WARNING: Spoilers are unmarked.
- The Elemental based on Molten Man looks pretty horrific. He has a notably skull-like
◊ face and can melt down to human-looking bones.- Molten Man is easily the most dangerous of the Elementals. It's stated that if he melts himself into Earth's core or consumes enough matter on the surface, he could blanket the planet in a scorching second crust. Beck implied that it was Molten Man that destroyed his Earth and it's a pretty terrifying concept, even if the story is later revealed to be a lie.
- In the film proper, we see just how dangerous and deadly Mysterio can be when Peter faces off against him after learning who he really is. A true Master of Illusion, not only can Mysterio alter his appearance, he can also alter the perception of your surroundings. For example, Peter webs an illusion of him and yanks down on the web, only to see a giant metal beam about to fall directly on him. It's then you realize that it's a fight for Peter's life. The whole scene feels like a Scarecrow sequence from Batman: Arkham Asylum. One mistake and it's all over.
- Peter sees what looks to be a confused MJ on top of the Eiffel Tower, as if it were their dream date gone horribly wrong. He is incredulous at first, but Mysterio appears to grab "MJ" by the neck and drop her off, making him think for a moment that that was the real MJ falling from a high place.
- Even worse is when Peter briefly endures the illusion of a ghostly undead Tony Stark bursting out of his grave and coming directly for him, complete with a very nice close-up of his decaying armor, in which you can see his corpse as spiders pour from his empty skeletal eye socket which the usage of spiders in this depiction of Tony doubles as Mysterio's own mockery of Spider-Man's namesake. Mysterio can literally make your worst fear materialize right in front of you.
- For bonus points, the spiders are black widows, which one could interpret as Mysterio also rubbing Black Widow's death in Spider-Man's face in addition to Iron Man's and mocking her namesake with the spiders she's named after festering all over Tony's corpse.
- The camera zooms into one of the aforementioned spiders, giving us a nice close-up of its eight eyes, which turn into a marching army of Mysterios.
- It could have been worse. Some pieces of concept art for the film show Spider-Man battling an army of undead Iron Men.
- There's something vaguely disturbing in the way Peter's head moves just before he reaches out to touch his reflection.
- To say nothing of the end of the fight, in which Mysterio, disguised as Nick Fury, tricks Peter into revealing who knows about his alter ego: Ned and MJ. Revealing himself, Mysterio makes it clear he's going to kill them just to spite Peter. Before Peter can do anything about it, he realizes too late that Mysterio led him right into the path of a speeding train that hits him full force. Understandably, Peter spends the last portion of the film banged up quite a bit from that. If it weren't for his superhuman attributes, that train wouldn't have just killed Peter, it would've made mincemeat out of him. The fact that Peter is (biologically) still a teenager does not help at all.
- Even The Reveal of Mysterio's true nature as a bad guy is actually surprisingly chilling, because even if you were presuming it was all a scam, he's legitimately convincing as an actor enough to make you start to wonder if maybe Marvel Studios gave us a double fake-out. He's that good at deceiving people that you actually start to feel a little deceived yourself.
- The fact that Mysterio's entire simulated series of events were so real. He manipulated, pushed around and gaslit a teenager into giving up everything of his legacy from Tony with an absolutely life-like set of holograms and situations no one even considered to be fake for a single second, because he and his entire team are so skilled at scripting and setting up the effects with the hologram technology that the entire world bought it, never mind all the people actually put into physical danger at each of the so-called "elemental" sightings. And Peter's part was an Indy Ploy; Mysterio had to improvise all of that because he had no idea who would get involved with his get-famous strategy. The moment Peter walks out of that bar and you see everything start to glitch out before fading bit by bit as the Smug Snake sits at the epicenter in victory, the sheer creepiness of how extensively exploitative the entire series of events were can run a chill down your spine.
- Worse is The Reveal of Mysterio's motivation: He's the scientist who invented the holographic tech that Tony introduced in Captain America: Civil War as "BARF", which he reveals Tony basically appropriated, rebranded in that insulting manner, and then fired him for protesting (albeit we see Tony was quite right to call him unstable). And he's gathered other dissident scientists from across the film series (including the random technician from the famous "IN A CAVE, WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!" scene), all of whom are sick of being ignored for their brains and want to make people listen for a change. Fridge Horror kicks in when you realize that this group, for all intents and purposes, escapes after Mysterio is killed.
