History Main / MouthStitchedShut

* In the ''Franchise/MyHeroAcademia'' fic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/15058376 Shut Me up]]'' does it to Bakugo, courtesy of someone who was angry about his bullying Midoriya. Making matters worse is his {{Jerkass}} mother insisting he did it to himself and refusing to sign consent forms to do the procedure to remove the stitches. Fortunately his dad has more common sense and signs the forms.

* Also used by the same author in ''Literature/{{Kraken}}'', when a magically-animated and sentient tattoo is rendered mute by having stitches ''inked'' onto its lips.

A grisly sister trope to WipeThatSmileOffYourFace, in which brute-force means instead of fantastic ones are used to seal a person's lips. Sometimes this trope is applied to living characters as a torturous way to prevent them from speaking or crying out. It's also used occasionally on corpses, often to send a message to whoever finds them that the dead victim had talked too much. Self-inflicted examples also occur, for added Squick.

* In ''ComicBook/TalesOfTheJedi'', this is done to Aleema and Satal's old tutor after Aleema transformed his tongue into some kind of hideous monster-slug.

* ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal Black'' has Frank "No-Face" [=McCutcheon=], who was once a boxer until one bad match that broke his face. When he visits a surgeon to fix his face, the doctor, who actually bet on him to win that particular match that he lost, decides to cut his tongue and eyes out and sew his lips and eyelids closed in DisproportionateRetribution. Needless to say that when he woke up, [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge he was incredibly pissed]].
* The Saarebas ([[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Qunari]] mages) in the ''Franchise/DragonAge'' series often have their lips stitched together to prevent them from reciting spells.

* The Mudokons in ''VideoGame/{{Oddworld}}'' have their mouths (and sometimes their eyes) sewn shut. The [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Glukkons]] aren't particularly big on employee input.
** The Interns in ''VideoGame/OddworldMunchsOddysee'' have their mouths sewn shut as well. [[AllThereInTheManual Background materials]] claim it's because they used to whistle on the job a lot and annoy their supervisors.
* In ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'', one of Gaige the Mecromancer's alternative heads has her wearing a creepy bunny mask with her mouth stitched shut.
* In the Creator/HPLovecraft-inspired ''VideoGame/TheSinkingCity'', librarian Joy Hayden has her mouth stitched shut. When asked why, all she will say is that it's a "local custom."

* Featured on Death Prophet's [[http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/dota2.gamepedia.com/4/47/Silence_(Death_Prophet)_icon.png Silence]] skill in ''VideoGame/Dota2''.
* [[spoiler: This is what happens to the Protagonist in one of the bad]] endings in ''VideoGame/PocketMirror''.
* The mask of the Nightmare in ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'' was designed to [[http://static.wixstatic.com/media/41f220_57b27ff971814b4abc5efe5bca49f83e~mv2.gif invoke this.]] Note that there's no reason for its creators to design a mask like that and leave the face beneath alone, so that was built entirely for the scare factor.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Goetia}}'', the ghost who has forgotten his name manifests as a huge incorporeal head with its lips loosely held shut by cords. Properly revealing his name makes the cords vanish, allowing him to converse more clearly with you.
* ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII'': The [[TechnicallyLivingZombie zombie-like]] Silent Monks have their mouths sewn shut by the [[ChurchMilitant Divine Order]], though, since they're [[ReforgedIntoAMinion produced]] by reducing people to {{Empty Shell}}s through the [[YourSoulIsMine destruction of their souls]], they wouldn't be doing much talking anyway.
* The ''VideoGame/QuakeIIIArena'' character Anarki has his mouth sewn shut for unexplained reasons. He's still able to speak, but all of his vocalizations sound like they're going through a closed mouth.

