Gory Discretion Shot: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Blood or brains are seen splattering against a wall and the rest is left to the imagination.

Sometimes, a variation occurs where blood seeps out of the bottom crack of a door or some opening in order to imply that someone is either severely wounded or killed.

 

 

 

A related trope is the camera cutting away when things get nasty. Say if someone is getting whipped, we'll only see their face contorting in pain. Alternately, a cut similar to a [[Screamer Trailer]] can happen, showing a split second worth of the carnage. In the same vein, the aftermath of a murder may be demonstrated minimally with a [[Dead Hand Shot]], hopefully [[An Arm and a Leg|one still attached to the body]].

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]'', when the shooter in the nightclub turns the gun on himself all we see is blood spatter on Lain's face.

* The ''[[Lupin III]]'' movie ''In Memory of the Walther P38'', where someone apparently thought they were making an animated John Woo film, frequently employs these. The film opens with an assassination where the victim's blood is seen splattering over his own birthday cake. Near the end, they get creative; Jigen and Fujiko are seen dealing with a [[Wire Dilemma]], Lupin is preparing to kill the film's [[Big Bad]], he pulls the trigger... Cut to the island rigged to explode ''not'' exploding.

* In a later episode of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', after a [[Leave the Camera Running|very long shot]] of an Eva gripping a character, a "crunch" is heard as the camera cuts to his head in silhouette falling hitting the water below, and the Eva's hand is covered in blood.

** An earlier episode has a berserk Eva 01 pummeling {{spoiler|an Angel-possessed Eva 03}} into a fine meaty paste, mostly shown through blood splatters covering entire buildings and turning an entire river pure red. Though later, there is a scene of what can best be described as {{spoiler|'angel squish'}} being pressure-washed off Eva 01's hand.

* In Chapter 437 of [[Naruto]], when Pain stabs a downed {{spoiler|Hinata}}, the camera cuts away to the sky while a sound effect of her getting stabbed is heard, and then blood is shown dripping from the nearby stones. {{spoiler|This also hid the fact that the wound wasn't fatal}}.

** {{spoiler|Well, it was, but not IMMIDIATELY fatal. No immediate medical attention would've made one dead Hyuuga heiress}}

** When Sasuke is put in an illusion functioning as a [[Pensieve Flashback]] by {{spoiler|Itachi}}, he gets a full-view of {{spoiler|Madara pulling out his brother Izuna's eyes}}, while all we see is him staring at it while some of the blood splatters on his face.

** When Itachi uses an illusion to stimulate [[Eye Scream|pulling Sasuke's eye out of it socket]] we see his eye slowly bulge out of the socket and then pan away as we hear the gory sound of his eye being pulled out and Sasuke [[The Scream|screaming]].

* Season Five of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'', we get one when a character is eaten alive by an insect monster, we only see the silhouette of him being crunched up (though we do ''hear'' the bones crunching, the swallowing, etc). Also seen in a less gory scene in Season Two as the camera cuts away when {{spoiler|Yami Malik stabs his father to death}}, although we do see {{spoiler|his bloodied corpse lying against the wall afterwards}}.

* Played for laughs in ''Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series'' in order to mock the edits made by 4Kids when Joey says, "It is heavily implied that I am punching you!".

* About three quarter through [[Soukou no Strain]] Ralph {{spoiler|takes over the Deague ship by killing everyone aboard except Medlock.}} The discretion shots come in {{spoiler|every time he kills someone, of course.}}

* In ''[[Baccano!]]!'' the [[Sacrificial Lamb]] murder of the train conductor is given what is probably the ''only'' Non-Gory Discretion Shot in the entire series, as the gunshot rings out at the exact moment the credits come in. {{spoiler|Probably to hide the fact that it's the "murderer" who ends up shot.}}

* The death of {{spoiler|the [[Hollywood Cyborg|Combat Cyborg]] [[Psycho for Hire|Due]]}} in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] StrikerS''. We see the character that's about to kill her break out of his bonds, then we cut to a scene in the hallway where a character who's rushing to the scene hears a loud crash. When we get back to the room, we now see {{spoiler|the Combat Cyborg}} lying in a pool of her own blood with the implication that she was impaled. Kinda weird in a way, since we had just seen {{spoiler|[[Little Miss Badass|Vita]]}} get impaled in a graphic, uncensored manner a few episodes ago.

** Also, in episode 17, {{spoiler|Ginga's defeat shows her [[Power Fist]] lying in a pool of blood and far away from her body}}, greatly implying that her hand had been severed. Implication became fact later, when we see her now sporting a detachable hand.

