Nightmare Fuel / Zootopia

Face to face with a predator gone savage.

WARNING: Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies to Nightmare Fuel pages. All spoilers are unmarked.

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• The animals who have gone "savage" attack other animals mindlessly, which is pretty scary, especially since it invokes Alone with the Psycho in most cases.
  • When the savage predators are made public, it's done without any explanation of what is causing it, leaving the prey population of Zootopia with the fear of any predator going savage at random and the predators dealing with the fear that they could lose control of themselves at any moment.
  • The actual cause is just as frightening: the Night Howler, a harmless-looking insect repellent flower happens to contain a toxin that has turns any mammal exposed to it savage. Even a bunny was turned savagely aggressive such that he bit his own sister.
• The entire scene with Manchas the black jaguar has many:
  • A flashback to what happened, complete with a Jump Scare. Doubly worse considering that it happened when he was driving; There's a very real chance that both he and his passenger could have been killed in a car crash.
    • On the subject of that flashback, we get to see it from Mr. Otterton's (the passenger's) point of view later on. He's hinted to know about the night howlers, being a florist, and was on his way to tell Mr. Big about the whole thing when he got sniped by Doug the ram. Before he turns, you can see the realization that he's going savage hit him like the serum bullet. And according to Manchas, he kept going on about the night howlers, meaning he was trying to warn him. It's bad enough to suddenly lose yourself, but knowing it's happening and being unable to do anything about it is an even scarier thought.
  • As soon as he removes himself from the door and letting Judy and Nick enter, they immediately see him groaning in pain on the floor. When they try to check on him...
  • The chase ending with the feral Manchas lunging towards a defenseless Nick until Judy manages to cuff his hind leg to a railing before he could kill Nick.
  • Clawhauser's reaction when he hears Judy frantically calling for backup. Before, he was not paying attention to her call, preoccupied with showing off an app on his phone for more than twenty seconds. Given how much of a Nice Guy Clawhauser is, he realizes that by not answering the call he could have gotten Judy killed.
• Pictured above, a feral tiger startles Nick by attacking the glass door in the hidden clinic with the rest of the feral Zootopians.
• While Mayor Lionheart has good intentions, his scheme of forcibly imprisoning the feral animals and hiding them from everyone is quite nightmarish. No one knows where the animals are, he sends the police on a Wild Goose Chase, and they are nowhere close to finding a cure or treatment. It doesn't help when he's recorded telling the Honey Badger Doctor that if the public learns only predators are going savage it would ruin his career, which makes it appear that he's just a power-hungry politician.
  Mayor Lionheart: Hmm. Great idea. Tell the public. And how do you think they're gonna feel about their mayor WHO IS A LION?! I'LL BE RUINED!
• Mr. Big's punishment of "icing" is throwing Nick and Judy into an icy river in Tundratown.
  • When Mr. Big sentences the protagonists to be "iced", Nick starts begging and trying to bargain with him as a stunned Judy is silently wondering what that means... then one of the polar bears picks her up by the scruff, with another doing the same to Nick as he keeps begging.
  • The fact that Nick, who otherwise always acts laid-back, snarky and confident, is groveling and begging for his life shows that Mr. Big is really dangerous.
• The Reveal that Assistant Mayor Bellwether is behind everything, trying to put prey animals on top, and she infects Nick, who then stalks Judy. On top of that she calls the police so that they'll arrive just in time to see their top officer killed. That's darn creepy. Mitigated by the fact that Nick is just pretending to be infected, and he and Judy soon turn the tables on Bellwether.
  • The exchange immediately prior is pretty damn chilling too.
    Judy: What are you going to do? Kill me?
    Bellwether: Oh ho ho ho, no, of course not. (aims dart gun at Nick with a Slasher Smile) He is!
  • The moment Nick gets his fangs around Judy's neck and she lets out a piercing, feral-rabbit DEATH SHRIEK! (Even though it was fake) Real rabbits actually do scream when they're terrified, and it's a blood-curdling noise they captured a bit too well.
  • Twice we are treated to a close-up of savage Nick's face as he emerges from the bushes, teeth bared, lower jaw twitching, intense growling and eyes wild, just before he lunges at Judy (thankfully he was only faking it).
  • The way Bellwether sounds while saying "Come on out, Judy..." at the beginning of The Reveal is intensely creepy. It has a shaky, trembling psycho quality that is truly quite unsettling. It carries on to most of her Motive Rant: "Aren't you sick of it?" Major props to Jenny Slate for that read!
