Power Rangers is normally the poster child for Never Say "Die", but it has had a few creepifying moments over the years.
Remember, this page is for describing general sources of Nightmare Fuel. Troper Tales-like nattery examples are a no-go here (see the disclaimer below).
In order for Nightmare Fuel tabs to survive, a new writing style is going to be used, nicknamed Example Lobotomy. Basic rules: just list facts as they are, don't just say "character X" or "the X scene" (such zero context examples will be zapped), spoiler policy to be determined on a case-by-case basis, italics to be applied to works' names only and not to give emphasis on what tropers say. "X scared me" is already implied by the mere addition of that example by the troper.
Titles with their own pages:
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers
- Power Rangers in Space
- Power Rangers Wild Force
- Power Rangers: Dino Thunder
- Power Rangers S.P.D.
- Power Rangers Mystic Force
- Power Rangers RPM
- Power Rangers Megaforce
- Power Rangers Dino Charge
- Power Rangers Beast Morphers
- Power Rangers (2017)
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (Boom! Studios)
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Shattered Grid
Power Rangers Turbo
- The two-part episode Honey I Shrunk The Rangers where the rangers got shrunk, although large amount of it was played for comedy (the rangers got trapped in Divatox's closet at one point).
- Adam was fooling around during a ride on a torpedo and nearly got killed.
- The final episode of Turbo had Divatox leading an army of mooks to destroy the Command Center, and the Rangers desperately (but uselessly) trying to fight them only to lose, running away into outer space for their life.
- So, picture this. The Rangers have lost the Power Chamber. Divatox has her troops scouring the wreckage looking for them. Eltar, the source of their powers, has fallen. And, in the midst of this, a messenger arrives, calling Divatox away. And when Divatox - who is mid-victory celebration and savoring every second of it and plans on paradig the Rangers’ heads on pikes by the time she’s done - hears the name “Dark Specter,” she is freaked out and drops everything to obey. Sure, in the final analysis, Dark Specter was a lot of hype for little payoff, but the way that he is established in this universe has a level of terror all its own.
Power Rangers Lost Galaxy
- Lost Galaxy had one episode featuring an Elvis-like lobster thing that after drinking a potion became a much more dangerous, and more monstrous, creature. He proceeded to smack-talk with the Lion Galactabeast, then got blown up.
- Trakeena's evolution from whiny daughter of the main villain, to competent warrior, and eventually Big Bad, to utterly deranged madwoman over the course of Lost Galaxy was impressive character development, but by the end, she was known to do things like turn her Mooks - and not robotic ones - into suicide bombers.
- Trakeena's mutated form, with the sludge she leaves behind and those eyes. The first scene of this form is terrifying, with the initial transformation and the fact that the form is barely seen in the first few minutes.
- What Trakeena is actually doing in her mutated form. She sends power into the dome of the wrecked Terra Venture so it will fly and crash into the nearby planet, killing everyone who escaped. By this point Trakeena has truly given up on fulfilling her desire to become Galactic Conqueror like her father and is instead simply desiring to kill the Power Rangers and the civilians they swore to protect at any cost, her own life no longer mattering to her.
- Even before that, Trakeena after she fused with Deviot. She gains his metallic reverb, which makes her sound all the more unhinged, along with her appearance. Her Evil Laugh in this state is especially unsettling.
- Trakeena feels confident seeing the destruction her suicide bombers have caused and orders Villamax to send them into the heart of Terra Venture, Villamax responds that she doesn't have an army left. Using the Stingwingers as suicide bombers has completely depleted their ranks. In response, Trakeena says she doesn't need an army and will shoot down the shuttles herself, just like she destroyed her own Stingwingers.
- Trakeena's mutated form, with the sludge she leaves behind and those eyes. The first scene of this form is terrifying, with the initial transformation and the fact that the form is barely seen in the first few minutes.
Power Rangers Time Force
- Ransik, the Big Bad of Time Force, has what looks like the ability to pull bones from his body and turn them into swords. In the Wild Force/Time Force team-up "Reinforcements From The Future" we see exactly how he got the ability to do that: he frees the life essences of three fossilized Orgs, who literally jump down his throat and copy his DNA to create their new bodies. There's also the horrific disfigurement of his face and the liquid-mercury boils that erupt from his body when his disease flares up. During the Season Finale for Time Force, he takes out all the Rangers by simply punching them before pulling a Heel–Face Turn, which is the only thing that spared the rangers.
- Frax's death in "The End Of Time, Part III" was a Dies Wide Open involving a scream and parts of his robotic face falling apart. This after his having been reprogrammed into a mindless automaton by Ransik.
Power Rangers Operation Overdrive
- One of Operation Overdrive's main villains enhances some monsters by reaching into their chests and leaving devices inside that revive them as cyborgs - those monsters were typically defeated and unconscious at the time. Even though beaten monsters usually don't leave behind a body, it's still not too much of a jump to think that the villain is reviving a monster corpse, although the Chillers he tried it on were still standing; on the other hand, foot soldiers can't take the upgrade as they start twitching, then their customary babbling noises get louder and faster... and then they burst apart, becoming an indoor mini-snowstorm.
