Nightmare Fuel / Slipknot

Per site policy, Spoilers Off applies to all Nightmare Fuel pages, so all spoilers here are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

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Step inside.

That's right, maggots. The Nine just about manage to get something through your eyes, ears, or insides to get your full attention.

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Music

Slipknot:

• "742617000027" sets the album's tone with a looped voice clip sampled from a Manson family documentary (“The whole thing I think is sick the whole thing I think is sick the WHOLE THING I THINK IS SICK....”) while guitar feedback screeches away.
  • The track's London 2002 live version, in addition to being extended with a part before the voice loop that could catch one off-guard once the clip kicks in, features even louder and more disturbing guitar screeches near the end of the track.
• "Tattered & Torn". A violent, demented little jingle with a sinister guitar riff throughout. Think of Slipknot playing a carnival tune and mix in some horrifying screams, and you’ve got this song.
• "Purity". Though the story was proven a hoax, Corey still felt the fear of being trapped in a box, watched by a stalker, waiting to die. You could notice by the way he screams her name at the ending.
  • The track that precedes it in the album's initial release, "Frail Limb Nursery", also counts big time, especially with how it fittingly transitions between "Tattered & Torn" and "Purity". The girl's recorded voice on its own is scary enough, whether or not you understand what she's saying.
• "Scissors". Holy shit, Corey never sounded more insane than this.
  • Not helped by the lyrics, which can be interpreted to be about drug addiction, hate-fucking, or possibly rape.

Iowa:

• "(515)". Just sit back, relax, and listen to Sid frantically screaming, crying, and choking for one full minute over raging guitar feedback.
  • Even worse is how it's mixed and edited to sound more like a wall of Sids firing off at random, all in complete agony.
  • Mixes with Tear Jerker when you know why he's screaming — he entered the studio shortly after attempting to visit his ill grandfather but finding out that he had already died. The song is his primal, gut-wrenching expression of grief.
  • The live version of the track from Disasterpieces and the album's 10th anniversary edition, taken from their London 2002 concert, begins with a horror ambience before it descends into the aforementioned raging guitar feedback. What makes it even more terrifying to listen to is that those feedbacks are even more deranged, louder and stay like that for the entire duration of the track.
• I WANNA SLIT YOUR THROAT AND FUCK THE WOUND
• "Gently". The MFKR version had a lighter approach.
• "Skin Ticket" pushes the boundaries of Slipknot's heaviness while Corey Taylor is just screaming out the lyrics like a madman on the verge of a suicidal breakdown during the track's peak, giving "Scissors" a run for its money.
• The Title Track. A fifteen-minute Last Note Nightmare for the album itself that's about murder and necrophilia. It starts out with the distorted screams of women, and doesn't get any more cheerful from there.
  • The vocals for which, Corey Taylor recorded while naked, vomiting, and cutting himself.
  • Up until the climax, it's much quieter and more somber than most of the songs on the album. This just makes it even creepier.
  • The lyrics in the climax...: "YOU BELONG TO ME, I WILL KILL YOU TO LOVE YOU! LOVE YOU! LOVE YOU LOYOOOUUUU!", followed by Corey rambling about something...

Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses):

• The end of "Prelude 3.0".
• "The Virus of Life". ALL of it.
• "Danger - Keep Away", especially the extended version from the album's Special Edition, has these vibes thanks to the Uncommon Time and Paranoia Fuel lyrics in Shawn's part, but then softens up when Craig and Corey come in. But then there's that one man wailing in the background midway through the song...
• The footsteps in "Don't Get Close", punctuated by banging against a pipe.

All Hope Is Gone:

• ".execute." kicks off the album with a pulsating, static-like guitar noise, while a radio voice (which progressively shifts from an average tone to straight-up yelling) talks about a version of The End of the World as We Know It caused by humanity.
  THIS IS THE FUTURE YOU HAVE CREATED!
  THIS IS THE WORLD YOU HAVE SET ABLAZE!
  ALL YOUR LIES ARE COMING TRUE
  ALL FREEDOM IS LOST, ALL HOPE IS GONE
• "Gehenna". Corey lulls you to sleep, and reels you in, and then makes the chills creep up your spine so slowly that you don't notice until all that's left of his voice is a death rattle.

.5: The Gray Chapter:

• "XIX" is built on little noises that bookend Corey screaming over an acoustic guitar that ultimately leads to—nothing.
• "Killpop", by way of not being your usual Slipknot heaviness and instead focusing on scratchy up-beats and lyrics that taste of Gothic Metal. NOW DIE AND FUCKING LOVE ME.
• "Be Prepared for Hell". You're just waiting for something other than that Drone of Dread, but then again, Nothing Is Scarier...

We Are Not Your Kind:

• "My Pain" features intense build-ups, distorted, glitchy electronic sounds, and eerie strained vocals supplied by Corey. I've always. Felt this way. For you.

Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat./Other:

• "Killers Are Quiet". Anders' voice is so low, he almost blends into a creepy atmosphere that would eventually lay the foundation for Iowa.

Music Videos

• The Deranged Animation version of "Wait and Bleed".
• The child soaking Cheerios in what looks like muddy water in "Left Behind". And eating it.
• "Vermilion Pt. 2" has the girl from the first Vermilion video being moved around and lifted up by the wind without even a reaction. It only takes some time to realize she's already a corpse.
• When they said 'bitter bucolic' in "Pulse of the Maggots" they weren't wrong. Even something as Narmy as "Psychosocial" manages to make your typical abandoned shack look creepy.
  • Also, what's with those giant heads?!
• The sequences with Sid, Craig, and Paul in "Dead Memories".
  • And the sequence with Chris. The dark room lit by nothing but candles, the random crazy graffiti on the wall, and that glare he gives Corey as he blows out the last candle...
• "The Negative One" (WARNING: NSFW) is pure witchcraft.
• Everything about "The Devil in I". The mummies all around the performing band, the red sheet ghosts, Jay and V-Man getting repeatedly stabbed, and the rest of the band, in their All Hope Is Gone getup, Driven to Suicide in the most graphic ways possible.
  • Sid gnaws apart his arms and hands.
  • Chris lets himself get pecked to death by multiple birds.
  • Jim blows himself up by stuffing a stick of dynamite attached to a plunger box into his suit and pushing the plunger down.
  • Craig gets mauled by a dog.
  • Shawn sets himself on fire and then hangs himself.
  • Mick rips his face off to the point where his skull is exposed.
  • And Corey blows his own head up.
• "Killpop" isn't so much nightmarish as it can be considered artsy, but that ending...
• Fun fact: the masks and outfits of the crowd in "All Out Life" are based on the pocong,◊ an Indonesian/Malaysian ghost wrapped in white burial shrouds. Happy Halloween.
• The woman at the beginning of "Unsainted", whose expression transitions in slow motion from blank stare to pure rage, right in front of the camera. Dear God.

Miscellaneous

• The mere fact that they dress as Malevolent Masked Men should count. Also, some of the masks themselves, including all of Shawn's.
• In early gigs, Shawn used to keep a dead crow in a bottle and would sniff it just to puke all over his mask.

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