Nightmare Fuel / Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

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• When you battle Cackletta in the Hoonversity, she adopts an abominable appearance before you battle - and spends the final chunk of the battle in that form. Luckily, if you're quick enough, she shouldn't take more than a couple of turns to finish off after transforming.
  • Speaking of which, some Fridge Horror sets in: Cackletta and Fawful raided a university to find the perfect place to wake up the Beanstar, and transformed the students into monsters that the Mario Bros. have to put down. A comical game this may be, but Woohoo Hooniversity shows just how low Cackletta is willing to sink.
• The Oho Jees. At first, they just seem like cute little guys hanging out on a tropical island. Then you listen to the recordings left behind by researchers. They reveal that after one researcher mistakenly set an Oho Jee on fire, that Oho Jee went berserk and attacked the researcher. That researcher then transformed into an Oho Jee himself. Then, the research team regards it as no big loss, saying that science marches on. There is no indication that this process can be reversed either.
  • One of the Oho Jee expresses suicidal thoughts through metaphor ("I wish I were sun at dusk...") It claims it's kidding, but if you put the clues together, there's a good chance this Oho Jee is a forcibly transformed victim desperate to escape his situation.
• The original depiction of the monster in Guffawha Ruins. Not only is it shown breathing fire and eating a poor Toad alive, it's rumored to brutally murder its victims by breaking their bones, stripping their flesh and sucking their blood. Can't really blame Luigi for being so terrified to go there. And when you do, the "monster" is just a stone head that was angry at the rumors.
• This was the first Mario game to feature apparent actual death of NPCs, mainly Toads.
• Cackletta possesses Bowser and turns him into a mutant hybrid of the two. And to defeat her, you have to go inside Bowser, fight Cackletta's soul, and attack her heart.
  • To elaborate, picture Bowser...but with Cackletta's face and "horns" pasted on. That's Bowletta for you. Bowser's already sharp teeth become much larger as Bowletta, giving him/her a cartoonish yet very disturbing perpetual Slasher Smile and breasts.
  • The final battle comes in two phases. Right after you defeat Bowletta the first time, Mario and Luigi are knocked out by a Time Bob-omb, then she proceeds to INHALE both of the Bros. The screen fades to black and slowly fades back in, both Bros. at a critical 1 HP with a background that looks downright hellish and a boss theme of true despair. This is where you fight Cackletta's soul - and she gets the first attack in the GBA version. She's even more terrifying in the remake... for one, she now screeches.
• Joke's End. It's the Slippy-Slidey Ice World (minus Frictionless Ice) of the game. In contrast to the smiling faces littered all over the other areas, Joke's End has expressions of despair littered all over. Frozen. It wouldn't be so bad if this weren't the music.
  • The music's even worse in the remake...
  • The statues found in Joke's End depict great suffering, with hands placed over their ears and tears streaming down their cheeks. It's almost like the place is the hell of the Beanbean Kingdom - and it is. The theme of the Beanbean Kingdom is laughter, and Joke's End is the final resting place for cruddy jokes. The miserable-looking statues covering their ears may be meant to represent just how horrible a bad joke can be to the people of Beanbean.
• Many of the places that Cackletta involves herself with become this.
  • The Mario Bros.' first visit to the Beanbean Castle Town is a classic example. The houses and buildings are all wrecked and innocent civilians lie on the ground like they're on the verge of death, and when you talk to them, the way they talk sounds eerily like a kid's version of PTSD. The music (titled "Touch of Evil") makes it feel like you're walking in a graveyard.
  • It gets worse. You end the game with the town in this state. Yeah. After having a nice town for a good portion of the game, it's reduced to this sorry state by Bowletta during the endgame.
• Fawful. Despite his Laughably Evil Fountain of Memes nature, he's still a scarily competent villain in-story. His inventions alone have sunk the Koopa Cruiser, constantly impeded the Bros' progress, and essentially given Cackletta a second chance at life. And it gets even worse during Minion Quest, where we see him Brainwashing Bowser's minions, even the Koopalings, not to mention he was apparently the one who led the first raid on Beanbean Castle Town (which we get to see in all its fiery glory) complete with the ever-haunting Touch of Evil music. Makes you wonder who's really pulling their weight in all this...
  • To top it all off, near the end of the game, he becomes aware of his role and realizes he never needed Cackletta to begin with. Though his final confrontation with the bros ends as you would expect, it still perfectly sets up the events of Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.
    • Oh, and during his last fight in the remake (and the foreign versions of the original), he uses the same battle theme as Cackletta as if to demonstrate just what he intends to do.