* [[Dragonball Z]], which is normally not gore-shy, gets one of these when the scene really would have been too horrific to contemplate (or hard to draw). In the Buu saga, {{spoiler|Piccolo is turned to stone; Trunks accidentally tips him over, shattering the majority of his body. When the character who cast the spell is killed, Piccolo is changed back ''while he's still in pieces''.}} Trunks sees the aftermath, but we don't - and judging by the look on his face, it's the bloody mess you'd expect. However, {{spoiler|fortunately for both our hero and Trunks' delicate eight-year-old psyche, Piccolo can regenerate lost limbs and is good as new a few seconds later.}}

* {{spoiler|Tsukiyono's brother dies like this}} in [[Gamble Fish]].

* Used in [[Haou Airen]] when {{spoiler|Hakuron kills Kurumi's first would-be rapists.}}

** Also, when {{spoiler|Fuuron kills the shopkeeper for refusing to sell him the Dragon Sphere}} in volume 8.

* It's funny to say that this happened in the first episode of the 1997 adaptation of ''[[Berserk]]'', where all we see is a shot of a table top being splattered with blood when Guts cleaves a mook in two with the Dragon Slayer. Coming from a series that ''thrives'' on grossing the audience out with as much [[Gorn|graphic violence]] as possible, that is.

 

== Art ==

 

== Comic Books ==

* Garth Ennis' ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)]]'' is heavy enough on the directly-portrayed bloodshed, but one scene is particularly noteable: When Jesse's friend Billy-Bob is attacked by T.C. in the second volume chapter "How I learned to love the Lord", the comic cuts to T.C.'s bloodied knife... And then, two panels later, we see Billy-Bob clutching his slit throat. This is sometimes used straight, though {{spoiler|such as when Tulip is killed by Jesse's family}}, but for style rather than for censorship.

** The only instance where this might be used for censorship is the death of {{spoiler|God}}. Even Garth Ennis might not have been able to get away with showing ''that'' particular messily-killed corpse.

** Even more impressive is the fact that, even though they turned the gore [[Up to Eleven]] in the movie, this scene remained intact, and was still way more unsettling than anything they actually showed. Keep in mind, those included a man's forearm bone puncturing through the skin as his arm was broken, Dr. Manhattan ''literally'' exploding people with his mind, and a mook getting his arms sawed off with a grinder. The gore is relatively easy to accept once the shock value wears off; trying to imagine what happened is far more likely to keep you up at night.

* When {{spoiler|Gammid rips Javi's sigil-enhanced arm off}} in ''Negation'', a silhouette is used to imply the action.

* The Ultimate Spider-Man comics were much more open with dark and edgy topics, but still refrained from graphic violence, being a mainstream comic aimed mostly at teens and young adults. One discretion shot in particular stands out, though, when the Kingpin executes an insubordinate...subordinate by crushing his head between his massive hands. Most of the event takes place in a panel that shows only Fisk's tower viewed at a distance, though later on in the comic a clip of security footage does show the moment where the man's head caves in (still a discretion shot, however, because Fisk had put Spider-Man's confiscated mask over his head).

* Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog is exempt from most forms of gory violence, but it's not immune when discretion shots are involved.

** Another one occurs in issue #234. Antoine D'Coolette is charged with protecting King Elias while Dr. Eggman launches another assault on the Freedom Fighters and the Royal Family. Metal Sonic Mk. II is about to infiltrate the Royal Family's escape vehicle, when Antoine catches up and distracts Metal Sonic enough to let go. Eggman, in frustration, activates Metal Sonic's self-detruct mechanism, catching Antoine's entire body, throwing him to the ground, unconscious, and presumably mortally wounded. Every other panel scene with Antoine in it after the explosion obscures his face, whether by special angles, or someone obscuring his face. For example, Sonic's head while speeding as fast as he can with Antoine off to the hospital.

* Subverted in an issue of the [[Archie Comics]] ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' series. Bebop and Rocksteady are at the zoo when they see all the animals trapped in cages. They point their guns and start shooting, and it ''looks'' like they've killed the animals...but when they meet the Turtles we see that Bebop and Rocksteady actually shot out the bars of the zoo cages to free the animals. They take the animals back to a Garden of Eden-like alien planet that they've decided to call home, stopping off only to drop the villains the Turtles have defeated back on the prison planet they escape from.

