Nightmare Fuel / Garfield

It's just your orange cat standing with you, what's the worst that can happen? Well, in short... quite a lot.

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The Comic

• The horrifying Halloween-themed arc◊ in 1989 depicted Garfield waking up in an abandoned house to learn he's in an alternate reality where he no longer exists. Unable to cope with being alone, he screams out "I don't want to be alone!", and the next thing he knows he's back in his own time again. Some fans speculated that this meant Garfield was really in an abandoned house and slowly starving to death, and imagining future strips in a never-ending state of denial. Jim Davis himself has said that this is false; he had wanted to write a Halloween strip that was actually scary, and decided on what he felt was what people feared the most: true loneliness. The nightmare was so chilling Garfield was actually happy to wake up!
  "An imagination is a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the past, shade perceptions of the present, or paint a future so vivid that it can entice... or terrify, all depending upon how we conduct ourselves today..."
  • One of the scariest things in this series was the exterior of the house; that panel is a masterpiece of utterly-terrifying desolation. Compared to other haunted houses in all types of media, this would be the one that the Ghostbusters would avoid completely.
• The Halloween story arc from 1982, which deals with Garfield and Jon seeking refuge in an abandoned house when Jon's car breaks down on their way to the farm. As they proceed to stay at the house, Garfield sees a tombstone with his name on it.
  Garfield: I can't put my finger on it, but I have an uneasy feeling about this place.
  • When Jon and Garfield enter the house, they're greeted by loud, booming footsteps heading towards them and knows they're hiding in the closet. While the ending reveals that the person turned out to be Jon's dad, who went looking for them, the fact remains: The shot of Jon's dad looming in the darkness wielding a pitchfork, all while Jon and Garfield scream, is terrifying.
• The October 29, 1978 strip has Garfield explaining in great detail on a spooky Halloween night what happens to cats at that time of year — they become bewitched, their eyes turn blood red, they grow massive fangs, their hair stands on end, and their claws grow longer — all with a sinister smile on his face and as those exact things start happening to him. The end result is Garfield turning into a hideous, demonic-looking beast. This form is so terrifying, in fact, that when he looks in a mirror and sees what he has become, he screams loudly, turns completely white, and passes out.
  Jon: That's right, Doc. He screamed, turned white, and passed out.
• The November 14, 1993 strip has Garfield having a nightmare about being gobbled up by an extremely creepy-looking couch.
• In the June 27, 1995 strip, Garfield is stuck in a tree and decides to relax until he gets rescued because cats always get rescued. He looks up, and the branches above him have three skeletons of other cats that were stuck up the same tree, implying that they were up there for a few years.
  Garfield: Buuuuut, what do I know?
• In the March 3, 1996 strip, Jon watches a video that turns out to have been made by Harold, his rare and expensive talking parrot. We don't see the video itself, just Jon's increasingly unnerved facial expressions as the parrot tries to tell Jon that Garfield was stalking him just before he lets a Big "NO!" and a terrified scream just as Garfield eats him while Jon grips his chair in fright.
• Not on the strip, but in the Garfield.com game "Scary Scavenger Hunt." One of the levels involves going into a dark attic and interacting with a talking Binky doll who gives you a hint on a puzzle. After you complete the puzzle and try to talk to the doll again, his eyes turn red as he shouts directly at the screen "STOP BOTHERING ME!" Oh, and it'll cost you some hit points, so don't do this.
  • Also, whenever you get the pattern of the instruments played in the music room wrong, you will get jumpscared with a loud scream.
  • In Scary Scavenger Hunt 2, there's a picture in the hallway next to the spider musical room. It's of Garfield sleeping in his bed; the game tells you there's a hidden clue in the picture. After you stare at it for a long time, it suddenly shows a dark red demon pig face with glowing orange eyes and crooked teeth with a LOUD SCREAM! That's right, Garfield just Jump Scared you! It returns to the Garfield picture, saying "Gotcha!" The Binky doll was scary enough in the first one, but this screamer is worse! On the bright side, it doesn't cost you hit points. But still—avoid it at all cost!
• A Halloween themed Garfield pop-up book had all sorts of the usual 'pull tab to make something happen' scenes. The creepiness of the goings-on eventually has Garfield and Odie looking for help, trying to get Jon's attention from behind his morning paper. Pull the flap for the paper down and it reveals that Jon has been reduced to a slack-jawed skeleton with an unsettling level of detail put into his skull and finger bones, for an extra-strong dose of Surprisingly Creepy Moment.
• The book Odie Unleashed!: Garfield Lets the Dog Out contains Davis' favorite comic strips featuring Odie, and one sketch where Garfield put Odie to sleep, with the caption "No, you didn't see this. Keep reading."
• “Garfield’s Judgement Day” was the darkest book of the Garfield series. There’s a huge tornado storm coming to town that will kill anyone in its path so Garfield and his friends must save their owners before it’s too late by talking to them about the storm and heading to the abandoned theater for shelter except for Arlene who was homeless and is hiding in her alleyway home for shelter. There have been a few close calls by a large telephone pole smashing to the ground and almost electrocuting Garfield, Jon, and Odie, Garfield and Arlene get tossed around in the trash can when Garfield tries to save her, and the old man and his dog nearly getting crushed under his house because they decided to to choose to stay together until they die in the storm! Thankfully in the end, everyone survives, Arlene gets the new owner, and things go back to normal but still that was a pretty dark story for the lighthearted Garfield series. This was originally going to be a movie but was changed to the book because of how dark it was.

The Live-Action Movies

• The scene in the first movie where Garfield sneaks into the train controller room in order to get the train Odie is on back to the station. He controls various train track switches and accidentally rewires the tracks so every single train will crash into another one. He doesn't even realize this until the collision warnings and alarm get louder and the trains are heading right towards each other. Garfield panics and he frantically pulls several random levers to prevent the impending collision, before he manages to press the red "cancel" button at the last second.
• Happy Chapman shocking Odie repeatedly with the shock collar. Imagine if your dog was going through that treatment. Even Garfield, who had disliked Odie before, is horrified and disgusted by what Happy Chapman is doing.

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