- A guy like Mysterio could leave you paranoid for the rest of your life. You start to wonder to yourself if he really is dead. How do you know if you are back home with your aunt? You will no longer feel safe around your friends and family since they can be imposters. The scariest thing about Mind Screw movies is you don't know what's real and what's not.Mysterio: I control the truth. Mysterio is the truth!
- Beck marks a departure from previous MCU villains in that he is a psychological threat, not a physical one. But all that means is that unlike Loki, Ultron, or Thanos, he doesn't just want to hurt and or kill Peter; he wants to break his mind to the point where he has no idea what is real and what is an illusion. Not only that, even when his defeat and death are near certainties, he still wants to completely discredit Peter to the public, ruin his reputation, make the people Peter is trying to save turn against him, and shatter his private life by revealing his identity to the public. And why? Revenge? For the Evulz? Spite for Tony Stark? To ensure his own reputation will be preserved at Peter's expense? The kind of fear that Mysterio inspires is far more intimate, personal, and real than an alien conqueror who can punch with the force of a thousand suns.
- Making things even worse is the fact that Mysterio runs on pure Ripped from the Headlines. He uses edited video footage to discredit Peter in a time when celebrities' images and words are being manipulated and their reputations damaged by deep-faked videos that are often incredibly realistic and difficult to tell apart from unedited footage. He uses the sensationalist press as a weapon to hurt Peter at a time when trust in public institutions, including the news media, is depressingly low and sometimes for good reason. This film's take on Mysterio is simply a reflection of the terrifying fact that, in the real world, "the truth" often belongs to whoever can manufacture the best story and tell it in the most compelling way.
- Also, in the final fight, Mysterio almost shoots Peter in the head. Thank God for Peter's Spider-Sense kicking in before it was too late.
- Mysterio sends doctored footage to The Daily Bugle.Net made to look like Peter killed him on purpose and he was using the drones. J. Jonah Jameson uses the footage to out a (biologically) 16-year-old as Spider-Man while hailing a murderous fraud as the greatest superhero of all time. Let's hope the public of the MCU can see through how suspicious the doctored footage looks.
- Regardless of whether or not they buy that Peter killed Beck (realistically, some will buy it while others won't), Fridge Horror kicks in when you realize that Peter's life as a high school student is done for. Potential bad guys can dig up information on Peter and put his friends and loved ones in life-threatening danger. All of this because of a madman's final act of pure spite. And this is proven to be Ascended Fridge Horror at the beginning of Spider-Man: No Way Home; Peter, MJ and Ned's lives are thrown into absolute chaos thanks to Mysterio's last act of spite.
- The threat of bad guys looking up Peter Parker also extends to Mac Gargan from the previous film. Mysterio exposing Peter's identity to the world makes Adrian Toomes' actions to protect that identity all for nothing. Even worse for Toomes, Gargan may come after him or even his family out of revenge for lying to him.
- In the scene where Beck's crew is preparing the London attack, it only takes becoming slightly frustrated to cause Beck to flip out and train the guns of his drones on everyone in the room.
- Mysterio's entourage is not made of other supervillains or individuals with some kind of arcane powers, but ordinary, unassuming people. People that are perfectly willing to cause chaos and deaths on a global scale for what are ultimately petty reasons. And since, unlike more colorful villains, They Look Just Like Everyone Else!, it will be much harder to track them down. That's exactly what makes them so unsettling.
- The student news footage of people dusting away during a pep rally is pretty unsettling, even if it is Played for Laughs. Just imagine watching your friend perform in a marching band only to turn to ash along with the people around you. The horrified screams of the students certainly don't help the situation.
- The footage of the dusted people coming back isn't much better. Imagine being one of the students who was watching or participating in the game and suddenly noticing that the entire crowd now consists of entirely different people than you were just with. And the crowd suddenly seeing random people pop up out of nowhere for that matter.
- In a High Boi video explaining this film, he guesses anyone who got Snapped on a plane "rematerialized in the air and fell to their death".
- As is the case with Peter and the Barton children's dustings, seeing helpless, innocent teenagers die off one by one in such a manner is downright chilling.
- The footage of the dusted people coming back isn't much better. Imagine being one of the students who was watching or participating in the game and suddenly noticing that the entire crowd now consists of entirely different people than you were just with. And the crowd suddenly seeing random people pop up out of nowhere for that matter.
- The movie completely drops the Acceptable Breaks from Reality regarding Spider-Man carrying someone while swinging, showing just how terrifying it would actually be to have to cling for your life to someone going at tremendous speed high above the ground.
- Minor one but when Mr. Harrington leads the class off the tour bus, it gets struck by lightning literally just seconds after everybody has got off it.
