- The opening scene with the sudden departure/demise of Bronagh, we see her clearly in distress and her hair start to turn white and leaving suddenly. At this point, we only see things from a young Ben's point of view as he stares straight at the camera, calling his mother as he fades into the distance.
- Ben finally finds out the truth about his mother's fate in the Great Seanchai's cave, the water washing over her as she (off-camera) changes back into a selkie to give birth, Connor trying in vain to reach her at the risk of drowning himself.
- Even Ben's 4 year old self glaring in silent resentment at the infant Saoirse can be intimidating if observed for too long.
- Ben and Saoirse's grandmother's introduction. She's first seen from the side, staring dead ahead, glaring and ignoring Dan. Then we see her driving towards the camera until her glaring, shadowy face is all the audience can see then the screen fades to black.
- Ben telling his twisted tale of Macha the Owl Witch to taunt Saoirse, if you look closely enough, Saoirse is scared enough to have crossed her arms over her chest the same way as Macha's victims when they are turned to stone, a fate she comes very close to suffering later in the film. Even Ben realises he went too far when he sees how upset Saoirse is.
- The idea of Saoirse sneaking out at night and swimming in the ocean (especially in the Autumn when the weather starts getting colder) would be this to adults, especially those with small children. It's bad enough for Connor when he finds out about this. He's already lost his wife to the sea, now he has to deal with nearly losing his daughter while his back was turned. You can't blame him for locking Saoirse's selkie coat into a trunk and throwing it into the sea.
- The idea that he, in his well-intentioned if misguided attempt to protect his daughter, he unknowingly doomed her to die.
- Ben and Saoirse running away from their grandmother likewise. Both this and incident mentioned above are enough for their grandmother to somehow sense that they are gone and wake up with a start.
- Connor snapping at Ben would be this to anyone, especially a child, regardless of age.
- Macha's owls attacking Ben and Saoirse and nearly making off with the latter until Mossy, Lug, Spud and Ben intervene to rescue her. Saoirse is only able to scare off the owls with the shell-horn in order for her and Ben to escape while Mossy, Lug and Spud are turned to stone.
- Saoirse jumping into the water in the Holy Well, Ben's clearly torn between his emerging Big Brother Instinct and his fear of water. In the end it takes Cu diving in after her to make his mind up for him.
- The Great Seanchai recalling the story of Mac Lir. We actually get to see the giant in question in the flesh and he is not just simply crying, he's howling to the heavens at the very top of his lungs, too consumed in his grief to notice the rapidly-rising flood waters around him and the great storm raining down on him. At one point, he almost causes a tsunami.
- His face is still frozen in a grief-stricken stance as he is turned into a stone statue the size of a small island.
- Macha's home has a perpetual storm cloud floating above as a result of all the literally bottled up feelings she's accumulated.
- Macha and Saoirse half-turned to stone, especially the latter, as by this point in the film, she has become so ill, her face has become white and wrinkled and her hair has turned grey.
- Macha near the end of the movie. Even though she turns out to be an extremely sympathetic Anti-Villain, the way she gets enraged at Ben for defying her before draining her emotions into one of the jars so she calms down is very bizarre and unsettling.
- She nearly drains Ben of his feelings, which would have turned him to stone, until Cu's barking snapped him out of it.
- Macha's eye poking through the hole in her attic door and taunting Ben and Saoirse about their predicament.
- An increasingly enraged Macha breaking through the attic door and towering over Saoirse (who, lest we forget, is only six), screaming at her to stop playing her song on the shell-horn, until she fills the whole attic.
- Her owls trying to penetrate the windows to attack Ben and Saoirse again doesn't help.
- Just the very idea of being literally drained of your feelings and turning to stone as a result, and in Mac Lir's case, by your own mother of all people. Think about that for a moment...
- Also, the way the hair of a selkie (or a half-selkie in Saoirse's case) turns white as they grow weaker from prolonged deprivation of their selkie coats, or living on land too long, is disturbing enough, Ben saw his mother long enough to witness this before she disappeared and instantly realises the same thing may be about to happen to his sister.
- Connor practically goes through every parent's worst nightmare right before the climax: his youngest daughter is dying, and to get her to a hospital he must row her across a stormy sea at night on a tiny boat that might get overturned by the waves. And to top it off, his oldest son, who's afraid of water, dives straight into the dark, stormy waters to retrieve her selkie coat. Poor Connor.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/SongOfTheSea
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