* A common featuring in [[LivingDollCollector Kharla'ggen's]] "dolls" in ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}'', especially "[[http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=6755 the twins]]", Kharla's maids. In an ImagineSpot Kiel also imagines her friends as puppets and [[GenkiGirl Kyo'nne's]] is the only one whose [[http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=5265 mouth is like this]].
** The original Vy'chriel Vel'Sharen, converted into a golem after her murder, also has her mouth sewn shut. One exposition page mentions this is done to all flesh golems, otherwise the mouth hangs open and the tongue hangs out.

* [[Website/SCPFoundation SCP-2118]] once glued her own lips shut, in an attempt to prevent her anomalous voice from replaying her dead baby brother's last vocalizations and upsetting her mother.

* In ''Animation/CatCity'', the cats seal Grabowski's lips with an actual lock. [[BodyHorror Ouch.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'', the Shrunken Head of Sklar Gringat has laces through its lips, although they're loose enough to allow it to utter threats. [[spoiler: Or at least, for the recorded messages planted inside it to be audible.]]

* ComicBook/TheFlash foe Murmur was a mad criminal who could not stop blurting out his crimes. After a botched execution, he tore out his tongue and stitched his mouth shut to prevent himself from doing this.
* In ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueCryForJustice'', [[BigBad Prometheus]] does this to [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Freddy Freeman]] so that he can't [[ByThePowerOfGreyskull say the magic word]] and activate his powers. [[spoiler:He does this before the story starts so that he can disguise himself as Freddy and infiltrate the heroes.]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': Some incarnations of [[Characters/BatmanTheScarecrow the Scarecrow]] emulate this trope with loose and obvious stitches in his burlap-sack hood. At one point in the ''ComicBook/New52'' comics (''Batman: The Dark Knight'' #10), he actually does stitch his own mouth shut, though he's still able to speak afterwards.

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* ''Strangeland''. A madman kidnaps a girl and sews her lips shut. Years later, he kidnaps her again and does the same thing to her.
* Billy, Winnie's zombified boyfriend from ''Film/HocusPocus''. Winnie mentioned he talked so much that she sewed his mouth shut before killing him. Once re-animated, the first thing he does of his own volition is to grab a pocketknife and cut the stitches so he can curse her out.
* In the Creator/DavidLynch's ''Film/Dune1984'', some minions of [[BigBad Baron Harkonnen]] on Giedi Prime were shown with their eyes, ears, and mouths sewn shut, in the disturbing scene where the Baron rapes a boy while pulling his [[BodyHorror heart plug]]. Neither this particular scene nor the people with the stitched-shut sensory organs appeared in the novel however.
* The FinalGirl in ''Film/Exit33'' has her lips stapled gunned together.
* In the morgue in ''Film/TheCrazies2010'', the doctor has started tying people down to sew their eyes and mouth shut. The protagonist manages to cut the stitches on one man's mouth in time to be warned that the doctor is right behind him ([[FridgeLogic how the stitched man saw the doctor through stitched eyelids in unanswered]]).
* Likewise, the remake of ''Film/TheAmityvilleHorror2005'' used this trope when George hallucinated (?) seeing the TortureCellar victims of the house's original owner.
* ''Film/MurdersInTheZoo'' opens with a man getting his mouth sewn shut and being LeftForDead in the middle of a Chinese jungle. His sewn mouth is shown up close, which was quite shocking for the audiences in 1933.
* When Earl is turned into a scarecrow in ''Film/ChildrenOfTheCornIIIUrbanHarvest'', the process involves his eyes and mouth being stitched shut.

