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Nightmare Fuel / The Boxtrolls

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Someone's got the Cheese Fits again.

For such a lighthearted film, this movie really has its share of disturbing moments.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.


  • Special mention has to go to Snatcher pretending to be Madame Frou-Frou, and his subsequent performance. The way he is able to rally the crowd into a frenzied bloodlust to "kill those boxtrolls" is very unnerving.
  • Archibald Snatcher in general, once the true extent of his malevolence is revealed, can be a very unsettling villain. Especially since his murder attempts are often portrayed very realistically: he bludgeons a man with a wrench and attempts to strangle a child with a scarf.
    "I've been reasonable. I can be unreasonable!"
  • During the invasion of the boxtroll cave, you can see that Snatcher forgot to remove his Madame Frou-Frou lipstick, making him look like a demented clown.
  • Archibald's horrific state after falling into the brie of cheese after the final battle. While his cheese allergy was grotesque before, his monstrous looking appearance, combined with his swollen eye, stomach, and hands, is downright nauseating to look at. It only highlights the literal monster Snatcher has become at this point.
  • Even if he totally deserves it, Snatcher's death is shockingly graphic for a family film. When he eats one piece of cheese, Snatcher, already swollen up from his cheese allergy, explodes into a shower of Ludicrous Gibs. What makes this shocking is how it comes completely out of nowhere. Not helping is that you can even see his body parts fly everywhere, making it more graphic. While the Distant Reaction Shot might have obscured anything gruesome, this is overall not a good way to go.
    • Worse still is how Winnie recounts the whole ordeal in vivid detail, which includes her gleefully describing how Snatcher's organs splattered all across the room and covered them in gore like a tornado. Nausea Fuel doesn't even cut it.
  • On a similar note, there's also Mr. Gristle getting brutally crushed when Snatcher's Tripod Terror is deactivated.
  • At the point of Madame Frou-Frou's performance, Eggs still believes he is a boxtroll, which makes it even worse. A whole crowd is chanting not only for his family's death, but for his own. They see him as a human boy, but he thinks he is a boxtroll, so his terror is even more poignant.
    • Not to mention, when Eggs tries to protest that none of the story is true, a man suddenly turns to Eggs and gives him a very chilling Death Glare. It is enough for Eggs to cower in fear as he sees it.

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