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Peek-a-Boo Corpse: Difference between revisions
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Yes. Once again, the '''Peek-a-Boo Corpse'''—the bane of squeamish horror movie watchers ''everywhere''—has made an appearance, rearing its ugly, eyeless, wormy head and worming its way into the nightmares of kids and adults alike.
If you're a naive moviewatcher (e.g., a child), there ''is'' no defense from the
You can expect the identity of the
* An anonymous [[Monster Misogyny|female victim]] of the villain, if he's a [[Serial Killer]]
* A non-main character who, [[Acquitted Too Late|up until the discovery of his body, was considered the prime suspect in the Murder of the Week]] ("''Hunh. Guess he didn't do it after all''...")
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* Just some random, hapless ghoul
In order for a body to qualify as a
Compare [[Cat Scare]].
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* Go and check out the [http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/promnight/ promotional website] for the remake of ''Prom Night''. There's a pretty underwhelming version of the trope if you click for long enough.
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== [[Anime and Manga]] ==
* In ''[[One Piece]]'', [[The So-Called Coward|Usopp]] receives a face full of it when the Going Merry is rained on (and quite nearly destroyed) by the remains of a ship {{spoiler|that fell from Skypiea}}. Needless to say, the Straw Hat Crew is totally shook up by the [[Beyond the Impossible|abuse of both logic and gravity]] Usopp attempts to calm himself by closing his eyes and meditating himself into believing the whole ordeal is a dream. He slowly opens his eyes and the first thing he sees is... The skeletal remains of one of the ships crew. [[Screams Like a Little Girl|Poor]] [[Freak-Out|Bastard]].
== [[Film]] ==
* [[Steven Spielberg]] is probably the Grand [[Puppet Master]] of the Peek-a-Boo Corpse:
** In the movie ''[[Jaws (film)|Jaws]]'', the hapless Richard Dreyfuss happens upon a particularly nasty example of this trope in an underwater wreck. (this one Spielberg reshot specifically to be as much of a [[Jump Scare]] as it could)
** In ''[[Jurassic Park]]'', [[Laura Dern]] has just escaped the raptors when she feels an arm on her shoulder—oh look, [[Samuel L. Jackson]]'s here! ...Nope, just his arm.
** The movie ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'' features a scene at the beginning where [[Indiana Jones]], rushing to escape a [[Collapsing Lair]], runs straight into his traitorous—and now karmically impaled—former guide, Alfred Molina. But this scene had nothing on the most pants-voidingly traumatic Peek-a-Boo Corpse gangbang ever filmed—the scene where Marion attempts to escape from a crumbling Egyptian tomb only to find herself being {{
*** Not to mention the earlier case in which the corpse of a "competitor" scares Alfred half-witted.
*** What should also be pointed out is that the mummies may or may not have been alive. Their appearance is still...something...either way.
** The only scenes which could rival the Peek-a-Boo Corpse scrum in ''Raiders'' would be those which occurred in the ending of the Spielberg-produced ''[[Poltergeist]]'', which featured, among other things, the mother of the family being assaulted by corpses in the unfinished backyard pool. Later on, the entire family had to escape from a house where corpses in coffins were literally popping themselves up out of the floor and blocking their way. One even tossed itself onto the windshield of their departing car for good measure. (That and the [[Monster Clown|evil clown toy]] are why this editor will never watch a Spielberg movie again...)
*** What makes this particular instance of Peek-A-Boo-Corpse so bad however, is that whenever the mother was in the unfinished pool, the corpse in there with her... [[Fridge Horror|WAS REAL]]!
* Subverted in ''[[The Machinist]]''. At the start of the movie the main character is shown in an attempt to dump a body, {{spoiler|and later his fridge starts leaking blood after he fails to pay his electric bill. When opened, however, it only contains a large fish he caught.}}
* The ''[[Friday the 13th (film)|Friday the 13 th]]'' movies all climax with multiple Peek-a-Boo Corpses, in the form of previous victims, all popping up at once to terrorize the [[Final Girl]].
** You gotta give the killer credit for going through the extra effort of throwing a corpse through a window just scare their next victim.
* Need we even mention ''[[The Ring]]''? If the one in the closet doesn't get you, the one in the chair will...
** If you want to see something even worse, pause the movie during the final moments of the opening "slumber party" scene. Then do some frame advances... (Keep the nitroglycerin on standby.)