* One of the red-robed gauchos in ''Film/{{Gallowwalkers}}'' has his lips sewn together with red thread, although it doesn't prevent him from talking.
* In the 1959 film ''Film/TheFourSkullsOfJonathanDrake'', the Drake family is stalked by enemies with a long-standing grudge, one of them a vengeful Jivaro with his mouth tied shut with twine in emulation of a shrunken head. The head of each victim is given this treatment so it can be kept as a trophy, while the extracted skull is left as a grisly CallingCard in the Drake family vault.
* The horror anthology ''Film/ChillingVisions5SensesOfFear'' presents the titles of each segment - Smell, Sight, Touch, Taste, Hearing - with a background image of someone with the relevant appendage or orifice sewn closed. The promotional image shows a man's face with mouth, eyes, nose, and ears ''all'' stitched shut.
* One of the themed rooms in the horror-house attraction from 2008's ''Film/DarkHouse'' features a mortician preparing the bodies of the eternally damned for burial. This preparation entails sewing shut every orifice so the deceased person's soul can't escape. When the mortician cuts the threads at the visitors' request, smoke and flying balls of fire come rushing out of the corpse's no-longer-sealed mouth.
* The torture-pylon that arises at the end of ''Film/HellboundHellraiserII'' includes, among other disturbing fleshy "decorations", the figure of an infant with its mouth stitched shut by a needle it clutches in one hand.
* Befalls several characters in ''Film/{{Ouija}}'' who fall victim to the movie's supernatural evil.
* The protagonist of the horror film ''Besetment'' wakes up from a TapOnTheHead knockout to find her mouth has been hand-stitched shut.
* In ''Film/DeadBirds'', [[spoiler:Clyde]] winds up being transformed into a ScaryScarecrow: hoist up on a frame in the cornfield with his eyes and mouth stitched shut.
* In ''Film/HouseOfWax2005'', Carly's lips are ''superglued'' shut by one of the psychopathic brothers. She manages to pry them apart to scream for her brother to rescue her, leaving her lips red and briefly bloody.
* This was how the three murdered girls were found in ''Film/Malevolent2018'', and it happens to two more characters in the course of the film. In all three cases, the killer states that it was to keep them from talking so much.
* In ''Film/TheRaven2012'', the killer leaves a dead victim bricked up in a tunnel wall, with a clue to another victim's location sewn up inside the body's mouth.
* In ''Film/It2017'' the doll version of himself that Richie finds inside a coffin in [[HauntedHouse Neibolt House]] has its mouth stitched shut.

* In the first novel of the ''Aftertime'' trilogy, a captive girl held by a fanatical religious cult was found with her lips sealed this way.

* In ''Literature/TheScar'', it's mentioned that many of the undead who rule the city-state of High Cromlech have had this done as part of their embalming process, so their national language is based on timed facial expressions such as eye-rolling rather than spoken words.
** In the short story "Jack", set in the same Verse, the urban outlaw Jack Half-A-Prayer did this to an informant who'd ratted out some union organizers to the secret police.
* Also used by the same author in ''Literature/{{Kraken}}'', when a magically-animated and sentient tattoo is rendered mute by having stitches ''inked'' onto its lips.
* In the Richard and Kahlan novel ''TheOmenMachine'', we are introduced to the Hedge Maid Jit. Before she learned to speak, her mouth was sewn shut by her mother (implied to be a Hedge Maid herself), so that the death that resides within her cannot escape. Her lips can part, but only enough to drink. [[spoiler:When the straps are cut, the screams of the dead kill everyone who hears them... including Jit.]]
* The Silent Brothers from ''Literature/TheMortalInstruments'' have their mouths sewn shut. They give up their speech for telepathy.
* In ''Literature/DeadBeat'', Butters asks Harry if this is an effective way to stop zombies. Harry doesn't know and certainly doesn't want to get close enough to test the possibility.

* In ''Literature/{{American Gods}}'' the protagonist's cell-mate, "Low-Key" Lyesmith, had scarred lips from where someone had once sewn his mouth shut.

* The Black Rock Witch from ''Literature/{{Hex}}'' had her eyes and mouth sewn shut in retaliation for supposedly murdering children.

