| 1 | %% |
| 2 | %% |
| 3 | %% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks! |
| 4 | %% |
| 5 | %% |
| 6 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1541349054040469900 |
| 7 | %% Previous thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1305822408041203500 |
| 8 | %% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread. |
| 9 | %% |
| 10 | [[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simpsons_terrorlake_2.jpg]]]] |
| 11 | [[caption-width-right:350:The terror comes from the rent prices.]] |
| 12 | |
| 13 | ->''"I take a look at the maps, and sure enough, this outpost is stuck out in the middle of nowhere, smack in the Smooth Points of Pride. 'Boatmurdered' they call it, a name which doesn't bode well for much of fucking anything."'' |
| 14 | -->-- '''[=StarkRavingMad=]''', ''Blog/{{Boatmurdered}}'' |
| 15 | %% |
| 16 | %% One quote is sufficient. Please place additional entries on the quotes tab. |
| 17 | %% |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Some cities have [[CutesyNameTown cute names]]. Some [[IstanbulNotConstantinople weird names]]. And some have [[CityWithNoName no name at all]]. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | And then there are ''these'' places. They have names like "{{Doom|yDoomsOfDoom}}ville", "New Evilsberg", "[[RidiculouslyDifficultRoute Murder Plains]]", "Hell's Bathroom", [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking "New]] [[{{Joisey}} Jersey"]]. It doesn't matter if it's one of the nicest towns you've ever seen, if it's named [[Manga/SoulEater Death City]] (or alternatively [[BilingualBonus Necropolis]]), ''it's one of these places''. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Note: if the place has a bad reputation, but the name itself is not scary (like [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Camp Crystal Lake]] or [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Sunnydale]]), it does not count. These are places that tell you right up front: ''this is not a nice place''. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | A common comedic subversion is to reveal that the place actually [[NonIndicativeName takes its name from something innocuous]]: for instance, a place named Death Canyon actually being named for its discoverer, [[UnfortunateNames Merriweather Death]]. [[DoubleSubversion Bonus points]] if it then reveals the place is actually incredibly dangerous anyway. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | Related to DoomyDoomsOfDoom. The location counterpart to NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast. The inverted version of this trope would be SuperFunHappyThingOfDoom, except in that trope, the thing ''must'' be actually bad. If the place is actually a fairly normal place with fairly normal people, the inverted version is CutesyNameTown. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | ---- |
| 30 | !!Examples: |
| 31 | [[index]] |
| 32 | * IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace/RealLife |
| 33 | [[/index]] |
| 34 | |
| 35 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 36 | |
| 37 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 38 | * ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'' has a location in the Digital World called Death Valley. The English dub, due to either NeverSayDie reasons or the name being taken by a valley in California already (or both), changes it to an even more ominous name. It then hangs a lampshade on it, and proceeds to turn Cody's joking ''un-''threatening alternate name into a RunningGag: |
| 39 | -->'''Upamon:''' It's the Forbidden Valley of No Return!\ |
| 40 | '''Kari:''' Why do bad guys always name things like that?\ |
| 41 | '''TK:''' It's in their job description! It's right after really stinky breath!\ |
| 42 | '''Cody:''' Even if this place was called "The Valley of Duckies and Bunnies", with a control spire there, there's trouble. |
| 43 | * ''Manga/DragonBall'': |
| 44 | ** One of the arenas in Urunai Baba's tournament is "The Devil's Cesspool". The name proves to be very apt; It's just a narrow bridge suspended over a pool of acid, making a challenging fight even moreso. The chamber gets its name from the fact that bridge is designed to look like the tongues of a pair of giant demons... sitting on toilet seats. |
| 45 | ** {{Hell}}, naturally, is not a nice place to visit. In the original Ocean Group[=/=]early Funimation dub, the underworld's name was changed to the less offending, yet no less uninviting, "Home For Infinite Losers", or "HFIL" for short. |
| 46 | * ''Manga/HeterogeniaLinguistico'': "Death Village" turns out to be a temporary trading post that's only inhabited part of the year. It is also a place where dragons go to die, so that may be the source of the name. |
| 47 | * ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'': "Hinamizawa" ("Bird-Watching Town") is a fairly innocuous name in Japanese for a small town. However, it used to be known as "Onigafuchi", which translates roughly as "[[MeaningfulName Demon's Abyss]]". |
| 48 | * ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'': |
| 49 | ** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventurePhantomBlood Phantom Blood]]'': Ogre Street is a fictional London Rookery inhabited mostly by criminals, including Speedwagon. Jonathan goes there to find a cure for his father's poisoning. |
| 50 | ** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureSteelBallRun Steel Ball Run]]'' has the Devil's Palm where anyone who passes through undergo a strange effect, which is actually obtaining a [[FightingSpirit Stand]]. |
| 51 | * [[EvilOverlord Claw's]] hideout Dead River from ''Manga/KimbaTheWhiteLion''. |
| 52 | * ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' has the "Gravekeeper's Palace". Naturally, it's TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon of the previous generation, and the current group is currently headed there as well. |
| 53 | * ''Manga/MadeInAbyss'' has the titular "Abyss", an EldritchLocation taking the form of a massive gaping pit filled with wonderous treasure and dangerous creatures, as well as a phenomenon that makes returning from its lower levels dangerous, if not outright fatal. |
| 54 | * In ''Anime/MakaiSenkiDisgaea'', Episode 6: |
| 55 | -->'''Flonne:''' It's exactly like Sardia said! "Go through the Forest of Evil, crawl along the Cliffs of Despair, and cross the Bridge of the Damned." |
| 56 | * ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': |
| 57 | ** The Forest of Death. |
| 58 | ** The Valley of The End, or Kirigakure (aka the Village Hidden in The Mist), which, during Yagura's reign as Mizukage, came to be known (unofficially) as Chigiri no Sato (or the ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Village of the Bloody Mist]]''). |
| 59 | * ''Manga/OnePiece'' has Punk Hazard. It used to be a peaceful, normal land, until an incident years before turned it into a poisonous wasteland, and [[spoiler:Akainu and Aokiji's battle]] further turned it into HailfirePeaks. |
| 60 | * Death City, Nevada, in ''Manga/SoulEater'', so named because it is the home of... well, TheGrimReaper. |
| 61 | * While not immediately obvious in translation, the town of Kurozu-cho in ''Manga/{{Uzumaki}}'' has a name that means either "Closed Town" or "Black Vortex Town" depending on the reading. In this case, the fact that [[spoiler:the town apparently underwent a similar event to that depicted in the book a few hundred years ago]] suggests that the creepiness of the name is unlikely to be unintentional. |
| 62 | * In ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'', Dark World. Not only are most of the natives there ''very'' unfriendly to humans, but this is where Judai's SuperpoweredEvilSide took hold. |
| 63 | [[/folder]] |
| 64 | |
| 65 | [[folder:Comedy]] |
| 66 | * Creator/EddieIzzard mentioned this during a piece about the GenreBlindness of people in {{horror}} movies. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4yrL6rc6bU "Let's go camping in the Forest of Death and Blood!" (around 7:40)]] |
| 67 | [[/folder]] |
| 68 | |
| 69 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 70 | * In ''Adventures in the Rifle Brigade'', Lt. "Doubtful" Milk's write-up notes him as the sole survivor of engagements on Hell Island, Slaughter River, Carnage Ridge, and Abandon-All-Hope-Ye-Who-Enter-Here Alley. |
| 71 | * [[RedScare Joe McCarthy]] Elementary, future Alma Mater of Amelia and her friends in ''ComicBook/AmeliaRules''. The school motto is: "Weeding out the wrong element since 1952". |
| 72 | * ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': |
| 73 | ** Crime Alley was only given that name after all the... crime... that happened there. It was originally called the much tamer "Park Row". |
