History Main / RegularlyScheduledEvil

** If you're not from the Fire Nation, Sozin's Comet counts (it comes approximately every 100 years to magnify Firebenders' power and allow them to do more world-dominating damage than usual).

%%%

And this is a DeathTrope, so expect '''''UNMARKED SPOILERS!'''''

* In ''ComicBook/NiGHTSIntoDreams'', the divide between the dream world and waking world weakens every 100 years, and only two dreamers a century produce red Ideyas, allowing Wizeman to schedule his takeover attempts around that.

* ''Manga/DeathNote'': Early in the series, it's explained that Light had set aside specific time slots in which to kill criminals with the [[ArtifactOfDoom Death Note]], in order to provide himself with a healthy balance of sleep, homework, and death.
* In [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003 the 2003 anime version]] of ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', Hohenheim and Dante kill people every so often to use as surrogate bodies for their souls. Dante is attempting to start a new and more destructive cycle by [[spoiler:devastating countries with knowledge of Philosopher's Stones so they will create one she can steal]].
* In ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'', the curse of [[BigBad Oyashiro-sama]] kills 2 people every year. And it's always right around the town's big cotton-drifting festival, and only 1 body is found, and it's always someone related to the dam project. It’s considered to be the work of the village’s demon god [[spoiler:[[DoingInTheWizard but is actually]] a human MilkmanConspiracy]].
* In ''Literature/LogHorizon'', the "Return of the Goblin King" was a bi-annual event in the game ''Elder Tale'' where the various Goblin tribes would unite under a King. The players knew in advance when this would happen, so they would coordinate and plan for it, easily finishing the event when it rolled around. But when ''Elder Tale'' became reality, the players were so focused on adjusting to living in the new world that they forget about the event, and when the Goblin King is crowned, a massive invasion by Goblin armies results... an invasion that could have real, lethal consequences since it is no longer a game.

* In ''ComicBook/NiGHTSIntoDreams'', the divide between the dream world and waking world weakens every 100 years, and only two dreamers a century produce red Ideyas, allowing Wizeman to schedule his takeover attempts around that.

* In the ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'', Grogar escapes from his prison every 500 years unless stopped somehow. In the Dark World timeline's SequelSeries (by a different author) Dark World Drabbles, he's ultimately killed by [[spoiler:the combined Rainbows of Light and Darkness]].
* ''Fanfic/TheBridge'': Giranbo is a monster who abducts and consumes children every Halloween, Nightmare Night, or similar holiday.
* In the ''Blog/BetterBonesAU'', One-eye reappears every few generations in a new form to terrorize the Tribe, and the Tribe has to kill him again every time.

* The League of Shadows in ''Film/BatmanBegins''.

* The BadSanta Dutch movie ''Film/{{Sint}}'' deals with the regularly scheduled attack of the ghost of a SinisterMinister (which is the origin of the Sintkerlaas / SantaClaus myth) and his [[IAmAHumanitarian flesh-eating]] [[FullFrontalAssault naked]] barbarian "elves" every 25 years on Christmas. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, we find out that the [[PoliceAreUseless police]] and [[GovernmentConspiracy government]] are aware of these attacks and seriously think there is nothing that can be done other than keep things under wraps and pray for the best, even letting one of the heroes (a CowboyCop [[TheScrooge Scrooge]] that hated Christmas because of being a survivor of a previous attack) take [[DeceasedFallGuyGambit the posthumous fall]] for the movie's events.]]

* ''Film/Lifeforce1985'': The space vampires attack the Earth to consume souls when their spaceship departs from [[CometOfDoom Halley's Comet]] every 76 years when it's in close enough proximity to Earth.
* Deconstructed in ''Film/TheNightStrangler''. Once every 21 years for the last century, alchemist Richard Malcolm strangles several women and extracts their blood to use in an elixir of immortality. Doing this and keeping himself in isolation for the waiting period have trapped him in an endless cycle and driven him completely insane.
* ''Film/{{Dragonslayer}}'': Every six months, a dragon attacks the village of Urand, forcing them to sacrifice a virgin girl for it to devour so that it spares the rest of the community.

* The [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]] in ''Literature/{{Blindsight}}'' were like this until humans invented architecture, which largely drove them away from civilization because of their [[WeaksauceWeakness innate phobia of right angles]].
* A mouse genocide occurs in ''The Heroic Adventures of Hercules Amsterdam'' every seven years. Unfortunately, the mice don't live seven years, and none of them can count higher than four anyway.
* ''Literature/{{IT}}'': Pennywise awakens from hibernation once roughly every 27 years for 12–16 months at a time, feeding on children before going into slumber again. According to Mike, It's cycles usually end in the winter months of the year, but the Losers injured It so badly during the summer of 1958 that that particular cycle ended prematurely.