* In the first episode of ''Series/Millennium1996'', Frank rescues a man who has been buried alive with his eyes and mouth sewn shut.
* ''Series/Millennium1996'' was made by the same people as ''Series/TheXFiles'', on which an entire faction of alien invaders were humanoids with their mouths and eyes (and presumably all other orifices) sewn shut to prevent contamination with the Black Oil.
* The ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' episode "[[Recap/MastersOfHorrorS2E6Pelts Pelts]]" features a seamstress who feels compelled to sew her mouth, nose, and eyes shut until she suffocates. [[MakesSenseInContext (Involves vengeful raccoon spirits.)]]

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E20Villains Villains]]", Dark Willow uses magic to stitch Warren's mouth shut [[AndIMustScream so he can't scream]] while he's [[FlayingAlive flayed alive]].

* On ''Series/{{CSINY}}'', an investigation into a possible blowfish-poisoning reveals along the way that a Japanese chef had been passing farm-raised blowfish off as wild at his restaurant. The clue that he'd done so is that the fish had originally had their mouths stitched shut to prevent them from biting one another during shipment.

* A dying rape victim on ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' was found in the trunk of a car, bound and stabbed repeatedly, with her lips sewn shut. This trope, followed by the intubation performed at the ER, prevented her from telling anyone about her attacker.
* Gabriel of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' had this inflicted on him while being held captive by the Prince of Hell Asmodeus.
* When the bodies of four murder victims are found on ''Series/ProdigalSon'', the mouth of the father of the other three is ''wired'' shut. In this case, the killer did this because [[spoiler: he'd stuffed the dead man's body with venomous snakes, ready to emerge when the wires are cut]].
* On the "Night of the Paw" episode of ''Series/{{Creepshow}}'', Whitey clips the stitches from his late wife's lips after he digs up her grave, having belatedly realized he hadn't specified ''where'' she should be brought back to life.
* On ''Series/FearTheWalkingDead'', a walker approaches Al undetected, because its body had been prepped for burial before animation and couldn't moan through sewn-shut lips. On the up side, it couldn't ''bite'' through its sealed mouth either, and Dwight destroys it in the nick of time as it opens its jaw wide enough to bust the stitches.

* In the box set ''Return to the Tomb of Horrors'', an important [=NPC=] is found hanging on a hook with his mouth and eyes sewn shut.

* "Mphmmum" (presumably it's all he's able to say) in ''TabletopGame/HoL''. His description makes a point that the stitching is done with special bioengineered regenerative, thermal-adaptive wire, to make sure it's not going to be easy to remove.

* ''Film/MurdersInTheZoo'' opens with a man getting his mouth sewn shut, and being LeftForDead in the middle of a Chinese jungle. His sewn mouth is shown up close, which was quite shocking for the audiences in 1933.

** The Interns in ''Munch's Oddysee'' have their mouths sewn shut as well. [[AllThereInTheManual Background materials]] claim it's because they used to whistle on the job a lot and annoy their supervisors.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'', one of Gaige the Mecromancer's alternative heads has her wearing a creepy bunny mask with her mouth stitched shut.
* In the Creator/HPLovecraft inspired ''VideoGame/TheSinkingCity'', librarian Joy Hayden has her mouth stitched shut. When asked why, all she will say is that it's a "local custom."

* Featured on Death Prophet's [[http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/dota2.gamepedia.com/4/47/Silence_(Death_Prophet)_icon.png Silence]] skill in ''{{VideoGame/Dota 2}}''.

* In ''Goetia'', the ghost who has forgotten his name manifests as a huge incorporeal head with its lips loosely held shut by cords. Properly revealing his name makes the cords vanish, allowing him to converse more clearly with you.

* In one commercial about the ski resort Thredbo, a girl comes home after her trip, but before knocking on her door, she glues her own lips shut so she won't tell how it went. What goes on in Thredbo, stays in Thredbo.

* ''Film/TheElf'': In the prologue, we see an old man in a cabin sewing something with a curved pin. We soon see that he's sewing a child's mouth shut.

