Screamer Prank

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Some schmuck just won The Maze Game.

A Screamer Prank (usually referred to either as a "Screamer" or a "Prank") is a type of Jump Scare that originated on the Internet. At first, it pretends to be a game, a test, a still image, a video that is not meant to be scary, etc. Then a scary image (usually a scary face) pops up with either a scream or a Scare Chord, which is also when you realize that what you were viewing before the Jump Scare was fake all along.

These are known for utilizing Schmuck Bait to a shameless degree and one of the many reasons why one should be paranoid clicking on certain links on the internet. Also see Shock Site and Last-Note Nightmare, the latter being when a song has a creepy ending.

Examples of Screamer Prank include:


Advertising

  • "K-Fee" is a coffee beverage sold by a German company with a similar name. They have made nine different television commercials that imitate the screamers found online (they were actually shown on TV in Germany). The most popular one is the one featuring a car driving through a road, but after the car disappeared, a green zombie jumps up with a loud monstrous scream. The reason why it is more popular than the other commercials is because it was passed around the internet and was said to be a commercial that was never aired on TV because a ghostly mist would appear next to the car about halfway through the commercial. You can read about all of the K-Fee commercials on the K-Fee Wikipedia page. In 2006, there were three parody commercials released on German television to advertise a new variant of K-Fee coffee with less caffeine.
  • Busch Gardens' 2011 Howl-O'-Scream TV ad is scary in and of itself, what with the creepy imagery and dark Nursery Rhyme being played in the background, but the kicker comes at the end, when the song ends ("Come play in my garden...") and a female zombie tears through the "O" and lets out a very loud scream. If you're that curious, here's the ad.

Newspaper Comics

Video Games

  • Upgrade Complete offers one through the Heart Rate upgrade.
  • Mortal Kombat 9 has the Krypt Monster, a little fucker that can pop up every now and then when the player is in the Krypt.
  • Abused to no small extent in the Arise series of Flash games, to the point that it's more tedious than actually frightening.