| 74 | ** Also Blüdhaven, the nearby city under Characters/{{Nightwing|DickGrayson}}'s protection where [[Characters/RobinTimDrake Tim Drake]] moved after his father's murder. |
| 75 | ** Gotham itself would count as this a bit, though at least it was founded a couple hundred years before the "gothic" genre became a class of stylized horror story. Gotham City is actually one of the now-archaic names for part of what is now New York City. It was a pretty well-known alternate term when Batman comics were first published, but it has drifted out of common use since. Though depending on how you feel about New York it might still qualify. |
| 76 | ** And even the first meaning of the name qualified in a way, as it came from a legend of a village where people acted crazy in order to avoid paying taxes and got the name Gotham as in Goat-ham. So Gotham is named after a land of insane people. |
| 77 | ** Arkham Asylum, if you know your Creator/HPLovecraft. Even Gotham City's "normal" prison has the rather ominous name of Blackgate Penitentiary. |
| 78 | * ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'' and Hell's Kitchen. That said, Hell's Kitchen is a real neighborhood in New York. (It has become considerably safer and more upscale in the decades since Daredevil was first launched. But the Franchise/MarvelUniverse cares not.) |
| 79 | * ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'': [[{{Egopolis}} Doomstadt]], capital city of Latveria. [[Characters/MarvelComicsDoctorDoom Doctor Doom]] named several other towns in Latveria after himself as well. |
| 80 | * ''ComicBook/TheFurtherAdventuresOfIndianaJones'': The story in #3 is titled "The Devil's Cradle", after a rock formation where Indy gets mixed up in all kids of strange goings-on, and is almost killed multiple times. |
| 81 | * ''ComicBook/HarleyQuinn and Her Gang of Harleys'': Harley Sinn has her secret hideout on the Island of Horrible Death. Presumably she named the place herself. |
| 82 | * ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'': |
| 83 | ** Deadworld, but only after the omnicidal Dark Judges who destroyed it renamed it in their own image -- before that it was just an AlternateUniverse of Earth. Filled with mountains of corpses of their victims, the only inhabitants left on the planet are the four undead Judges and the tormented souls of the dead. |
| 84 | ** Death and his cohorts also briefly turned Mega City One itself into a "Necropolis" by transforming the city into a nightmarish slaughterhouse that made the Cursed Earth (an irradiated wasteland) look welcoming by comparison. |
| 85 | * ''ComicBook/JusticeRiders'' has the heroes confront Maxwell Lord and Felix Faust in a place called Helldorado, with Booster Gold eve pointing out how the location's name screams bad news. |
| 86 | * The eponymous once-nice neighbourhood from the short story, ''[[http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2009/08/monster-of-dread-end.html The Monster of Dread End]]'' |
| 87 | * The ''ComicBook/MsTree'' story "The Devil's Punchbowl" involves the investigation of a murder at a geological feature known as 'the Devil's Punchbowl', which is rumored to be a hangout for Satanists. (There are actually several places in the real world bearing this name.) |
| 88 | * ''ComicBook/NewGods'': Apokolips. It's a place ruled by [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]]; need we say more? |
| 89 | * ''ComicBook/SinCity,'' although its actual name is Basin City. |
| 90 | * Slaughter Swamp, birthplace of [[Characters/GreenLantern1941 Solomon Grundy]] in Franchise/TheDCU. |
| 91 | * ''ComicBook/SoulsearchersAndCompany'' is based in the unpromisingly named Fear City. |
| 92 | * ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': |
| 93 | ** One Metropolis neighborhood's name on city maps is Hob's Bay, but the locals call it something else: Suicide Slum. Given that 'Hob' is a mediaeval name for the Devil (as mentioned in ''[[Franchise/{{Quatermass}} Quatermass and the Pit]]''), even the official name gives pause for thought.[[note]]However, 'Hob' is also a mediaeval diminutive for 'Robert' and was reasonably commonplace right through to the 17th Century.[[/note]] It's where the more successful versions of [[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Lex Luthor]] hail from. Other origin stories include Smallville and OverlordJr. |
| 94 | ** Metropolis also has Suicide Swamp on the outskirts of town. Those people do not know a thing about marketing. |
| 95 | * One of the earliest ''ComicBook/UnknownSoldier'' stories has him infiltrating a death camp that bears the appropriately grisly name Totentanz, German for "dance of death." |
| 96 | [[/folder]] |
| 97 | |
| 98 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 99 | * In ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', there are several of these which Calvin names himself including Grim Reaper Gorge or Mount Maim. He does this so he can feel cool while sledding down them. |
| 100 | * ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'': |
| 101 | ** In an early strip, Jason goes sledding at ''huge'' hill called "Kamikaze Ridge", saying that his classmates discovered it near the reservoir. (Presumably, they gave it that name.) The place is mentioned whenever it's winter and he wants to tempt fate. |
| 102 | ** One of the {{Horrible Camping Trip}}s that Roger took the family to was at a place called "Skeeter Falls". (Apparently, Roger was [[TooDumbToLive too dumb to realize what the name meant.]]) |
| 103 | [[/folder]] |
| 104 | |
| 105 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 106 | * Genocide City in the ''Pokémon'' fanfic ''Fanfic/BraveNewWorld''. Nobody actually ends up going there, but it's implied that it's worse than Treasure Town, a WretchedHive that is [[spoiler:literally built on top of a portal to Hell]]. The name also serves as a reference to a famously cut level from ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2''. |
| 107 | * The Death Zone, the Dark Tower, and the [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom Doom Satellite]] from ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries''. |
| 108 | * The Boiling Underworld in ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainBoilingPoint''. And given [[EldritchLocation its very nature]], the name is the ''least'' worrysome thing about it. |
| 109 | * ''Fanfic/TheNightUnfurls'': |
| 110 | ** On the way to the capitol, Kyril and the others have to trek through the Badlands, where the wildlife (if there is any at all) is hostile, inedible and steeped with BlackMagic. |
| 111 | ** In the remastered version, there is a location in [[{{Mordor}} Garan]] named the Dead Marshes. The party finds themselves MuckingInTheMud and have to fend off [[OurGhostsAreDifferent hostile wraiths]] (the "dead" part). Goes on to show that SwampsAreEvil. |
| 112 | ** The Malys[[note]]pronounced "malice"[[/note]] Estate once belonged to the Malys clan -- paranoid, infamous nobles who were put to the sword by Eostia's rulers. It is rumoured to be haunted by the evil spirits of the destroyed clan. At present, Kyril and his company head towards the estate in hopes of hunting down EvilSorcerer Shamuhaza, only to be greeted by [[MixAndMatchCritters people fused with insects and other creepy crawlies]], which are not any better than ghosts. The estate turns out to be a dimension-expanding, weirdness-inducing EldritchLocation. |
| 113 | * ''Fanfic/OpeningDangerousGates'' has a town called Mortem. Lucy points out the foreboding name. Even more foreboding when Gajeel reveals that back when he was in Phantom Lord, he lost several comrades to that town. |
| 114 | * ''Fanfic/ThePalaververse'': In the first chapter of ''Wedding March'': |
| 115 | --> In the middle of the arid Equestrian Badlands, half a day’s flight from the nearest settlement of note, there rose a great and mountainous formation of ridges and river-carved canyons [...] Willing visitors to the formation - which was varying known as the Black Defiles, the Obvious Location of Horror and Death to be Shunned by Any Ponies With the Sense the Creator Gave a Stoat (Literal Minded was generally regarded as one of the best pony explorers of the last few centuries, albeit as good with names as polio was with infants) |
| 116 | * ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'' has the Drowning Woods. Decades ago, it was populated by evil Ghost-type Pokémon who took pleasure in terrifying and even ''killing'' any unfortunate traveler that passed through their domain. Elite Four Agatha, [[spoiler:whose younger brother was killed in there,]] took it upon herself to catch all of them to clear the forest and make sure they wouldn't hurt anybody. |
