The Walls Are Closing In: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"One thing's for sure: We're all going to be a lot thinner."''|'''Han Solo''', ''[[Star Wars]]: [[A New Hope]]''}}
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And then the walls start closing in, threatening to squash our hero from the sides.
Like its [[Sister Trope]], [[Descending Ceiling]],
Common ways for heroes to escape this vicious trap is to find a means to brace the moving walls, wait for their [[Sidekick]] to find a way inside and get them out [[Just in Time]] before the walls (or spiked walls) would have surely crushed them, or a combination of the two.
This was commonly used as a stock [[Cliff Hanger]] in [[Film Serial
Compare [[Advancing Wall of Doom]], when the hero has to outrun a single moving wall; and there may exist some overlap between the two tropes if the [[Death Trap]] is only one moving wall.
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{{examples}}
== Film ==
* The trash compactor scene in ''[[A New Hope|Star Wars: A New Hope]]'' is both a standout depiction of this trope but also a [[Shout
* ''[[Krull]]'' includes the [[Spikes of Doom|spiked walls]] version, and a gruesome death for one man who could have escaped but went back for his cherished knife.
* ''[[Evil Dead|Army of Darkness]]'' sees Ash thrown into a pit containing a few demons that he has to fight, as well as this particular [[Death Trap]] just to make things more exciting. He escapes by hanging onto the chain powering the closing walls as it moves up.
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* The 2007 Spanish film ''Fermat's Room'' featured this, with the twist that the victims had to correctly answer logic or math puzzles to stop the walls from advancing.
* In the 1946 film, ''Strangler's Morgue'' (<small>AKA</small> ''The Curse of the Wraydons''), the murderer Philip Wraydon is crushed by the converging walls he has set in motion to crush the hero, Jack Wraydon.
* There's a non-lethal parody in ''[[Toys (
* Another non-lethal parody in ''[[Ernest Scared Stupid]]'' when Ernest fell in the garbage truck and his dog activated the compactor. Ernest tries to keep the walls from closing in and even removing the batteries fails. He gets rescued trapped in compacted garbage.
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* In ''Secret of the Sixth Magic'' by [[Lyndon Hardy]], debtors in the city of Pluton are condemned to death if no one will pay off their creditors to buy them as slaves. This being a fantasy world, the method of execution is magic-powered: they're sealed inside an unbreakable cube, which then magically gets [[Claustrophobia|smaller... and smaller]]... and [[Ludicrous Gibs|smaller]].
* The ''[[Goosebumps]]'' book ''One Day At Horrorland'' features a house of mirrors that ends in a room where this happens. The floor drops out at the very last second.
* ''[[
== Live Action TV ==
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''Dracula: The Series''. The heroes stumble into the [[Spikes of Doom|spiky version]] of one of these while sneaking around [[Dracula|Alexander]] [[Sdrawkcab Name|Lucard]]'s castle, and escape because one of them had seen how to defeat it in an old movie. Later on, Dracula is showing an ''invited'' guest around the place, they come to the (now empty) trap, and he says something like "Do you like it? I saw it in an old movie, and I just had to have one!"
* ''[[The Adventures of Superman]]'': Superman, Lois & Jimmy are trapped in a concrete bunker, with Supes out of commission due to a Kryptonite ray. Then the walls start closing in. Luckily there [[Chekhov's Gun|happened to be]] a discussion of hypnotism earlier in the episode. Superman hypnotises Lois, which [[Hand Wave|somehow]] makes him able to levitate her. Her body stops the walls, and Jimmy is able to climb up to the top and redirect the Kryptonite ray.
* ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'' (the 1966 TV series): In Catwoman's first appearance, she subjects Batman & Robin to the [[Spikes of Doom]] version. But the walls stop just before they'd impale Batman, and anyway the spikes are made of rubber. She was just toying with him. (It wasn't the [[Cliff Hanger]] of the episode.)
* The ''[[
* ''[[
* One episode of ''The Paul Hogan Show'' featured a series of sketches in which someone is murdering Australia's greatest sporting stars. Squash player Geoff Hunt was killed when the murderer slowly cranked in the walls of his squash court, causing him to be crushed.
* ''[[
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** ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'' has a bad guy trapping the heroes in one of these during a [[Cutscene]] as they try to escape his lair after taking him out. Palom and Porom, the two cute kid mages, [[Heroic Sacrifice|sacrifice themselves to save the others]] by turning themselves to stone and stopping the walls.
** And another sequence where the moving wall was alive and you actually had to fight it to the death as it advanced. If it advanced all the way, your party members would start dying instantly one by one, and significantly faster than you could revive them.
** ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' has two Demon Wall enemies. The first one you fight presents a
* In ''[[Half Life]]'', a pair of [[Mooks]] capture the player character and, [[Bond Villain Stupidity|rather than just shooting him]], toss him in a trash compactor. Which he then escapes via conveniently stacked up garbage.
** The [[Expansion Pack]] ''Opposing Force'' has a trash compactor that looks even ''more'' like the ''[[Star Wars]]'' one.
* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of
** One dungeon in the [[The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games|Oracle series]] has a large room with obstacles that must be crossed before its walls crush the player.
* Used to chilling effect in ''[[Nightmare House]]''. You're trapped in a doorless corridor and every time you cross the room and turn around the other wall is closer than it was the last time you looked at it. The only way to get out is {{spoiler|to keep doing it until the walls close in completely. Then you wake up somewhere else.}}
* ''[[Mega Man (
** In ''[[
** ''[[
* Adam Cadre's ''Lock and Key'' game about designing a foolproof dungeon includes this trap. If you add the [[Spikes of Doom]], it turns out they were poorly made and hit each other, breaking the trap and allowing the prisoner to simply climb past.
* In ''[[Messiah]]'', a shooter from 2000, there is that moment, where you trigger a security system, which causes the only available NPC (a worker) to fall and break his legs (meaning he can only crawl slowly), and one of the walls begins to slowly move against you. You're then required to possess the worker and ''slowly crawl to the switch, deactivating the wall and opening a passage further''.
* ''[[Prince of Persia]] 2'' has crushing walls in its later levels, some of which are situated in inescapable pits under [[Fake Platform
* ''[[Rise of the Triad]]'': In early versions, [[Deadly Walls|even touching an approaching wall causes instant death]]. While walls usually were independent movers, there are some places where sections of walls move back and forth to crush the player and one level where it appears the walls are closing in when you hit a touchplate but stop at the last second.
* In the [[Harry Potter (
* Happens throughout the ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' series.
* Appears in ''[[
* The first ''[[God of War (
* Happens at the beginning of the last mission in ''[[Ratchet and Clank Future A Crack In Time]]'', but Qwark can brace the walls forever, and all you have to do is just blow up some [[Mook
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Breath of Fire]]'' ''II'', the party is nearly killed by such a trap. Rand holds the walls apart long enough for the rest of the party to escape, but he soon finds his strength fading...{{spoiler|his mother Daisy finds him and pushes him out of the trap, taking his place and sacrificing herself. Rand watches helplessly as his mother is crushed between the walls.}}
* The deathtrap is featured in ''Rise of Nightmares'' for the Xbox 360 Kinect. Two people find themselves crushed in it.
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* There's a visually similar scene in ''[[The Incredibles]]'', as Mr. Incredible races to get out from between two closing walls of lava.
* ''All New [[Popeye]] Hour'': Popeye and his friends are trapped in a pit with the walls closing in. Desperately, Popeye throws his can of spinach to jam in the edge of the walls on top. The walls crush the can, causing the spinach to fall into Popeye's mouth. Now strong to the finish, Popeye easily forces the walls back and the gang escapes.
* In an episode of ''[[The Simpsons (
* An episode of ''[[
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Venture Brothers]]'':
{{quote|
'''Doctor Venture:''' Uh, slower than "haunted house" spiked walls but not quite as slow as "mad scientist" spiked walls. }}
* In ''[[Scooby Doo]]'', the gang discover a locked trap door and an nearby organ that appears to control it. Scooby offers to play it see if they can open the trapdoor, but when that happens, the gang realizes the walls are closing in on them. As the gang tries to hold them back, Scooby desperately plays the instrument more, and then frantically dances on the keys to try to get it to stop the walls, and succeeds by sheer luck.
* Happened in 1987 ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' episode "Michelangelo, the Sacred Turtle" when Michelangelo and the servants fell in the trapdoor and the walls are closing in. They're saved by solving the hieroglyphs.
* {{spoiler|Blurr}} falls victim to one of these in the first episode of the third season of ''[[Transformers Animated]]''. Sadly, {{spoiler|he is turned into a cube.}}
* Bruce Banner is stuck in one of these in the opening theme to the 80's ''[[Incredible Hulk]]'' cartoon series.
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[[Category:Index of Exact Trope Titles]]
[[Category:Older Than Radio]]
[[Category:Death Trap Tropes]]
[[Category:This Index Is Not an Example]]
[[Category:This Index Is in The Way]]
[[Category:The Walls Are Closing In]]
[[Category:
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walls Are Closing In, The}}
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