Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-4437326-20140826133208/@comment-4849011-20140904155455

How about the Bloody Mist graduation ritual (and by extension, the Root graduation ritual)? Not only is it brutal and horrifying, but the first mention of it led to another creepy moment. Kakashi noted that the ritual ended because of a demon appearing and slaughtering over a hundred students. Zabuza then revealed that he was the fiend in question, smiling as though experiencing a high and noting, "Ah, yes. Good times...I used to have such fun." Then he looked at Team 7 with an expression of bloodlust. It's scary enough to think of a young child committing mass murder (which is why there are one or two sub-genres of horror movies devoted to it), but for the now-grown child to reminiscence about it like a former high school or college athlete talking about his glory days, and then turn his attention to you with a maniacal look in his eyes, kicks it up a notch.

I re-read the moment with the giant leeches yesterday and in addition to the actual attack (which was scary enough) the callousness of Kiba was unsettling. He gleefully noted that the leeches would suck you dry if you couldn't get them off you in five minutes and then trapped those guys in a net. This means that those shinobi probably died (unless they were able to get free and kill the leeches). This may have been changed in the anime, but in the manga they were Leaf shinobi. This would have been awkward if any survived. Kiba would be strolling to the butcher's shop and hear, "Hey, there's the a-hole who caused our buddy to get sucked dry in the Forest of Death! Let's get 'im!"

Genjutsu and killing intent in general are scary concepts. All someone has to do is look at you (and sometimes that's not even necessary) and suddenly you're frozen in fear as you envision your torture and/or death. The two scariest are Tsukuyomi (as I mentioned already) and Demonic Flute: Phantom Sound Chains. In my opinion Ephemeral was creepy not because of the actual illusion, but because of the scene with Naruto mentally begging someone to help him.