Web Original

  • "Kikia" is one the first screamers to be widely spread and thus provide inspiration for other similar creations. It originated on Taiwan's Kimo webhosting service from a person with the online username "Netspooky." The first frame shows a cartoon boy sits on a lawn gazing at the sky. Two lines of Chinese text appear. A rough translation is "Hasn't it been a long time... / Haven't looked at the sky closely...". The second frame shows the boy walking down a city street lined with buildings. A rough translation of the Chinese text is "Walking on the street... / You see...". Third frame shows a picture of a ghost woman from Fatal Frame with a piercing scream. The last frame has "Kikia" in yellow text. This does not loop.
  • "What's Wrong with this Picture?" starts a rather innocent photo of a dining room. This is actually a flash file, but because of its early appearance, many viewers had little or no knowledge of flash. After staring at the picture for about thirty seconds, a black and white close-up photo of a woman clenching her face, with eyeballs missing from her sockets briefly pops up and screams.
  • "Good Intentions" pretends to be just a slide show of very pretty, peaceful photos (to the tune of R.E.M.'s Shiny Happy People) but, after a while, a photo will come very slowly and all of a sudden it screams, and the Fatal Frame image from Kikia (see above) covers it. It's not over yet, because after this it starts doing the complete opposite, showing scary and unpleasant pictures of murders, monsters, and more, and appears to be over, but after a short time, will scream again.
  • "Subliminal Music and Images" is often considered to be the scariest screamer on the internet. After loading, an advertisement for gin is shown. After a few seconds, part of the image is highlighted and the word "SEX" is visible. An image for a flooring company appears, with a woman appearing to be touching her shoulder. The image is then flipped, so it appears the woman is masturbating herself. Then a song, Cradle of Filth's "Dinner at Deviant Palace" begins to play backward. The Lord's Prayer is heard along with faint noises. In the middle of the prayer, a loud scream is heard, along with a flurry of pictures; the first one is a demon face from the movie Demoni, then Pazuzu's face from The Exorcist, then a gray-scale image of a dead woman from Rotten.com (don't go to that site, it's a Shock Site), and then a harlequin baby (don't look that up either), and a gray-scale image of a mummy without wrappings. It ends with a message, "Never trust strange flash documents talking about subliminal stuff!" with metal music playing in the background.
  • "The Maze" is a famous screamer that gets the user's attention by presenting a game where the challenge is to get to the red area with your cursor while not touching the walls. Usually, there is note saying that few people have completed the game to intrigue you further. There are three levels in all, and after one finishes the 3rd level, the girl from The Exorcist appears on the screen and lets out a blood-curdling scream, and if you touch the wall near the end of level 3 where the level gets progressively thin, it will still surprise you. To cheat, hold down the mouse and drag it to the red area.
    • There is also another version shown on America's Funniest Home Videos that changes the Exorcist girl to the pic that was used in "What's Wrong with this Picture?", most likely for licensing reasons. The scream is also changed to the one in "What's Wrong with this Picture?".
  • "Steady Hand 2" (this one's in Japanese) is another screamer that plays similar to the maze. The "game's" objective is to go to the "goal" without touching the wall. The first level operates entirely as a normal game, and will result in a game over if lost. However, on the second level, always at the same place on the course (3/4 of the way through), a black and white portrait of a deformed person will zoom in and out on a red background with a long scream.
  • "Where's Waldo" shows a realistic Where's Waldo comic, then Pazuzu's face from The Exorcist pops up with a loud scream.
    • There is also an alternative version of this screamer which has the pic used in "What's Wrong with this Picture" but with lights in the eye sockets, the screen also flashes white during the Jump Scare in this version.
    • Note that Waldo was nowhere in the scene, but Odlaw and Wenda were both in it.
  • "Chris the Jack O Latern" is a crudely animated Halloween cartoon featuring a sad jack-o-lantern, who says "Hi kids, my name is Chris. You guys know what Sunday is? Yeah, that's right, Sunday is Halloween, and that makes me upset. You know why it makes me upset?" He pauses until you click the screen, then he says, "Yeah, because Sunday is the day that..." then a rather scary smiling ghost face with a deafening high pitched scream appears. Chris' comments date this prank to 2004 (as Halloween fell on a Sunday that year).
    • There were also 2 sequel episodes, at the end of episode two, there was a menu where you could select to either to go back to Albino Blacksheep's main site, replay the video, or go to the creator's website. However, moving the mouse over any of them brings up a picture with the same scream used in the first CTJ. Moving the mouse over "Back to ABS" makes the ghost used in the first CTJ pop up, moving it over "Replay" makes a greyscale cloaked man pop up, moving it over "Website" makes a picture of the creator pop up (as a joke). None of the buttons actually work. Episode three was the only episode to have no real screamer part. In the middle, there was a quick appearance of the ghost from the first one (with no scream).
  • "Jingle Bells Reversed" plays an excerpt of Jingle Bells, then plays it backwards. During the 3/4 mark of the reverse excerpt, heavy breathing is heard and a negative image of a man screaming suddenly pops up with a loud scream that vibrates/echoes afterwards. The words "Hmm... It sounds slightly different in reverse. Hidden message? Who knows? I'm a bastard? Yes." appear at the end.
