Spoilers Off applies to Nightmare Fuel pages. All spoilers are unmarked.
Because this series is as utterly terrifying as a story about vampires taking over a small town isolated in the country with no immediate means of assistance from the outside world should be.
- Easily, the most terrifying thing about the Shiki, aside from the their bloodlust and their inhuman nature, are their eyes. They have no pupils, just jet black orbs of pure darkness set into their face, empty and lifeless. Only when they're hunting or becoming more active do their eyes regain pupils, which glow an unearthly red. In either form, however, the emotions they arouse are the same: pure terror.
- "The Fourth Death" is a prime example of Nightmare Fuel. Yuuki is spending the night at Tohru's house, when he hears a girlish giggle cut ominously through the night. Up to this point, he's been convinced Megumi's ghost is haunting him. Unable to move from the sheer force of his fear, he just lies there, listening to the sounds of footsteps as they climb the stairs and get closer and closer to Tohru's room (where he's sleeping on the floor). His fears are assuaged for the moment when Tohru's little sister opens the door, thinking them both asleep. And then when Aoi leaves and Yuuki takes a breather, he hears Megumi right in his ear. He turns his head to find her staring at him inches from his face under Tohru's bed!
- She then contorts herself out from under the bed like some freaky circus act and mockingly berates him in a creepy childish tone for being (as seen through the lens of her psychosis) so friendly with Tohru when he couldn't be bothered to spend a single moment with her. Still frozen by fear, he's forced to watch as she slowly bends over Tohru and sinks her fangs into his neck while he sleeps with a ghoulish smile on her face. Pleasant dreams. note
- At first, the ending of episode 4 seemed to be a bad dream, but when Tohru's sister claims he's playing hooky, we hear him speaking in Creepy Monotone, showing something is very wrong. And when Ozaki comes, it turns out Tohru is actually dead.
- In "Fourteenth Death", Dr. Ozaki's research on his recently risen wife to find out what makes the Shiki tick. He cuts her open and torments her with religious icons before finally staking her... and he does it all without showing any real emotion.
- Shizuka's demon puppet. When that doesn't get her an invitation into Yuuki's house, she tries a different tactic that is equally frightening.
- Masao as a child
◊ is so creepy he managed to freak many fans out even more than the vampires.
