History Main / WhatHappenedToMommy

* Comes up a ''lot'' in ''Series/AshVsEvilDead''. Just for starters, Amanda is forced to kill her partner in the first episode after he gets possessed, and the second episode sees Kelly's mom come back from the dead with a story about suffering amnesia after a car accident. [[spoiler: It's a lie.]] Then in season two, we find out Ash [[spoiler: had his life and his relationship with his father completely ruined by the events of the films, described above. It's implied at one point that his badassery is just a form of ObfuscatingInsanity to cover up how deeply traumatized he actually is.]]

* In the zombie apocalypse comic book ''ComicBook/TheWalkingDead'', the protagonists meet a farmer who has been keeping zombies (including one of his sons) locked in his barn, believing they can be saved. Eventually, the zombies break out, and in the ensuing fracas, they kill two more of the farmer's kids. His life sucks: he has eight kids pre-apocalypse and eventually gets down to two. Then it goes FromBadToWorse.

* ''Series/TheWalkingDead2010'' shows the zombified wife/mother of the man and his son who help Rick out in the pilot episode. She wanders around the neighborhood and looks in the peephole of her former house, causing much angst in the process. In a subversion, however, her former husband [[spoiler:cannot bring himself to kill her]].

'''Nury Televaldi:''' If that's what you want to call them. What better place to hide than among that portion of society that no-one else even wants to acknowledge? How else could so many outbreaks have started in so many First World ghettos? :: They're talking about people who paid to have themselves smuggled out of China and into any other country they could get to. Nury dealt mainly with land transportation.

* The [[Series/TheWalkingDead television adaptation]] of ''[[ComicBook/TheWalkingDead The Walking Dead]]'' shows the zombified wife/mother of the man and his son who help Rick out in the pilot episode. She wanders around the neighborhood and looks in the peephole of her former house, causing much angst in the process. In a subversion, however, her former husband [[spoiler: cannot bring himself to kill her]].

*** Don't forget that, prior to all of that, [[spoiler: he was stalking her across the city with the singleminded purpose of doing [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong something]] to her that is unpleasantly close to ''rape''. And in one particular scenario, he ''succeeded'']].
*** And her being infected with the G-Virus is [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil6 CANON]].
** And in the [=REmake=] version of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'', we have Lisa Trevor, who spent over a decade being used as the guinea pig for every viral weapon and mutagenic compound that Umbrella could come up with, a situation that her mother was also placed in... for a while. [[spoiler: She planned to escape, but succumbed to the first incarnation of the virus (Type-A) and was "disposed of" by Umbrella. Lisa wasn't fooled by the body-doubles of her parents Umbrella sent to placate her, ''tearing off their faces'' to give them back to her real mother, wearing them in an insane show of devotion. She spent the rest of her life shambling around the mansion and the grounds, looking for her mother. Near the end, the player uncovers Lisa's mother's remains for her, and she gives a strange show of closure before dropping out of sight.]]

It's most commonly the mother, or at least a family member, for Freudian reasons, but don't worry; they don't have anything to do with Theatre/OedipusRex. Generally, there is no one more familiar than the mother figure, so the disappearance of that familiarity - "She's not your mother anymore!" - is a perfect example of the Freudian uncanny (or ''unheimlich'', as he would put it, speaking German and everything). Since the horror of zombies rests already largely in the uncanny ([[UncannyValley they walk like the living but are otherwise dead]]), this trope is a perfect fit for the ZombieApocalypse.

** Subverted in one of the ''Treehouse of Horror'' Halloween episodes. Zombie Flanders walks over to Homer's house, presumably to eat him. Homer guns him down without hesitation.

'''Homer:''' He was a zombie?
** A similar occurrence in the next season's ''Treehouse of Horror'' when the family discovers Bart-turned-vampire about to attack Lisa. Grampa Simpson immediately bursts in with a stake and garlic.

'''Grampa:''' [[HowDidYouKnowIDidnt He's a vampire!?]] AAAAAH! (''runs away'')
* Spoofed in the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Marjorine": To steal from the girls a "Cootie Catcher" they assume can really tell the future, the boys fake Butters' death so they can insert him as a cross-dressing undercover agent. Mr. Stotch digs up the pig carcass that was buried as Butters' body and reburies it in the old Indian Burial Ground. When Butters shows up again his parents naturally assume he is a "demon spawn."

