History Main / PinkMist

The thing that keeps this from falling into LudicrousGibs is that it ''[[TruthInTelevision actually happens]]'', although it requires a sufficiently high-velocity bullet, usually a rifle bullet, to produce the effect. Typical pistol bullets can (and often do) produce a blood-splattering exit wound in headshots, but the vaporization of enough blood and brain tissue to produce an actual ''mist'' requires a supersonic velocity of the sort most typically found in rifle bullets (thus partially validating the Pretty Little Headshot, at least if the shooter is using a pistol). The [[AteHisGun .357 revolver suicide]] of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Budd_Dwyer R. Budd Dwyer]] on live television could be clearly seen to produce no visible pink mist, despite involving a powerful pistol caliber to the brain at point-blank range.

The thing that keeps this from falling into LudicrousGibs is that it ''[[TruthInTelevision actually happens]]'', although it requires a sufficiently high-velocity bullet, usually a rifle bullet, to produce the effect. Typical pistol bullets can (and often do) produce a blood-splattering exit wound in headshots, but the vaporization of enough blood and brain tissue to produce an actual ''mist'' requires a supersonic velocity of the sort most typically found in rifle bullets (thus partially validating the Pretty Little Headshot, at least if the shooter is using a pistol). The [[AteHisGun .357 revolver suicide]] of R. Budd Dwyer on live TV could be clearly seen to produce no visible pink mist, despite involving a powerful pistol caliber to the brain at point-blank range.

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/Battlefield4 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pink_mist.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Reach out and touch somebody]]

This is the polar opposite of PrettyLittleHeadshots, usually found in military fiction and gorier video games. As the above quote says, it's after a [[ColdSniper sniper]] has shot someone, and all that [[{{Gorn}} delicious blood-jelly]] bursts into a bloody cloud, which, from a distance, appears to be pink. Usually some part of the cranium is blown off in the process. This type of [[BoomHeadshot headshot]] is almost invariably seen from the sniper's point of view.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/AmericasArmy'' due partially to the need to avoid a rating higher than T, and partially to the fact that [[RealityIsUnrealistic 5.56mm bullets rarely cause that kind of]] {{Gorn}}. Plus, it's a [[JoinTheArmyTheySaid recruiting tool]]; people are likely to be less open to joining the Army if their death was just rendered in agonizingly gory detail. Those to whom such things would appeal are generally more unstable than Army recruiters would like.

* The name of UsefulNotes/ShakaZulu's favorite impi (regiment), the uFasimba, translates to "The Haze". It's likely that this could refer to the cloud of blood that comes from a grievous wound.

* The memorable restaurant scene in ''Film/TheGodfather'' has Michael Corleone turning both Virgil "The Turk" Solozzo & Captain [=McKlusky=]'s brains into this.

* The first ''Film/YoungGuns'' has a scene in which Emilio Estevez shoots an accused traitor in the head. Unlike the usual modest blood-splats found in Westerns, another character flinches when a huge splash of gore hits his hat from about ten feet away.
* Creator/DavidMamet's ''Film/{{Spartan}}'' has someone's head do this after being hit by a sniper's bullet.

* There are some impressive instances of pink mist in ''Film/{{Apocalypto}}''. All the more so because there are no firearms, only clubs and arrows.
* ''Film/DeadtimeStoriesVolume2'': In "On Sabbath Hill", Allison commits suicide by blowing her brains out in the middle of Professor Weaver's classroom. The shot showers her classmates in blood and brains, and even sprays Professor Weaver, who is at the front of the class, with a fine pink mist of blood.

* In ''Inside Delta Force,'' the narrator describes a mission in which he and a teammate are tasked with sniping enemy shooters that always fired from within groups of children. Once the shots were fired and the guns came back down from recoil, all that was visible in the scopes was a mist, a "fading pink chimera in the sunlight."

* ''Literature/TheExpanse'' plays with this, combining it with PrettyLittleHeadshots. When a character is shot by a railgun round passing through a ship, it leaves nothing save a hole where the round entered the room, a hole where the round exited the room, and a gap where his head was. There's not even a trace of blood, right until it starts gushing from his neck.