| 117 | * ''Fanfic/RubyPair'': The campaign quest that the characters have to go on in "Gaols & Ghouls" while [[TrappedInAnotherWorld trapped in the titular game]] leads them through places called "the Plains of Suffering", "the Forest of Certain Death", "the Canyon of Agony", and "the Mountain of Dread" to reach "the Vile Lair of the Beast King". [[DeadpanSnarker Gaz]] lampshades the theme naming when she hears it all. |
| 118 | * In ''Fanfic/TrustDoesntRust'', Dean is unnerved at the name of ‘Devil’s Kettle’, but is soon assured that it doesn’t have any supernatural activity about it beyond those events relating to Low Shoulder and Jennifer Check’s transformation. |
| 119 | [[/folder]] |
| 120 | |
| 121 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 122 | * ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnOfTheDinosaurs'': the entire path to the ''T. rex'' nest which goes through the "Jungle of Misery", the "Chasm of Death", and the "Plates of Woe", all named by a CrazySurvivalist. At one point he's asked: |
| 123 | -->'''Eddie:''' So why they call it the "Chasm of Death"?\ |
| 124 | '''Buck:''' We tried calling it the "Big Smelly Crack". But, uh, that just made everybody giggle. |
| 125 | * ''WesternAnimation/PlanesFireAndRescue'': One of the landmarks at Piston Peak National Park is called Augerin Canyon. "Auger in" refers to a fatal crash, and it is where [[spoiler:Dusty has his climatic HeroicSacrifice to save Harvey and Winnie.]] |
| 126 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuers'': |
| 127 | ** Most of the action takes place in a swamp called Devil's Bayou. |
| 128 | ** In the sequel, ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuersDownUnder'', the duo's guide Jake invokes this to mess with Bernard, as he has a crush on Bianca. |
| 129 | --->'''Jake:''' So, which way you taking? Suicide Trail through Nightmare Canyon, or the shortcut, Satan's Ridge?\ |
| 130 | '''Bernard:''' S-S-Suicide Trail?\ |
| 131 | '''Jake:''' Good choice! More snakes, but less quicksand. And once you pass Bloodworm Creek you're scot-free. That is, until Dead Dingo Pass. |
| 132 | ** In another scene, [[EvilPoacher McLeach]] demands a tied-up Cody tell him where the giant eagle he's befriended is located, wondering aloud if she's nested at places like Satan's Ridge, Nightmare Canyon, and Croc Falls. For emphasis, he's got Cody placed in front of a map, and throws a knife at every location he names. We actually get to see Croc Falls in the climax. And yes, the name is accurate. |
| 133 | [[/folder]] |
| 134 | |
| 135 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 136 | * ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' franchise: |
| 137 | ** ''Film/{{Aliens}}'': LV-426 is cheerily named ''Acheron''. When you name places after rivers in Hell, they can't be good. |
| 138 | ** ''Film/Alien3'': The hellish prison planet is called "Fury 161". |
| 139 | * In ''Film/AskAPoliceman'', the smugglers are using Devil's Cave for their operations. |
| 140 | * In ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'', Marty is happy that he finds out he lives in the Hilldale housing development in Hill Valley, the "Address of Success!", in his time. Unfortunately, when he is there in 2015, the sign has been graffitied to the "Address of [=SucKeRs=]!". |
| 141 | * In ''Film/BatmanForever'', [[Characters/BatmanTheRiddler The Riddler]] builds his base on Claw Island. Website/TheAgonyBooth's [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160309202423/http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Batman_Forever_1995.aspx?Page=13 recap of the movie]] finds it "convenient", saying "subsequent supervillains will have to make do with building their bases on Gumdrop Island, or Fluffy Bunny Atoll." |
| 142 | * ''Film/BitterLake''. A place where everyone talks interminably with badly puppeteered mouths, up until they get their sorry carcass assassinated. |
| 143 | * Shadow Woods Apartments from ''Film/BloodRage''. |
| 144 | * ''Film/BreakheartPass''. On hearing that the train has to travel through the pass to reach Fort Humbolt, one of the characters remarks that it does not sound like a good omen. |
| 145 | * ''Film/TheBurning'': The canoe trip that the older kids are taking goes to place called Devil's Creek. |
| 146 | * ''Film/TheButchers'': Granted it is a museum devoted to {{Serial Killer}}s, but was 'The Death Factory' really the best choice of name? |
| 147 | * ''Film/CapeFear''. Which is a real place, by the way. |
| 148 | * From another movie based on an Creator/IanFleming novel, ''Film/ChittyChittyBangBang'' has [[{{Ruritania}} Vulgaria]], a ChildlessDystopia where [[TheCaligula the rulers]] literally ''banned kids''. |
| 149 | * ''Film/ChuckECheeseInTheGalaxy5000'': The last three miles of the Galaxy 5000 run straight through a dangerous and treacherous canyon known as Dead Man's Canyon; when Chuck E. attempted to fly through at the speed of Vega-2, he lost control and crashed. After getting some training from Harry, he flies through without a hitch at Vega-3 and wins. |
| 150 | * ''Film/CoronerCreek'' is not the most inviting of town names. |
| 151 | * ''Film/CutthroatIsland''. |
| 152 | * The title town from ''Film/DarknessFalls''. Nope, nothing bad ever happens there. Honest. |
| 153 | * In ''Film/TheDeserter'', the Apaches are holed in a stronghold in a virtually unassailable mountain range called "The Devil's Backbone". |
| 154 | * Averted in ''Film/DrNo'', where the diabolical doctor's base from which he aims to upset the balance of terror between the USA and the USSR through missile toppling is called ... Crab Key. |
| 155 | * The Valley of Fire in ''Film/GentlemenExplorers'': |
| 156 | -->'''The Magician:''' That sounds like a lovely place to take a vacation. |
| 157 | * [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin As the name implies]], Monster Island of the ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' franchise houses all of Earth's gigantic monsters. |
| 158 | * Hell's Reef in ''Film/GreatWhite''. Its official name is Imperious Reef, but the locals have been calling it Hell's Reef since the 1950s when a pearl lugger was wrecked there, and only one member of the 18 man crew survived. |
| 159 | * ''Film/{{Horrific}}'': ''Crypt of the Undead'' takes place in a funeral home that is built on top of the remains of Blood Prison. |
| 160 | * In the Hudson Brothers' comedy ''Film/{{Hysterical}}'', author Frederic Lansing goes on a retreat to the charming seaside village of Hellview, Oregon. |
| 161 | * In ''Film/JackTheReaper'', the bus crashes at a place called Death's Door. |
| 162 | * In ''Franchise/JurassicPark'', the island chain Isla Sorna is part of (Isla Nublar is not part of the same chain) is called Las Cinco Muertes, or The Five Deaths. Apparently the name comes from some local legend, and all five islands are named after a form of torture or execution. Isla Nublar, the island from the original book/film, on the other hand, means Cloudy Island. |
| 163 | * In ''Film/KingArthurLegendOfTheSword'' Arthur must go to the Badlands before he will fully be able to command Excalibur. |
| 164 | * Skull Island in Creator/PeterJackson's ''Film/KingKong2005''. Denham {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this trope: |
| 165 | -->'''Driscoll:''' Why would [the crew] be spooked? What's [the island] called?\ |
| 166 | '''Denham:''' Alright, it has a local name, but I'm warning you Jack, it doesn't sound good.\ |
| 167 | ''[after the reveal]''\ |
| 168 | '''Driscoll:''' What's wrong with this place?\ |
| 169 | '''Denham''' There's nothing ''officially'' wrong with it... Because, technically, it hasn't been discovered yet. |
| 170 | * Subverted -- at least at first -- with the Bog of Eternal Stench in ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}''. Sarah at first doubts it's as bad as Hoggle claims, asking if all it does is smell, although he tells her, [[TakeOurWordForIt "Believe me, that's enough!"]] (Of course, that's ''not'' all it does. Not only does it have an unearthly stench, it curses whoever touches its waters with the same stench, which never goes away. And while the viewers ''do'' have to take his word for it, poor Sarah finds out just how vile it smells for herself when she sees the place firsthand.) |
| 171 | * ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'': |
| 172 | ** "Seek you the Bridge of Death!" Where, if you get a question wrong, "you are cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril." |
| 173 | ** The Castle of Aaaarrrggh may or may not be an example. |
| 174 | ** Castle Anthrax. (Though despite the name, it might be rather pleasant for someone who likes having lots of sex with girls who may or not be [[FilleFatale jailbait]].) |
| 175 | * ''Film/MysteryRoad'' opens with a girl's corpse being found at the ominously named Massacre Creek. |
| 176 | * ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'': |
