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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties and [[Trope Namer|things that go bump in the night,]] good Lord, deliver us!"''|'''
▲{{quote|''"From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties and [[Trope Namer|things that go bump in the night,]] good Lord, deliver us!"''|'''Welsh Prayer'''}}
The bogeyman in your closet. The monster lurking in the shadows under your bed. The guy who starts scratching his long, ''razor-sharp'', nails on your windowpane the instant you draw the curtains and turn out the lights. These are the the Things that Go Bump in the Night. They are ''very'' real when you are six or seven years old, and even after you supposedly grow up and move far away, they're still back there, somewhere.
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{{examples}}
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Subverted in ''Supernatural Law''; the monster under the bed is inoffensive and the kid is a horrible brat who took a baseball bat to it.
* [[Phil Foglio]]'s ''[[XXXenophile]]'' had a couple of adult twin sisters find out there really is a monster under their bed listening to their [[Twincest|fun]]
== [[Film]] ==
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* [[Older Than Print]]: Grendel, from ''[[Beowulf]]''. He sneaks into the feasthall at night and eats people in their sleep. Because he lives in the swamp and hates music and dancing, he's associated with darkness, the primal, and the subhuman, making him a classic boogieman.
* [[Spike Milligan]]'s poem:
{{quote|
''Should really not give one a fright.
''It's the hole in each ear
''That lets in the fear
''That, and the absence of light. }}
* ''[[Candyman]]'' from the eponymous movie and the [[Clive Barker]] novella which inspired it; he's actually summoned the same way as Bloody Mary. At first, anyway...
* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', ''many'' things go bump in the night. Fortunately, the titular wizard detective goes ''[[Kill It with Fire|fwoosh]]'' right back.
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* [[Radiohead]]'s song "Climbing Up the Walls" is this trope crossed with [[Properly Paranoid]]. If the [http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/r/radiohead/climbing_up_the_walls.html lyrics] don't get to you, it's probably going to be the loud guitars, screeching strings, electronic noises and Thom Yorke's hair-raising [[Careful with That Axe]] moment at the end.
* [[Metallica]]'s "Enter Sandman," especially the bridge:
{{quote|''Hush little baby, don't say a word
''And never mind that noise you heard
''It's just the beasts under your bed
''In your closet, in your head }}
* [[The Cure|The spiderman is having you for dinner tonight....]]
* [[Creature Feature]], to nobody's surprise, has several songs sung about this trope, such Mommy's Little Monsters and The Unearthly Ones
{{quote|''Beware the bumps in the night
''The shadows on your wall
''The nightmares of your youth
''Believe in the bogeyman
''Hiding beneath your bed
''Just waiting to break loose }}
* SPF 1000's Horror Show
{{quote|''It's killed another kid.
''It snuck in, through the window.
''Close your eyes, go to bed.
''Maybe it won't find your bedroom. }}
* Daniel Glasser's "[http://www.ovff.org/pegasus/songs/close-your-eyes.html Close Your Eyes] is a lullaby warning the child of the dangers of their bed.
{{quote|''Baby don't you cry
''or the demons won't wait until you're asleep
''before they eat you up }}
* [[Voltaire (musician)|Voltaire]]'s "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTyiddyIe9k Good Night, Demon Slayer]" is a ballad assuring the child that even if there are monsters, they're too badass for the demons to eat.
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** Another one featured two boogiemen frightened by the possibility that there may be something lurking on top of the bed.
* Calvin of ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' often had to battle under-the-bed monsters; one of the comic's strip-collections was even titled ''Something Under the Bed Is Drooling''. Another book contained an original poem (with some fantastic, if terrifying, illustrations) called "A Nauseous Nocturne" about such a monster attacking Calvin at night, but then getting scared away by a sleeping Hobbes.
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
* The real world, grown-up version of these fears is the urban legend of the criminal who hides underneath your car in the mall parking lot and grabs or slashes your ankles, and then either drags you under there screaming or crawls out to finish the job. According to Snopes the exact intent of this bogeyman varies from simple assault and larceny to rape to murder to ritual mutilation (having to collect a female body part as part of a gang initiation rite). Paranoia and fear over this actually reached a point where adults had to be escorted to their cars by police like a child insisted on being escorted and tucked into bed by their parents.▼
* Basic operational security training for all military and DOD personnel overseas pretty much demands this mindset when you are somewhere an attacker could reach. Check the car's interior before entering, watch for areas someone could hide, etc.▼
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
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* ''[[Don't Rest Your Head]]''.
* ''[[Monsters and Other Childish Things]]''.
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has the cards [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=222203 Bump in the Night] and [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mindslicer Mindslicer]
== [[Video Games]] ==
* [[The Heartless]] of [[Kingdom Hearts]] ''started out'' as these, according to the first game's [[All There in the Manual|Ansem Reports]]. They lurked in dark places like the rarely-visited sealed off dungeons under the rather gothic castle at Hollow Bastion. Indeed, in the prequel [[Birth By Sleep]], the Heartless were well nigh absent in most areas (with the less deadly Unversed being the main enemies). Unfortunately, by the time the games take place, they've eaten their way out from the shadows and infest almost all outdoor areas, leaving the untrained protagonist Sora dumped into hostile environments with
* The final monster in the [[Infocom]] [[Interactive Fiction]] game ''The Lurking Horror'' is described in these terms.
