Punk in the Trunk/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Basic Trope: A character is transported in the trunk of a car.
  • Played Straight: Alice is placed in Bob's trunk.
  • Exaggerated: Alice's mouth has been taped shut, and her hands and feet are taped behind her.
    • Alice is dead.
  • Justified: Bob is carrying Alice off as a hostage.
  • Inverted: Alice is riding in the front passenger seat, or at least the backseat.
    • Alice is driving the car.
  • Subverted: A police officer stops Bob, and searches the car for anything that shouldn't be there, and doesn't find anything unusual in the trunk.
  • Double Subverted: Because Alice's body is underneath a secret compartment in the floor of the trunk.
  • Parodied: A bunch of characters get out when the trunk is opened, like a clown car.
  • Deconstructed: These days, a lot of car manufacturers anticipate this very thing, and so there is usually a way for the person in the trunk to open it from the inside and escape. And if Alice is dead, and Bob leaves her body in there (i.e. forgets about it), then she'll decompose, which will be a hell of a stench to clean up (and try to hide.)
  • Reconstructed: Bob takes out the safety feature (or simply does not put one in), and either only transports live people this way, or makes sure to take dead bodies out.
  • Zig Zagged: Some hostages are transported in the trunk, others in the car itself.
  • Lampshaded: "I'm gonna stuff that bitch in the trunk when I'm through with her!"
  • Averted: No people (alive or dead) are found in Bob's trunk.
  • Enforced:
  • Invoked: Bob kidnaps Alice, and needs a way to transport her covertly.
  • Defied: Bob does not own the car, and instead holds a gun to Alice (the driver's) head, telling her exactly where to go.
  • Discussed:
  • Conversed:
  • Played For Laughs: Bob "kidnaps" Alice from her job to "hold her hostage" someplace more fun.
  • Played For Drama: Almost always is.