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{{trope}}
A person or group of people are invited to a social
An [[Old Dark House]] is an ideal place to pull this off.
In [[Real Life]], this is literally one of [[The Oldest Tricks in The Book]]
A subtrope of [[Lured
[[I Thought It Meant|Nothing to do with]] the Conservative Party of Great Britain, occasionally known as "the nasty party" by its critics. Also not to be confused with [[Those Wacky Nazis]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Lupin III]]'': "Return of Lupin III" (the first episode of the second series) features the
* A variation of this is shown in the ''[[
* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' plays with the trope; the party isn't specifically to kill the participants, but the more people that gather there, the less likely it is that someone important will die in the summoning of an ancient witch.
* The opening chapter of ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' has a villain who uses magic to trick women into going to a party on his boat, then drugging them and selling them into slavery.
* In ''[[One Piece]]'', going to one of Big Mom's tea parties is usually a lot more pleasant than what she'll do to you if you refuse to go. However, during the Whole Cake Island Arc, where the party was supposed to cement an alliance between her and [[The Syndicate| the Vinsmoke family]], she was actually planning to assassinate them. The plan was foiled because Sanji (who was to be married to Pudding at the party [[Arranged Marriage| as part of the deal]]) overheard the plan beforehand. Of course, Vinsmoke Judge and Capone Bege were both planning - independently - to do so to her at the party; the good guys prevailed because the bad guys [[Evil Versus Evil|were too concerned with each other.]]
== [[
* In ''[[Hack Slash]]'', Laura Lochs decides to wipe out a beach party full of kids on spring break as [[Strawman Political|a protest against sexual permissiveness]].
* [[Marvel Comics]]: The massacre at the Bar With No Name during the original [[Captain America (comics)|"Scourge of the Underworld" storyline]], where eighteen villains were murdered, was a variation on this, except that the host wasn't behind it. The villains had met there to discuss the danger that Scourge posed, and because they knew at this point that he was a [[Master of Disguise]], they doubled down on security, had everyone searched before entering, and they all checked their weapons at the door. Unfortunately, Scourge had disguised himself as the bartender, and no-one ever thought to search him, leaving them all vulnerable when he made his attack, gunning them all down.
== [[Film]] ==
*
** Hey, [[Evil Gloating|gloating's]] ''fun''. And at least he ''tried'' to kill all the witnesses afterwards. That's more than most villains remember to do.
*** Doesn't explain why he had that insanely elaborate room built, with the rotating furniture, the scale models... oh, right -- [[Rule of Cool|Bond movie]]. I forgot.
* Several movies about [[The Mafia]], like ''[[The Godfather]]'' and ''[[Some Like It Hot]]''.
* The movie version of ''[[Clue (film)|Clue]]''
** With the twist that one of the guests, and not the host, is doing the killing {{spoiler|except in the "true" ending, where it turns out that ''all'' the guests save one and the host himself are murderers: they were invited by Mr. Boddy for the express purpose of killing his informants, conveniently cleaning up any evidence against him ''and'' ensuring they all had at least one new skeleton in the closet for Mr. Boddy to blackmail them for. Then it turns out that the ''one'' guest who was actually innocent is actually a federal agent, and he kills Mr. Boddy just as the cavalry arrives.}}
* ''[[I Still Know What You Did Last Summer]]'' has the villain Benjamin Willis concocting a convoluted plot to kill the heroine Julie and her friends; {{spoiler|first he has his son Will befriend Julie, then he has a fake radio contest in which Julie's friend Karla "wins" tickets to an island in the Bahamas, and while the group are on the island Willis starts taking out all the remaining employees so he can have Julie all to himself. Of course, things don't work out.}}
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* The Red Wedding in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''.
* Done several times in ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]''. Notable ones include Cai Mao's attempt on Liu Bei (unsuccessful), Zhuge Liang drugging a number of Nanman soldiers (they had been planning on using the banquet to make a surprise attack), and Zhou Yu's attempt on Liu Bei (also unsuccessful, as Liu Bei was accompanied by Guan Yu).