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* ''[[Grindhouse]]'': The trailer ''Thanksgiving'' parodies this trope, with two kills in a row resulting from a sudden beheading that's suddenly revealed when a character looks up.
* ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]]'' of course did this multiple times where Laurie is exploring a house, she find one body then walks into something which prompts another peek a boo corpse to pop out. Also in one of the many ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]]'' sequels (don't ask which one) they're holding a reality TV show inside the Myers house, the TV crew have set up a number of fake peek a boo corpses to scare the contestants, then real peek a boo corpses start turning up to the disbelief of everybody. The series continued this even when the main character was a nine year old girl...with one of the corpses being her adopted sister. Yikes.
* In the [[Jean
* In ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', Batman impostor, Brian, is killed by the Joker, and his corpse is mercilessly hung outside the mayor of Gotham's office. What with the sudden appearance of his body slamming into the window, accompanied by creepy, startling music, it tends to make people jump.
* There's a great scene in ''[[American Psycho]]'' when a young woman is attempting to escape the lethally insane Patrick Bateman and she runs into several corpses all over his apartment.
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* Played with in the first of ''[[The Mummy Trilogy]]''. When the three protagonists finally open up the [[Sealed Evil in a Can|Sarcophagus]], cue the explosion of dust, momentary scare chord, and the corpse snapping out at the trio. The Heroine screams for a second, before sighing, "Oh, I ''hate'' it when they do that!"
* Invoked in-universe in ''National Lampoon's Class Reunion'', where the killer sets a Peek-a-Boo Corpse on a rope swinging across the auditorium's stage like a pendulum, thus freaking out the attendees ''en masse''.
* In the "Black Hair" segment of the Japanese horror film ''Kaidan'', the samurai makes an unfortunate discovery after a passionate night with the wife he had abandoned.
* Done a couple of times in ''[[Disturbia]]'' first when Kale's friend Ronnie plays back a video he shot of the inside of his creepy neighbor's house and discovers a dead woman inside the vent, later when said neighbor pushes Kale into an underground pool he discovers several dead women inside.
* The bug-eyed corpse with the music box in hand, which topples out of the semi in the beginning of the second ''[[Mad Max]]'' movie.
* ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]'' McCoy's making his way through the Regula I station when he bumps into a [[Cat Scare|Rat Scare]]. Relieved after the initial shock, he turns around - slap-bang into a corpse, hung upside down.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* Used in [[Glen Cook]]'s ''Sweet Silver Blues'', when a dried-up corpse falls out of a catacomb niche and spooks the heroes. Subverted in that {{spoiler|it fell out because a vampire-spawn was hiding behind the corpse, and had pushed it aside in order to attack!}}
* Uniquely employed in ''[[Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency]]'', in which a ghost is shocked to discover its OWN corpse in a cupboard. {{spoiler|At the sight, the ghost faints.}}
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* This mostly seems to happen to the Bursar in [[Discworld]], who has found unexpected corpses in his wardrobe (in ''Hogfather'') and lying in his bed wearing a nightcap (implied in ''The Discworld Companion''). Granted, the latter incident was a student prank rather than a crime scene.
** Subverted in ''Maskerade'', when a suspicious-looking cello case is anxiously opened by the opera house's manager, and found to contain the mutilated, broken-necked remains of ... a cello.
* In ''[[Fairy Tales]]'', this happens memorably to [[Bluebeard]]'s wife. Well, he ''did'' [[Schmuck Bait|tell her not to look]]....
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* An episode of the detective series ''[[Simon and Simon]]'' featured a scene where the [[Girl of the Week]] opened a closet in a nice, clean, unassuming house to find herself staring at a decaying, socket-eyed female corpse. Since the stench of decomposition would probably have been fairly noticeable, one might wonder why the woman wasn't more cautious about opening the door. (Yes... one ''might'' wonder... if one hadn't been so traumatized by the scene that they ducked under their bed and started to cry like this then-9-year-old editor did... Damn you, ''Simon & Simon''...)
* Parodied in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', when the Doctor and his friends split up to search a school for evidence of the villains' evil plot. One character opens a door, we hear a high, terrified scream...and (eventually) see that he has discovered a closet full of vacuum-packed rats. Quoth the Doctor: "You decided to scream? Like a little girl? Nine, maybe ten years old. Pigtails, frilly skirt..."
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** There was also the extreme dead guy in Aura's locker from the first episode.
