History Main / FrightDeathtrap

* In ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'', during the last part of an arc, Mion is hiding under Keiichi's hospital bed, waiting for a chance to attack him when he's alone. But, much as it is a surprise to say, [[spoiler:first, the REAL murderer was [[TwinSwitch Shion]], and second, in the first of the answer arcs, it's revealed that it was actually a hallucination that caused him to see the same thing over and over again until he finally died of a heart attack.]]

This usually requires a bit of set up, though; the murderer has to [[ClockKing know the victim's routine]], surroundings, and/or [[ManipulativeBastard reactions]] well enough to manipulate them into a nearby danger, often one they have to identify or place themselves. For the sake of ThePerfectCrime, it should be something that was always there, but a harmless gift (or abandoned object) serves just as well if it's in a place that can help kill the victim.

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[[{{JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant}} Not to be confused]] with [[{{VideoGame/Borderlands}} Gaige's robot pal]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E5And6OnlyADream Only a Dream]]", Dr. Destiny's powers work on the same principle as the "Scared Stiff" variant -- with the exception that you ''don't'' have to be in poor health for it to work.

* ''Series/NightGallery'' episode "The Ghost of Sorworth Place": A ghost appears near the top of a flight of stairs. A man pursuing the ghost tries to grab it but falls through it and down the flight of stairs, breaking his neck.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In the episode [[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E23TheThaw The Thaw]], five people are trapped in a virtual world with a malevolent program that looks like a clown. It can't affect their bodies in the real world, but it still manages to kill some of them by scaring them enough (specifically, he had figured out that the experience of being killed is stressful enough to cause heart attacks).

* ''Series/{{Astrid}}: Wilfrid Tarquin's death while delivering opening statements in a corruption trial in "The Haunting". He was literally scared to death (via [[https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/conditions/cardiomyopathy/takotsubo-cardiomyopathy takotsubo cardiomyopathy]]) by [[spoiler:seeing a man he had murdered decades ago in the gallery (it was actually the man's similar-looking son, who [[AccidentalMurder just meant to frighten him into confessing]])]].

* In ''Film/{{Ghost}}'', Sam's very limited ability to interact with the physical world means that his primary means of fighting both of the film's villains is based in poltergeist scares. Both villains of the film meet their karmic ends this way, one by running into oncoming traffic and the other when his own panicked actions break the window he's trying to climb out of into deadly shards of glass - although judging by Sam's reactions, neither death was what he'd intended to accomplish with his hauntings.

** In "The Three Ghosts" the villain is trying to do this to his wife, and apparently did it to his last one.

* In ''VideoGame/Hitman2016'' mission ''Situs Invertus'', one of the ways 47 can assassinate [[spoiler:Erich Soders]] is to walk up to his operating table and look at him in the eyes. Just knowing how screwed he is when he sees who he knows as the world's finest assassin is enough to make him go into a cardiac arrest and die.

* In the ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' mini-series ''The Legend Of The Batman'', it's revealed he's accidentally done this twice. The first time is when he confronts Joe Chill, revealing his identity to him. In a panic, he runs and confronts his cohorts, who shoot him when they realized ''he'''s the reason Batman exists. The second time is when Batman decides to confront the mobster who ordered Joe to murder the Waynes. Having no other costume except his father's Halloween costume, he wears that to confront the mobster and, his memory being jogged by it, the mobster runs right into a semi thinking that the ghost of Thomas Wayne had arrived.

* Used in ''Ramba'' when she is hired to kill a mob boss and make it look like natural causes. She breaks into his doctor's office and learns that he has a weak heart. She then breaks into his bedroom and throws a knife at him. The knife is tied to a string around her wrist and stops short of his chest, but the fright triggers a fatal heart attack.

* In ''Scream of the Banshee'', the Banshee kills her first victim after [[SealedEvilInACan being released]] by scaring him until he had a heart attack.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In the episode [[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E23TheThaw The Thaw]], five people are trapped in a virtual world with a malevolent program that looks like a clown. It can't affect their bodies in the real world, but it still manages to kill some of them by scaring them enough.

-->--'''Dr. Tad Johns''', ''Film/TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld''

* The western horror short story ''Mr. Kennedys Bones'' has a scene that combines this trope with a BatmanGambit (as it could have gone poorly). The VillainProtagonist rides up to the prospecting claim of Zeke [=McMasters=], one of the mob who lynched his former partner in crime Mr. Kennedy (the two murdered dozens of travelers for both their money and their bodies, which they sold to a medical school) several years ago. He puts the mummified body of Kennedy (which he’s kept for all those years) in the front seat of his wagon with him to invoke this trope. Sure enough when Zeke sees them he’s horrified and flees into his mine screaming. He screams so loud that the vibrations cause the mines flimsy support beams to give way, burying Zeke in a cave-in.

* ''Series/SuperiorCourt'': An episode of the 1980s courtroom drama saw a young man tried for first-degree murder after his grandmother died of a massive, fright-induced heart attack. The prosecutors alleged he and an accomplice used the knowledge of her weak heart during a robbery to enforce the Scared Stiff variant, while the defense said no physical evidence was left behind and that it could not be definitively proven her heart attack was a direct result of her grandson’s actions. The judge disagreed and found the defendant guilty of first-degree murder.

* The ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' adventure, ''Literature/HouseOfHell'', have you assuming an ordinary civilian stuck in a haunted mansion, and forced to spend a night there. You get a new stat called "Fear" which increases until it breaks maximum, at which point you'll be literally scared to '
'death''.

* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', Fear is one of the StandardStatusEffects that does no damage by itself, but a few dungeon bosses count as this trope: they fear the {{Player Character}}s, making them run around at random so that they risk running into a group of unengaged mobs and aggroing them. Onyxia is the most notorious for this, as her lair contains two pens with whelp eggs, which players who are feared run into and are overcome by whelps.