* [[Discworld]]:
** A strategy supposed to have been used by some Pictsie clans
** Also referenced as a strategy in ''[[
*** Though one of Cohen's fellow octogenarian barbarians says they could still pull it off, if they did something easy for dinner, "like pasta".
* The example above might be directly inspired by ''[[Conan]]''. In one story, he starts a fight in the middle of a victory feast, wiping out the warriors of the tribe they were allied with but no longer need to. Apparently, this form of betrayal is a local tradition and thus not dishonorable (Conan's men were simply faster to act).
* In the short story "Invitation to a Poisoning" by Peter Tremayne, the villain Nechtan invites all his enemies to dinner and then poisons
* In [[John Christopher]]'s post-apocalyptic young-adult novel ''The Prince In Waiting'', the protagonist's father (ruler of the city where the action is set) is invited to a gathering and murdered.
* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: [[Xenophon]] records at least two:
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** In ''The Education of Cyrus'', he indicates that Astyages (Cyrus' Mede maternal grandfather), attempting to seek revenge on his brother Harpagus, lured Harpagus' son to a banquet, killed him, and then fed Harpagus his son's flesh at the banquet. [[Too Dumb to Live|Then, in a truly inspired move, Astyages gave Harpagus command of an army sent to kill Cyrus.]] Instead, when they met, Harpagus joined forces with Cyrus to bring Astyages down. [[Sarcasm Mode|Rather a shocking move, wasn't it?]]
* Mentioned in ''[[The Magician's Nephew]]'' by [[God Save Us From the Queen|Jadis]] as how one of her ancestors dealt with supposedly rebellious nobles.
* In ''[[Darth Plagueis]]'', the title character tells his apprentice (Palpatine) that the first murder he committed was an initiation rite done to prove his worth to his own mentor, where he assassinated a rich businessman at a banquet using Force Choke. Because the entree served was bloat eel (a highly poisonous fish that, much like fugu blowfish, can kill the diner if not properly prepared) he was able to do so discreetly and then blame the chefs for it.
== [[Live
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' has been at a few, both via invitation or via crashing them. Seeing as Buffy tends to be the "monster" in any [[Mugging the Monster]] scheme by villains, this trick tends to go badly for the hosts:
** The first was in "Reptile Boy" where the was a frat party she and Cordelia went to was a front for a cult who planned to sacrifice them.
** In one episode, Spike relates to Angel how he [[Too Dumb to Live|once accepted an invitation]] to ''a free virgin blood party'' which was a sting operation by the Secret Service. Obviously, he escaped, but tells Angel never to go to such a party, as [[Captain Obvious| "it's probably a trap".]]
** Possibly the one that was the most relevant to the overall plot was the graduation ceremony in "Homecoming", where the guest speaker - [[Big Bad|Mayor Wilkins]] - planned to finalize his centuries-long plan of ascension by transforming into the gigantic Olvikan and then devouring the students. Unfortunately, a series of mistakes in preparation - mostly his attempt to distract Buffy by poisoning Angel resulting in Faith being injured - resulted in the Slayer being well-prepared and able to rally the whole graduating class into a small army, [[Out-Gambitted|ultimately letting Buffy exploit his love for Faith]] - making him careless - causing Wilkins to rush and botch the ceremony and the Scoobies bringing Wilkins down in a literally ''explosive'' finale.
* ''[[Angel]]'' had a bachelor party where the groom and his family were planning to eat the bride's ex-husband's brains. (Long Story).
* The new ''[[Doctor Who]]'':
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** And the Carpathian Feast, where one vampire is roasted to death at the end of the evening. It's used by the Count to kill [[Love Interest|Erin]].
* ''[[The Avengers (TV series)|The Avengers]]'' episode "The Superlative Seven" has the eponymous seven thinking they've been invited to a costume party. It's not.
* One of the most notorious examples is the Red Wedding on ''[[Game of Thrones]]''. This massacre was arranged by Lord Walder Frey as revenge against Robb Stark for breaking the marriage pact between House Stark and House Frey.
== [[Music]] ==
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** By the end of the song, said "black and white dress" has become a "black and red dress"...
== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], Myths and Legends ==
* Towards the middle of the ''[[Nibelungenlied]]'', Siegfried is murdered by his wife's brothers. The widow, Kriemhild, then marries the king of the Huns and invites her brothers and all their retinue to a feast. Unfortunately they've been forewarned, and turn up armed; the result is an all-night bloodbath only brought to a close when the Huns burn down their own hall. Oh, and according to some versions of the story this leads to a disgusted Hun taking out Kriemhild with a [[Diagonal Cut]].
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Pulled off simultaneously with a fake [[Heel Face Turn]] by Drachenfels, the Great Enchanter, in the backstory of ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]]''. He ostensibly repented his crimes, and publicly renounced evil, paid large reparations to his living victims, and abased himself at the graves of many others. He managed to gain the trust of Emperor Carolus and invited the whole imperial court for a feast at Castle Drachenfels. However, Drachenfels poisoned his guests, paralysing them. Helpless they saw how their children, which they had brought with them, were tortured. Afterwards they starved to death with a prepared feast before their eyes.
* According to ''Hordes of the Abyss'', a ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' splat book, [[Horny Devils| Malcanthet, the Demonic Queen of Succubi]], will often throw week-long parties at Shudderwall, a cathedral that she uses as a personal retreat in her [[Crap Saccharine World| Abyssal layer of Shendilavri]]. She invites enraptured mortals and retinues of followers to a "panoply of carnal excess" telling them simply, "Do what thou wilt". The debaucheries that occur at these parties is best left undescribed, but they are often too much for mortals to handle, and almost always turn violent. By the time its over and the locked gates open, many of them are dead, naked and broken on the cathedral floor amid scraps of clothing and [[Too Much Information|"unidentifiable organic liquids."]]
* ''[[Ravenloft]]'' (5th Edition) In the Domain of Dementlieu, social status is the most important trait a citizen can have, and every citizen is pretending to be of a higher social class than he truly is, while trying hard to climb the social ladder. One of the best ways to do this is the fancy parties the upper class (who again, aren’t as upper class as they claim) regularly hold, and the fanciest of them all is Saidra D'Honaire’s monthly masquerade ball. However, few know that the ball is an elaborate trap set by D’honaire (the Darklord of Dementlieu) to weed out pretenders. (Well, actually, everyone knows, desperation for recognition in the [[Deadly Decadent Court]] makes them willing to take the risk.) Should their facade slip and D’honaire recognize a partygoer as a lower class imposter, she angrily exposes them as such before [[Disintegrator Ray|she vaporizing them with her dark magic]]. The sourcebook does claim that D’honaire is not prepared for [[Mugging the Monster| dealing with a potential victim who can fight back]] (such as [[Player Character]]s) but while she can be defeated, she cannot be destroyed [[Weaksauce Weakness|unless ''her'' ruse is uncovered]] (she is as much a pretender as her subjects, being only a farm girl who once believed herself to be royalty and now pretends to be such). [[Self-Inflicted Hell| Such is the way of Ravenloft’s Darklords.]]
== [[
* Once again [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples]] is invoked in [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Titus Andronicus (theatre)|Titus Andronicus]]''. A Nasty Party forms the climax of this [[Kill'Em All|exceptionally bloody]] early work.
** [[The Movie]] does it beautiful justice. (at the end, you
* Nobody in ''Abigail's Party'' is trying to kill anybody, but it ends up being pretty nasty all the same.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls
* An assassin quest in ''[[The Elder Scrolls
** Also in ''Oblivion'', a non-lethal example (the objective is to humiliate the guests, not kill them) where [[Quest Giver|Daedric Prince Sanguine]] wants the [[Player Character]] to cast the spell [[The Nudifier|"Stark Reality"]] at a dinner party. Seeing as Sanguine is an [[Expy]] of [[Trickster God|Dionysus]], this makes perfect sense.
* Mentioned in the bad ending of the first ''[[Laura Bow]]'' game.
* This is why six of the seven murder victims are in the house in the mystery of ''[[The 7th Guest]]''.
