Even though it’s mostly Played for Laughs, the Hero (along with two Masked Kids) getting killed suddenly by a chandelier can be quite jarring, especially when his blood starts dripping onto the floor.
The playable Masked Kid’s situation at the beginning. Imagine if you were unlucky enough to get assigned to be one of the last enemies to be killed by the Hero on his way to the final boss. T. Bur sums it up pretty well later on: they didn't have much of a choice if they wanted to live.
Even worse, Word of God confirmed that none of the Masked Kids live long enough to become adults, which means that even though Mr. Stitches generally keeps them in the castle, they all get killed by the Hero sooner or later.
Mr. Stitches seems humorous at first, having been passing his time with the Princess by playing hide and seek with her, and he even lets her go after Frankie tells him that the Masked Kid killed the Hero. But then when he gets Frankie to clarify that no one else witnessed what happened, he picks her up by the neck and shakes her while she yells in pain. Then the screen fades to black, and when it fades back in, she’s not there anymore.
One of those points mentioned above is in the roots of the Moth Queen’s Tree, which is rather dark, and the music is a creepier version of the tree’s usual theme.
After defeating Alexandria II, if you go past the portal and to the end of the room, you’ll find a portrait of Mr. Stitches looking right at you from the darkness that looks rather sinister.
Even though the ghosts in the Long Woods are quite funny, you’ll hear a strange whispering sound in areas where there are ghost enemies. It makes certain dark rooms where Bella’s flame is slowly depleted even scarier, especially since said darkness has what appears to be skull faces in it. And if the flame runs out while you’re in the Dark Maze, you’ll be treated to a scene where several ghosts suddenly appear to take you back to the start.
The Dark Maze also has another portrait of Stitches, and one of Baron van Gregory’s journal entries agree that it looks unsettling and wonder if it was sent to him to intimidate him.
The Zompos, zombie-like creatures that come up out of the ground and will occasionally try to trick you during battles with them, as well as making disturbing biting sounds. You’re given no warning for when you’re about to encounter them so you can’t avoid them, you can’t talk to them, and unlike the majority of the other enemies in the game, there’s no explanation for where they came from.
Although it’s mostly humorous, the scene where the Masked Kid, Elizabeth, Bella and Handy arrive in Greg’s secret room and don’t notice that he’s right next to them is scary to think about from their perspective. Especially since he’s been undead for so long that he looks almost nothing like all the pictures of him in the Manor.
Stitches’ second theatre speech has him say that there’s a traitor mook going around killing others. The ones you can talk to in the castle after this are rightfully scared, and while some suspect it’s the Grey Kid, in the end it turns out it really is the player character.
There’s also the mention of minions going missing in Pica Pica Island, being captured by the villagers. It’s bad enough for the Masked Kid to get taken as soon as they arrive. And then it turns out that they have to fight each other to the death.
The volcano starting to erupt while you’re in the deepest part of it. The shaking of the screen and the sped-up background music as you escape creates an appropriate sense of panic. Not helped by the fact that one of the villagers is too scared to use the elevator, and if you choose to help him escape the long way, Masked Kid even writes in their journal that they don’t want to think about what would have happened if they didn’t save him.
The Factory. Whenever you enter a room, the view of a video camera is briefly shown to give you the feeling you’re being watched, and that you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be. Aside from battle encounters, the music is unusually calm and if you think it sounds familiar, that’s because it uses the same key and progression as the Stitched Castle theme, turning what was originally a relaxing tune into something more eerie.
Some of T. Bur’s logs, specifically the ones that have the passwords you need, talk about how he thought he could hear Mr. Stitches talking to someone who wasn’t there, who was possibly causing the overlord to act the way he does, but he couldn’t prove anything after a failed attempt to record it. And the passwords spell out “Interloper in his mind” backwards...
During the World 2 stage of Heroes Road, you once again have to travel through a dark room, but this time you don’t find a blue flame until you reach the end of it, so you have to run through the darkness and you might notice the shadow of a Masked Kid following you, but never catching up. Once you’ve found the flame, you’ll then have to fight three Masked Kids in succession on the way back who don’t say anything at all and can’t be bribed or avoided, and instead of the usual music playing, there's what almost sounds like a rumbling noise that seems to build up to something but never does, which makes it creepier.
It’s also implied (and confirmed in the artbook) that the enemies they fought in there weren’t even real, it was just Stitches messing with the player character's mind. The door also disappears, bringing up the question of whether the hallway was even real at all or not, and if it wasn't, then how were they able to get Bella some blue fire?
Elizabeth: Well, that was anticlimactic… Masked Kid: ? Bella: S-seriously, it was just a straight hallway with nothing in it. Masked Kid: !? Elizabeth: I appreciate the time to rest, at least.
The entirety of the second stage of the fight against Stitches. It starts with him appearing to throw up something black which causes his body to collapse into a pile, but it turns out he was really jumping out of his skin (although it’s actually just a costume), and he looks much less humorous as a black creature with red eyes.
Mr. Stitches: Now, you hide... And I seek...
The sequence after that involves you having to sneak around the darkened room, while Stitches can be seen looking around in the background, occasionally making red light appear that you must avoid getting caught in. If you do get caught, there will be sudden flashes of frightening images, some of which are of Stitches making scary faces (and one of him in a bikini), but one of them is of the Masked Kid’s mask breaking while their limbs appear to turn into twigs, and another is of them getting impaled through the head by Elizabeth. And originally, one of the jump scares also included an image of Mr. Stitches tearing off their head and putting it on one of his horns.
Another one of the images is of Stitches with two circles behind him, which may seem odd until you realise they look just like Puzzleman’s eyes...
After seeing Puzzleman act so cheerful in his previous appearances (if a bit snarky), it can be jarring to see him angry at the fact that his script is no longer being followed.
The way Puzzleman forces Masked Kid and Elizabeth into his dimension. The game seems to freeze, and lots of glitching effects with harsh sounds happen as they repeatedly spin around while the background and the other characters in it somehow become a flat surface to them. You’d be forgiven for thinking your game really was glitching at that point.
Right before his boss fight, Puzzleman says something that implies what he told Stitches about the world ending if the Hero Cycle wasn’t continued may have been less of a lie and more of a threat:
Does his One-Winged Angel form look familiar? That’s because he looks a lot like the computer robots in the Factory. Assuming that T. Bur designed them, how do we know that Puzzleman didn’t influence him more subtly than he did with Stitches, without him realising? Or anyone else?
