Poor little victims, trapped in cocoons
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The Crystalling
- Starlight's anxiety attack, the camera zooming in on her face as her face fills with terror and anguish. Twilight's voice fades into the distance. Starlight clenches her eyes shut as she's sweating profusely and a pervasive white noise rings. Some have noted that this is a disturbingly realistic portrayal of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
- The Grim Up North Crystal Empire has weather so powerful that not even a pair of alicorns working together can delay a blizzard for more than a couple hours. That is scary enough by itself but for Equestrian ponies it is doubtlessly much worse since they are used to having the weather under their control.
- The fate that would beheld the Crystal Empire if the weather fully took over is pretty dang scary in itself. Not only is everything frozen solid, but Twilight said it herself, everyone else would freeze to death with it! And the only thing stopping the weather (or in the case of Sombra, villains) from getting in is the Crystal Heart, which thankfully isn't easy to destroy. Still, Death by slowly becoming a pony (or dragon) popsicle is not a good way to go.
On Your Marks
- Apple Bloom setting up a Room Full of Crazy after she tries a lot of things on her own, but can't enjoy them. When Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo find her, Apple Bloom is sitting on her own, in the dark, staring at her failures. It's actually fairly creepy to hear the normally jovial filly talking in a Creepy Monotone with her Face Framed in Shadow.Apple Bloom: Oh, hello girls. Have fun pursuing your own interests?!
Gauntlet of Fire
- There's something very unsettling about watching the armored dragon (Princess Ember) sinking down into the sea, dragged under by the weight of her armor. The overhead shot of her slowly disappearing doesn't help at all.
- Garble says that if he becomes Dragon Lord, the dragons will take Equestria's treasures and burn the rest, due his irrational hatred for ponies. This would likely take many pony lives if they were to attack Ponyville, along with causing a war with Canterlot.
No Second Prances
- Trixie still being willing to go through with the Manticore Moonshot Mouthdive without Starlight. After admitting that she couldn't do it on her own, and Trixie openly upset about ruining things with Starlight, the implications of it are unsettling.
- The scenes where Hoofdini and Trixie perform the Manticore Moonshot Mouthdive. Even though both of them end up just fine after all is said and done, the trick itself is absolutely terrifying to watch; the performer shoots himself or herself from a cannon into a manticore's wide open mouth, and the manticore swallows them whole.
A Hearth's Warming Tail
- As can be expected of Yet Another Christmas Carol, Princess Luna as the Spirit of Hearth's Warming Yet-To-Come is rather intimidating, showing Snowfall Frost a Bad Future in which eliminating Hearth's Warming Eve leads to the Windigos coming back and blanketing Equestria in an endless winter. Made all the more terrifying by Luna's haunting song and the fact that aside from the Windigos there is no trace of life anywhere in the Bad Future.
- Luna's entrance also qualifies.
Snowfall: Who are you?
Luna: (in silhouette and towering over her) I am the Spirit of Hearth's Warming Yet-to-Come (unfurls her wings, causing a gust of wind to blow on Snowfall)
Applejack's "Day Off"
- While hilarious, Rarity's pruny appearance
after spending too much time in the sauna is also creepy.
28 Pranks Later
- The "cookie zombie apocalypse".
- While it's obvious the ponies were playing Rainbow Dash like a fiddle, the way they act and look is rather disconcerting (slow and stilted body movement, desaturated colors and their disturbing cravings for Rainbow Dash's cookies, to name a few things). Hell, even the Baby Cakes join in on it!
"Coookieees..."- Even the general buildup to the first Face-Revealing Turn is genuinely unsettling. It begins when the first act ends on Pinkie deciding to eat another cookie with no musical cue before cutting to commercial, setting up the feeling that unpleasant things are about to happen. It doesn't add up; something is "off". Then there's knowing that Pinkie falls "sick" with a ravenous craving for joke cookies while Rainbow Dash spends the whole day selling the stuff to everyone in town. Finally, just a few moments after Rainbow Dash looks in everyone's houses to find them dark and empty, we can faintly see the silhouette of a pony shambling by the window behind Rainbow's back.
