Nightmare Fuel / The Land Before Time

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

The first movie

Today your mother... Tomorrow you.

• The state of the world in general is apocalyptic: the skies are red or dreary yellow, most of the plants are dark and thorny and inedible, the herbivores are on the verge of starvation, predators are everywhere, and at any moment the earth might get torn asunder by a massive earthquake that could separate you from your loved ones, if not kill you outright.
• The tar pits. Seeing all the innocent, rather young protagonists getting submerged in black gunk and nearly losing their lives is not a fun thing to watch at the age of 6 or in your adulthood. The 'tar monster' that the characters form to scare the Domeheads attacking Cera (and right after, Cera herself) is also pretty morbid in appearance.
  • Good lord, the SOUNDS it makes! No wonder the Domeheads ran for their lives.
  • There are at least two skeletons lying in the tar pits when Cera and Petrie go around them. The protagonists were lucky to somehow get out, but other dinosaurs making the same journey weren't.
• The Sharptooth. A Nigh-Invulnerable, perpetually furious, red-eyed demon of a Tyrannosaurus rex who brutally kills Littlefoot's mother and pursues Littlefoot and his friends with the singular intention of killing and eating them. One of the most terrifying villains to ever originate from family media, and still one of the animal's scariest depictions to this day.
  • The fight scene between Littlefoot's mother and Sharptooth, which leads to her death. They were originally planning on showing the scene where Sharptooth takes a bite out of Littlefoot's mother's back in full color instead of in shadow.
    • Reportedly, Don Bluth ordered the footage to be burned after seeing it. However, there is an urban legend that a handful of VHS copies include the scene.
  • The Sharptooth himself is this trope. Imagine a large, extremely vicious T. rex that simply does not give up until he kills his target, no matter how many times said target escapes. Not to mention the fact that the main characters are in constant fear of him and have to always watch their backs. The scene where the beast ambushes them while they were asleep shows that he can attack anywhere.
  • He's even worse in the novel. In the movie, he's mostly portrayed as an instinctive force of nature bordering on Super-Persistent Predator, but in the novel he's more akin to a narcissistic serial killer who fancies himself above other dinosaurs. He's hunting the children for petty revenge (Littlefoot and Cera in particular, as the former blinded him in one eye with a thorn and the latter used him as a headbutting practice target while he was knocked out)^note  While these scenes are still in the movie, the novel expands upon how the Sharptooth reacts to these events, and during his hunt, he toys with them just to enjoy watching them tremble in horror before he'll kill them. And when he finds the entrance to the Great Valley, the novel says that he growled and sniffed the air "in evil joy", which would hint that he likely kills other dinosaurs for fun, and the next thing he plans to do after he kills the children would be going around doing a killing spree in the Great Valley...
  • And guess what? It could have been worse. It's been stated that many scenes featuring the Sharptooth were cut because the producers feared that they might actually cause psychological damage to children. So, scary as the Sharptooth is in this film, what we get are the least frightening scenes they made with him that the creators said were basically Lighter and Softer in comparison to the deleted scenes! Whatever the hell was in the 11 minutes that were edited out is freaky in and of itself.
    • Some of it has been shown, albeit in storyboard or script form. It shows things such as several near misses and more than one Jump Scare (one of which seems to be inspired by the "Here's Johnny!" scene in The Shining). The deleted scene for the intro has Littlefoot and Cera climbing up and hiding in the hollow tree trunk and the Sharptooth ripping it apart with his claws and jaws to flush them out. It also shows him toying with them before Littlefoot's mother arrived; when they emerged from the thorns it was between his legs, he slams his head down in front of them, they run back and he slams his tail down, then he swings his head towards them, jaws gaping and just misses them. He even tries to stomp on them. This likely indicates that the Serial Killer portrayal of him in the novel was originally supposed to be in the movie, which is also evidenced by the artwork for the movie's poster◊ where Sharptooth appears to be smiling wickedly.
  • The scene where Cera stumbles upon his giant unconscious body after the earthshake. At this point, we clearly see Sharptooth take a nasty fall to his supposed death during the quake, and yet, the entire scene thrives on the tension of whether or not he survived. Cera gives a loud scream at his body, and then toys with him by headbutting him, neither one awakening him. Then, as Cera begins to charge at him, all of our suspicions comes true as his eye opens up, RIGHT IN FRONT AND CENTER OF CERA, who is then rightfully terrified.
• Littlefoot and Cera's fight after she insults his mother is pretty brutal. So brutal in fact, that Ducky, Petrie and Spike have to shield their eyes.
• There are several instances where the characters have almost suffered horrific deaths. Keep in mind that vague ages aside, our main protagonists are basically baby dinosaurs that could easily be eaten by any predator just wanting a quick snack. The mere thought of Improbable Infant Survival being averted doesn't bring happy thoughts to the mind...
  • The crowning example of which might be Petrie's near death in the first film. His scream as Sharptooth pulls him down into the pond is downright disturbing.
• The "Earthshake" that happens shortly after Littlefoot's mother fights off the Sharptooth. If you think earthquakes are already scary, just imagine if you experienced one as a child, or mother nature forbid, a baby.
  • It's frightening how even Sharptooth, as big and strong and terrifying as he is, is still in every sense, an animal at the mercy of the earthquake once it gets started.
  • Going further, you can see some dinosaurs running away from the fissure on slabs of rock. Watch the scene again: you can clearly see that some of them don't make it...
• The scene when a newborn Ducky jumps directly into the mouth of a giant snapping turtle. Thankfully, her mother manages to grab her in time, but there's some major fears right there.
  • It does manage to show how courageous and curious Ducky is, though.
• The Domeheads that attack Cera in the tar pits. The fact that they weren't even carnivorous may make it more or less scary.
  • It indeed becomes much scarier if, rather than being an example of Ascended to Carnivorism, one interprets it as them just wanting to kill Cera for the hell of it. The novelization makes it even worse by revealing that they were trying to kill her out of Fantastic Racism.
• The Mountains that Burn. That the whole place is crisscrossed with rivers of lava and full of rabidly erupting volcanoes is bad enough. Petrie falls into a tar pit and nearly drowns, and so do the others when they try to rescue him. The animators clearly did everything they could to give the place a feeling of hostility, whether it's the oppressive ambiance caused by the constant erupting volcanoes, the constant red glare even away from the lava, or the half-melted rock formations that seem to reach out like arms and gaping mouths. It's very quickly made clear why Littlefoot's mother told him to go past it and not through it: the whole damn place wants you dead from the moment you walk in there!

