would later meet Jonas himself as a young boy in 2052.
• The sheer horror both Noah and Elisabeth experience when their baby daughter Charlotte disappears into the post-apocalyptic hellscape. Enraged, Noah tries to kill Jonas and fails, but not before parting with a snide curse to him. Worse, it was Charlotte herself who aided in her kidnapping, but only to maintain the Stable Time Loop and to ensure her, Elisabeth and Franziska's existence.

Episode 8: The Paradise

• We learn that Ulrich was the one who actually gave the scar to Adult!Helge in Eva's World. Ulrich, having more success than his Adam's World counterpart, successfully follows Old!Helge into 1986, where he bludgeons the now-complicit Helge to near-death, despite being a police officer who wanted to help people. Even this is for naught as the older Helge himself kills Ulrich, continuing the Stable Time Loop.
• The adult versions of Jonas and Eva, not aware that the loop can be broken, just stare helplessly at their surroundings, as both of them are erased from existence.