"I've fought psychotic villains, robot commandos, and giant oozing monsters...but that is the scariest thing I've ever seen."
—Robin
The Titans rent a horror movie, and everyone but Raven enjoys themselves.note Then the monsters of the movie start attacking the tower and picking off the Titans one-by-one.
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: After Beast Boy's Cymbal-Banging Monkey scares the Titans, Cyborg starts joking about it. Even Beast Boy thinks it's amusing until he sees Raven's Death Glare.
- An Aesop: If you bottle up your feelings, they're sure to haunt you, one way or another.
- Bottle Episode: This episode takes place almost entirely in Titans Tower, except for the Action Prologue.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Robin mentions a hot dog documentary that Starfire made them watch. She finds it fascinating that humans eat so many pigs "and insects."
- Brought Down to Normal: Raven. One of the effects of not expressing her fear is having her powers removed.
- Brown Note: This is what the "Wicked Scary" movie ends up doing to Raven, if only due to her experiencing massive Power Incontinence from refusing to admit that she was scared.
- Call-Back:
- The evidence room contains items belonging to past encounters with villains. These include the Puppet King's remote (and the lifeless Puppet King himself), one of Mad Mod's statues, Slade's mask, Overload's chip, Trident's trident, and the chip that Red X stole.
- The swarm of rats that gets Starfire and the pterodactyl that chases Raven have four red eyes, similar to the crows back in Nevermore.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Beast Boy explains (with an exaggerated demonstration) that Wicked Scary is cursed, and watching it opened a portal to another dimension, allowing the monster to enter. Though it's not accurate, he's not entirely wrong, as the monster exists due to Raven watching the movie and not admitting that she is afraid (which, essentially, could be considered a curse). If she never watched the movie, the monster would never have become real.
- Cymbal-Banging Monkey: Unusually, not the creepiest thing in the story. The Titans hear a faint cry of "Help me" from Beast Boy's room. Then when they investigate his closet, the monkey falls on them, happily chirping, "Help me, help me count!" Cyborg starts laughing.
- De-power: See Brought Down to Normal.
- Devoured by the Horde: Is what ends up happening to Starfire when the rats attack.
- Downer Ending: In-Universe, "Wicked Scary" ends with a woman screaming in terror as the monster’s silhouette advances on her.
- Dramatic Drop: When Raven points out that they haven't checked the basement for signs of Robin and Beast Boy, Cyborg drops the couch cushion he's holding.
- Drowning Pit: Perhaps Raven should have taken the stairs...
- Dwindling Party: The Titans are picked off one by one by the monsters.
- Eldritch Abomination: The incarnation of the Wicked Scary monster.
- Eldritch Location: The Titans Tower once the creepy stuff starts happening.
- Empathic Environment: Throughout the better part of the episode, the Titans have to traverse their horror movie scenario and Dwindling Party crisis to a night-time scenario replete with stormy weather, reflecting the unnerving circumstances they're in. Once the Titans are all fine and the mystery behind the monsters is revealed, the weather clears and, as though signifying the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel, dawn breaks.
- Evil Tastes Good: A literal example of the trope when living pieces of candy attack Cyborg in the Action Prologue, and he decides to "bite back" and nosh on them. The candy, seeing their numbers declining, run for it. (The candy does quickly make Cyborg sick, though.)
- Felony Misdemeanor: The reason why Control Freak was attacking the video store? They hadn't rated Warp Trek V as a top film. The poor cashier doesn't even know what Warp Trek is.
- Final Girl: Raven, although technically, she's also the antagonist.
- Foreshadowing:
- Beast Boy and Control Freak have a "Not So Different" Remark when they gush about "Wicked Scary" being out on video. Beast Boy's nerdiness comes in handy the next time they encounter Control Freak.
- Within the episode, the monsters appear whenever something happens to annoy Raven or put her on edge. That's because they're actually illusory constructs tied to her emotions. Additionally, a number of the monsters have two pairs of red eyes, much like the creatures in her mindscape.
- Furry Baldness: The Wicked Scary monster has a receding hairline.