** Played with in "Dead Things", where Buffy (thanks to a spell) doesn't realize that Katrina is a Peek-a-Boo Corpse and thinks she's killed her.
* Often how the dead body is found on ''[[Castle]]''. You're just going about your day, minding your own business, opening your safe or dumping your old pizza boxes down the garbage chute and ''bang''.
** It happens to the leads during the Halloween episode in a closet in an attic. It's [[Played for Laughs]].
* This happens a few times on ''[[Misfits]]'', firstly when the group find {{spoiler|Gary's}} hacked-up corpse in a locker. It also happens when Sally finds {{spoiler|her fiance's body}} in her car boot, although Curtis ultimately manages to avert this with his [[Time Master|time-turning]] ability. Plus, in episode 6, even though the audience already knows that {{spoiler|Sally}} is dead, it still comes as a bit of a shock to see that {{spoiler|Simon has propped her up in a giant freezer and is nonchalantly eating his lunch while gazing at her mangled corpse.}}
** This happens again in season 2, but the scene quickly [[Mood Whiplash|takes a comedic turn]] when [[The Ditz|Nathan]] starts frantically screaming at the corpse: ''"Help! What should I do?"''
* Happens all the time in [[Psych]]. Then Gus vanishes if not stopped first.
* A fairly common way to open an episode in [[NCIS]].
** One prime example is the opening scene of episode 10 of season 4, "Smoked." Workmen at the Quantico Marine Military Base are replacing a furnace when the well-preserved (smoked) body of a dead man falls out of the chimney, which scares the bejeebus out of them.
* An episode of ''[[The Greatest American Hero]]'' pulls a PG-rated version of this on the ''viewer'', having a murder victim literally spring back to "life" as a white-faced zombie.
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
* Real life example (reported on the BBC website July 5, 2007): A Belgian man has been arrested after a dinner guest helping to clear up after the meal opened a freezer and found the bodies of the host's wife and stepson. The 42-year-old host had invited guests for dinner at his home in the city of Verviers, 125 km (78 miles) east of Brussels, prosecutors said. Ms Wilwerth said: "It was a lady who at the end of the meal at a friend's house, and after washing the dishes... decided to take the leftovers of the meal down to the basement to store in the deep freeze. "Once she opened the deep freeze, she discovered the bodies." Guests then alerted police but refrained from telling the host.▼
** A [[Real Life]] [[Stuffed Into the Fridge]], huh?▼
== [[Theatre]] ==
* The [[Ur Example]] is probably the corpse of lawyer Robert Crosby found in a secret passage in ''[[The Cat and the Canary]]'' (play, later film).
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* ''Doom3'' enjoyed this heavily, having bodies fall out of vents or fly across rooms with no warning, often designed to spook the player and make them waste ammo on a non-threatening body. The most prominent is towards the beginning where after grabbing a PDA, a body on a rope swings from the ceiling in front of the player.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Oddly combined with [[Gory Discretion Shot]] in [[Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name]] when Veser [http://hanna.aftertorque.com/?p=426 discovers the body in the theater].
* In ''[[
== [[Web Original]] ==
* 4chan board /x/ plays this for laughs. A common way to criticize the predictability or otherwise show contempt for a story is to simply post "and then a skeleton popped out."
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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** [[Tex Avery]]'s MGM short ''[[Who Killed Who]]'' has the detective open the door, only to see the bound and gagged body of a butler fall out...and then another...and then another...[[Overly Long Gag|and then another]]...the cascading domino of bodies only stops for a moment for one of the corpses to stop and remark [[Lampshade Hanging|on how many of them there are]], and the bodies just keep on falling.
*** This actually gets a shoutout in an episode of ''[[Bounty Hamster]]'', with robots in place of corpses.
* An episode of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' revolves around Homer having a repressed memory of this happening when he was a teenager.
* In ''[[Transformers Generation 1|Transformers]]'', Daniel Witwicky experiences this in the Autobot crypt when he's running away from an undead Optimus Prime.
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* Real life example (reported on the BBC website July 5, 2007): A Belgian man has been arrested after a dinner guest helping to clear up after the meal opened a freezer and found the bodies of the host's wife and stepson. The 42-year-old host had invited guests for dinner at his home in the city of Verviers, 125
▲** A [[Real Life]] [[Stuffed Into the Fridge]], huh?
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
[[Category:Peek A Boo Corpse]]
[[Category:
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