* In ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', [[TheDragon Ishamael]] briefly escapes [[SealedEvilInACan his prison]] once every thousand years. The first time resulted in the Trolloc Wars, and the second time resulted in the collapse of Artur Hawkwing's empire. On an even grander scale, the ends of the two Ages we're privy to involved a climactic showdown with the local {{Satan}} {{Expy}}; presumably the ends of the other five Ages are similarly dramatic.
* ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'': Every 50-100,000-odd years, a huge fleet sweeps the galaxy, exterminating every sapient species it finds. The last interstellar human empire, of which the population of Earth is an offshoot, was aware of this fact, and built an enormous fleet to stop them. Unfortunately for Earth, we're on the closest edge of human space to the fleet, they're coming again, and the Imperium is nowhere to be seen.

* ''Literature/TheAvatarSeries'': The Overgod Ao exists to preserve the balance only, not to take sides against good and evil. Thus, he chooses an insane human to be the god of various evil things and a good mage to be the goddess of magic. That bites him in the ass in the end, because magic is meant to be part of the balance, and therefore neutral for ''everyone'', so the goddess is forced to change. The insane god of murder eventually gets his comeuppance too. He murders so many gods that even the Overgod can't say he's 'just doing his job' anymore. He upset the balance so badly that the only solution was imprisonment in his own pocket plane for one thousand years. Being alone with his own mind for one thousand years does not help his sanity.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' has this happen whenever they investigate a murder, to the point that it's now standard operating procedure for the Winchesters to look for such patterns.
* Eugene Victor Tooms from ''Series/TheXFiles'' episodes "[[Recap/TheXFilesS01E03Squeeze Squeeze]]" and "[[Recap/TheXFilesS01E21Tooms Tooms]]" comes out of hibernation every 30 years to feed on human livers, a process which has made him functionally immortal.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E14WolfInTheFold Wolf in the Fold]]", an alien energy being called "Redjac" frames Scotty for murder. Turns out the immortal killer has been going from planet to planet, killing people, for centuries. At one point it was Jack the Ripper.

** Angel himself did this [[JekyllAndHyde when he was evil]]. While Angelus cheerfully tortured and killed people all year round, apparently he thought Valentine's Day was special and every February 14th made sure he did something ''really'' evil and [[EvilIsPetty petty]] to mark the occasion.
* The ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' episode "[[Recap/TorchwoodS1E6Countrycide Countrycide]]" has a group of villagers deliberately kidnap the sort of people who would go missing in the countryside every ten years for a [[ImAHumanitarian harvest]].

* In the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' episode "Sweet Jane", a serial-killing dentist started killing when he was in his late teens, and only gets "the urge" every ten years or so. He doesn't get caught until he's in his seventies. The length of time between murders is one reason why it takes so long for the police to catch him.
* In ''Series/{{Dexter}}'', Special Agent Lundy becomes convinced that a pattern of murders repeated across the country is caused by one person whom he has dubbed "The Trinity Killer", since they always kill three victims. [[spoiler:He's wrong. It's actually four]]. This has been happening every few months for over 30 years. The entire fourth season is centered around this mystery.
* In the ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episode "[[Recap/CriminalMindsS4E13Bloodline Bloodline]]", a [[TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether family]] [[spoiler:(which later turns out to only be one branch of a whole network of families)]] follows a tradition of selecting a random family that has a daughter. Then they break into the selected family's house, kill the parents and abduct the girl, in order to raise her as a wife for their son. By traveling all over the country and presumably only killing once [[spoiler:per family]] per generation, they've managed to remain undetected for at least a hundred years.
* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': The vampiric Wraith harvest human worlds in the Pegasus Galaxy at regular intervals and hibernate in between the cullings of their prey to allow the human population to recover. The Pegasus humans figured out the Wraith's schedule at some point, and the more advanced societies made preparations to prepare for their arrival. When the Atlantis expedition [[NiceJobBreakingItHero inadvertently awakens the majority of the Wraith]], the schedule is bumped up considerably--to the point that the abundant Wraith suffer food shortages and later start to feed on ''[[EnemyCivilWar each other]]''.

** Barabus, demon of fear, is originally stated to come to earth on Friday the 13th every 1300 years. His second appearance {{Handwave}}s his early return. Subsequent episodes don't even bother.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'': From the original ''Mirrodin'' Block, Memnarch's [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=46708 "Levelers,"]] designed to keep the plane's civilizations from growing too powerful by [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin leveling them]] every century.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' gives us the Tarrasque, an immense, nigh-unstoppable force of destruction. Flavor text in the Monster Manual entry says that it awakens every so often, wreaks havoc and eats everything in sight, and then goes back into hibernation for a few thousand more years. Since it cannot be killed, this happens whether or not the players defeat it; at best they can send it back into hibernation before it does too much damage.