* This effect is described in detail in one episode of ''Series/InPlainSight'', by the main protagonist, Mary Shannon.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FxzfzWhtCc Explained]] to Christina Ricci and later [[spoiler:demonstrated by the bomb squad guy]] on the season 2 Super Bowl episode of ''Series/GreysAnatomy''

* The ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' series uses a cloud of particulate-rendered blood whenever someone takes a hit as well.
* Most of your foes in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' have some variety of helmet/shield/hard carapace, so a headshot will cause a mist of blood (in whatever color is appropriate, red for humans and Vorcha, bluish purple for Asari and Turians, green for Salarians, orange for Krogan and Collectors, etc.) but will leave the outer shell of the head intact.
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' features this kind of effect when enemies are hit by gunfire, as does ''World At War''.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/AmericasArmy'' due partially to the need to avoid a rating higher than T, and partially to the fact that [[RealityIsUnrealistic 5.56mm bullets rarely cause that kind of]] {{Gorn}}. Plus, it's a [[JoinTheArmyTheySaid recruiting tool]]; people are likely to be less open to joining the Army if their death was just rendered in agonizingly gory detail. Those to whom such things would appeal are generally more unstable than Army recruiters would like.
* ''VideoGame/SoldierOfFortune'' has this plus splattered brain matter and shattered skulls.
* The result of scoring a killing headshot with a hammer or mace in ''ChivalryMedievalCombat''.

* The result of high-pressure boiler mishaps in ''Discworld/RaisingSteam''. One second there's people working on an engine, the next there's just a spray of mist, bone shards and a large clearing in the surrounding forest...

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Film]]

* The term was coined during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, describing the effects of canister shot on oncoming infantry. Cannon in the Civil War typically fired either solid shot, which was deadly only if it hit you directly, or exploding shells, which sent shrapnel flying and could kill more soldiers than solid shot. When the enemy got close enough, the artillery would load canister, which was tin cans filled with lead pellets--thus converting the cannon into [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter a giant shotgun]]. Pink Mist was often the result.

* The result of high-pressure boiler mishaps in ''Discworld/RaisingSteam''

See also ChunkySalsaRule, {{Gorn}} and BoomHeadshot. Compare YourHeadASplode and LudicrousGibs. Contrast, of course, BloodlessCarnage and PrettyLittleHeadshots.

The thing that keeps this from falling into LudicrousGibs is that it ''[[TruthInTelevision actually happens]]'', although it requires a sufficiently high-velocity bullet to produce the effect. Typical pistol bullets can (and often do) produce a blood-splattering exit wound in headshots, but the vaporization of enough blood and brain tissue to produce an actual ''mist'' requires a supersonic velocity of the sort most typically found in rifle bullets (thus partially validating the Pretty Little Headshot, at least if the shooter is using a pistol). The [[AteHisGun .357 revolver suicide]] of R. Budd Dwyer on live TV could be clearly seen to produce no visible pink mist, despite involving a powerful pistol caliber to the brain at point-blank range.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/AmericasArmy'' due partially to the need to avoid a rating higher than T, and partially to the fact that [[RealityIsUnrealistic 5.56mm bullets rarely cause that kind of]] {{Gorn}}. Plus, it's a [[JoinTheArmyTheySaid recruiting tool]]; people are likely to be less open to joining the Army if their death was just rendered in agonizingly gory detail. [[CaptainObvious Those to whom such things would appeal are generally more unstable than Army recruiters would like.]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live-Action TV ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* Tragically TruthInTelevision, as anyone who has seen the Film/ZapruderFilm (the film of John F. Kennedy's assassination) can attest.

* ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}!'' features ''many'' headshots, at least two of which are animated in all their gory glory. The conductor who takes a bullet to the head splashes blood all over the place and is later shown with a substantial hole in the back of his head. Poor Czeslaw, who takes two shots to the head with a shotgun, gets his head blown off completely. [[{{Immortality}} At least temporarily.]]
* ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' during ''Roberta's Blood Trail'', several FARC troops get shot by Roberta while she's wielding an anti-material rifle that was previously shown blowing large holes into a stone building. Against the FARC troops, it more or less vaporized everything above the navel.