* The Other Wybie's treatment in ''WesternAnimation/{{Coraline}}'' inverts as it goes to the opposite direction which maintains all the horror as it looks and is just as wrong: [[spoiler:he ends up with his mouth stitched ''open''.]]

* The beginning of the DirectToVideo horror film ''The Elf'' shows a crazy toymaker ([[spoiler:AKA Nick's grandfather]]) sewing a boy's mouth shut next to the titular doll. He doesn't get finished since he gets killed by a mysterious entity who takes a list he made.

* In a variant, one contestant on ''Series/{{Face Off}}'' had to build a foundation-challenge makeup around a set of prosthetic ''teeth'' that were wired together.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E20Villains Villains]]", Dark Willow uses magic to stitch Warren's mouth shut [[AndIMustScream so he can't scream]] while he's FlayedAlive.

* The ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' episode "Pelts" features a seamstress who feels compelled to sew her mouth, nose, and eyes shut until she suffocates. [[MakesSenseInContext (Involves vengeful raccoon spirits.)]]

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. Dark Willow uses magic to stitch Warren's mouth shut [[AndIMustScream so he can't scream]] while he's FlayedAlive.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Nine}}'', the Seamstress captures 8 and sews his mouth shut to silence his cries. Less gruesome than most examples, as 8 is made of cloth, but his expressions make it horrible anyway.

* [[Wiki/SCPFoundation SCP-2118]] once glued her own lips shut, in an attempt to prevent her anomalous voice from replaying her dead baby brother's last vocalizations and upsetting her mother.

* Mentioned but not shown [[BreakingTheFourthWall in order to not push the limits of the Comics Code too far]] in an issue of ''ComicBook/SensationalSheHulk'' as a necessary step of returning Black Talon's unwilling superpowered [[VoodooZombie zombie servants]] to rest after feeding them salt.

* In the French fairy tale "The Gold Dragoon", the hero must save his beloved from the Master of Night, and take her to safety without looking back at her or saying a word. Two attempts fail. The third time, the girl uses the trope (along with plugging his ears).

[[folder:Mythology]]
* Loki of the Myth/NorseMythology had lost a bet with the dwarves. The original bet called for them to cut Loki's head off if he lost- however, he told them that to cut off his head meant they would have to cut his neck as well. He reminded them that his neck was not part of the bargain, so they couldn't cut it without breaking their agreement. They debated on this without reaching a conclusion, so Loki got to keep his head. Angered by this, the dwarves sewed his lips shut instead, which Loki couldn't avoid because those were unquestionably part of his head.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* In TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior incident #2,048, Calvin of ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' once made a hundred mini clay heads of popular cartoon characters with their mouths like this. Probably for the best [[TakeOurWordForIt we didn't see it]].
[[/folder]]

* ''Manga/{{Claymore}}'': [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Abyss Feeders]] are a weapon created by the Organization to fight the [[MonsterLord Abyssal Ones]]. The eyes and mouths of the Abyss Feeders are sewn shut and their sense of self completely destroyed so that they would only crave for the flesh of their targets. This makes the Abyss Feeders mindless creatures that are perfect for tracking down and destroying the powerful Abyssal Ones.

* ''Webcomic/CursedPrincessClub'': When Gwendolyn meets Princess Renee of the Velvet Kingdom, she thinks the latter's stitched-up mouth is her {{Curse}}. It turns out that her actual curse is to spit out living frogs whenever she speaks, and doctors stitched a zipper into her mouth to keep this from happening constantly.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' fan fiction ''Fanfic/{{Couturiere}}''', the titular character (an akumatized Marinette) does this to [[spoiler:Lila]], causing the latter to be traumatized to the point of selective mutism by the end of the story.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' fan fiction ''Fanfic/{{Couturiere}}''', the titular character (an akumatized Marinette) does this to [[spoiler:Lila]], causing the latter to be traumatized to the point of SelectiveMutism by the end of the story.