Lights Off, Somebody Dies: Difference between revisions

Compare [[Darkness Equals Death]], where the lights are already off.

 

{{examples}}

 

* Quite a few murders in ''[[Detective Conan]]'' rely on this trope, including one subversion where it turns out {{spoiler|the act of turning the power back ''on''}} kills the victim. ( {{spoiler|Poor Hikaru Yasumoto, killing her boss ''without even knowing it''}}!)

* In ''[[Tantei Gakuen Q]]'', there's a murder while a [[Phony Psychic]] has the lights turned off as part of a ritual.

 

== Film ==

** {{spoiler|And he was actually faking his death because he realized someone was trying to kill him instead. Said guest succeeds later, but not in the dark.}}

* In ''[[Devil]]'', nearly every time the lights go out, someone gets murdered.

 

== Literature ==

* In Baynard Kendrick's novel "The Last Express" a killer stabs a man to death in a night club and no one notices because {{spoiler|the room was bathed in red light for a performance and you can't see red blood under red light.}}

 

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' has the Weeping Angels, lifeforms that actually function by this trope. They exist as statues when being observed, and only when no one is looking can they move. When the lights go out, they can move almost instantly from place to place.

** This also happened in the episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp."

* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "Wolf in the Fold". While a seance is going on to find out who the murderer is, the flame that's the only light in the room goes out. The medium running the seance screams, and when the light comes up again, she's dead: stabbed in the back.

* One episode of ''[[The X-Files]]'' had an enemy that would only attack in the dark.

* The ''[[Foyle's War]]'' episode "The White Feather"

* Used in the [[Slasher Movie|slasher]]-themed episode of ''[[Boy Meets World]]''.

* Used in ''[[Tracker]]''. One of the fugitive aliens cut the lights in the Watchfire, then killed someone while the lights were off.

 

== Music ==

* The song ''[http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/d/dangerousdanmcgrew.shtml Dangerous Dan McGrew]''. Barbershop quartets sometimes sing a variation, part of which goes:

And they drew their guns, and they said "Which one is Dangerous Dan McGrew?" }}

 

== Western Animation ==

* In the first "Tales of Interest" episode of ''[[Futurama]]'', Leela's last three victims are all killed this way.

* The ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Cartman's Mom Is Still A Dirty Slut" begins with Dr. Mephesto being shot in the chest. It becomes the focus of the entire episode.

* In the ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'' episode "C.L.U.E.S.", Numbuh Three's Posh Party Rainbow Monkey is stabbed in the back this way.

* In the episode "Mystery Train" of ''[[Adventure Time]]'', it's exaggerated and subverted. A lot of candy people die on the train one by one as the lights go off, leaving nothing but skeletons. Finn tries to solve the mystery, while it turns out that {{spoiler|no one actually died; it was a birthday surprise set up by Jake, all the skeletons are fake, and the prime suspect, the Conductor, was Jake in disguise.}}

 

== Other ==

[[Category:Darkness and Shadows Tropes]]

[[Category:Murder Tropes]]