- Genre Savvy: Beast Boy."Split up? SPLIT UP?! Did you not see the movie? When you split up, the monster hunts you down one at a time, starting with the good-looking comic relief guy - ME!"
- What's more. He's right!
- Halfway Plot Switch: The first half (technically, one-third) of the episode involves taking down Control Freak. The rest of the episode focuses on the Titans Tower being invaded by supernatural creatures summoned by Raven's denial of fear.
- Haunted Headquarters: The Titan Tower becomes this, due to Raven not expressing her fear, causing horrors to manifest.
- Hearing Voices: Evil variant. The Titans are woken up by the same blood-curdling scream made by the actress in Wicked Scary. This time, it's disembodied though.
- Horrifying the Horror: Averted. Beast Boy tries to do this to the monster by turning into a T-Rex and roaring in its face, only for the monster to do the same, causing him to turn into a cat and run away scared (a literal scaredy cat).
- Horror Struck: Played with. When the Wicked Scary monster first attacks, Robin speculates that Control Freak escaped from jail, came to the tower to get his remote, and summoned the monster to attack the team. Unfortunately for them, not only is Control Freak not present, but his remote is in the evidence room where Robin left it. They realize that Control Freak isn't behind any of the horrors, and they are in fact dealing with an actual supernatural threat.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Both Beast Boy and Robin are (temporarily) hit with this. It's especially notable in the case of Robin, as he realizes the source of the monsters shortly before it happens.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: Robin orders the team to split up and search for Control Freak. As stated above, Beast Boy disagrees and immediately stops everyone. They then decide to stay together.
- Lovable Coward: Starfire throughout this episode, she was just adorable and funny.
- Little "No": Raven gives one after Starfire disappears.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Raven had admitted that the movie scared her, then it wouldn't have come to life and attacked the Titans. We only have Robin's word that "We were never in any danger."
- Not So Above It All: Raven getting freaked out by the movie, though she denies it.
- Oh, Crap!: Each of the Titans give off this look many, many, many times throughout the episode, and it's always because they've spotted something massively wrong.
- Post-Victory Collapse: After Raven gains back control of her powers and obliterates the horrors within the tower, she falls to the ground and faints, black electricity coiling around her.
- Red Herring: The episode initially sets up Control Freak as the main villain of the episode.
- Repression Never Ends Well: Raven won't admit the movie scared her, so her fear manifests through her powers. She only regains control of her powers when she admits her fear.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Discussed, as Beast Boy mentions above. Indeed when the episode starts to get serious, he's the first one to be offed by the monster.
- Show Within a Show: "Wicked Scary," a typical slasher horror film.
- Shout-Out:
- In the beginning of the episode Control Freak calls the movie store clerk a Tribble.
Warp Trek itself is a play on the title Star Trek. - His remote also uses various sound effects from the original series.
- When he gets snarked at by Raven, he casually snarks back with another film reference:Raven: "A couch potato with a souped-up remote. I'm petrified."
- Before movie night starts, Beast Boy claims "Wicked Scary" is so horrifying, it curses it's viewers and bad things will happen to them within days.
- Near the end of the episode, Raven is chased by a demonic pterodactyl. She gets into an elevator, where she thinks she's safe, until it starts filling up with a strange dark liquid.
- In the beginning of the episode Control Freak calls the movie store clerk a Tribble.
- Suggestive Collision: Implied after their first encounter with the monster ends with the Titans in a pile below frame:Starfire: "Someone's claws are on my grebnacks!"Beast Boy: "My bad..."
- Swarm of Rats: Starfire's "death".
- Too Many Mouths: The Wicked Scary monster is covered in them.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: After the candy leaves Cyborg sick, he moves his face out of shot to avoid vomiting in front of his friends.
- Wasn't That Fun?: After Robin explains that the Titans were never in danger, because Raven's powers were subconsciously manifesting, Beast Boy asks Raven if she could do the scary stuff again for Halloween. She politely tells him, "I'm afraid not."
- The Worf Effect: The monster quickly takes Robin, who is a Badass Normal. Starfire's powers and Cyborg's sonic cannon are useless against the summoned creatures to show how much of a threat they are.
*yawn* "Sunrise! Time for bed!"
