As a Nightmare Fuel page, all spoilers are unmarked as per wiki policy. You Have Been Warned!
"It's okay. Just get in my mouth."
Despite its colorful cast of characters, heartwarming You Are Not Alone theme, and whimsical environments, Elio still has a lot of unexpectedly creepy moments at its helm and some surprisingly high stakes.
While Pixar already has quite the resume for nightmare fuel, this film really pushes the boundaries.
- When Elio gets into a fight with Bryce and Caleb over the HAM radio, the fight ends with the antenna poking Elio in the eye. It's surprising how it escalated that quickly, and it even explains why Elio wears the eyepatch.
- A few bullies at Camp Carver don alien masks and chase Elio in an attempt to beat him up. He's thankfully saved by the timely intervention of the Communiverse.
- While the aliens (with the exception of Grigon) are ultimately harmless, Olga witnessing the base's computers go haywire and display an image of the Communiverse before the screens all display the message Bring Us Your Leader is still rather creepy.
- These scenes are both tied to the moment of Elio's abduction. After his bullies gang up on him, he suddenly spots a giant wave approaching in the background and seems to be too distracted by it to attempt to fight back or run away. The wave approaches right as Caleb attempts to punch him in the face, at which point time freezes just before the hit can land and water droplets are suspended in mid-air.
- Despite being a force of assistance, Other Elio serves as a surprising Knight of Cerebus as he's the source of the movie's many unexpected horror elements:
- How he's created. OOOOO takes a DNA sample from Elio's nostrils and combines it with "cloning clay," a gooey green substance. When he emerges, he's all warped and beyond cartoony, and even some crystals form over his eye to make the eyepatch. Despite Elio's regret for putting the clone in a situation where it will get punched in the face, the clone isn't bothered by this.
- The first weird thing he does? Lick his own nosebleed in an odd way after Olga picks him up from camp.
- The next thing he does is trimming a hedge, only to accidentally cut off his own finger with garden shears and then casually reattach it.
- As Olga's suspicions mount, she eventually takes one of his hairs to study it, only for said hair to then come to life and lead her into his room, where she lifts his eyepatch to reveal there's nothing but skin underneath. Then the clone grabs her arm with a Scare Chord and sheepishly says they need to talk. It's lucky he really did honestly just want to clear things up...
- When he believes he's served his purpose, he's all too willing to "decompose" himself and even suggests using his remains as fertilizer. He exits the film by slowly melting to distract the base's security.
- The way he does said distraction is quite terrifying in and of itself as he appears to them silhouetted in a red light before shambling towards them like a zombie and then sprinting right at them like something from a horror movie and latching onto one of them as he dissolves into green goo.
- While Olga appears appropriately horrified, the real Elio is smiling while witnessing this.
- The Lamprey Mouth that all Hylurgians have might be jarring at first and then Elio has to hide inside of Glordon to be protected from lethal-to-humans lava. Fortunately, it's very comfortable inside for Elio.
- Upon arriving at the main Hylurgian warship, Elio is quickly greeted by a room full of fossilized skulls.
- The skeleton of a deceased inmate appears in Grigon's prison.
- Lord Grigon comes dangerously close to conquering the Communiverse.
- Elio and Olga come extremely close to death when space debris nearly crashes their ship.
- Grigon shoots Other Glordon when he discovers the ruse. This outright kills him, but no one dwells on that too much.
- Hylurgian carapaces have spikes on the inside, making them resemble iron maidens. When Grigon takes his carapace off, he's covered in visible scars.
- The ceremony where Other Glordon is installed into his carapace is weirdly cult-ish.
- It's intended as a tearjerking and heartwarming moment, but the moment when Elio's Universal Translator is relinquished, we hear everyone speak in their native tongues and the comfort of hearing their translated voices is suddenly gone. It can be jarring realizing/remembering that we were not physically hearing them speaking the selected language track for the film. It can even be seen as a nice subversion of the expectation that the translator will always be with us.