| 177 | ** Isla de Muerta from the [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanTheCurseOfTheBlackPearl first film]], (grammatically incorrect) Spanish for "Island of Death". |
| 178 | ** Also Shipwreck Island from the [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd third film]]. Home to Shipwreck Cove. Inside which you find [[OverlyLongGag the town of Shipwreck.]] |
| 179 | --->'''Jack Sparrow:''' You know, for all that pirates are clever clogs, we are an unimaginative lot when it comes to naming things. |
| 180 | ** [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest Isla Cruces]] -- from the (medieval) Latin ''cruciare'', meaning "to torture". "Cruces" is also Spanish for "crosses" (or "intersections", depending on the gender of the pronoun). It's also the second person singular form of the verb "cruzar", to cross. And naming things after Catholic objects of veneration is something of a hispanohablante linguistic hobby. |
| 181 | * ''Film/ThePrincessBride'' has the Cliffs of Insanity. Ironically, the sea bordering it to one side (with its Shrieking Eels) and the Fire Swamp bordering it to the other (with its RodentsOfUnusualSize) are more dangerous. |
| 182 | * Hell Township in ''Film/SantasSlay''. |
| 183 | * ''Film/TheScarletClaw'' is set in the Canadian village of "La Mort Rouge" (French for The Red Death) and is haunted by a local monster. |
| 184 | * In ''Film/ScoobyDoo2002'', Shaggy and Scooby are unwilling to visit [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Spooky Island]]. In fact, they have a whole list of "forbidden" place names -- including "scary", "haunted", "forbidden" or "[[BreadEggsMilkSquick hydroclonic]]". |
| 185 | * ''Film/TheScorpionKing''. There's a reason they call it "The Valley of the Dead". |
| 186 | * Sufferton from ''Film/{{Seed|2007}}''. |
| 187 | * The Badlands in ''Film/SixReasonsWhy''. |
| 188 | -->'''The Entrepreneur''': We didn't think the journey would be so hard. There is nothing to eat out here at all.\ |
| 189 | '''The Nomad:''' I can see how the name 'Badlands' might have thrown you. |
| 190 | * ''Film/SpyKids1'' has a city called San Diablo (literally, "[[BilingualBonus Saint Devil]]"). |
| 191 | * ''Film/Stalker1979'' has a dark and scary tunnel nicknamed The Meat Grinder. We're never told how it [[NothingIsScarier got this nickname]], which makes the sequence where [[ButtMonkey Writer]] creeps through it quite terrifying. |
| 192 | * The ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe has a few. |
| 193 | ** The Original Trilogy gave us the Death Star, which, although mobile, was large enough to classify as a location of its own. The ''Franchise/StarWars'' novel ''Literature/DeathStar'' has the Death Star in orbit around the prison planet Despayre. |
| 194 | ** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' gives us Starkiller Base, which is an even ''worse'' place to be than the Death Star. |
| 195 | ** ''Film/{{Solo}}'' establishes that the Kessel Run goes through the Maelstrom, an AsteroidThicket hidden in dark SpaceClouds. There's also a gravity well known as The Maw. |
| 196 | ---> '''Lando Calrissian:''' [L3-37] says we're approaching The Maw.\ |
| 197 | '''Tobias Beckett:''' That doesn't sound like something we wanna be approaching. |
| 198 | * A sign seen in ''Film/TerrorAtTenkiller'' mentions a town named Gore. |
| 199 | * In one of ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' shorts, '''Gents Without Cents''' (1944) the boys are acting out a skit for dockworkers. Curly is given a suicide mission to deliver a message. His directions are, "Now, you go through Skeleton Pass, over Murder Meadow, to Massacre Junction. Then you follow the trail to Poison Creek, around Funeral Mountain, and head directly for Dead Man's Gulch." |
| 200 | * Played with in the prequel movie ''Film/Tremors4TheLegendBegins'', in which Perfection, Nevada is still known by its older name of Rejection. Locals kick themselves over that, because nobody seems to want to move there. |
| 201 | * The titular location in ''Film/ValleyOfTheFangs''. It's a WretchedHive filled with bandits, murderers, assassins, and the heroes ''must'' cross it in order to recover an important scroll essential for overthrowing an evil minister and tyrant. |
| 202 | * {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''Film/WithoutAPaddle'' when Creator/SethGreen's character asks why all the places that they have to travel to have Satanic names. |
| 203 | * In ''Film/TheWizard'' Corey tells his brother they are in Goblin Valley. "Great. I mean, I mean, I mean... it couldn't be Happy Valley or Wonderful Valley. Goblin Valley. Why not, Axe Murderer's Valley?" |
| 204 | [[/folder]] |
| 205 | |
| 206 | [[folder:Gamebooks]] |
| 207 | * A whole bunch of ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' adventures are set in scary, ominous-sounding locations, including Darkwood Forest from ''Literature/TheForestOfDoom'', Freezeblood Mountains from ''Literature/SiegeOfSardath'', the Inn of the Ghostly Visitors from ''Literature/SpectralStalkers'' (and yes, it's an InnOfNoReturn -- the owner ''will'' drug you and sell you as food to goblins), the Desert of Skulls from ''Literature/TempleOfTerror'', Nightshriek Jungle from ''Literature/BattlebladeWarrior'', Rivers of the Dead from ''Literature/SeasOfBlood'', Isle of Despair from ''Literature/StealerOfSouls'' (where you confront Mordraneth, the titular soul-stealing sorceror), among others. |
| 208 | * Pick a ''Literature/LoneWolf'' book. Any ''Lone Wolf'' book. On the off-chance that the trope doesn't appear in the title (''[[DoomyDoomsOfDoom The Chasm of Doom]]'', ''The Kingdoms of Terror'', ''Castle Death'', ''The Jungle of Horrors'' and more), then it'll still most likely be present in the book somewhere -- the [[{{Mordor}} Darklands]], the Doomlands of [[GodOfEvil Naaros]], the [[SwampsAreEvil Hellswamp]], the [[{{Hell}} Plane of Darkness]]... |
| 209 | * ''Literature/GiveYourselfGoosebumps'' have a few of these, notably the titular swamp in ''Literature/LostInStinkeyeSwamp'' (it's haunted by a VengefulGhost named Annabelle who cursed it 500 years ago), the canyon in ''Literature/AloneInSnakebiteCanyon'', [[HellHotel Hotel Morte]] ("Death" in Spanish) in ''Literature/CheckoutTimeAtTheDeadEndHotel'', among several others. |
| 210 | [[/folder]] |
| 211 | |
| 212 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 213 | * The titular estate of ''Literature/AcidRow'' doesn't sound like an ideal place to live, an assumption that is [[WretchedHive highly accurate]]. Technically, the real name is the Bassindale Estate, but the sign at the entrance has been continuously vandalised from "Welcome to Bassindale" to "Welcome to Ass i d Row"; many residents and even visitors to the estate have adopted Acid Row as the name, feeling that it better reflects the realities of living there. |
| 214 | * In ''Literature/AfterTheRevolution'' the US Federal government nuked Dallas during the SecondAmericanCivilWar in an incident that would be named the "Lakewood Blast". Dallas has ever since been known as "Ciudad de Muerte" ("City of Death" in Spanish). |
| 215 | * [[Myth/ArthurianLegend Arthurian romances]] are full of castles that fit this trope. E.g. ''Perlesvaus'', where one of the major bad guys hangs out in Castle Mortal; the ''Livre d' Artus'' has a Castle of Death; the ''Prose Tristan'' a Castle of Tears, which [[Literature/LeMorteDarthur Malory]] calls the Doleful City; in ''Yvain'', there's a Castle of the Most Ill Adventure; Malory has a Castle Perilous as well, not to mention Dolorous Guard. None of them sound like ideal holiday destinations. On the other hand if one is a KnightErrant looking for trouble they sound like just the place to go. |
| 216 | * The witches in ''Literature/TheBlueNosedWitch'' take off from Dead Man's Bluff for their flights. It's just a spooky place name and there's no indication it's anything but a place witches gather. |
| 217 | * ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'': ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'': Deliberately invoked by the heroes, upon discovering an island with a spring that [[MidasTouch turns anything that touches its water into solid gold]]. They immediately recognize the danger of such a place (especially since there's a "statue" of a ''person'' at the bottom of said spring), and Caspian decides to name the place "Deathwater Island" to discourage any visitors. ("Goldwater Island" was also suggested, but while accurate and descriptive it was thought that name would attract more people to the place.) |
| 218 | * ''Literature/{{Circleverse}}'': Subverted in ''Literature/CircleOfMagic''. The four kids are not happy about being sent to a place called ''Discipline'' Cottage after they've been kicked out of the regular dorms for various reasons Turns out that "discipline" here just means "study, instruction" rather than punishment. |