The sequels

• For the second movie, The Great Valley Adventure:
  • There's the Mysterious Beyond scene where the group comes across Chomper's egg. Set during the night, the scene itself is a spooky landscape with nightmarish music, an enormous freaky Sharptooth skeleton, and many dangerous dinosaur roars heard in the background.
  • The "sinking sand" from the same movie. Before we even see the place, Littlefoot's unease about going there unsupervised hints that events are about to turn sour. Sure enough, Cera's Suicidal Overconfidence very nearly gets the group killed, with their families barely arriving in time to save them.
    • The group actually submerge in the quicksand on-screen before being rescued, with Ducky helplessly watching Littlefoot go under before doing so herself with her arm reaching up. Had their elders showed up a moment later, the kids would've drowned.
    • The adult dinosaurs' horrified reactions when they realize what's going on. Their disapproving glares after saving the kids are also rather cringe-worthy, albeit perfectly justified considering what just happened. While Littlefoot is Easily Forgiven after the mishap, it's unknown whether the same can be said for his friends.
  • The opening sequence reminding the young audience what is the threat to all dinosaurs in the Great Valley:

    Narrator: While others, the dreaded Sharpteeth, hunted the fellow dinosaurs. (Sharptooth roars)

  • Ozzy and Strut, the Big Bad Duumvirate of the second movie, are comic relief compared to Sharpteeth, but they can still be intimidating. Ozzy is easily the more menacing of the two, with even Strut scared shitless of him, although Strut himself can be just as nasty when push comes to shove.
  • Ozzy's eyes briefly glowing into the image of dinosaur eggs as he awaits the opportune chance to devour one in the Valley. Worst is that the scene freezes of the image of his face looking like that:

    Ozzy: Egg, dear brother. Eggs! The Valley is full of them. Nice, plump, juicy... Eggs. (Eyes glow in the form of dinosaur eggs, sinister music plays over the background)