  • "The Fact About Sajjad Ali" uses soothing music from a Pakistani pop singer Sajjad Ali. Text appears over a picture of Stonehenge describing the song played in the flash, "Paniyon Mein", followed by some Romanized Hindi. A Banshee with glowing eyes suddenly zooms out to a scream, covering the Stonehenge picture. The scream is the same as "What's Wrong With The Picture".
  • "Zoeken" is a Dutch prank ("Zoeken" is a Dutch word for "search") that asks you to find the three differences between two (actually identical) pictures. After a short while, a picture of a vampire woman from the movie Fright Night (uses the same image as the shock item as the "Jessica Alba Nude" screamer) suddenly appears, zooming in and out a few times over a long scream (same as in "Steady Hand 2"), before heading to the end portion with a picture of SpongeBob and the sound of Spongebob laughing.
  • "Swearing Baby" shows a video of a baby sleeping, then the baby opens its mouth, but a few seconds after that, it turns blue, it's head grows giant, and lets out a high pitched distorted scream before turning back to normal.
  • "Little Dancing Girl" is a video of a young girl dancing down a hallway, but after the girl is gone from the screen, a woman as a red demon jumps up with a powerful scream. Another scary thing about the screamer is actually the TV on the right which just has constant static.
  • "Escape The Spooky Room" is a prank that shows a picture of a rather poorly drawn room, in which you're supposed to find a way out of (like a game called The Crimson Room). However, clicking on anything has no effect at all and, after about half a minute, a creepy shadow is shown moving across the floor. Upon waiting a few more seconds, a rather scary picture of a deformed person's face leaps onto the screen, accompanied by a woman screaming.
  • "Ghost Chair" is a video that shows a room with a rocking chair, green lighting, and a bunch of toys. After a while, the chair starts rocking on its own, then Exorcist girl quickly crawls up to the camera a few seconds later with a distorted and echoy scream.
    • There is also another version on szworld.net which at the end, a white mask of a distorted face with long hair and pupilless eyes comes up instead of the Exorcist girl.
  • "Clock Crew Quiz" pretends to be a test which involves a series of questions, all of which gives the following choices: "Strawberry Clock," "Josh Bedn," "Tom Fulp," or "George Bush." First Question: Who is king of the Portal? Answer: Strawberry Clock. Second Question: Who was the first clock? Answer: Strawberry Clock. Third Question: Who is from Canada? Immediately after the question is revealed, an image of a distorted woman's face will appear with a scream. The Clock Crew of the title is a reference to a group of people who make Macromedia Flash animations on Newgrounds (where this prank is hosted), with "Strawberry Clock" referring to the person who started it all.
  • "Meaning of Life 2006" is a Newgrounds animation that states it is a serious Flash and apologizes for a quiet music rip. It appears to be a rather substandard Flash presentation talking philosophically about the meaning of life. After several frames, an animated picture of a woman's skull (it still has long hair and one eye) that's boiling in a gorey goo-like substance appears accompanied with a continuously looping scream.
  • "3D Practice" is a Newgrounds animation that shows a few 3D animations. at the end, a hideous face which is a bloody green zombie face pops up with a horrifying scream, despite it being rated suitable for everyone (most likely on purpose to trap to some viewers).
  • "Watch This While High" is a prank spread across YouTube for people that are drunk and/or high. It starts of with a sun smiling, and then shows random pictures from the TV show "SpongeBob SquarePants". At the end of the video, a flurry of disturbing art pops up with a roar.
  • "Hot Blond in Tanning Bed" is an infamous, no scream Youtube prank. It shows a pretty 18 year old getting ready to tan (stripping down to a bikini, putting on tanning lotion, etc.). Then she turns on the tanning bed. She then sits on the edge of the tanning bed and puts tanning lotion on her leg, but then the top lid of the tanning bed closes quickly (kind of like a Venus flytrap) and distorts her body, but with no blood. It cuts off to a message saying "Tanning can kill you". Finally, it goes back to the video and electric sparks come out of the tanning bed.
    • This was referenced in Bionicle Heroes with the Piraka Sun Lounger, except with a lawn chair.
      • Speaking of, wasn't there a Piraka Connect-the-Dots game you could download on the Piraka website? It told you to turn up the volume. There were no numbered dots and if you got it wrong a number of times a Piraka (or other picture) would appear and flash at you until it showed the Piraka logo. Not to mention this was for KIDS.
  • "Freaky Picture" is not a video or a flash file, it is an animated GIF. A normal messy room is shown, and the instructions tell you to watch closely at the blue sack hanged on the door for about one minute, the time to figure out what's wrong on this room. After 60 seconds a picture of a blurred lady ghost appears from the door toward you before disappearing really fast. No scream but the sudden appearance is quite (hence the title) freaky.
  • All five Luna Games (a series of Creepypasta fangames) contain screamers. However, the first and fourth ones are tame especially compared to the second and third ones (The fourth one has alot more actual game-play). The screamer in the full version of the fifth game (titled "Luna Game 0") only pops up if you try to restart the game.

Web Original Parodies

  • "Not Scary" shows a picture of a room, then it shows a picture of a face drawn on MS Paint with a guy going "Boogity boogity boogity boo". Then it switches between the room and the MS Paint face for a while until the guys face says "Alright, I'm done. You can go away now". Then he says one last "Boogity boogity boogity!" with the face.
  • Played for Laughs in The Angry Video Game Nerd's review of Nintendo Power. We first see a long, quiet shot of the Nerd's room with a few magazines piled up on the floor before the Nerd suddenly jumps into the screen and yells "ASS!"
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