History Main / DeadlyPrank

* The high school film ''Film/{{Jawbreaker}}'' features the main characters staging a kidnapping for their friend's birthday. Unfortunately, this goes horribly wrong when the intended victim chokes on the jawbreaker they were using to gag her.

* Played with in the ''Series/InsideNo9'' episode "Nana's Party", based around a man playing a prank by hiding inside a papier-mache cake at his mother-in-law's birthday party. The audience is led to expect disaster with the cake, but it never happens ... until the trope comes into play when the elderly mother-in-law starts choking on a trick ice cube (although she survives.)

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'':
** This is how ComicBook/TheJoker sees many of his murders: Simply as pranks. Part of the Joker's warped world view is that life itself is just a cruel joke, so he sees no difference between a classic pie in the face, or a poison pie full of acid. Occasionally, he'll pull a completely harmless joke just because the victim is clearly pissing himself in fear and expecting the worst.

[[folder: Films -- Animation]]

* ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'': One episode has a middle school girl go missing during a day of pranking from her friends. At first, it seems like she's been abducted by a man they dared her to go up and kiss, but they eventually reveal that he wasn't involved. When they then made her run around on the bleachers in the gym, she slipped and hit her head, killing her.

* The ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' episode "We All Scream for Ice Cream" starts with a childhood prank gone deadly wrong.

* In the ''Series/TalesFromTheCrypt'' episode "Abra Cadaver" a doctor pulls a prank on his brother, scaring him into a stroke and ruining his medical career. The brother never forgets and [[spoiler: gets revenge with another prank years later... killing his brother ''twice''.]]
** Happens in another episode, "This'll Kill Ya" when an asshole doctor thinks he's been poisoned by one of his colleagues. It turns out that his colleague had tricked him to teach him a lesson, but this isn't revealed until after the doctor kills him as "revenge".

* In the Bob's Burgers episode "What An (April) Fool Believes" has Bob accidentally pull one of these on Mr. Fishoeder when he cuts the brake to his go-kart causing him to crash and putting him in the hospital. Subverted as it ends up being a prank by Fishoeder!

* A parody of this is played up in ''Series/ScareTactics'', where the scare victims are tricked into going onto a fake reality TV show called "Fear Antics", where they're put under the impression that they're going to pull a huge fright-based prank on someone for the cameras. However, the other participants ''always'' rig the stunt so that it looks like it goes horribly wrong, causing the victim to think they've inadvertently seriously injured/killed/got in some other deep trouble the person they were supposed to scare.

* ''VideoGame/CultOfTheLamb'': Sometimes, a follower will request that you "prank" another follower by tricking them into eating a dish that contains poop. The only possible dish that includes poop is the aptly-named Deadly Dish, which has a 75% chance of killing whoever eats it (and to make matters worse, it's nontrivial to keep cultists other than the intended target away from the dish, so you could lose a follower for nothing).

[[folder:Web Videos]]
* ''WebVideo/EverymanHYBRID'' was started as a parody of ''WebVideo/MarbleHornets'', disguised by having the health/exercise regimen appear to be what is being hijacked by Slender Man; in reality, the in-universe characters are using a prop Slendy placed in rather obvious places. Then the ''real'' [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos Slender Man]] finds out about it, and it seems he is not happy in the slightest. [[spoiler:After recent events, the characters are starting to wonder if he would have shown up at some point anyway.]] As a matter of fact, this is one of the most common theories: Slender Man came into being... because we made stories about him. He is a living DeadlyPrank. And the worst part? [[spoiler:[[RealAfterAll They might be more correct than they thought.]]]]
* In the Website/FurryBasketballAssociation, a prank on a player who is addicted to cocaine results in him snorting caffeine instead; the pranksters had no idea it would result in the addict screaming in pain. This trope is ultimately inverted as the player is sent to the hospital, where he's convinced to enter rehab.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWqI0U3pBdA Roommate Alien Prank Goes Bad]]: Two guys repeatedly scare their roommate Chad with alien sunglasses and hands because Chad hates aliens. [[spoiler:Then a ''real'' alien shows up.]]
* The short film ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmbv8kevQ-E Spider]]''. In it, Jack attempts to prank Jill by putting a fake spider in her car -- and have her discover it while driving. She loses control of the car... [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope but misses the other car and parks safely]]. Then Jack throws the spider at her to show her it is fake, resulting in her backing up and [[DoubleSubversion getting hit by a car for real]]. And then the paramedic on the scene gets scared by it while tending to her and accidentally stabs Jack in the eye]].
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* Similar to the ''Prom Night'' example, ''Film/{{Thriller}}'' (a horror film co-produced by Creator/BlumhouseProductions) starts with a prologue where several masked kids pull a prank on Chauncey, a boy with an AmbiguousDisorder, only for the latter to accidentally push one of the kids (Amani) to their deaths when backed into a corner. Again, Chauncey is solely blamed and sent to juvie. Then four years later, a hooded killer shows up and starts knocking off those who were involved in Amani's death.

** In one episode a woman sneaks a large block of dry ice into a guy's room, so that the [=CO2=] fumes would make him sick. He and a woman that he sleeps with in the room die. She protests that she carefully calculated the amount of [=CO2=] be non-lethal. She didn't anticipate that they'd be sleeping on the floor. Since the fumes are heavier than air, the concentration near the floor was high enough to be lethal.

