Nightmare Fuel / The Moomins

Nope!

"You've got your tentacles all over the place.

It's just a bad dream, since we weren't awake.

Counting up you'll leave just to scratch your face.

Time to run, time to make an escape."

— Colonel Suns (Back to the Cave | Episode 2 Insert Song)

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• The Groke was this to any child who ever watched the show. Especially in Finland, Poland, France and Japan, where she has the most terrifying voices. Also, making her mute in the English dub is creepy, too. It was greatly helped by the build-up and suspense in her introduction episode, along with the horrifying music that played throughout her scenes.
  • In her first episode, Sniff is tired of waiting for the Groke and certain that Thingumy and Bob made her up to scare him, so he decides to go back home. Just as he walks past the door, he turns back and she's there (see the page image).
  • Also the screen is darker than in the Japanese version so only her eyes and teeth are visible.
  • This◊ Moomin's Nightmare Sequence scene in her second episode is even more scary - he tries to run away from her, but is too slow and gets caught.
  • Shortly after her initial departure, the Moomins and Snufkin hear her voice on the wind, screaming "I'LL BE BACK! I'LL BE BACK!" The delivery of the line, depending on the dub, is slightly silly, but even then the threat of this...thing returning after the Moomins just got rid of her is pretty disturbing. That said, it later turns out that she's not all bad.
  • The Groke was so horrifying in fact, that in Poland it caused a nation-wide fear in almost all children, some of which were even left traumatised for years, leading to some parents forbidding their children from watching Moomins, and some using the Groke as a Bogeyman to scare their children into good behavior. Any 90s or 2000s Polish kid will know how it felt.
  • In Finland singer Benny Törnroos ,who is a known Moomin music singer, had a song called "The Groke growls" which pretty much summarises how scary she is.
    Therefore in the Moomin Valley,
    everyone is scared.
    If the Groke happened to
    come at night.
• The Lady of the Cold, with her creepy singing and ability to freeze people where they stand. It bears to mention that even the Groke is afraid of her. And when she freezes Little My, you can briefly see her smiling. While her singing voice is obviously beautiful, it has somewhat of a haunting tone.
  • She's worse in the book. Anyone frozen by her dies instantly, they can't just be thawed up again like in the anime. In the anime she is an actively malevolent force who intentionally freezes people. In the book she is a True Neutral force that just happens to freeze everyone she meets. She does not seem to give a second thought to the people who get frozen to death when they come into contact with her. That's right, she is a straight up Lovecraftian horror.
• That pink/purple abomination Moomin turns into when he's transformed by the Hobgoblin's hat in the first episode. The fact that Moomin's voice is intact after he transforms makes it all the more unsettling and heartbreaking to look at AND listen to.
• "The Big Explosion" lives up to its name when Muffle tries to show Snork that his super-fuel can power his flying ship. Since the first test produced no results and he got kicked out of Snork's lab, Muffle decides to prove that his fuel really does work by sneaking in at night with Stinky and putting the fuel in without Snork knowing about it. The fuel ended up being so strong that it actually melted the engine before blowing up the ship. This episode was banned in Sweden due the intensity of the scene.
  Muffle: What sheer power! I don't think the engine is strong enough, I'm very much afraid it's exploding!
• "The Kite" has a few intense scenes when Little My decided to take a ride with the kite; first the knot on streams that hold the kite and reel together snaps off because of the harsh wind which results My to be blown away. Secondly when she is on the kite it slowly starts to break down and she then falls off. Luckily the Hobgoblin was there to save her, but it was a really close call.
• Snork's first encounter with the Witch in the episode "The Witch". Again, there is creepy music in the background and she just comes out of nowhere.
  Snork: Huh? I don't believe this! Am I hallucinating...?
• The evil Imp in his lone appearance in the 90s anime. Moomin and his friends find him imprisoned inside a tree and he tricks them into releasing him from it by pretending he is nice and promising to give them all presents if they let him out. At several points his mask accidentally slips but he still manages to convince them all that he is good (except for Moomin, who remains suspicious). Once free, the surrounding landscape darkens and the Imp reveals himself as a giant demon-like creature that towers over the main characters and threatens to turn them into evil imps themselves, and even freezes their feet in place with magic so they can't escape from him. On top of that, the Imp speaks with a very sinister, deep, booming voice, and while he sounds appropriately evil after he is freed, he also sounds very chilling when he initially pretends to be nice to Moomin and his friends. It's only thanks to Snufkin outsmarting and defeating the Imp that everyone is saved. This episode was actually banned in Finland, Norway and Sweden and it's no wonder why.
• When young Moominpappa escapes from the orphanage, he walks through a dark forest. Suddenly, everything in the forest starts to attack him and hills morph into vicious Grokes. They were only Moominpappa's imagination, but still scary as heck. The one giant Groke that "eats" Moominpappa is the most disturbing.
• In the episode "Sand Sculptures" Little My makes a Groke sculpture. Later she goes to protect it from getting ruined from harsh rain and soon there is a thunder storm. Lightning strikes at the tree and soon the whole area is on fire and Little My is trapped. She hits her head on tree and she just sadly mutters that her sculpture is ruined and faints. Then the real Groke comes to save her and puts the fire out.
  • The real Groke is behind the trees when the lightning strikes for the first time.
• The Hattifatteners are also creepy. They always travel in large groups and don't seem dangerous at first; however they are terryfying when they get angry and when they electrify themselves, which makes them dangerous to get close.
• Some of Sumio Shiratori's music scores for the 90s anime were really disturbing. This one (Groke's/Mårran's theme) is probably the scariest, especially in the parts where you can hear (synthesized) choirs.
• The second part of Comet in Moominvalley is pretty disturbing, especially at the end when everyone seeks shelter and quietly awaits the coming doom. Fortunately, the comet never strikes Earth.
• The Dangerous Journey. The world Susanna goes through and maybe created is outright terrifying, both in the stylistically creative imagery and in the story itself. The imagery is beautiful, but incredibly unsettling, with red skies, creepy as hell owl-things, a dried out ocean, and a black sun. The story isn't much better, with the journeymen coming close to an active volcano and going straight past the Groke herself. Crowning moment of creepy, however, has to be when they leave Snufkin and Wimsy. Something is chasing them, and they just make it out on Too-Ticky's balloon, and you know what's worse? We never see what was chasing them.
• Moominpappa at Sea is a pretty spooky novel, but the animated series (episodes 25 & 26) tones down or removes most of the creepy elements, like the Groke, who in particular becomes really, REALLY scary. But the animated show adds the ghosts and their ship with headless figurehead maid. There is one chilling scene where a ghost walks on Moomin, with only the feet visible. The scene is already creepy in itself but becomes horrific in the Swedish dub due to Michel Budsko's and Sixten Lundberg's performances as Snufkin and Moomin. The utter confusion Budsko conveys in combination with Lundberg's panicked performance sells it as a scene out of a horror film.
• The giant kappa that chases Snufkin in Moomin's dream in "Hurry Up, Snufkin". Doesn't help that the backgroung music is like a disturbed version of Snufkin's harmonica.
• "The Invisible Child" when Stinky pushes Ninny into tiny cave and seals it with rocks to scare her thus making her invisible again.
• The 1969 live action Swedish-language suit actor TV series Mumintrollet involves removing the heads of the Moomins, this was reported to scare many small children in Sweden. The episodes can be found here

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