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Cloverfield]]'' makes use of the silhouette variant, when {{spoiler|Marlena explodes.}}

** [[Nightmare Fuel|"Hud? I don't feel so good..."]]

** When Vincent [[I Just Shot Marvin in the Face|Shoots Marvin In The Face]] in ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'', the camera cuts to behind the car just in time to show the rear window getting splattered with the poor guy's blood.

*** And brains. Rather a lot of brains, judging by Jules' rant later on.

* In classic noir film ''[[The Big Sleep (film)|The Big Sleep]]'', when {{spoiler|Eddie Mars is forced to walk out of Geiger's house by Philip Marlowe, into the street where Mars' goons are waiting for Marlowe to step out so they can shoot him. Mars leaves the house screaming "Don't shoot!", but it doesn't stop his goons as the door closes behind him.}}

* In ''[[Die Hard]]'', Hans demands that Takagi give him the security code for the vault or he'll kill him. He says, "I don't have the code, you'd have to jet to Tokyo to ask the Chairman. You're just going to have to kill me." Hans then says, "Okay," points a handgun at Takagi, pulls the trigger and splatters his brains across the glass door.

** Part of the reason there's so many cut-away shots in ''Die Hard'' is because Alan Rickman who played Hans could NOT stop flinching whenever he fired the gun, so they always cut away whenever Hans shoots.

* In ''[[The Ring]]'', you never quite see what Samara does to her victims to leave them looking like that.

** Also, during the ferry scene, we see the black horse fall down the side of the boat and into the water - our only clue that it was chopped up by the propellers is the red water that flows out from under the ship.

** The x-ray vision deaths at the beginning and end of ''The Final Destination'' are particularly noteworthy.

* ''[[Serenity]]'' has a scene with a holographic recording of a scientist. She begins to panic as she describes a Reaver attack. The sounds of Reavers at her door can be heard untill one breaks in, overpowers her and knocks her to the ground and out of the audiences view. Her screams continue, and even Jayne doesn't want to see what's happeneing to her. Since Reavers are known for raping, dismembering, flaying and devouring their victims, it's probably pretty bad.

* Sometimes used in ''[[Dawn of the Dead (film)|Dawn of the Dead]]''.

* While we get to see a lot of the deaths that occur in the nightclub massacre in ''[[Hellraiser III Hell On Earth]]'', the scene ends with the survivors running to the exit doors as they are sealed shut. The camera then pans backward from the other side of the door showing an series of puddles of blood expanding from underneath the door while the audience hears horrible sounds coming from within.

** ''Hellraiser: Inferno'' did something similar in the scene where Joseph's parents get killed.

* Used subtly to make a point in ''[[8mm]]''. When the protagonist watches the [[Snuff Film]] found in the safe at the film's opening, the camera cuts to his reaction when the snuff film reaches its kill shot. Later on, however, the camera ''doesn't'' move from the kill when he watches snuff films purchased from an underground porn shop. This hints that while the films from the porn shop are fake (they both use the same "starlet"), {{spoiler|the one in the safe was real.}}

* In ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]] 2'', there's the part where Justin Hammer leaves Ivan Vanko in a room with several guards watching him. We cut to somewhere else, then when we get back to Vanko, we see the guards hanging from the ceiling.

* The first time ''[[Ichi the Killer]]'' is seen in action, he charges screaming into an apartment, with blood-splatters and death shrieks coming out of the door he entered. Two men are watching from a closed-circuit television from another apartment, but we only see their expressions and a blurred figure of Ichi. Disturbing at first, but the explicit Gorn levels the film follows with later severely overshadow this scene.

* Billy's death from [[Predator]] we see him cut himself in order to get the Predator to come to him and it cuts away just as it attacks him and we hear him scream from a distance.

* ''[[Law Abiding Citizen]]'' thankfully doesn't show the horrid torture and dismemberment of the murderer, but it is described to him beforehand in detail, and the pieces are shown when the police arrive.

* [[Gangs of New York]] uses a door frame to block out the crushing of {{spoiler|1=Monk McGinn's}} head by the Butcher when he kills him with his own weapon. Strange, given the brutality and gore that fills the movie.

* In ''[[The Bad Seed]]'', little Rhoda takes care of caretaker Leroy, who knows what a [[Complete Monster]] she is, by starting a fire in the locked cellar where he's sleeping. As he burns to death we only hear his agonized shrieks - probably as done in the original stage play where such an approach would be expedient.