* The first ''Film/ResidentEvil'' movie also had this happen with Rain, who turns at the absolute worst moment.
** Admittedly, though, in this version there '''was''' a cure, and it had been administered on Rain. It was just given to her too late.

** Which turns grim when you learn in ''VideoGame/PokerNight2'' that she lived just long enough to have a family with nine grandkids and then watch eight of them succumb to the black plague / zombification / whatever. She was probably protected by fate because the universe needed [[WesternAnimation/VentureBrothers Brock Samson]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext to be born]], but after they had the right ancestor she needed a large dose of this trope to balance out the favorable karma.

'''Grampa:''' He's a vampire!? AAAAAH! (''runs away'')

** The thing is that the protagonist is in a trap from the start, there are supernatural forces at play which he makes the mistake of underestimating from the start. His wife has an irrational fear of death (by which I mean she can't even stand to ''think'' about it because of childhood trauma), but the protagonist is likewise too scientific about it, ''too'' rational, which is the weak spot the Wendigo plays to. By the time he buries his wife, even knowing the danger, he's ''insane'' and he even ''knows'' that he is is insane. Seeing what his reanimated son did to his mother snapped him.

** Even more heartbreaking (and [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming heartwarming]]) was when [[spoiler: Ed was bitten painfully across the neck]], and Shaun bravely shouts "You leave him alone!" and charges to his defence.

* A cruel subversion occurs in the Australian comedy-horror movie ''Undead''. Towards the end of the film, it is revealed there actually ''is'' a cure for the zombie outbreak (distributed by friendly aliens via rainwater), and cured, human-again former zombies even end up dying from the gunshots they sustained from the protagonists during the film. However, the cure misses a single infected man, who ends up starting the zombie outbreak all over again. The film ends with the protagonist forced to round up the zombie villagers in a large outdoor pen and shepherd over them in the hopes the aliens will return with the cure again (which is unlikely to happen, since they have no way of knowing a second outbreak occurred).

** And later on, Eren gets revenge on the Titan that ate his mother... except he realizes later he sentenced [[spoiler:His father's first wife]] to death by cannibalism. Eren's not quite sure if said Titan had enough sense to desire revenge specifically against Ms. Jaegar. Yeesh.

It's most commonly the mother, or at least a family member, [[FreudWasRight for Freudian reasons]], but don't worry; they don't have anything to do with Theatre/OedipusRex. Generally, there is no one more familiar than the mother figure, so the disappearance of that familiarity - "She's not your mother anymore!" - is a perfect example of the Freudian uncanny (or ''unheimlich'', as he would put it, speaking German and everything). Since the horror of zombies rests already largely in the uncanny ([[UncannyValley they walk like the living but are otherwise dead]]), this trope is a perfect fit for the ZombieApocalypse.

** Which turns grim when you learn in ''VideoGame/PokerNight2'' that she lived just long enough to have a family with nine grandkids and then watch eight of them succumb to the black plague / zombification / whatever. She was probably protected by fate because the universe needed [[''WesternAnimation/VentureBrothers'' Brock Samson]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext to be born]], but after they had the right ancestor she needed a large dose of this trope to balance out the favorable karma.

** Which turns grim when you learn in ''VideoGame/PokerNight2'' that she lived just long enough to have a family with nine grandkids and then watch eight of them succumb to the black plague / zombification / whatever. She was probably protected by fate because the universe needed [[''WesternAnimation/VentureBros'' Brock Samson]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext to be born]], but after they had the right ancestor she needed a large dose of this trope to balance out the favorable karma.

** Which turns grim when you learn in ''VideoGame/PokerNight2'' that she lived just long enough to have a family with nine grandkids and then watch eight of them succumb to the black plague. She was probably protected by fate because the universe needed Brock Samson to be born, but after they had the right ancestor she needed to REALLY have something undead happen to her.

** Which turns grim when you learn in ''VideoGame/PokerNight2'' that she lived just long enough to have a family with nine grandkids and then watch eight of them succumb to the black plague. She was probably protected by fate because the universe needed Brock Samson to be born.

** Which turns grim when you learn in ''VideoGame/PokerNight2'' that she lived just long enough to have a family of nine kids and then watch eight of them succumb to the black plague. She was probably protected by fate because the universe needed Brock Samson to be born.