| 219 | * ''Literature/{{Croak}}'': Being inhabited entirely by [[TheGrimReaper Grim Reapers]], the town is naturally named after a synonym for dying. Its counterpart on the west coast is called [=DeMyse=] and the capital city in the center of the country is called the Necropolis. |
| 220 | * "Slaughter Towen" is a worse place than it sounds, since "Towen" is an old druid word for the ritual site for bloody sacrifice. Creator/StephenKing's short story [[Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes "Crouch End"]] names "Slaughter Towen" as part of a DarkWorld alternate dimension London. The short story "Crouch End" is a CosmicHorrorStory within the Franchise/CthulhuMythos. |
| 221 | * ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos'' stories love these names: The Devil's Hop-yard, the blasted heath, Stregoicavar ("Witch-Town"). |
| 222 | * ''Literature/DeltoraQuest'' has loads. The Forests of Silence, the Lake of Tears, the City of Rats, the Shifting Sands, Dread Mountain, the Maze of the Beast, the Valley of the Lost, the Shadowlands… no wonder Lief freaked out upon seeing where his quest would lead him. The sequel series add more, including Dragon's Nest, Shadowgate, and the Isle of the Dead. |
| 223 | * Small mining town ''Literature/{{Desperation}}'' in the eponymous Creator/StephenKing novel. [[BodyHorror Good for one's health]], [[ArtifactOfDeath original sculptures]], [[RabidCop charming]] [[EldritchAbomination residents]] -- fun for the whole family! |
| 224 | * ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': |
| 225 | ** Played with in the book ''Literature/CarpeJugulum'', which has in {{Uberwald}} a very lovely tourist spot called Dontgonearthe Castle, which also has various other signs like "Last Chance Not to Go Near the Castle". This is, however, a brilliant bit of reverse-psychology marketing by the castle's owner (a vampire), who named it knowing full well that any adventurer worth their salt would ''of course'' investigate the castle to find out why he shouldn't go near it. |
| 226 | ** Nanny Ogg has a set of rules about places like Dontgonearthe Castle, which are basically a series of instructions that go "having ignored the previous instruction, don't perform the next step in your inevitable demise," up until you've met your inevitable demise, when it's "having been bitten by the vampire, don't come crying to me." |
| 227 | * ''Literature/DocSavage'': ''Fear Cay'' takes place largely on the eponymous island. As well as housing a FountainOfYouth, here is also a terror on the island that can turn a man into a skeleton in minutes. |
| 228 | * ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': |
| 229 | ** Dresden's Chicago has "Undertown," where you can find awful goblins, ghouls, and other, less savory creatures. Even humans.... |
| 230 | ** There's also the island in Lake Michigan named Demonreach. Demonreach is actually quite a nice place if (and only if) the GeniusLoci of the place likes you. |
| 231 | * ''Literature/FearStreet'' |
| 232 | * The Forbidden Forest in ''Literature/HarryPotter''. |
| 233 | * The bulk of ''Literature/HeartOfSteel'' takes place on a volcanic island in the middle of the South Pacific called Shark Reef Isle. Turns out the sharks aren't the only dangers... |
| 234 | * Hell, an OutlawTown that was the setting for two novels by Creator/JTEdson: ''Hell in the Palo Duro'' and ''Go Back to Hell''. |
| 235 | * ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'': The Forest of Sorrows in Valdemar. |
| 236 | * The ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series gives us Camp Charon, on the planet Hades, which is in the Cerberus System, which just shows that the [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny People's Republic of Haven]] is ''really'' subtle about naming its prisons. |
| 237 | * ''Literature/HowToTrainYourDragon'': Come to the Barbaric Archipelago! Visit such beautiful locales as Hysteria, Villainy, Fort Sinister, The Dungeons Of The Danger-Brutes, Glum and Grim, The Frozen Isle Of Nowhere, Silence, Swallow: The Swallowing Sands, Berserk: The Woods That Howled, Bloodspilt Bay, The Uglithug Slavelands, Prison Darkheart, Grimbeard's Despair, The Murderous Mountains, Hero's End... Averted with some of the more nice-sounding locations, such as the Peaceable Country or the Island of Quiet-Life. |
| 238 | * ''Memories of Empire'' by Django Wexler has the Doomwood and Godsdoom. |
| 239 | * Inverted in children's ''The Lord of the Rings'' parody ''Literature/{{Muddle Earth|Stewart}}'', with "Harmless Hill". |
| 240 | -->''[after watching a harmless stiltmouse getting eaten by a flower]''\ |
| 241 | '''Joe:''' I thought you said the hill was harmless!\ |
| 242 | '''Veronica:''' Oh, the hill's harmless enough, it's the killer daisies you've got to watch out for... |
| 243 | * ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory'' has the Swamp of Sadness, whose "aura" of despair drives everybody to apathy and even suicide, and Spook City, inhabited by ghosts, vampires, witches, demons and the like. |
| 244 | * ''Literature/TheNightLand'' by William Hope Hodgson has a few, including: "The Country of Wailing", "The Place Where the Silent Ones Kill", "The Headland From Which Strange Things Peer"... |
| 245 | * In ''Literature/{{Paradyzja}}'' by Creator/JanuszZajdel, the titular space station orbits a planet named Tartar (Tartarus). It was named that ''before'' it was deemed a [[EverythingTryingToKillYou place where the very weather is trying to kill you]], though. |
| 246 | * ''Literature/PrincessesOfThePizzaParlor'': From the second episode, a map of the party's current location is mentioned that has place names like a "Pond of No Return". |
| 247 | * ''Literature/ThePyrates'': |
| 248 | ** Octopus Island, which is home to man-eating octopods. (Why? What were you expecting?) |
| 249 | ** Not exactly Canon, but George Macdonald Frazer suggests that the Dead Man's Chest on which fifteen men were once marooned was in fact a sand bar that resembled the torso of a floating corpse poking out of the water. |
| 250 | * In Steven Saylor's mystery ''Raiders of the Nile'' (set in ancient Egypt), the hero, Gordianus the Finder, stays at The Inn of the Hungry Crocodile. (The Hungry Crocodile is what the proprietor calls himself, because, as he says, he is always hungry for money. Not reassuring.) |
| 251 | * ''Literature/RedHarvest'', by Creator/DashiellHammett, is set in the industrial town of Personville, which is almost always called ''Poisonville'' by its inhabitants and visitors. |
| 252 | * ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'': The Gate of Tears, an artificial sea channel that has become the lair of a sea monster that is over two hundred years old. Even ''[[ProudWarriorRaceGuy the Calvarians]]'' are scared of it. (Note that "Calvarian" is itself kind of a [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast scary name]], as ''calvaria'' means "skulls" in Latin.) |
| 253 | * The Darke Halls in ''Literature/SeptimusHeap''. |
| 254 | * The eponymous location of ''Shadowmarch'' by Creator/TadWilliams. |
| 255 | * In ''Literature/ShadowOfTheConqueror,'' [[WorldInTheSky Tellos]] has a region called the Shadowlands, so named simply due to being shrouded in Tellos's actual shadow due to the universe's WrapAround effect. It's not stated to actually harbor anything dangerous, though. |
| 256 | * In the ''Literature/{{Shannara}}'' series, the Warlock Lord live in Skull Mountain, in the centre of Skull Kingdom. |
| 257 | * Several feature in the titles of the ''Literature/SheriffJoannaBrady'' mysteries by Creator/JAJance: ''Skeleton Canyon'', ''Rattlesnake Crossing'', ''Outlaw Mountain'', ''Devil's Claw''. Why does anyone live in Cochise County? |
| 258 | * The eponymous "Schlachthof-fünf" from Creator/KurtVonnegut's ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive'', the address of a Dresden POWCamp during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. It's somewhat subverted by the fact that the prison camp is, through a clerical error, remarkably well supplied, and is one of the few safe places when the Allies bomb the city. Also, the name of the prison was not intended to be ominous or threatening, just descriptive; the building was originally constructed as a literal slaughterhouse (as in, a place that took live animals in at one end and sent meat out the other end). |
| 259 | * ''Literature/SolomonKane'': In "Rattle of Bones", it should perhaps come as no surprise that the Cleft Skull Tavern turns out to be an InnOfNoReturn. |
| 260 | * ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': Cartographers in this series are often blunt and to the point. So, on your own head be it if you thought "Cape Wrath" in ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the Stormlands]]'' was just being metaphorical, so neglected to pack both decent waterproofs and windbreaks. |
