History Main / TownWithADarkSecret

[-Image by [[http://www.nekomation.com/ Neko Pilarcik-Tellez-]]]

[[caption-width-right:323:Something [[{{Pun}} fishy]] going on...]]
[[caption-width-right:323:[- Image by [[http://www.nekomation.com/ Neko Pilarcik-Tellez]]-] ]]

* ''VideoGame/FatalFrameII''. Minakami Village is quiet village by the mountains that was considered old-fashioned even by the standards of the 19th century. [[spoiler]]It's built on top of a gateway to Hell, and human sacrifices must be offered to it in order to prevent its darkness from spilling out[[/spoiler]].

* Possom Springs from ''VideoGame/NightInTheWoods''. It's a {{Dying Town}} full of depressed people who would love nothing more than to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere pack up and leave.]] Its dark secret is [[spoiler:the cult of people who sacrifice drifters and "degenerates" of society to an {{Eldritch Abomination}} in hopes that it can bring prosperity back to the town]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Paranorman}}'': The small town of Blithe Hollow (which is based on Salem) is infamous for being founded by a puritan community that killed an evil witch 300 years prior the events of the movie, who in retaliation seemingly cursed the city by raising the dead on her death’s anniversary. However, it turns out that this is an over-exaggeration of the true story: [[spoiler: it’s revealed that “the evil witch” was actually an 11 years old girl, named Agatha Prenderghast, who was taken away from her mother, put on a trial, and finally executed by hanging for the sole crime of having the ability to interact with the dead (much like her distant descendants Norman and his uncle) by 6 frightened puritans. Furthermore, we learn that she didn’t curse the town, but only her killers by turning them into zombies so they would be subjected to discrimination by the townsfolk as punishment]].

* ''WesternAnimation/Paranorman'': The small town of Blithe Hollow (which is based on Salem) is infamous for being founded by a puritan community that killed an evil witch 300 years prior the events of the movie, who in retaliation seemingly cursed the city by raising the dead on her death’s anniversary. However, it turns out that this is an over-exaggeration of the true story: [[spoiler: it’s revealed that “the evil witch” was actually an 11 years old girl, named Agatha Prenderghast, who was taken away from her mother, put on a trial, and finally executed by hanging for the sole crime of having the ability to interact with the dead (much like her distant descendants Norman and his uncle) by 6 frightened puritans. Furthermore, we learn that she didn’t curse the town, but only her killers by turning them into zombies so they would be subjected to discrimination by the townsfolk as punishment]].

*
''Webcomic/Stagtown'' has series of strange events happen in titular city. It begins with cameras appearing everywhere, including inside people's houses and rather quickly gets worse. Worse, it actively prevents you from leaving with memory wipes and brute force if necessary.

See also SmallTownTyrant, AFeteWorseThanDeath, and CrapsaccharineWorld. Contrast {{Arcadia}}.

* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'':
** Sunshade: A city in the Sunlands known as the "city of a thousand pleasures", [[spoiler:is home to a famous tavern run by a secretly abusive man who goes so far as to treat the dancers working for him like {{Sex Slave}}s]].
** Stillsnow: A small mountain village just north of Flamesgrace, where the Order of the Sacred Flame was founded, [[spoiler:is home to a brothel run by assassins and is frequented by at least one corrupted member of the Order of the Sacred Flame]].

** Noblecourt: A Flatlands city which was once a place of high ideals and moral men [[spoiler:and is a base for one of the leaders of the Obsidians. They have corrupted the guards and crime is rampant now]].
** Wispermill: Despite looking like an ordinary farming town at first glance, [[spoiler:its inhabitants are under the thrall of an evil cult and are hostile to members of the Order of the Sacred Flame.]]

* ''VideoGame/FatalFrame''. Some of the things that happened to outsiders were unpleasant, before ''and'' after the communities' imminent demises.

** Kingsport in "The Festival". [[spoiler:Or, rather, the "dream version" of Kingsport.]] The [[spoiler:"dream version" can't have been entirely imaginary though, since in the later Lovecraft story, "The Silver Key" the protagonist is casually mentioned to have read about excavations under Kingsport's church that revealed a hidden system of tunnels mentioned in "The Festival".]]

* Author Creator/StephenKing calls this "The Peculiar Little Town" and has confessed that he has a weakness for writing stories of this type (among them ''Literature/ChildrenOfTheCorn'', ''Rainy Season'' and ''You Know They Got A Hell Of A Band'').

* The made-for-TV-movie ''Film/TheDisappearances'' has, among other things, a ghost-town with a secret. The sheer volume of red herrings presented eliminates the ability to accurately figure out what that secret ''is'', mind you, but it's most assuredly there.