[[folder: Comics ]]
* In ''Comicbook/{{Viz}}'' every comic strip featuring the gangster Big Vern ends up with him shooting himself (and often other people) in the head. The result is a [[BloodyHilarious comically over-the-top]] [[YourHeadASplode head explosion]] [[CrossesTheLineTwice with big chunks of skull, eyeballs, and the person's entire brain flying across the panel.]]
* In ''ComicStrip/WhatsNewWithPhilAndDixie'', pink mist fills a panel in which some idiot, taking up the challenge to find out what fighting a real monster would be like, straps 53 live cats to their body and takes a cold shower. Terrified cats can be seen at the edges of a flapping shower curtain; the unlucky experimenter is mercifully hidden.
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[[folder: Fan Fiction]]
* In the Franchise/HarryPotter fanfic [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8175132/1/Jamie-Evans-and-Fate-s-Fool Jamie Evan's and Fate's Bitch]], in the final chapter, after [[spoiler: The House of Yaxley kidnaps Jamie's adopted daughter, she goes after them in a truly magnificent RoaringRampageofRevenge.]] One of the wizards is turned into a full-body version of this trope, with the use of a modified paint stripping charm. She puts enough power behind it that he turns into nothing but a skeleton and a large cloud of pink mist.
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* In the Creator/JodieFoster film ''Film/AnnaAndTheKing'', a Thai servant is beheaded for treason against a king. As her head is lopped off (just offscreen) a fine pink mist sprays out across the screen.
* A variation happens in ''Film/OnceUponATimeInChina''; the villain that Wong Fei Hung is fighting gets his throat cut with split bamboo. At first it looks like nothing, but slowly a little red line begins to form, get longer, and suddenly a pink mist spews from the wound as he drops dead.

* In the Creator/JohnRingo novel ''[[Literature/PaladinOfShadows Unto the Breach]]'', one of the commanders of a Chechen battle group gets this treatment. On live international TV. By a sniper roughly ''two miles'' away. It crosses into LudicrousGibs territory, with the man literally explodes upon being hit by the round due to hydrostatic shock.
* Mitch Albom's ''Literature/TheFivePeopleYouMeetInHeaven''. Eddie's former commander during World War II blows up when he steps on a landmine. What happens to him, though, is more like Pink Salsa.
* In ''Literature/BattlefieldEarth'' (the novel), [[spoiler: Jonnie is thinking of running away, but is stopped by Terl, who says "If I shot you with it, you would turn into a pink mist." (Paraphrased slightly.)]]
* In ''First Casualty'' the protagonist witnesses a whole foxhole of soldiers being hit by a shell. It was ''raining'' pink afterwards.

* In ''Discworld/RaisingSteam'', ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' engineers learn superheated steam is not good if the boiler explodes: quite a few would-be George Stephensons end up wafted into the afterlife as clouds of necessarily pink steam.
** And a would-be saboteur finds out, very very briefly, [[spoiler: that the archetypal steam locomotive, Iron Girder, is apparently sentient enough to vent live steam in self-defence. The effect on the saboteur possibly convinces them]] that they shouldn't have tried it.

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'':
** Dialled UpToEleven by the main weapon of the Space Marines is essentially a fully automatic rocket-propelled grenade launcher. [[strike: A few]] ONE good hit can turn ''your entire body'' into PinkMist[=/=]Pink Salsa. Even the humble lasgun, much-derided in the fandom with the nickname "flashlight" due to being the weakest standard weapon, is described in-universe to be roughly equal in power to such classic full-power rifles as the M1 Garand, and entirely capable of taking a limb or head off a target.
** The fluff for a Tau railgun describes a Leman Russ tank with two matching, perfectly circular holes on either side... and the red spray on the exit hole, the remains of the crew that were instantly misted and sucked out by the hypervelocity round.
* ''TabletopGames/{{Paranoia}}'' sourcbooks regularly make references to turning Troubleshooters into "fine red mist", either due to post-mission interrogations from Friend Computer or just the latest experiments from R&D.
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* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}''. If you get killing headshots (yes, some enemies take multiple headshots to take down) with any weapon on a human enemy, their head literally becomes this. Taken UpToEleven if you're a high enough level with a good weapon and your headshot does enough damage, their body from the waist up disappears in red mist.
* ''VideoGame/CortexCommand'': Frequently happens to clones [[ChunkySalsaRule caught in explosions, crushed by dropship debris, or other methods of]] [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill total overkill]]. It's not just their heads - their ENTIRE BODIES will be [[LudicrousGibs reduced to a mess of red pixels]].
* In ''VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon'', shooting an enemy with a high-powered weapon, such as the shotgun at point-blank range, or getting them caught in the immediate blast radius of a grenade, will more often than not result in that enemy's body being reduced to red mist. This leaves no organs, no limbs, nothing, but a stain on the floor. Ouch.