| 261 | ** House Bolton, reluctant bannermen to House Stark, have their primary seat at a lovely little place called "the Dreadfort". As their banner is that of a flayed man, one can easily imagine the sorts of things that historically took place there -- and, upon occasion, still do. |
| 262 | ** The Haunted Forest may not be literally haunted, but the countless tales told in Westeros of the monsters, barbarians and worse that live there more than explain its name and reputation. |
| 263 | ** The mystical city of Asshai is found on the banks of the salubriously sounding "Ash River", which is itself found in... the Shadowlands. This lot is even less cheery than it sounds, as no children can be born there and phosphorescent, inedible plants and very questionable fish are about the only things that can thrive without knowledge of magics. Yeah; not dark and magical/irradiated/whatever at all, then. |
| 264 | ** Other ominous names in Westeros and Essos include the Hellholt (not a bad place in itself, but the deserts and geysers around it are unbearably hot -- the family who founded the place and the people who still live there are considered a quite a lot bonkers even by the standards of heat-adapted Dorne), Shipbreaker Bay (guess why it's called that), the Gulf of Grief (ditto), and Slaver’s Bay (whose primary pillar of the economy is... guess). |
| 265 | ** In Essos, a ruined city used as the equivalent of a leper colony is now called "the Sorrows", and a particularly dangerous stretch of the otherwise typical Valyrian road network that passes very close to what are now the feared volcanic ruins of Valyria is known as "the Demon Road". It was a wonder of the world. Once. |
| 266 | ** Sometimes this is played with: the grim-sounding Winterfell is the home of some of the story's most heroic characters. It is somewhat fitting, however, in that region it's located in is, well, extremely wintry. |
| 267 | ** The waters around the ruins of the Valyrian Freehold, which have been a volcanic wasteland ever since the Doom came to Valyria, are called the Smoking Sea, and are filled with volcanoes. |
| 268 | ** The furthest south of Sothoryos, where the merely very inhospitable jungles of the north give way to impassable rainforests full of all sorts of hostile monsters, amply deserve their nickname of "the Green Hell". |
| 269 | * ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': |
| 270 | ** Invoked in ''Literature/CoruscantNights'' regarding a lovely part of the Coruscant underlevels known as the Blackpit Slums. |
| 271 | --->'''Den Dhur:''' And that's a bad name. Bad names usually mean bad places, and bad places are not places we want to be. |
| 272 | ** ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'' has planets called D'Vouran and Necropolis. A character points out that "Necropolis" means "City of the Dead", but no one seems to notice D'Vouran or connect it with the "[[ToServeMan We Live to Serve You]]" sign they find there. |
| 273 | ** ''Literature/TalesOfTheBountyHunters'': The people on Jubilar are apparently very morbid due to their frequent wars, with a city named "Dying Slowly" (later just "Death") that has a suburb called Executioner's Row. |
| 274 | * ''Literature/TheThreeInvestigators'' seem to keep ending up at places like this: Terror Castle, Skeleton Island, Phantom Lake, Monster Mountain, Death Trap Mine, Shark Reef, Wrecker's Rock... |
| 275 | * Defied in 'The Grapple' of ''Literature/Timeline191'', where the Adolf Eichmann expy, Jefferson Pinkard, convinces Ferdinand Koenig that for the purposes of carrying out their Holocaust expy on black people, a camp named "Camp Devastation" or "Camp Destruction" would actually be counter-productive towards their efforts. |
| 276 | * ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': |
| 277 | ** ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': |
| 278 | *** [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom Mount Doom.]] |
| 279 | *** {{Mordor}} itself, as it's suggestive of the Latin ''mors'', which means "death,". In-story, the name still qualifies: it means "Black Country", in reference to its wasted state and perpetual shadow.( Tolkien knew the industrial Midlands of Britain -- which are not called "The Black Country" for nothing. His loathing for what heavy industry can do to a landscape is a thread running right through the books: he specifically associates the powers of darkness with soul-less progress and industrialisation.) Also, Tolkien's academic specialty was Old English, and he had a fondness for just lifting parts of its vocabulary for his legendarium. "Mordor" quite literally means Murder. |
| 280 | *** The northwest corner of Mordor is the Plateau of Gorgoroth, which is a compound of Sindarin ''gor'' ("fear") and ''gor-oth'' ("great fear," "horror"), indicating that it's ''extra''-horrible. Even untranslated, it doesn't have the sound of a nice vacation spot. |
| 281 | *** Most of the foregoing also applies to Moria (the Black Chasm), which the Dwarves call by a different name (''Khazad-Dûm'', "the Dwarf-delving"). |
| 282 | *** Other places with ominous Quenya or Sindarin names include Dol Guldur (the hill of dark magic) and Minas Morgul (the tower of black magic). |
| 283 | *** The Dead Marshes. |
| 284 | *** Also Cirith Ungol and assorted places. Frodo and Sam may be excused, because many location names are only told to the reader and not the protagonists. But it still adds some amusement to the chapter when you translate the elven location names -- and realize that they are trying to reach the "''Pass of the Huge Evil Monster Spider''", climb the "''Stairs to the Pass of the Huge Evil Monster Spider''" and finally enter the "''Cave of the Huge Evil Monster Spider''" -- and then slowly begin to wonder if that pass is ''really'' as unguarded as they thought... Especially since it is established that Frodo, at least, speaks reasonably good Sindarin. |
| 285 | ** ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' has a variety of locations which can be translated variously as the Grinding Ice, the Gasping Dust, the [[AtopAMountainOfCorpses Hill of Slain]], |
| 286 | ** ''Literature/BerenAndLuthien'': Beren crosses the [[EldritchLocation Mountains of Horror]] (''Ered Gorgoroth''), where Ungoliant's brood dwells, and the [[GardenOfEvil Valley of Dreadful Death]], where the magic duel between Melian and Sauron warps the land and twists creatures into multi-eyed monsters. Later, Beren and his companions are locked in the dungeons of Sauron's tower in the Isle of Werewolves. |
| 287 | * In Creator/RobertLouisStevenson's ''Literature/TreasureIsland'', the eponymous island's name is Skeleton Island. |
| 288 | * ''Literature/UniversalMonsters'': |
| 289 | ** In book 2, Captain Bob says all but the last word of the trope name when Wilma Winokea names the place of black water -- Deadman's Landing -- which she says is sacred to her people, and where she claims her son underwent the ritual to become a skinwalker. |
| 290 | ** In book 6, the teens have to find a place for Wilma Winokea and Deputy Chad Barnes to stay, since they can't stay at any of the trio's homes. What they find is the [[Film/{{Psycho}} Bates Motel]], much to Captain Bob's distress -- as he puts it, "If I walk into that office and find Norman Bates sitting there wearing an old lady's wig and dress, I'm going to scream and run." Nina assures him it's just a coincidence, and that the motel's been there for as long as she can remember. |
| 291 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': Literature/CiaphasCain '''Hero of the Imperium''' wonders why ''anybody'' wants to explore a space-hulk called ''Spawn of Damnation''. He also wonders who names these things and why they can't pick something a little more cheerful. |
| 292 | * ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' has important events take place in Shadow's Waiting, the Blight, the Mountains of [[XtremeKoolLetterz Dhoom]] and the Aiel Waste. Less plot-important locations include Kinslayer's Dagger (a small mountain range) and the Sea of Storms. |
| 293 | * Literature/XandriCorelel's homeworld is called Wraith because of the thick clouds that surround the planet. |
| 294 | * The island of Lagrimas Negras (Black Tears) in the ''Literature/YoungBond'' novel ''Literature/HurricaneGold'', which is a hideout for criminals. |
| 295 | [[/folder]] |
| 296 | |
| 297 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 298 | * ''Series/{{Angel}}'': The Groosalugg was summoned from "the Scum Pits of Ur". |
| 299 | * ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Though Sunnydale doesn't count, the name it originally had does: Boca del Infierno or the Mouth of Hell (it's built on a Hellmouth). The ''Tales of the Slayers'' comic "The Glittering World" shows that Mayor Wilkins renamed it purposefully (also considering "Sunny Valley" and "Happydale"). |