** In one episode, a high school wrestling coach is found dismembered, and there is evidence that he sent child pornography to his team. As the investigation goes underway, it's revealed that [[spoiler:a member of the team became disgruntled after the coach moved him up weight class, thus ending his chances for a wrestling scholarship.]] To get back at him [[spoiler:the team member hijacked the coach's [[HolllywoodHacking WiFi signal and commandeered his e-mail address to send the child pornography]], in an attempt to get him fired. When the father of the team member, a court bailiff, found the pictures, he said he was contacting the school district, and when the coach went to explain himself, the bailiff attacked him and killed him in the ensuing fight.]]

** Another episode had two guys spoon some lobster bisque into another fellow's soup after hearing him repeatedly tell the waitress he was allergic to shellfish. He started gagging & hurried out of the restaurant. They followed, and dumped him in a lake when he died.

* In the WebOriginal/FurryBasketballAssociation, a prank on a player who is addicted to cocaine results in him snorting caffeine instead; the pranksters had no idea it would result in the addict screaming in pain. This trope is ultimately inverted as the player is sent to the hospital, where he's convinced to enter rehab.

* In one book in ''Literature/TheBabySittersClub'' series, Claudia is injured when a sitting charge tries to pull a prank on her and it goes badly wrong. The charge, Betsy, convinced Claudia to sit on a swing that Betsy knew had a broken chain, thinking it would give out immediately and just dump Claudia on the grass. Instead, the chain held up, and Betsy, being an eight-year-old with an attention span to match, was subsequently distracted by Claudia's suggestion that they have a swinging contest and forgot about the broken chain... that is, until the chain gave out in mid-swing, causing Claudia to fall and break her leg. For her part, Betsy is [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone genuinely horrified]], as she truly didn't mean to hurt anyone and simply hadn't realized how dangerous her seemingly harmless prank could become if everything didn't go according to plan.

* [[http://www.newser.com/story/87719/man-dies-after-friends-insert-eel-in-his-rectum.html This story]] about a man who got drunk and passed out, and his friends stuck a 20-inch live eel [[AssShove in his anus]]. The eel proceeded to ''[[NightmareFuel eat his insides]]'', resulting in his death. The above-mentioned episode of ''Series/OneThousandWaysToDie'' titled "Eel Effects" seems to be based on this.

* This happens in ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyJusticeForAll'' in case 3, when [[spoiler:Regina puts pepper on Bat's scarf. This causes a lion named Regent to sneeze while Bat's head is in its mouth, which puts him in a coma. In the ensuing incident, Regent injured Bat's brother Acro so badly that Acro was confined to a wheelchair, and Regina's father had to put Regent down with a gun. As a result, Acro tries to kill Regina as revenge]].

** When a sixteen-year-old Sirius Black tricks Snape into going down a tunnel with Lupin in werewolf form at the end. (Snape survives due to the intervention of James Potter.) Disturbingly, both Sirius and Lupin refer to it as a practical joke more than thirteen years after the event, and neither of them seems to receive any punishment for it.

* ''Machinima/TheGmodIdiotBox'': This is the entire point of ''Harmless Shenanigans(?) with Chuckles the Cheat''. Literally ''every prank'' Chuckles pulls leads to someone dying. [[SubvertedTrope Except that one time]] [[spoiler:where his victim [[DoubleSubversion dies from something else]].]]

* This happens in ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyJusticeForAll'' in case 3, when [[spoiler:Regina puts pepper on Bat's scarf. This causes a lion to sneeze while Bat's head is in its mouth, which puts him in a coma. As a result, his brother Acro tries to kill Regina as revenge]].

* In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', Private Davey Crenshaw at Camp [=McCarran=] is fond of "hilarious" pranks that cause people to get hurt or even killed. If you tell him you just pranked someone by pulling the pins on the grenades they were carrying, he'll reply "Man, I can't wait to see the look on his face!" Pity it's ''his'' grenades you pulled. Oh wait, that's not pity...

** In "The Simpsons Already Did It", the boys buy sea monkeys from a comic ad, only to be disappointed to discover that they're just freeze-dried brine shrimp. As a prank, they decide to pour the shrimp into their teacher Ms. Choksondick's coffee, only for her to seemingly die as a result. After hearing on the news that semen was found in her stomach ([[ChildrenAreInnocent which they misunderstood as "sea men"]]), they go as far as to break into the morgue to steal the sample back. It's not until Chef, who had misread the situation and thought the boys had gangraped and then murdered their teacher when they first tried to explain it to him, gets the whole story and can explain what actually happened, that they realize they weren't responsible for her death.

* In ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'' there is a ghost on Tsurumi Island named Rero who loves to play pranks on anyone, and proves to be an even worse prankster than [[TheGadfly Hu Tao]], since some of his pranks include potentially ''lethal'' ones. To elaborate; his idea of a prank is to sic a '''Lawachurl''' on the Traveler and co, nevermind that such a beast can and will maim and pulverize anyone on their path. The Traveler can call him out for this, but his response makes it very clear he [[TheUnapologetic shows no remorse for his actions]].

** The film begins with four kids harassing a younger girl who wanted to play with them. Unfortunately, this leads them into backing the girl into a window and she ends up falling to her death. A local killer is arrested and blamed for the crime, but six years later another killer surfaces...