History Main / DrowningPit

* In ''Series/{{CSINY}}'', one episode’s killer was a stage illusionist who did this to his foster mother out of anger over feeling abandoned because he had issues as a kid and she gave him back because she feared for her new baby’s life. He sets it up as a Houdini-style water escape trick that she won’t escape from. Fortunately Mac and company arrive just in time to shoot out the glass.

* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'': Behind the [[DroppedABridgeOnHim Dwarven Atom Smasher]], a DrowningPit is probably the second most common trap players start designing. Can be combined with LavaPit for further obsidian-producing lulz. It is also possible, by capturing and relocating dangerous aquatic creatures, to turn a DrowningPit into a SharkPool, possibly with Lethal LegendaryCarp if the player so desires. However, actually getting that done is a challenge in its own while not substantially increasing the lethality of the trap, making it something of a [[DifficultButAwesome Difficult But Awe]][[AwesomeButImpractical some But Impractical]] option.

Another variant involves the villain placing the hero inside some kind of non-buoyant container, a steel drum, vehicle, etc, and then tossing that into a large body of water. If the vehicle is a car, it's TrappedInASinkingCar.

* In ''Film/TenThousandBC'', a Sabertooth Tiger is pinned under a log at the bottom of a pit that is filling with water due to rain. D'leh frees it, which pays off when [[AndroclesLion it saves him later]].

* Featured as one of the possoble final scenarios in the game show ''Series/DasshutsuGameDERO'', in which contestants have to solve a series of puzzles in a flooding chamber.

* In ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E11ExcelsisDei "Excelsis Dei"]], Mulder and the VictimOfTheWeek are trapped in bathroom that is swiftly filled up with water.

** A variant in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish". Bart is kicked into a crate my Mr. Burns, which falls off the boat and into the ocean; the crate slowly fills with water while Grampa ventures down into the sea to save him.

->'''Dr. Drakken:''' IT'S '''''VERY VERY DEEP''''', ALL RIGHT?

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife1: Opposing Force'' combines this with the LavaPit in the form of a room trap early in the game. As you try to cross the room, a fuse shorts out, blows open a tank of biowaste then proceeds to disintegrate the floor bit-by-bit. After you climb up to the catwalk, you notice G-Man staring at you from the control room... the electrified waste is still rising... it's almost to your feet... then he opens the nearby maintenance door at the last second. The base game also had a loooong swim with great ease of getting lost and running out of air. With leeches (underwater GoddamnedBats) everywhere.

* Parodied on ''Series/TheVentureBros'' when one death trap doesn't fill with scalding hot oil as intended:

* Done in a very improvised way at the climax of the second season of ''Series/{{Trapped}}'', in which the villain ties a woman up and leaves her face down in a stream, which is rapidly rising due to a heavy rainstorm.

* Featured as a scenario in the game show ''Series/DasshutsuGameDERO'', in which contestants have to solve a puzzle in a flooding chamber.

* ''Anime/{{Noein}}'': Haruka's La'cryma captors lock her in a glass pod that slowly fills with water, hoping that her [[DieOrFly fear and stress will awaken her Dragon Torq powers]]. They do start to awaken, but she is unaware of them and Karasu rescues her before she drowns.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'': A nice inversion: when Ash is trapped in an airtight van, he uses Squirtle to flood it until the water pressure ''rips the doors off''. How is Squirtle holding that much water? [[RuleOfCool Don't ask.]]

* In ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' one episode’s killer was a stage illusionist who did this to his foster mother out of anger over feeling abandoned because he had issues as a kid and she feared for her baby’s life. He sets it up as a Houdini-style water escape trick that she won’t escape from. Fortunately Mac and company arrive just in time to shoot out the glass.

* ''Series/{{Eureka}}''; Jack and Allison were trapped in an experimental submarine which was rapidly filling with water. They combined this trope with AltarTheSpeed, as they decided that, if Henry's idea to transport them off the sub didn't work, they wanted to get married before they drowned.
* ''Series/GetSmart''

** He and Agent 99 find themselves in a flooding phone booth deathtrap -- as they're posing as a married couple, 99 uses her diamond ring to cut the glass open. The booth ended up recycled in a later episode in the underground lair of Dr. Yes, Smart in it again.
* ''Series/HoratioHornblower'', "Mutiny": Crazy Captain Sawyer orders marines to arrest his three lieutenants Bush, Hornblower and Kennedy because he thinks they conspire against him. Sawyer then gets the ship aground and under heavy fire from a Spanish fort they were supposed to storm. The Spanish start using heated shots and the ship gets holed. The prison bellow deck starts quickly filling with water...

* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': In "Cabin Pressure", Harm along with the ship’s sergeant-at-arms and an enlisted sailor accused of murder are trapped below deck on a ship that ran aground. The DirtyCop left Harm and the sailor to drown when getting rescued, claiming that they were already dead; but in this show TheHero never dies…

* ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'' pulls a ziggzagged version of this in its [[EmpathicEnvironment usual]] [[InterfaceScrew fashion]]. The pit is a visual metaphor for [[TheCorrupter Parado]] drowning in his fear as he is hunted down by [[BigBad Cronus]] in #39.
** [[spoiler: Parado's [[AlasPoorVillain end]] in the same episode is signified with an imaginery of him being pushed into the pit to drown]].

* ''Film/ResidentEvil'': One of the many ways in which the [[AIIsACrapshoot insane AI]] kills off the Umbrella employees.

* In ''VideoGame/FatalFrameVMaidenOfBlackWater'', the ritual central to the story involved sealing a VirginSacrifice into a box....and then drowning her by throwing it into a sacred lake to purify the water.

** ''Film/ForYourEyesOnly'': The secret compartment of the spy ship ''St. George'' turns into this as the ship fishes a SeaMine and sinks with its British spy crew onboard, leaving no survivor.

* ''Film/DrNo''. Dr. No decides to execute Honey Rider by cuffing her to the inclined side of a pool with water pouring in from a large pipe. Film/JamesBond finds her and releases her.

* Trailers for ''Film/ManOfSteel'' shows this happening to a school bus with Clark Kent on it. He saves the bus, but it looks like his SuperStrength [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer just freaks people out]] -- which is what his father's afraid of.

* WebVideo/OneyPlays- In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoEy8Wpg8WM episode 2]] of the channel's [[VideoGame/SuperMario64]] Let's Play (featuring Chris/Oney, Ding Dong and Julian), the trio joke about the secret water level being called "The Drownhouse" and that they humanely kill people in Texas by putting people in it and dropping it down from several feet high above the ground ("If the drownin' don't kill ya, the gravity will!"). Later on, they joke that Satoru Iwata died because he asked Nintendo for "all the water they had", prompting them to leave him in the Drownhouse.

* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'':