  • Strut standing atop a pile of rocks from the landslide wondering where Ozzy is. When he at the pile of rocks beneath his feet, Ozzy's eyes glow red in the dark. Hilarious as the moment is, Ozzy is not happy.
  • The horrifying realization that if Littlefoot and his friends hadn't snuck out at night and spotted the eggnappers, Ozzy and Strut would've gotten away with the theft and would've devoured Ducky's little brother or sister.
    • This particular line from Ozzy is rather chilling. The fact that all we see of him and Strut are two pairs of eyes staring out of a cave doesn't help.
      Ozzy: Those kids have ruined our lunch for the last time.
    • Ozzy and Strut trying to kill Littlefoot—not so they can eat him, but just out of spite—is bad enough, but Ozzy also strangles Chomper when he interferes, and keep in mind, Chomper is less than a day old at the time. Thankfully, this leads to Chomper's parents chasing Ozzy and Strut out of the Great Valley.
  • Chomper's parents are a tad scary when they first appear. One Sharptooth is bad enough; here, the heroes have to face two of them—both of which are T-Rexes like the one in the first movie.
    Cera: (about Ozzy and Strut) If this were a game, I'd never wanna play it again.
    (Chomper's parents show up)
    Petrie: Looks like we still it!
    Littlefoot: RUN!!!
    • Grandpa and Grandma Longneck's horror when they first hear the roars of Chomper's parents in the Great Valley is chilling, since it's them realizing the place everyone spent the entire first movie trying to find because it was supposed to be safe is no longer safe.
    • As a show of the Sharpteeth's power, Chomper's mother takes on Grandpa Longneck and overpowers him. She would've killed him right there if Petrie's mom hadn't drawn her away. It takes a combined assault from all the adult dinosaurs to drive the Sharpteeth off, and even then, they still continue lurking around until Chomper gets them to recognize him.
• The wildfire sequence from The Time of the Great Giving. Michael Tavera's score for the scene sells the characters' terror and panic as raging walls of flame close in on them from all directions. The most intense part is when Cera and her father are trapped by falling trees, with only Grandpa Longneck's timely arrival saving his neighbors from a fiery demise. Meanwhile, Grandma Longneck and the other adults are blinded by smoke, forcing Littlefoot to lead the herd out of the blaze by sound.
• In "Journey Through the Mists" Ducky getting snatched up by Ichy and almost getting eaten by Dil.
  • As comical as they can be, Ichy and Dil are still predators who fully intend to make a meal of our heroes, will go to any length to get at them and come horribly close multiple times. Ichy is also frighteningly pragmatic - when Archie tries to defend Littlefoot from Dil by offering himself up as a bigger meal, Ichy decides to simply eat them both.
• The fifth movie has lots:
  • The Giganotosaurus has one of the most intimidating designs to date, and it tosses around other Sharpteeth. It's also the first character to shed blood onscreen in the entire franchise—something not even the original Sharptooth did.
  • The Swarming Leaf Gobblers. The insects' more realistic design looks highly creepy next to the expressive dinosaurs, and unlike the Sharpteeth of the series, they cannot be outrun, outsmarted, frightened away, or fought off. The Oh, Crap! Grandpa Longneck gives seeing them says it all. They suddenly appear from nowhere without warning, devour everything, and depart, leaving the lush Great Valley a barren wasteland within minutes. It's made even worse by Michael Tavera's unsettling music. Thankfully they only eat plants, but the food crisis they cause brings about possibly the single most desperate moment of the sequel films.
  • The film doesn’t shy away from the harsh situation the characters are stuck in. At one point, the herd stumbles across a hadrosaur skeleton in the middle of the desert, the poor thing having obviously perished from thirst. Ducky’s mother quickly covers her daughter’s eyes to spare her the horrible scene.
  • The tsunami rushing towards the characters as they run for the island.
  • The Swimming Sharptooth. The entire sequence plays like a G-rated version of Jaws (and Michael Tavera's score is even similar to it), starting with cheery music as the kids paddle across the ocean on their log... then introducing the idea things aren't quite as safe as expected with Ducky nearly being eaten by a barracuda, then a Jump Scare when Petrie sees the Swimming Sharptooth while upside-down in the water, then Cera being thrown off with the shark swimming around her, and finally full-on terror as the children desperately race to shore on their ever-shrinking flimsy piece of wood before the predator kills them. The paranoia of the ocean, the helplessness of the children being out of their element, and Michael Tavera's soundtrack make it one of the scariest scenes in the sequels.
• "Secret of Saurus Rock":