    • While hunting for Judy, Bellwether thinks she sees the rabbit's shadow on the wall. Her response is to silently send her goon after it, and then resume her gentle coaxing, trying to lure Judy into a false sense of security without clueing her in that Bellwether's spotted her. All things considered, a pretty underhanded and cruel tactic.
  • Also considering Judy can't run from Savage!Nick due to her leg injury a few minutes prior, rendering her pretty much helpless.
    • Not to mention how when Nick “bites” Judy, Bellwether simply watches on with a smug look across her face, not even flinching to what she assumed to be a flat-out murder happening before her, truly showing how little she actually cared for Judy.
  • Just the mere fact that Bellwether is the one responsible for it all. After initially being painted as a unappreciated but well-meaning secretary, she is revealed as a slightly-unhinged Knight Templar with an implied deep resentment for predators.
• Nick's backstory involves his younger self trying to join the Junior Ranger Scouts composed of only prey animals, only to get nastily bullied by his fellow scouts who put a muzzle on him, and taunt him as he runs out the door into the streets. It hits close to home to anyone who's been viciously bullied in the past, epecially because of their race. It's shown that Nick still carries unpleasant memories of the event as seeing pictures of the savage predators in muzzles triggers a Flashback Cut to that night.
• The eyes of Doug, his fellow lab mates, and the corrupt ZPD officers who help Bellwether are all realistically modeled, complete with horizontal, rectangular pupils.
• In the beginning, where young Judy gets her face scratched by Gideon, especially the way she screamed when she got cut by him. Also, while she doesn't seem to be bleeding too much, the cuts still look kind of deep. It's not a terrible injury, but it's still a pretty shocking moment for so early in the film.
• The "Are you afraid of me?" scene where Nick gets angry at Judy for what she said about predators and asked her if she's afraid of him. Judy is clearly afraid of Nick because of the faces he makes, and when he raises his claw at her, she was likely having a flashback about the day Gideon and Travis bullied her and Gideon clawed her face! She was afraid that Nick might do the same. Fortunately, Nick doesn't attack her, but because of how angry and hurt Nick looks, he almost looked like he would have! Being scratched by Gideon must've scared Judy so badly that she needed fox spray for protection, and may have developed a fear of angry predators and claws.
  • Nick's angry face in that scene is also scary; his earlier angry faces were fairly comical, but in this scene, he's got angry wide eyes and razor-sharp teeth that could send chills down anyone's spine.
  • Judy twitching her nose when Nick asks if she's afraid of him is a clear reference to the scene with Gideon Grey.
• Fru Fru nearly being crushed by the donut is an understated moment that shows how dangerous it is for animals of an entirely different scale to even be near each other in uncontrollable situations.
• And as if this wasn't enough, the original ideas about the movie were much grimmer and more horrifying:
  • One of the deleted scenes- an alternative opening with a class at a museum- seems humorous and informative until the last cuts, where the children's blank eyes may be unnerving for some.
  • Most of the sketchy, unfinished deleted scenes have predators wearing shock collars, even the children. Which implies that the collars are put on five-year-olds before they're allowed to start school.
  • In one part of the Tame Collar story, Nick is accused by rookie cop Judy Hopps of obstructing traffic, even though he didn't cause the accident, the truck hit him. Once she leaves, the driver of the truck and a bunch of pedestrians gather around Nick and start beating him, causing him to have to go to the vet.
  • There's also Mayor Swinton's plan. Similar to the final film, after Judy and Nick separate after an argument, predators are feared by prey. But in this version, prey start targeting predators for fun. With everyone more afraid of predators, Swinton was going to exile all predators from Zootopia. And just to remind you of how cruel she is, she even states that hurting predators is alright since it helps prey stay in power.
  • The deleted scene of the "taming party" is nothing but this, on top of being a Tear Jerker. The implication is that predators are shocked when their emotions run high, but it turns out it's not just aggression or anger. The polar bear father is nearly shocked when he hesitates to put a collar on his son, and then the cub is shocked as he laughs and dances around as balloons fall over him. Any extreme emotion such as sadness or joy will trigger the collar basically forcing predators to suppress their emotions as much as possible, for fear of punishment.

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