* Wellington Wells, the fictional English town which is the setting for ''VideoGame/WeHappyFew''. Whatever the [[NoodleIncident Very Bad Thing]] was that happened during World War II in [[AlternateHistory this world's timeline]], it was so awful everyone tried to forget it through a combination of Orwellian tyranny and censorship and abuse of a FantasticDrug called Joy to [[HappinessIsMandatory keep up everyone's spirits]]. Unfortunately, now Wellington Wells has two dark secrets: the Very Bad Thing, and the fact that [[FalseUtopia their seemingly-perfect civilization is on the verge of collapse]]. [[spoiler: If you're curious, the Very Bad Thing was the Nazis coercing the people of Wellington Wells into giving up every child over the age of 13 in exchange for their safety. And to make matters worse, Arthur's storyline reveals the tanks Wellington Wells was threatened with ''weren't even real''.]]

* ''Mass Effect'' series:

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', it's revealed that Arlen, Texas was originally a watering hole on the Chisholm Trail. A group of eleven enterprising women invested in a tent and a cot, and the site eventually formed into a town-wide brothel dubbed Harlottown until the prostitutes decided to make the brothel into a prospering town and start their own legitimate businesses and even get involved in politics. The name of the town used to be called "Harlen" in the past, which came from the even further back name "Harlottown", which Peggy discovers from old newspapers. Apparently "People were in such a hurry to get to Harlottown that they didn't have enough time to call it such." The many visitors to Harlen included President Garfield, the Terry's Texas Rangers, the 1884 University of Notre Dame football team and Creator/MarkTwain.
** Hank, being a closed-minded conservative, thinks it's this trope since he doesn't like the idea that his hometown started out as a brothel. However, he soon learns to respect the town's "founding mothers" since they eventually became legitimate, honest people.

* ''Film/KillBabyKill'': Karmingam is a small gloomy village, somewhere in the Carpathians, which is terrorised by a ChildGhost. [[spoiler: It turns out that twenty years ago during a drunken festival, little Melissa Graps was trampled by horses, and though there were many witnesses, nobody helped her as she bled to death. Now her angry mother uses her spirit to exact revenge on the villagers, forcing them to commit suicide.]]

* ''Series/{{Dark}}'': The town of Winden is home to a nuclear power plant, but it has a big secret: there is a wormhole in the underground caves that allows one to travel in time. Various characters try to keep mysterious disappearances, murders and strange events secret to avoid people interfering with the timeline and sabotaging the universe.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E2TheBeastBelow "The Beast Below"]], the Doctor realizes Starship UK is this when he sees a girl sitting on a bench silently crying but none of the adults passing by are stopping to console her, suggesting that they know why she's crying and don't want to acknowledge the cause.

* Nevesk, the town you first arrive in in ''VideoGame/DiabloIV'', seems at first to be your average town fallen on hard times in the desolation that Sanctuary has become. Up until you clear out a ruin for them and they celebrate by throwing you a small party during which [[spoiler:you're [[SlippingAMickey drugged]] and hauled off to be sacrificed]]. As it turns out, [[spoiler:these townsfolk are demon cultists who worship Lilith, the BigBad, and you're only saved when one of the people they slated for sacrifice kills the guy who tries to sacrifice you, and you have to kill the rest of the town when they show up ''en masse'' to finish you off]]. Needless to say, this immediately sets a much darker tone for the game in general in comparison to previous ''Diablo'' fare.

* Subversion: ''Series/AmericanGothic1995'' has Trinity, SC, a town whose dark secret is that its sheriff is the Devil Incarnate. But no one knows this fact at all (except [[SpiritAdvisor Merlyn]], it seems), while only the few who run afoul of Buck's wrath, dare to cross him, or refuse to obey him ever even discover what a MagnificentBastard he truly is. On the other hand, there are quite a lot of people in town keeping their own secrets: Dr. Crower, Gail, the coroner, the priest, Ben, Selena...
** Given that Sheriff Buck actively recruits people with dark secrets so that he can manipulate them (and eventually steal their souls), Trinity could be described as a town where everybody has their own dark secret.

[[caption-width-right:323:Something fishy going on...]]

* ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'':
** The first town you come to is [[spoiler:mostly abandoned except for demons and tormented souls]]. The town fits this trope all the better considering that they, you know, [[spoiler:are the bitter souls of abused domestic animals who [[CannibalClan want to eat you]]]]. That certainly puts a damper on things. Funny thing: Yuri knows this going in, but he doesn't care, because he knows he can deal with it.