This article contains spoilers.
“He didn’t think it was healthy for children to always feel safe,” Dark Crystal co-director Frank Oz once said of Jim Henson, whose vision for the 1982 film was to “get back to the darkness of the original Grimm’s fairy tales.” Oz explained, “He thought it was fine to scare children,” and so Henson conjured up a tale of murderous monsters and a world ravaged by their evil.
Henson believed that fear was a healthy emotion for children to experience, and Netflix’s epic new series “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance” was clearly made by people who feel the same. Honoring Henson’s vision for The Dark Crystal, the prequel isn’t afraid to get gross, upsetting, dark and scary, chronicling an epic war between the Skeksis and the seven disparate clans of Gelfling that kicks off with the realization that the seemingly benevolent leaders of Thra are actually as downright evil as they look. We, of course, already know this going in.
But just how terrifying does the series get? Let’s take a look at its 5 scariest moments!
[Related] The Unexpectedly Disturbing Origin Story of the Garthim in “Age of Resistance”
“Give the crystal your fear.”
The catalyst for the war at the center of “Age of Resistance” is the murder of a Gelfling named Mira, the girlfriend to main character Rian. After being kidnapped by the Skeksis in episode one, Mira becomes the first guinea pig for a horrifically cruel experiment that uses the power of the Crystal to literally pull out the essence of Gelfling test subjects. Mira is forced to stare directly into the Crystal, plugged into a crude machine that sucks out her essence; that extracted essence is then consumed by the Skeksis, restoring their health and ensuring their immortality.
Rian watches on in horror as the love of his life has her very essence drained deep in the bowels of the Skeksis lair, her body completely evaporating in the process. It’s a horrifying reminder of just how monstrous the Skeksis really are, presenting themselves as the protectors of Thra in public but literally consuming the souls of Gelflings behind closed doors.
The Peeper Beetle
The second episode shows us how the Skeksis deal with punishing their own, and it’s the Scientist (voiced by Mark Hamill) who draws the extreme ire of the Emperor when he’s blamed for allowing Rian to escape their grasp with the vial of Mira’s essence. “The Scientist’s errors require a permanent discipline,” the Emperor announces, and in comes the Peeper Beetle.
The Scientist is strapped to a chair and a cage is put onto his head, which the Peeper is fed into. As it turns out, the beetle has been starved by the Skeksis and it has a particular taste for soft meats, crawling about the Scientist’s head before munching down into its desired meal: his eyeball. It’s the “Not the bees!” scene from Wicker Man, only 10x more horrifying.
The Pit of Gobbles
And you thought quicksand was terrifying…
On their journey together, Deet and Hup encounter a patch of “Gobbles” in episode four, an undulating sea of man-eating piranha plants that quickly consume anything that dares step foot into their territory. Hup saves Deet from being eaten alive by the Gobbles, and the scene sets the stage for a later sequence in the episode where Rian’s father isn’t so lucky.
The most terrifying of all the Skeksis introduced in “Age of Resistance” is the Hunter, a deadly warrior who wears a mask made of bone and takes totems from each of his victims. The Hunter is sent out to remove Rian from the equation altogether, and the two do battle dangerously close to the chomping Gobbles. Ultimately, Rian’s father joins the fight and sacrifices himself to save Rian, pushing the Hunter into the Gobbles pit. The two are pulled down into the pit, but while Rian’s father is consumed, the Hunter makes it out alive.
More on him and his death-defying abilities in a minute.
The Threaders Take Over
On the road to war with the Gelflings, the Skeksis enlist the help of the spider creatures known as the Arathim, who come along with their own army of mini creatures named Threaders. Together they make up “the Ascendancy,” with the power of mind control at their fingertips. And that power is on absolutely nightmarish display in the show’s seventh episode.
The Skeksis and Arathim pay a visit to the Stonewood Clan, but their goal isn’t to wipe the clan out. Rather, they’ve come to recruit them as unwilling soldiers for their army. Princess Tavra, already under control of the Ascendancy, leads the charge, approaching the Stonewood and opening up her robe to unleash hundreds of Threaders upon the clan. What results is a creepy nighttime attack sequence ripped straight out of the nightmares of anyone who’s afraid of spiders. They attach themselves to the faces of the Stonewood, taking over their minds.
“I am the Ascendancy,” the new slaves hauntingly speak in unison.
The Hunter Comes Back from the Dead
As mentioned, the most imposing Skeksis in “Age of Resistance” is skekMal, the Hunter. He’s more agile and significantly more deadly than the other Skeksis, so much so that even they seem to fear what he’s capable of. After the fight with Rian and his father, the Hunter kidnaps Brea but suffers near fatal injuries at the hands of his Mystic counterpart in the process. Shortly after returning to the Castle of the Crystal, skekMal appears to die. And the attempt from the other Skeksis to bring him back using Aughra’s essence seemingly does not work.
As a tribute, the Skeksis hang up the Hunter’s dead body in the Castle, suspending it in the air like a massive puppet. But skekMal isn’t really dead, we soon realize. While the Scientist is reprimanding a group of Podlings in the season’s final episode, the Hunter roars back to life, thrashing around in his constraints and scaring the Scientist half to death.
It’s a scene straight out of a horror movie, with the monster supernaturally coming back from the dead. If “Age of Resistance” has its own Jason Voorhees, it’s damn sure skekMal.
Fun Fact: skekMal was voiced by The Witch star Ralph Ineson!
Are there any other moments from “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance” that you think will be nightmare fuel for the kids of today? Comment below and feel free to add to our list.