* The "cake and party" at the end of the testing in ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'' turns out to be {{spoiler|a pit full of fire the player gets dumped into. [[Spanner in the Works|Then they get out.]]}}
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* ''[[Kim Possible]]'' did this twice, both times at Camp Wannaweep, and both times, it was Ron's archenemy Gill who wanted to kill and/or mutate them.
** Also Dr Drakken has twice invited groups of famous scientists to conferences/traps. The first time, he invited Kim's father, a former schoolmate, without connecting the surname "Possible" to his nemesis ("It's a common name! Who knew?"). The second time he intentionally omitted Dr. Possible from the invite list to avoid attracting Kim's attention (it didn't matter, Kim was visiting her uncle at the Possible Ranch right down the road).
* G-rated example in an episode of ''[[The Smurfs]]'' where, after having trouble with a rebellious wart-monger called the [[Homage| Scarlet]] [[Zorro| Croaker]], King Bullrush tells [[The Dragon| Captain Wartmar]] to plan a big party to use as a trap, and then decides, since the Scarlet Croaker is so fond of masks, to make it a masquerade party. {{spoiler|This plan fails, mostly because [[Dragon with an Agenda| Captain Wartmar ''is'' the Scarlet Croaker]].}}
* ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'' had an episode where Dr. Venture, Brock, Baron Ünderbheit and Pete White all attend the funeral of a friend from college, only for the friend, who wasn't really dead, to kidnap them all in revenge for their wronging him. It turns out that these slights all had to do with the man's crush on a girl at college; the four "victims" all mock this since the girl never knew he existed in the first place and the whole crush bordered on stalkerish obsession. Then it turns out the friend ''had'' died, ages ago, and the scheme was being carried out by a robot duplicate.
** There was also the episode that introduced Underbheit where he holds a meeting with his subordinates and subsequently attempts to kill them. A later episode shows he failed, two of them run a resistance against him, a third is being held captive in his bedroom.
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* The ''[[Space Ghost Coast to Coast]]'' episode "Surprise" has Moltar and Zorak rounding up the Council of Doom so they can throw a surprise party for Space Ghost's birthday. And by "surprise party", we mean "ambush". After suffering through a host of painful distractions, Space Ghost comes back, sees through their transparent attempt at hiding behind a curtain, and blows them up with his power bands.
* Subverted in "The Creeps" episode of ''[[Adventure Time]]''. The protagonists are invited to a dark, spooky castle (which is heavily lampshaded), locked in, and then receive a message that a ghost will possess one of them and kill the others. This appears to happen, but eventually turns out to be a prank by Jake targeting Finn. Double subverted (?) since Finn intended to prank Jake and staged the first two "murders" accordingly; Jake found out about Finn's plans well in advance and turned the tables on him.
* In the ''[[Rick and Morty]]'' episode with Tammy and Bird-Person's wedding, Tammy (who is secretly an agent of the Federation) actually uses the reception as a sting operation in an attempt to arrest the main cast.
* In the ''[[Amphibia (TV series)|Amphibia]]'' episode "Reunion", Sasha and Grime invite the residents of Wartwood to a banquet, the intent being to publicly execute Hop Pop in an attempt to quash the rebellion he is [[Accidental Hero| (completely by accident)]] inspiring. Fortunately, not only are Grime's men utterly incompetent, {{spoiler| Sasha makes the mistake of assuming Anne will go along with this; [[Evil Cannot Comprehend Good|Anne refuses to turn against her friends]]; and the plot fails. [[Epic Fail| Spectacularly]].}}
== [[
* Niccolo Machiavelli, in his classic work of political science ''The Prince,'' describes just such a banquet hosted by Oliverotto Da Fermo. Oliverotto invited all the nobles of Fermo who might oppose him to a banquet, then invited them to meet with him privately to discuss serious political matters—in a room where he had armed men waiting to massacre them.
* Not to mention the legendary original "Night of the Long Knives" in early British history, when in around 460 AD the Saxons allegedly massacred the British nobility at a banquet to celebrate a peace treaty, reducing King Vortigern to their puppet.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:The Oldest Tricks in The Book]]
[[Category:Party At My Index]]
[[Category:Plots]]
▲[[Category:Nasty Party]]
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