- Then comes the scene at the barn. By this point it seems like everyone in town has been affected save for Dash, Rarity, Applejack and the CMC. Eventually the zombie ponies find them and they have to barricade the doors and windows. Dash eventually admits she was the cause of the "outbreak" to the five and figures they can just hide out until the effects wear off. Of course, like any good horror movie, that doesn't last long. Rarity suddenly comes out of the shadows, revealing that they ate the cookies before Dash reached them and seemingly turns right before Dash's eyes. Applejack follows suit and perhaps even more creepily, Dash drops the lantern where it rolls in front of the CMC who begin growling for cookies with their blank eyes, joining the chorus of the other moaning zombie ponies. Then Applejack kicks the wagon blocking the door and the other zombie ponies break in, cornering Dash. As Dash pleads to them that the cookies are making them sick, Pinkie counters with this line which would be silly if not for her very un-Pinkie like tone, a very subtle reminder that Pinkie can be scary if she wants to be.Pinkie: [After Dash tells her she doesn't want the tainted cookies] But we dooo, we want (low growling, almost gurgling tone) COOOOOKIES!!!
Every Little Thing She Does
- Starlight Glimmer, in hopes of getting everything done fast and without a hassle, casts a spell that makes all of the Mane 6 (sans Twilight, who left earlier) obey her commands. Aside from the ponies being incapable of their own free will, there's also outward features such as shrunken irises, an emotionless tone of voice and an odd, robot-like behavior that comes off as unnatural and disconcerting (not to mention the way they felt after the spell was undone). One moment that stands out in particular is mind-controlled Fluttershy covered in insects and snakes◊ and acting like nothing is wrong.
- While it's a Shout-Out to Predator, Applejack mentions in passing that Big Macintosh had to cover himself with mud to hide from a "creature." Exactly what was so big it could scare Big Mac?
To Where and Back Again
- In Starlight's Nightmare Sequence, she arrives to Our Town only to receive cold welcome from its citizens, who rip their invitation in her face and proceed to mock her. As they laugh at Starlight, their faces gradually contort into the very same, creepy, hollow smiles that she used to force onto them...
- In-universe example: Starlight's return to Our Town, and her confrontation with her past. The ponies of Our Town repeatedly asking Starlight for advice and guidance is uncomfortably similar to a recovering alcoholic repeatedly being offered drinks. The poor thing looks terrified. She later says that she never wants to be in charge of anything ever again just like how one might fear a single drink knocking them off the wagon.
- The changeling mook disguised as Princess Twilight almost discovers an invisible Starlight and Trixie by tracking their scents. They only escaped because he didn't see them and continued his search on another part of the castle, but it was so close...
- As Heartwarming as his concern over her is, Discord's reaction to finding out the Changelings have Fluttershy is absolutely terrifying.note
- The Dwindling Party is treated with uncommon seriousness. Trixie running away from the Changelings ends with a Dog Pile of Doom and Fade to Black that sure looked final. Discord's final scene on the other hand somehow makes Fluttershy terrifying, and features one of the few moments when Discord looks truly vulnerable.
- In this episode, Queen Chrysalis and the Changelings prove to be much more frightening than when they invaded Canterlot.
- The Changelings are very aggressive and numerous, not to mention smart as well. Although Discord and the others both saw through the enemy Changelings' disguises, they still managed to get half of the party captured that way (Discord because he was lured and Trixie because of the aforementioned Heroic Sacrifice).
- Queen Chrysalis' entrance when Starlight (who is actually Thorax in disguise) enters the throne room. Not only does she move like a spider, emerging from behind the cocoons containing Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Cadance, she moves like she has no bones at all (and that includes her head), complete with twisting sounds.
- Hell, Queen Chrysalis in general. For example, she tosses Starlight around like a rag doll (and she couldn't even fight back because of non-Changeling magic being nullified) and mercilessly holds Thorax up in the air as she drains him of his love.
- We also see up close just how horrifying it is to be trapped in a cocoon, which doubles as a Tear Jerker. Not only are the victims completely helpless, unable to move beyond a twitch of the hoof, or moving their eyelids, as Celestia and Luna did when they felt their cocoons shift as Chrysalis parted them and then pressed her hooves into the soft membrane for support, but it's implied that, despite the serene feeling they're in, the victims suffer psychological torture as they're trapped, begging to get out.
- Don't forget; Flurry Heart was one of the ones captured and considering how much love babies get and give (and how much of a handful she would've been otherwise) means they totally put her, a BABY, in one of those cocoons.