* ''[[Mystery Team]]'' does this to prevent the audience for seeing the effects of a cherry bomb {{spoiler|HITTING A MAN SQUARE IN THE FACE}}

* In ''[[Tomorrow Never Dies]]'' a [[Mook]] is thrown by [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] into a printing press; all that's seen is the baddie falling through the paper and the ensuing copies coming out stained red.

{{quote|'''Bond:''' They'll print anything these days.}}

** Later, Dr. Maturin himself gets shot in the gut. He has to operate on himself, with *no* anesthesia. The best the viewer sees of this operation is a blurred view through Dr. Maturin's mirror, and the surgeon's own grimaces.

* Lawrence of Arabia employs this when Lawrence is captured in Dera'a. While T.E. Lawrence's autobiography describes the attempted rape and the beating in great detail, including the shocking (for the 1920s) admission that {{spoiler|Lawrence enjoyed it}}, the movie manages to be *more* creepy with the Turkish official coughing as he watches, the look on Lawrence's face as he braces for the first blow, and Lawrence's friend seeing him get tossed outside afterwards.

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Narnia|The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe]]'': "The children did not see the actual moment of the killing. They couldn't bear to look and had covered their eyes."

* Apparently [[Older Than Radio]] in ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn|The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'', when Huck and Jim come across the [[Haunted Headquarters|House of Death]]. There's a dead body inside the house, and Jim goes to investigate, leaving Huck ([[Take Our Word for It|and also the reader]], as Huck is the [[Unreliable Narrator|narrator]]) to the side. All we learn of the body is what Jim tells Huck: He was shot in the back, dead for two or three days and [[Nightmare Fuel|naked]].

* A variation is used in the [[Hardy Boys]] Casefiles and the [[Nancy Drew]] Files. Whenever somebody had to die when the Boys or Nancy were present they usually did so in a way that no blood was actually spilt. An example is a [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]] Howard Stern called Ron Minkus getting electrocuted at a mall whilst the Boys were there.

{{quote|''Most of the wizards managed to turn their heads away. A few - and there are always a few like that - watched in obscene fascination.''}}

* In a very early version, Ancient Greek Tragedies often used this trope. In the ''Medea'' a woman is given a dress that melts her skin; in the ''Bacchae'' a group of women tear a man to pieces and prance about with his body parts; in ''Oedipus Rex'', Oedipus uses pins to claw out his eyes; in the ''Agamemnon'' the title character is brutally murdered in his bed. All of these gruesome scenes are described but never seen, given all the more detailed description precisely because they are hidden from sight; the death of Agamemnon is noted for being particularly gruesome.

 

* The ''[[MacGyver]]'' episode "The Heist" has a non-gory gory discretion shot in which the death of an embezzling accountant is represented by a shot of his glasses falling to the ground with a [[Moe Greene Special|bullet hole through one lens]] (but no bloodstains).

* {{spoiler|Eden's}} suicide in ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]''

* ''[[Doctor Who]]''

** In the episode "Father's Day", we don't see Rose's father get run over, but we do see the vase he was carrying shatter on the road.

** In "Rise of the Cybermen", we don't see the actual process of cyber-conversion, but we do see the array of spinning blades and cutting beams as they do their work.

** In "Silence in the Library", we never actually see anyone {{spoiler|get eaten by the shadows - just their bare skeletons. The gory process is censored by the spacesuits' opaque visors, or otherwise done offscreen.}}

* The American version of the television mini-series [[Kingdom Hospital]] uses this when showing {{spoiler|Mary's death at the hands of Doctor Gottreich}}.

* The 1988 cult series "[[War of the Worlds]]" featured quite a few instances of the discretion shot; most notably, a scene in a salon where an alien uses a handsaw to cut into the head of an unknowing victim, with a spray of blood landing on his face as he dives in. However, the show then averted it by making the second season ridiculously gory, with aliens being shot and graphically melting into goo, with closeups of their melting faces for good measure.

* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'': It seems to be a trend to use this shot in the more perfunctory, less important deaths, for example those that begin most episodes with hitherto-unknown characters, one of which almost always blunders into the monster of the week. Climactic death, on the other hand, tend to be anything but discreet.

** They also had several of these kill ''Dean'' in ''Mystery Spot'', when you hear Sam and Dean arguing over an axe, then hear a thunk and see blood spattering the walls and the tied-up owner of the titular Mystery Spot. Other deaths include slipping in the shower and being mauled by a dog.

** Once, the UnSub sent the team a video of a girl being eaten alive by rabid dogs. Garcia's horrified reaction is enough.