  • Breaking Saurus Rock is said to bring bad luck. Ducky guesses that Cera damaging it will initially just affect her... but then the people close to Cera will have bad luck, then the whole Great Valley, then the whole world, then the whole universe. For the next chunk of film this looks to be true, so when the "bad luck" escalates to a tornado ravaging the Great Valley, the children are left to assume even worse will eventually happen. The legend is later said to just be made up (maybe), but the implications of a universe-wide curse triggered by something as simple as breaking a rock is as frightening as it's silly.
  • When Littlefoot is inside the Sharptooth's mouth trying to knock out one of his teeth and he slowly comes to the horrifying realization that the Sharptooth is not dead while he's still in it's mouth.
• Rinkus and Sierra from "Stone of Cold Fire". For villains who appears in a light-hearted direct-to-VHS animated sequel, they're portrayed as disturbingly realistic sociopaths; both low-functioning respective high-functioning. Sierra, being the low-functioning sociopath, is easy to summarize; violent, hateful, sadistic and all too willing to kill a group of small children. Rinkus, meanwhile, starts out seeming like a silly, Dirty Coward (being voiced by Pinky undoubtedly helps in that regard), but then we find out just how nasty he truly is when he plots with Sierra to use Pterano to both their advantage and, in his words, "let him lead [them] to the stone". And when Pterano proves himself to be entirely useless to them, Rinkus drops his loopy, cowardly persona, implying that said persona was fake all along. Therefore, he's revealed as the high-functioning sociopath who is perfectly able to fake emotions and manipulate others to hide a perhaps even more deranged mind, and thou is the much more dangerous one of the two. What makes them stand out is that they're the first real, genuine menacingly villains since perhaps Sharptooth himself to appear with reasons that goes beyond the cliche Predators Are Mean motive, and with evil personalities that would fit in any Darker and Edgier story.
  • Also from "Stone of Cold Fire," a flashback shows that Pterano got into a disagreement with the other dinosaurs searching for the Great Valley during the events of the first film and the herd split into two fractions. Pterano led his to a secluded valley, which they thought for sure was the paradise that they were looking for. And then a pack of hungry Utahraptors shows up. While no blood is shown, the scene is still pretty violent, and we only see a brief glimpse of the massacre (the only onscreen death we do see is an unlucky Parasaurolophus falling off a steep cliff into the gorge below. And while you expect him to utter a pained animalistic screech as he plummets, he instead lets out a human-sounding yell of pure horror and despair.) with Pterano watching the ambush in horror. Pterano was the only survivor, and that's only because he can fly.
• The Swimming Sharptooth in The Journey to Big Water. Its eyes are pure yellow, and its face looks vaguely like a crocodile's skull. The worst part is that it is in the water. You won't be able to see it or hear it until it attacks, and if you're in the water, you are helpless against it.
  • It doesn't help that it's a Expy of the Liopleurodon from BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs, and that it boasts probably the most accurate design of any of the Land Before Time creatures.
• Despite it being the most light hearted film in the series, the opening scene to Wisdom of Friends is surprisingly nerve wracking. Littlefoot tries to cross a tree over a deep ravine to get some tree-stars from it, despite his grandmother's objections that there's plenty of treestars where they're standing. He quickly regrets his foolish decision when the log shakes and he nearly falls before Grandma rescues him. Then the log breaks, and Grandma nearly plummets down the ravine, before she barely manages to catch herself and climb back up to safety.
  • Later that night, Littlefoot has a nightmare of his grandmother plummeting to her death in the canyon.
  • Littlefoot later has the exact same nightmare, only with Loofah, Doofah, and Foobie on the unstable tree. But instead of simply falling off, Loofah and Doofah get so scared that they jump off the tree out of panic.

The TV Series

• As lighthearted as the TV series was, the episode "The Brave Longneck Scheme", there's the fact that Ali's herd were willing to kill Chomper just because he's a Sharptooth, and also because they thought he was being vicious and menacing (when in reality, it was all pretending) based on Rhett's word. Very luckily for the little guy, they learn and accept that he's not their enemy - but it doesn't make the incident any less scary, and the adult Longnecks even use it to teach the children a valuable lesson about how Sharptooth attacks are no laughing matter.
  • It makes the Sharptooth from the first movie even scarier in hindsight - this entire herd was willing to go on a rampage to kill a baby, and yet the original Sharptooth didn't even flinch at the idea of killing one dinosaur after another. He wasn't afraid that they'd gather together in a herd and fight him, he was that powerful (or overconfident) that he feared none of that.

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