* The Sinistrals in the ''VideoGame/{{Lufia}}'' games revive every 100 years. [[spoiler:Erim's always a little early...]] ''VideoGame/LufiaCurseOfTheSinistrals'' refers to it as the "Legend of the Apocalypse", the cycle of the Sinistrals appearing either to destroy human civilization or be defeated by a Legendary Hero.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', the [[{{Kaiju}} giant monster]] Sin always returns to wreak destruction on the planet Spira a few years after it's 'destroyed'. But in this case, the people of the world know of it (a giant killer space whale is sorta hard to miss, after all), and its cycle of rebirth is well known. What they ''don't'' know is that [[spoiler:the very act of 'killing' it is what causes it to be reborn, as whichever Final Aeon is used becomes Sin in its place.]]

** The "hundred year cycle" is broken by the time of ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow'', instead replaced with a cycle of solar eclipses.

** Most importantly, [[spoiler:they created the mass relay network, and due to its extent and ease of use, it inevitably becomes the main faster-than-light method of travel for evolving civilizations. This ensures the colonies will all be within reach of the Reapers when it's time to destroy them.]]
* In ''VideoGame/StarControl3'', it is revealed that the Orz are scouts for a being/race from another dimension that comes to devour all sentient life in our galaxy every time it reaches critical mass. Naturally the most intelligent guys from the last cycle left clues (then devolved themselves just below sentience).
* In ''Videogame/{{Okami}}'', the dread serpent Orochi demands a human sacrifice (VirginSacrifice is implied but not stated) every year at Kamiki Village's Full Moon Festival. Unlike other examples, everyone knows exactly when it will happen and where the poor maidens go to be killed, but no one dares stand up to Orochi.
* Taken to ridiculous extremes in ''VideoGame/HalfMinuteHero''. Each mission of the main story involves an evil lord who casts a spell that will destroy the world in 30 seconds. In the endgame content the villain returns like clockwork every 100 years, each time giving the main character 30 seconds to save the world.
* Dark Force of the ''VideoGame/PhantasyStar'' franchise returns every 1000 years; this is possible in ''III'' and ''IV'' as they occur concurrently.
* ''VideoGame/BodyHarvest'': When the aliens harvested humanity in the 20th century, they returned once every 25 years when their Comet homeworld is close enough.

* Every ten years in ''VisualNovel/SpiritHunterNG'', the evil spirit Kakuya appears and forces people to play games against her that they can never win - for if they do win, then Kakuya just plays with them again until they lose, and thus meet a tragic fate. Also every ten years, a preteen girl is kidnapped by [[spoiler:children's author Yakumo Miroku, who mutilates her into a doll to appease Kakuya for another ten years.]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'': Why, the same thing we do every night! [[spoiler: Try to take over the world!]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/HerculesTheAnimatedSeries'', a group of centaurs would attack a nearby village every Sunday. The villagers got used to the raids to the point of treating them as an UnusuallyUninterestingSight. Then the centaurs' leadership was taken over by a warlord who suggested that they break out of the pattern.

** According to The Other Wiki, the Rocky Mountain locust caused terrible devastation to farming efforts in the American Midwest in the later half of the 19th century, until the species mysteriously went extinct. It is theorized that humans broke the cycle by inadvertently destroying all the locust's eggs during one of their (the locusts) dormant periods when they (humans) plowed up the ground where the locusts nested in order to plant crops.

If this happens monthly, it may be MenstrualMenace or {{Lunacy}}, with [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolves]] especially prone to the latter. A particularly regular CometOfDoom could also count. AncientEvil is particularly fond of this trope, yet often [[ContractualGenreBlindness contracts Genre Blindness]] from being outdated.

* The ''Evil'' in ''Film/TheFifthElement'' is said to return every 5,000 years.

* In ''VisualNovel/WakeTheDead'', the biggest surge of zombies occurs every seven years during the Summer Solstice. The story starts 28 days before the solstice comes.

* ''Film/{{Lifeforce}}'': The space vampires attack the Earth to consume souls when their spaceship departs from [[CometOfDoom Halley's Comet]] every 76 years when it's in close enough proximity to Earth.

* Deconstructed in ''Film/TheNightStrangler''. Richard Malcolm goes on a killing spree to take the blood he needs for the elixir that keeps him alive every 21 years, but doing this and keeping himself in isolation for the waiting period have trapped him in an endless cycle, and he’s gone completely insane from this, and by this point he’s both too insane and too stubborn to see this.

* ''Film/TheNightStrangler'': Once every 21 years for the last century, an alchemist strangles several women and extracts their spinal fluid to use in an elixir of immortality.