* The main premise of videogame ''[[Scratches]]''.
* In Adventurer Mode of ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'', peasants warn you about not traveling at night or sleeping somewhere outside civilization, lest the bogeymen get you. Bogeymen are quite real; infinitely spawning little blighters that will [[One-Hit Kill]] you if you're asleep, and dissolve in the sunlight.
* When the sun sets in the world of [[Minecraft]], you'd better be inside behind a locked door or bury yourself in a cave with a nice bright torch because that's when all the monsters come out. While there isn't a lot of bumping, there is a great deal of groaning, rattling and hissing.
** And think twice before you sleep in a bed to skip ahead to
* The [[Pokémon]] Darkrai could be considered as an inversion, as according to its Pokedex entry, it only creates nightmares if it is threatened.
* The Locust from ''[[Gears of War]]'' are the basis for Seran legends about these sorts of creatures.
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[The Perry Bible Fellowship]]'', as usual, has a [
* Caliban the demon in ''[[Narbonic]]'' used to be the monster under Dave's bed.
* This tumblr webcomic [http://ohcorny.tumblr.com/post/101683486645/aaand-its-done-definitely-a-learning-experience#]
* ''The Monster Under the Bed'' is about a boy and his [[Magical Girlfriend]], who is one of those monsters lurking under the beds, spooking humans, [[Panty Thief|stealing socks]] and eating cookies. [//themonsterunderthebed.net/?comic=test-post Here it is] (goes NSFW after the first two pages, as she uses both sides of the bed). These [[Emotion Eater|feed on fear]] and have a [[Portal Network]] with different doors using different talismans, so the girls appear under beds and boys in closets.
* ''Belzebubs'' has an [//static1.squarespace.com/static/5a158cecb7411ccec8180225/5b329e56562fa7cf250fe533/5b329e7c575d1f6223bf2637/1530044039878/belzebubs_044.jpg unconventional], yet simple strategy for dealing with old "B-b-but there are monsters under the bed!" problem. [[Black Metal]] family has its upsides.
* In ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'' [//www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2003-04-21 there's no monster under Jimmy's bed]. Just some angry-looking man. {{spoiler|Mostly just confused, actually.}}
== [[Web Original]] ==
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''"I know."'' ([[Red Eyes, Take Warning|eyes glow red]]) }}
* ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'', where we had the Boogeyman and something called "the Grundel". As if that's not enough, two Busters from different generations receive visits from them (Egon was tormented by the Boogeyman as a child, thus his impetus to study the paranormal; Kylie ''resisted'' the call of the Grundel, so he took her friend Jack instead.)
** Three of the Ghostbusters prove to be [[Flat Earth
* The first ''[[Martin Mystery]]'' episode has a boogeyman as the [[Monster of the Week]]. He kidnaps naughty children and takes them to his storybook bog world.
* One of these showed up in a short of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]''. Unfortunately for it, the bed he tries hiding under belongs to [[Enfant Terrible|Heloise]].
* The stop-motion animated series ''[[Bump in the Night]]'' had as the main protagonist a small green monster that lived under a young boy's bed who ate socks and dust-bunnies, called Mr Bumpy. His best friend was a blue slime-monster that lived in the house's bathroom (who was a bit of a neat-freak.) Neither of them were scary, and Mr Bumpy acted more like a traditional boggart (trickster) than scary. There was, however, a scary Closet Monster made up of dirty clothes, with coat-hanger claws and a washing-basket shell like a turtle.
* The rather obscure 80's cartoon show ''[[My Pet Monster]]'' had the titular monster being so bad at scaring kids, it made friends with one of them; of course, this doesn't sit well with the rest of his species, who are rather traditionalist when it comes to monster-kid interactions.
* Referenced in ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]
* Played with in ''[[The Simpsons]]''. When Marge gets addicted to slot machines in ''$pringfield'', Lisa's forced to turn to Homer when she has a dream about the boogeyman. Upon hearing the very word Homer freaks out, orders the windows and doors locked, grabs his shotgun, and holes up the rest of the family in his bedroom until Marge comes home. And by the time Marge gets home the door has a noticeable hole in it.
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* The real world, grown-up version of these fears is the urban legend of the criminal who hides underneath your car in the mall parking lot and grabs or slashes your ankles, and then either drags you under there screaming or crawls out to finish the job. According to Snopes the exact intent of this bogeyman varies from simple assault and larceny to rape to murder to ritual mutilation (having to collect a female body part as part of a gang initiation rite). Paranoia and fear over this actually reached a point where adults had to be escorted to their cars by police like a child insisted on being escorted and tucked into bed by their parents.
▲* Basic operational security training for all military and DOD personnel overseas pretty much demands this mindset when you are somewhere an attacker could reach. Check the car's interior before entering, watch for areas someone could hide, etc.
{{reflist}}
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