History Main / ElectricTorture

* Dunny of ''Fanfic/{{Company0051}}'' decides to stick his video games card into [[Franchise/{{Halo}} the Master Chief's]] neck slot and see what happens. The result? It hurts.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Cupcakes}}'', this is one of the many tortures Pinkie visits on [[TheWoobie Rainbow Dash]].

** During a certain time, electric torture was the favourite "punishment method" of many behaviorist treatments and experiments. For example the early ABA experiments by Ivar Lovaas used an electrified floor, the famous "learned helplessness" experiments were about dealing electric shocks to wolves, and electric torture was used to "treat" drug addictions, mental illnesses, things that were thought to be mental illnesses at the time (like being LGBTQA+) and alcoholism. When reading about behaviorist experiments, it seems like behaviorists were among the biggest sadists among all psychologists.

** In March 2020, the FDA banned the use of electroshock devices for aversive punishment due to their severe side effects. Unfortunately, the DC Court of Appeals ruled in the JRC's favor and overturned the ban the very next year.

** In March 2020, The FDA finally banned the electroshock devices due to their severe side effects.

* In ''Series/AgentsOfShield'', when Coulson is taken by Centipede in ''A Magical Place'' he is tortured with a cattleprod to force him to cooperate. The torture doesn't work, but [[BreakThemByTalking Break Them By Talking]] does.

* In Creator/JohnVarley’s ''Red Lightning'' the narrator gets wordlessly threatened with this. He wakes up bound to a chair and with his scrotum connected to a box with a dial and that is plugged into an ordinary wall outlet. The device is never switched on.

* James Follett's ''Mirage'' features Robbie torturing Katra with electricity [[spoiler: to her death]] while Lucky watches on. A wire is attached to her nipple, and a spark plug wrench is pushed inside her.
* Creator/DennisJones' ''Warsaw Concerto'' has a scene with Vlasov overseeing the electro torture interrogation of a woman. A wire is fed down her throat to her stomach which ends in electro conductive beads. [[spoiler: She dies from the torture.]]

A favorite of the PsychoElectro; a variant of AgonyBeam. See MagicalDefibrillator for the flip side of electroshocking humans, ElectroconvulsiveTherapyIsTorture, and HarmlessElectrocution. May be part of a RoboticTortureDevice, and one possible misuse of a StaticStunGun. Contrast with ElectricInstantGratification.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* Used in the first ''Film/SawI'', where Jigsaw shocks [[ActionSurvivor Lawrence]] and Adam a few times.

* PlayedForDrama and BlackComedy in ''Film/TheManFromUNCLE2015''. [[MadScientist Uncle Rudi]] is torturing Napoleon Solo, causing the normally urbane secret agent to show he's NotSoStoic. Then the ZeeRust torture device breaks down temporarily, so Rudi uses the opportunity to fill in Solo on his FreudianExcuse, then announce that he might as well revert to the use of pliers. Solo starts to FreakOut [[spoiler:only for Illya Kuryakin to turn up and rescue him. Rudi gets strapped into his own machine and eagerly agrees to tell all. Solo and Kuryakin step outside to debate what to do about him, knowing their superiors will let him off and may even make use of his skills. Meanwhile in a FunnyBackgroundEvent, Rudi's machine has started working again. When our heroes realise Rudi has been simultaneously fried and incinerated, neither are particularly upset.]]

* ''Film/{{Criminal}}'': What Xavier uses on Bill.

** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS2E2CargoOfDoom "Cargo of Doom"]]: A Jedi is subjected to this trope. The "more power" conversation occurs, and the Jedi dies.

* In a side video for "Webcomic/MiasWorld" [[spoiler:[[AntiVillain King]]]] subjects one of the two protagonists to this after the demon/spirit [[BigBad Lyer]] [[spoiler: forced World to murder Mia]], the preteenager niece-in-law of him and World.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[GrandTheftAutoV "This'll put some hair on your chest."]]]]

*** Electric shocks as a treatment for alcoholism were stopped because most patients reacted to the shocks by drinking to numb the pain of the shock. In fact, ECT was partly responsible for the death of Creator/ErnestHemingway. Surviving two horrible plane crashes in two days had pushed him into a severe depression and alcoholism to deal with the trauma. Then the Mayo Clinic gave him 15 [=ECTs=] in three months in an attempt to treat his trauma, leaving him a hollow shell of who he used to be. Within six months, he AteHisGun.

* In ''VideoGame/Mother3'', Fassad's method of choice for punishing Salsa for disobeying him... or whatever excuse he had. [[IncrediblyLamePun Guess he really enjoyed]] [[Music/PeterGabriel shocking the monkey.]]

*** Also the Zat guns did this with one shot (second shot kills). In their first season of use, that is. Later this was quietly shifted to a much-less-interesting [[StunGuns phasers-on-stun]] effect.

** In the finale to ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'', Darkseid launches an electrical attack on {{Superman}} called "The Agony Matrix" that uses electricity to activate all the pain receptors in every nerve cell in his body, ''literally'' putting him in as much pain as physically possible.

* The Costa-Gavras film ''State of Siege'' (based on CIA activities in Latin America) has a ''very'' explicit scene of Brazilian police torturing a suspect by electrocution.

* In ''Fanfic/ThisBites'', this is what [[PsychoElectro Enel]] effectively delivers to [[spoiler:Cross]].

* You can do this to someone in order to get a safe combination in ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}''. Strange variant, in that the man you torture was being tortured ''willingly'' (its inside a brothel); at least, at first.

* Nurse Ratched uses electroshock therapy to this effect in ''Literature/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'', as a means to cow patients on her ward into submission. Mind you, as in RealLife, the patients receive anesthesia beforehand (although Chief Bromden and Randle [=McMurphy=] both refuse to take the "knockout pills"). Nonetheless, Bromden describes the procedure as something you definitely don't want done to you, because anyone who receives it is NotHimself afterward. As a side note, the author Ken Kesey actually underwent electroshock therapy as research for the novel, and he'd previously worked as a night orderly in a psychiatric hospital, so ''Cuckoo's Nest'' [[ShownTheirWork shows his work]] about what psychiatry was like at the time he wrote it. SocietyMarchesOn, though -- nowadays in democratic countries, electroshock therapy ([[StealthPun current]]ly called electro''convulsive'' therapy, or ECT) is mainly practiced as a last resort, usually under anesthesia and with informed consent. Moreover, even at the time when the book was written, the treatment wasn't always cruel. Certainly, some patients were involuntarily subjected to it to control them (which is of course how Nurse Ratched applies it, being Nurse Ratched and all), but as with today, others underwent it willingly because they just wanted to get better. And as the novel acknowledges, doctors were starting to use anesthesia during electroshock sessions even back then.

* In ''VideoGame/Mother3'', Fassad's method of choice for punishing [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys Salsa]] for disobeying him... or whatever excuse he had. [[IncrediblyLamePun Guess he really enjoyed]] [[Music/PeterGabriel shocking the monkey.]]