** Played completely straight in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''.
* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' includes this trope, as well as an achievement called "Red Mist" awarded for killing many {{Mook|s}} zombies with the stationary minigun.
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty''
** ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' features this kind of effect when enemies are hit by gunfire, as does ''World At War''.
** ''World At War'' takes it too far, where shooting someone's limb produces ''massive'' amounts of blood and screams of pain.
*** Typically only if you use a heavy machine gun, a shotgun, or the PTRS-41 (which is an ''anti-tank rifle'', mind you), in which cases it kinda makes sense.
*** The limb staying ''on'' in the lattermost case, however, makes little sense.
* The Sniper of ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' refers to this trope by name repeatedly ("Everything above your neck is gonna be a ''fine'' red mist!"), but the in-game effects are more similar to PrettyLittleHeadshots. Unless you're using the Hitman's Heatmaker, which takes it to [[OffWithHisHead the exact opposite]] [[YourHeadAsplode extreme.]]
** The [[VideoGame/TeamFortressClassic Classic]] rifle takes this to an [[UpToEleven even further extreme]] by making the [[LudicrousGibs entire victim explode]], not just their head.
* In the Teen-rated ''VideoGame/TheConduit,'' if you get a headshot on the alien Drudge enemies, their heads pop off with a [[HighPressureBlood high pressure fountain]] of [[AlienBlood yellow fluid]]. Headshots on humans will yield a [[MostWonderfulSound loud sound effect]] but [[PrettyLittleHeadshots no special visuals]].
* Lampshaded in ''Unreal'' when a Skaarj decapitated by a headshot will feel for where his head used to be before dropping over dead.
* Headshots with some weapons in ''VideoGame/ArmyOfTwo: The 40th Day'' will completely obliterate everything above the target's neck.
* A confusing one in ''VideoGame/TombRaiderLegend''. In the flashback level, the wraith (given the FanNickname "Fluffy") grabs Kent and leaves behind a red mist: it is debatable whether this is the creature's presence, or Kent's blood.

[[folder: Web Comics ]]
* In [[http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=000801 this]] ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' strip, a person's body is instantly turned into a big red spray.
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* Military snipers who use the Barrett .50 caliber rifle will get Pink Mist results - and chunks of body and gear flying around - when hitting any part of the human body. Examples abound on Website/YouTube and other sites. Of course, it's to be expected when you use an [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill anti-materiel rifle as an anti-personnel rifle.]]
** As with most armies in 1939-41, the Red Army was issued large-calibre anti-tank rifles. At first effective against lightly armoured tanks and AFV's, as the war progressed and armour got thicker they very soon became obselete in their primary role. The Russians didn't scrap them: a virtue of these massive rifles was that they offered an extemely stable firing platform. They tended to be repurposed as very emphatic sniper rifles capable of turning an entire torso into pink mist.
*** The Fins had the Lahati anti tank rifle, it was more than five milliliters bigger than what the Russians used and they liked to load it with high explosive rounds. Invading Soviet troopers were often described as being vaporized upon being struck.

* The term was coined during ''UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar'', describing the effects of cannons' [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter canister shot]] on oncoming infantry.

* Dialled UpToEleven in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', in which the main weapon of the Space Marines is essentially a fully automatic rocket-propelled grenade launcher. [[strike: A few]] ONE good hit can turn ''your entire body'' into PinkMist[=/=]Pink Salsa. Even the humble lasgun, much-derided in the fandom with the nickname "flashlight", is described in-universe to be roughly equal in power to such classic full-power rifles as the M1 Garand, and entirely capable of taking a limb or head off a target.