** "True Night" had another really effective use of this trope; the UnSub's last victim is the one he had the most reason to be angry at, and the only one the BAU hadn't found. His ''previous'' crimes had been, in Morgan's words [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|"off-the-charts brutal"]], and this one was likely to the worst one of all. The BAU arrive at the crime scene, and you don't see the victim, you just see the walls, which are ''drenched'' in blood.

* In ''[[Skins]]'' series 4 episode 7 "Effy" {{spoiler|Effy's psycotic counselor John Foster beats her boyfriend Freddie to death with a baseball bat. The attack itself happens behind a door, but the splash of blood that hits the window says everything.}}

* No gore involved per se, but otherwise a strong candidate for the trope: In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' Season 5 one of Glory's minions snoops into the Magic Box and gets caught by Giles. At first he's determined not to say anything, but then Giles orders Willow and Anya to fetch twine to tie him up. In the couple of seconds their backs are turned he does ''something'', and suddenly the minion starts pleading for his life.

* In a seventh-season episode of the Canadian cop show ''Cold Squad'', "C'Mon I Tip Waitresses", a dentist is being investigated due to the disappearance of several of his patients. One woman visits the dentist, and is restrained to a chair while the doctor prepares to murder her and perform dental surgery to contort her face. The camera pans to her trying to futilely move her arms as the dentist operates on her (while she's still conscious).

* [[Garo]], being an action/horror combination series, mostly does this whenever a [[Monster of the Week]] devoured its victims.

 

== Music ==

* In Garth Brooks' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIHfRnf_-IU ''The Thunder Rolls''], it jumps from a woman pointing a gun at her husband to a window that suddenly shatters, thus avoiding the onscreen shooting.

* At the end of [[Pearl Jam]]'s "Jeremy" music video, Jeremy [[Ate His Gun|shoots himself in the mouth]], splattering blood on his classmates. In the edited-for-TV version, the shot of him putting the gun in his mouth is cut.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[BioShock (series)]]'' uses Non-Gory Discretion Shots to hide its violence against children. When you "rescue" a Little Sister, the veins of light that cover you and her during the process magnify to a blinding flash that obscures the actual scene of her reverting to human and the parasite inside her dying. Meanwhile, if you "harvest", noxious-looking green-black mist inexplicably forms to cover up the scene of you snapping her neck and tearing a parasitic sea slug out of her body.

** Interestingly, in ''BioShock 2'', if your decision to harvest Little Sisters {{spoiler|influences Eleanor to do likewise}}, a similar mist appears to conceal the act.

** And then there's another (Basara's) in which the killer pulls the foe with them into a pit where we see blood... and eventually the defeated foe's HEAD fly up from, cackling madly the entire time...

* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'' all the suicides use this except one.

{{quote|'''Heavy:''' So... ve still got problem...

'''Soldier:''' Big problem... All right, who's ready to go find the Spy?

''(cries of pain and stabbing sounds as the video ends)'' }}

* In ''[[Warcraft]] 3'' at the end of the Human campaign you get this as Arthas {{spoiler|impales his father on Frostmourne}} seeing the act play out in the shadows on the wall and watching the broken crown clatter to the floor.

* ''[[Saints Row]] 2'' uses this in the cutscene where Jyunishi beheads {{spoiler|Aisha}}. Jyunishi's body blocks the carnage; the decapitation itself is implied through a nearby vase full of flowers losing their heads.

** Also done when the Boss {{spoiler|shoots Carlos to [[Shoot the Dog|put him out of his misery]] after he'd been [[Moral Event Horizon|dragged across half the city by one of the Brotherhood's trucks.]]}}

* Parodied in the PC game ''Harvester.'' The game itself is ludicrously violent, complete with axes to the face, exploding eyeballs, and so very much more. The game's only Gory Discretion Shot occurs in shadow, when the sheriff {{spoiler|smacks a man repeatedly with a rolled-up magazine.}}

* The Arm Arcus' [[Doppelganger Attack]] in ''[[Super Robot Wars]] W'' ends with the copies rapidly closing in on the target being held by the main mech, then a sudden pan upwards to a full moon (which is odd, seeing as this happens even when you're fighting ''on'' the Moon) as splashes of fluid and bits of material splash upwards (note that this is usually done to a [[Humongous Mecha]] here), Then it finishes with them flying away from the silhouetted victim, clearly shown with several of their blades still stuck in it's body.