- From the same series, it's subtly hinted across several episodes that Mack, the Red Overdrive Ranger, isn't human. The Reveal happens when this character finds himself as a talking severed head lying on a table. Turns out he's an android and his "dad" must finally explain (Rangerboard dubbed him "iMack" fairly quickly afterwards).
- Mack's breakdown in following episodes, too. The way he kept putting himself in harm's way and declaring himself expendable, deliberately pushing the Megazord (piloting it solo this time) toward overload so it would explode in a Taking You with Me moment, and again in the final battle deliberately overclocking his armor (the Sentinel Knight, Zordon-like ancient warrior/sage, shouting for him to stop - it means a lot coming from him, since it had appeared much earlier in the series that to him the Rangers were just a means to an end) it was clear what he was trying to do. Apparently even if you can Never Say "Die", you can have the main hero become outright, explicitly suicidal. (Like the Stingwingers basically being made into suicide bombing terrorists, this is another from the parental concerns column - a teenager being Driven to Suicide by an identity crisis his father can do little to help him with.)
- From the same series, it's subtly hinted across several episodes that Mack, the Red Overdrive Ranger, isn't human. The Reveal happens when this character finds himself as a talking severed head lying on a table. Turns out he's an android and his "dad" must finally explain (Rangerboard dubbed him "iMack" fairly quickly afterwards).
- Kamdor is a pretty creepy villain to the point that even Flurious (read: the Big Bad and Final Boss) is scared of him . His final plan involves making an asteroid crash on earth, tricking The Dragon into turning herself into a barely sentient demonic bird and trapping her inside the jewel she freed Kamdor for after she outlived her usefulness.
Power Rangers Jungle Fury
- Jungle Fury brings us Camille and her Overly-Long Tongue, which she uses in her human form as well as her monster form. Also, she hoarks up a Combat Commentator just in time for the Megazord battle, then eats him again after the Monster of the Week loses.
- Camille got A Day in the Limelight, and Flit (aforementioned commentator) urged her to go into a pizza parlor (the Rangers' pizza parlor, though he didn't know) because he was hungry. "Eat something, so I can eat something!", as Flit says, implies he survives by eating Camille's partially-digested food.
Unclassified examples
- This ad
for Power Rangers toys appeared in the beginning of some MMPR tapes. Aside from the prospect of Megazord crashing through the wall, viewers saw it coming at them from head-on.- The ad also features the bizarre "civilian Rangers morphing into their dinosaurs" scene from the then-unaired pilot episode, where the Power Teens, in their civilian clothing, seem to actually transform into their respective dinosaurs while Zoltar tells them about their powers. (In the actual first episode, this was changed to having their suits materialize over them while Zordon talked.)
- The time Tommy mysteriously disappeared in Power Rangers Zeo. He was taken by prince Gaskett and basically mind-raped and brainwashed to once again become an enemy of the Power Rangers, this time by making him think the Power Rangers were evil, making him think the Machine Empire was good, essentially making Tommy become their king. While Tommy had been brainwashed before, this time it was much more graphic and drawn-out, complete with a machine over his (still helmeted) head, a dark chamber with a single light over the chair he was restrained on, while he was making sounds which clearly indicate pain. It can be seen here.
- Ninja Storm has Motodrone suffer melting at the hands of Vexacus. Forget a Sword Sparks-inducing strike followed by Defeat Equals Explosion or Disappears into Light - we watch him incinerated by a stream of flame. His half-slagged body is seen in a rare exception to PR's Everything Fades tendency. Vexacus quips that he was "having a little meltdown".
- The arc of Lightspeed Rescue in which Ryan gets a cursed "tattoo" burned into his back by the Big Bad, and whenever he morphs the tattoo moves up his body even more, until it reaches his neck, at which point it will kill him. The tattoo moved during a Nightmare Sequence, too.
- Possibly even worse than that is Queen Bansheera absorbing Vypra to regain her full power.
- In the finale of Lightspeed Rescue, Queen Bansheera attempts to unleash literal Hell on Earth by creating a portal that will let a horde of demons through. Carter, however, kicks her into the portal, but she manages to pull him in. Despite realizing he will suffer a fate worse than death if he gets trapped there, he still tells his friends to close the portal with him inside.
- Samurai has some of the Monster of the Week powers. Because the villains need to increase the sorrow in the world to weaken their seal, some of the things they will do to you can become outright torturous. These monsters, while able to give the Rangers a good fight, aren't made with combat in mind. They all have one purpose - create as much suffering to innocent people as they can. How about, you're body-switched with inanimate objects so you can suffer And I Must Scream followed by terror when those objects are destroyed? Or, you're made to feel like you're starving to death but the more you eat it only gets worse? Bug-things that force their way into your body through your mouth and cause you unbearable agony while they're in?
- Ernie: Hey you two, what do you think you're doing? You guys can't bring this nightmare fuel in here!