| 300 | * ''Series/DeathInParadise'': In "Murder on Mosquito Island", Inspector Parker, who is allergic to mosquito bites, is in a virtual panic about having to visit a place the locals call 'Mosquito Island'. |
| 301 | * ''Series/{{Dollhouse}}'': Neuropolis (formerly Phoenix), the capital of the Rossum Corporation's post-apocalyptic empire in "Epitaph 2". Basically, MindRape Central. |
| 302 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 303 | ** In the Hartnell era, there was a string of planets with improbably appropriate names (a desert planet named Aridus, etc.). Among these was a prison planet full of violent felons called Desperus. |
| 304 | ** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E1TheDominators "The Dominators"]], the planet Dulcis is home to the Island of Death. |
| 305 | ** The quaint village of Devil's End in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E5TheDaemons "The Dæmons"]]. |
| 306 | ** The scenic and picturesque ''[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors Death Zone]]'' on Gallifrey. |
| 307 | ** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E8TheImpossiblePlanet "The Impossible Planet"]], the titular rock is somehow safely orbiting a [[UnrealisticBlackHole black hole]] despite being far too close for comfort. The folklore of the nearest civilisation refers to the black hole as a mighty demon and the planet as "the Bitter Pill"[[labelnote:*]]in their language, "Krop Tor"[[/labelnote]]. |
| 308 | ** The planet [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E10Midnight Midnight]]. [[TemptingFate "What could possibly go wrong?"]] |
| 309 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E2TheGhostMonument "The Ghost Monument"]] is set on the planet Desolation: a name that — as Graham points out — does not inspire positive thinking. |
| 310 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E10TheBattleOfRanskoorAvKolos "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos"]]: Ranskoor Av Kolos translates as "Disintegrator of Souls". |
| 311 | --->'''Graham:''' Oh, lovely, another cheery one. |
| 312 | * ''Series/EerieIndiana'' is probably worth mentioning. |
| 313 | * ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' has "Tormented Space", a region plagued by electromagnetic anomalies that make it dangerous for Leviathans. The planets are generally less civilized and the people are... not very nice. |
| 314 | * The town of Purgatory (and Purgatory Mine) in the ''Series/FrontierCircus'' episode "Patriarch of Purgatory". |
| 315 | * ''Series/GameOfThrones'': |
| 316 | ** Dragonstone, Slaver's Bay, the Red Waste, the Garden of Bones, and the House of the Undying. The Night's Watch has a tradition of this with names like Castle Black, the Shadow Tower, the Nightfort, and [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking Eastwatch-by-the-Sea]]. |
| 317 | ** The ''Dread''fort is House Bolton's castle. Season Four's title sequence finally shows the Bolton seat on its clockwork map: a fairly standard and architecturally unimpressive stronghold compared to some of the other pieces in Westeros or Essos, but a very scary location on the map. The Dreadfort is jarringly gritty brown with its flesh-pink paint fading, damaged by scratch marks and stained with dried blood, enclosed by spiked battlements, sharp triangular merlons, and towers shaped like meat tenderizers, and its centerpiece displays what looks like a tanned piece of flayed skin with the Bolton sigil painted on it, being stretched over a miniature torture rack by the rotating gears of the map. |
| 318 | * A parody: ''Series/GarthMarenghisDarkplace''. |
| 319 | * The challenge one week on ''Series/TheGruenTransfer'' was to come up with an ad to promote tourism to the Canadian town of Asbestos. |
| 320 | * ''Series/HomeImprovement'' has Jill trying to stop Randy from sled-racing a local bully, while Tim is trying to convince her let him do it: |
| 321 | -->'''Tim:''' There's nothing wrong with two kids having a nice race down Dead Man's Curve.\ |
| 322 | '''Jill:''' Down ''what!?''\ |
| 323 | '''Tim:''' ''[[LameRhymeDodge Fred]]'' Man's Curve! |
| 324 | * Played for laughs in ''Series/HouseOfFools'' with the shop where Beef bought his useless plastic frying pan. Clearly the name "Crusty Ken's Kitchen Shithouse" didn't ring any alarm bells. |
| 325 | * ''Series/{{Lost}}'': |
| 326 | -->'''Danielle:''' Dynamite, at the Black Rock, in the Dark Territory.\ |
| 327 | '''Hurley:''' Well, that's three great reasons to go, right there. |
| 328 | * ''Series/Merlin2008'': |
| 329 | ** One episode has an area known as the Perilous Lands. |
| 330 | ** There's also the Valley of the Fallen Kings and the Dark Tower. |
| 331 | * ''Series/MonsterWarriors'': In "Attack of the Abominable Snowman", Tabby mysteriously disappears during a skiing vacation at a place called Suicide Hill. |
| 332 | * ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce:'' |
| 333 | -->'''[[TheHeavy Imperious]]:''' Welcome to the Dimension of Wandering Souls!\ |
| 334 | '''[[SixthRanger Daggeron]]:''' With a name like ''that'', how could I stay away? |
| 335 | * Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering Hospital from ''Series/ScreamQueens2015'', later renamed the C.U.R.E. Institute. Our introduction to the place is a doctor who works there straight-up murdering a patient because treating the guy would mean he couldn't go to the Halloween party. |
| 336 | * CozyMystery series ''Series/SisterBonifaceMysteries'' is set in a village called Great Slaughter. It lives up to its name. |
| 337 | * [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' regarding the Klingon penal colony Rura Penthe, which doesn't immediately sound scary[[note]] unless you know what it's a [[Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea reference to]][[/note]]. Its nickname, however, is "The Aliens' Graveyard", which is ''definitely'' scary. Note that that refers to "aliens" from the Klingons' perspective... |
| 338 | * ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' has the "Badlands", a region of space along the Federation-Cardassian border that is constantly inundated with plasma storms and gravitational anomalies. It is not a very inviting part of space to traverse, making it a popular hiding place for the contra-Cardassian insurgents known as the "Maquis". |
| 339 | * "The Elysian Kingdom", the FairyTaleEpisode of ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'', mentions "The Swamp of Infinite Death". |
| 340 | -->'''Rauth/Pike:''' Oh, that is ''not'' a good swamp... |
| 341 | * The [[DeathWorld Demon-class planets]] featured on ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. |
| 342 | * ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' has several to go around: |
| 343 | ** Season 5's "Devil's Turf" has Devil's Gym, which is owned and operated by the VillainOfTheWeek, Mick Stanley, and serves as the source of a powerful drug killing high school athletes. One student, namely Tommy Landers, is barely talked out of ever going there again after realizing the dirty business they do and was nearly murdered along with his girlfriend until Walker, Trivette and the school janitor (whose younger brother is a rookie Texas Ranger sent in undercover as a student) intervened. |
| 344 | ** Quiet Rest in Season 6's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS6E5ForgottenPeople Forgotten People]]" may seem like a picturesque nursing home, but [[WouldHarmASenior many of its patients there have been dying at an alarming rate and according to a check Walker ran on senior care facilities three years prior, their death rate ranks 27% higher than any other comparable senior care facility]], because little do the families know, it is actually a secret illegal testing facility where its corrupt doctors and ex-con orderlies are plotting to put variations of an outlawed Alzheimer's drug on the market, and their experiments resulted in the deaths of nine patients, and anyone who'd try to escape or tell an outside source what's really going on would be put to death to keep them quiet. When this happens to a friend of Trivette's, C.D. is sent in undercover to find evidence while Walker, Trivette and Alex try to obtain a search warrant by having the nine patients exhumed to find traces of the illegal drug. |
| 345 | ** The small border town of Mournful, Texas, in Season 7's "On The Border", where Walker, Trivette, Carlos and Alex contend with a [[DirtyCop corrupt and intimidating lawman]] trafficking drugs. |
| 346 | * ''Series/WildBoys'': "What part of 'Dead Man's Drop' do you not understand?" |
| 347 | [[/folder]] |
| 348 | |