** Strangely enough for a game where you can mulch enemies with a shotgun or turret, Tai's suicide in Gears 2 is completely off-screen, not even showing the aftermath. Dom's mercy kill of {{spoiler|Maria}} is also treated with discretion, switching focus to Marcus who is off away from them when the shot rings out.

* The worst ending of [[Disgaea]] 2 where Adell brutally kills and eats Taro and Hanako.

** The recent Extend update includes Relius Clover's Astral where he had Ignis transport his enemy to his lab, where he had them strapped to a crucifix and declared on how he's going to experiment the hell out of him. Then the door closed... and knowing [[Mad Scientist|Relius]], God knows what kind of terror awaits the defeated enemy.

* In ''[[The Godfather (video game)|The Godfather]]: The Game'', Rocco's decapitating of {{spoiler|Woltz's horse}} is shown only from the wrong side of a door.

* Played straight in [[Dead Rising 2]], sometimes to a ridiculous extent. In one cutscene, the characters find a man dead from a gunshot to the forehead. You'd never know it, however, unless you went back to the body and looked at it after the cinema, because the body is only shown from behind and out of focus, and the characters' comments on the subject amonts to, "Hey, look at this!" and "Well, look at that."

* In ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'', decapitations, such as those by chainsaw, are moved off-screen with only blood splatter being shown. Watching in multiplayer mode reveals that there's no actual beheading animation.

 

== Web Comics ==

* In [[Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures|Abel's Story]], some particularly gory scenes are depicted as silhouettes.

* There's a particularly chilling example in ''[[Lackadaisy Cats]]'', with the Marigold Gang and an unknown guy in a pinstripe suit. The last panel of the flashback is Mordecai raising an axe above his head, saying "Keep your head still."

* Used a few times in ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', such as [http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/15p34 here].

* Used in ''[[Homestuck]]'' a couple of times. When Jack Noir receives Bec's powers, all we see is a brief shot of Bro and Davesprite staring before the screen fades to static.

** During Jack Noir's [[Jail Break]] [[Mythology Gag|adventure]], he conveniently "bes the other (dead) guy" while being beaten senseless by prison guards.

* ''[[VG Cats]]'' uses this a number of times. Two come to mind: when Aeris {{spoiler|1=aborts Leo from [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=269 time]}} and when Leo [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=271 goes back in time] [[For Science!|for SCIENCE!!]]

* An example from ''[[Zombie Ranch]]'' is shown [http://www.zombieranchcomic.com/2009/12/09/nuthin-but-meat/ here]. A child zombie's skull is detonated, but all we see is the resulting splatter on the wall.

 

== Web Original ==

* [[Protectors of the Plot Continuum]] tend to do this with more violent or disturbing fics - sometimes a violent scene in a mission will consist mostly of descriptions of the agents vomiting, with a few [[Noodle Implements]] from the fic thrown into the description.

* Mostly avoided by ''[[Happy Tree Friends]]'' as just about every injury, no matter how gory (and gory they almost always are) is shown on-screen with no discretion. However there are moments where the death is mostly off-screen, such as one episode where Nutty gets trapped under a vending machine as its spiked dispensers lower towards him. The closest one scrapes his eye before we cut away, blood leaking out from under the vending machine. Another involves Flaky, after swelling up due to an allergic reaction, being popped by a pin. We cut away just as the pin pokes her eye and see blood, limbs and other body parts flying across the screen.

 

== Western Animation ==

* [[Superman: Doomsday]] features this immediately after {{spoiler|Mercy Graves tells Lex Luthor}} that the scene of Doomsday's discovery has been sanitized and there is nothing left linking [[Lex Corp]] to Doomsday.

* Used an episode of [[Family Guy]] when Peter attatches several razor blades to a fan because he wants to shave off all his facial hair at once, he brings the fan closer to his face and we cut to blood splashing on the window.

* ''[[The Legend of Korra]]:'' Lin [[Broken Faceplate|smashes through the cockpit canopy]] of a [[Mini-Mecha|Mecha-Tank]] with [[Blade Below the Shoulder|blades on her bracers]], which the chi-blocker inside is desperately trying to dodge while trapped in the seat. Such is the power of the attack that the mecha is pushed back into a large steel frame that collapses on top of it, with Lin still utterly destroying the crew cabin. The next shot we see of that now downed Mecha-Tank, Lin's almost done stabbing through it, most of the canopy segments are smashed open, and the rest are discolored as though splashed with something opaque from the inside.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:This Index Happened Offscreen]]

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Discretion Shot]]

[[Category:Horror Tropes]]