| 349 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 350 | * Music/TheCogIsDead's song "Burn It Down" has a factory named [[NightmarishFactory "The Killing Floor"]]. |
| 351 | * Skullcrusher Mountain by Music/JonathanCoulton. Like a lot of Coulton's stuff, the song itself is relaxing and folksy. |
| 352 | * ''Dead Man's Curve'' by Jan and Dean. |
| 353 | * "Bridge of Death" and "House of Death" by '''Music/{{Manowar}}'''. |
| 354 | * Music/{{Mothy}}'s series the ''Music/EvilliousChronicles'', has country names based on the names of demons -- Levianta, Elphegort, Lucifenia, and so on... and when some of them decide to create a single state, they name it... United States of Evillious. |
| 355 | * Music/NoxArcana gives us three examples. [[BedlamHouse Blackthorn Asylum]] and [[HauntedHouse Darklore Manor]], however the most obvious example is [[EvilTowerOfOminousness Castle of Nightmares]]. |
| 356 | [[/folder]] |
| 357 | |
| 358 | [[folder:Print Media]] |
| 359 | * Played with in one of the many articles written by ''Website/TheOnion''. It was about a town named Murder Heights that was trying to rebrand itself. |
| 360 | [[/folder]] |
| 361 | |
| 362 | [[folder:Pinball]] |
| 363 | * ''VideoGame/GoldenLogres'' has the Castle Perilous, where the three Evil Knights reside. |
| 364 | * The "Arkham Asylum" playfield of ''VideoGame/{{Necronomicon}}'' includes Hangman Hill and Salem's Road. |
| 365 | * ''Pinball/{{Paragon}}'' has the "Valley of Demons" and the "Beast's Lair." |
| 366 | * Most of the Hazards in ''Pinball/WhiteWater'' count, such as Insanity Falls and Disaster Drop. |
| 367 | [[/folder]] |
| 368 | |
| 369 | [[folder:Podcasts]] |
| 370 | * Competing page quote, from ''Radio/TheDeadGirl'': |
| 371 | -->'''Hugh Brooks:''' Who names a town ''Bloody Springs''... and then lives there? |
| 372 | * In ''AudioPlay/RefletsDAcide'', the "quest" is an incursion into the [[{{Mordor}} Chaotic Lands]], to various places with friendly names such as the Cave of the Flayed Herpes. |
| 373 | [[/folder]] |
| 374 | |
| 375 | [[folder:Professional Wrestling]] |
| 376 | * Many an aspiring pro wrestler were stretched out in Stu Hart's Dungeon. |
| 377 | * Wrestling/{{N|ationalWrestlingAlliance}}WA Quebec's wrestling school, Onyx and [=LuFisto=]'s Torture Chamber. |
| 378 | * Wrestling/AngelinaLove initially declined an offer to participate in Pro Wrestling Syndicate all women's offshoot "BLOW", though Annie Social didn't see why it was any worse than [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]] and Love did end up wrestling ({{jobb|er}}ing) on a few BLOW shows (making her what Jennifer Blake dubbed a BLOW jobber).[[/folder]] |
| 379 | |
| 380 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 381 | * Spoofed by Radio/TheDGeneration in ''The Satanic Sketches'': |
| 382 | -->"Look! It's the Cave of No Return!"\ |
| 383 | "Yes, I've been here before." |
| 384 | [[/folder]] |
| 385 | |
| 386 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 387 | * ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' has a few of these scattered around the Inner Sphere, including Necromo, No Return, Misery, [[NukeEm Alamagordo]], Hell's Paradise, Desolate Plains, Perdido, Perdition, Bad News, and Dustball. But the straightest application of this trope was Dunkelwalderdunklefluessenschattenwelt[[note]]"Dark woods, darker rivers, shadow world" in somewhat mangled German[[/note]], in the Draconis Combine. The world lived up to its name, being the closest thing the game universe had to a DeathWorld. |
| 388 | ** It's mentioned in some of the fluff that out in the Periphery, there's a planet simply named "Don't". ''"Don't".'' |
| 389 | * Jo, a sometime narrator from ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}: Hell On Earth'', lampshades this trope, wondering why no-one caught on to the fact that places with nasties always have names like “Hell’s Canyon” or “the Devil’s Backbone” or the “Forest of Death”, and comments that "If you get to name something, call it the “Happy Place.” Or the “Peaceful Forest Where There Are No Freakin’ Monsters!”" |
| 390 | * The Shadowfell, a plane in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', is filled with these. Just a few are Gloomwrought, the City of Midnight; Moil, the City that Waits; and the Shadowdark (the [[BeneathTheEarth Underdark]] of the Shadowfell). |
| 391 | ** The ludicrousness of these names was parodied by a [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/3/20/ certain]] ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' strip which posited that beneath the Shadowdark is the "Darkbad" -- and past that, one encounters "Shadow Shadow Bo Badow," "Double Hell," and finally "Scarytown". [[spoiler:Which isn't so bad, depending on when you go.]] |
| 392 | ** Many place-names in ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' are this trope as well, albeit sometimes camoflauged via BilingualBonus. |
| 393 | *** The entire setting is officially referred to as the "Demiplane of Dread". Doesn't get a whole lot more blatant then that. |
| 394 | ** ''Elder Evils'' give [[AndIMustScream Atropus, The World Born Dead]]; an entire planet that is actually a stillborn, undead deity. |
| 395 | ** ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' has Cyre, or: The Mournland. It's every bit as nasty as it sounds, and then some. |
| 396 | ** Almost all of the layers of the "Infinite Layers of the Abyss" are named according to this trope, like "That Hellhole," "Skin-Shredder," "Death's Reward," "Soulfreeze," "The Sixth Pyre," often referring to the most noticeable of unpleasant features, such as how the primary inhabitants of "Slugbed" are demonic slugs and snails. Those layers with names that aren't immediately fearsome-sounding will still refer to some hazard, like how the name "The Forgotten Land" refers to how every sentient being, demons included, develops incurable magical amnesia. And those layers that have pleasant-sounding names are invariably extremely deadly. |
| 397 | ** In the ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' campaign, the Outlands has sixteen towns situated around the rim called Gate Towns, each one with a gate to one of the other Outer Planes. Each one has a MeaningfulName that has something to do with the place their gate leads to, and as you might expect, the towns with gates leading to the Lower Planes have rather unpleasant names, like Torch, Plague-Mort, and Hopeless (as you might expect, these towns are ''not'' nice places to live). |
| 398 | ** Of course, plenty of actual dungeons qualify. One well-known example is the Temple of Elemental Evil, a horrible place with a notorious reputation both in-universe and out. |
| 399 | %%* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''[='=] infamous Chasm of DEATHDEATHDEATH. |
| 400 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' has shadowlands, already a foreboding sounding name, which are places where Creation and the Underworld touch. These invariably have frightening sounding names. Given ''Exalted's'' tendency for long, flowery titles, you wind up with places like the Isle of Shadows, the Font of Mourning, the Bayou of Endless Regret, and the Fields of Woe, among others. |
| 401 | ** One of [[EvilOverlord the]] [[OmnicidalManiac Deathlords]] has established a [[TheNecrocracy nation of his own in the West.]] Its name? The Skullstone Archipelago, which is centered on the shadowland of Darkmist Isle. Remarkably, he's a VillainWithGoodPublicity known locally as the Silver Prince. |
| 402 | ** Also Malfeas, aka "Hell", who is both a Place ''and'' a [[GeniusLoci Person]] To Run Away From Really Fast. |
| 403 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Infernum}}'' is set in a place called "The Pit", a giant (2400 miles deep) crater. It's divided into CirclesOfHell called Emptiness, Tempest, Tears, Toil, Slaughter, Industry, Delight, Malebolge and Pandemonium. Obviously, none of these places are good to visit. Individual locations include the likes of Mayhem (center of the arms trade on Slaughter) and the Cathedral of Cracked Bones (where wounded demons are kept suspended in a state of eternal pain until either they convert to the Church of the Morningstar or are bought by somebody). |
| 404 | * Most names cribbed from ''[[Literature/TheDivineComedy Inferno]]'' probably count (they're used in ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' a lot). Dis, Malebolge, etc. Carceri and The Abyss probably counts as well, and the lovely town of Ribcage? |
| 405 | ** In ''VideoGame/{{The Dig|1995}}'' [[AllThereInTheScript (as told anywhere but the game itself)]] we have the planet Cocytus, named after the deepest circle of Hell. |
| 406 | * ''A Touch Of Evil'', which can be roughly described as ''Tim Burton's [[Film/SleepyHollow1999 Sleepy Hollow]]: The Board Game'' is set in a colonial New England town called Shadowbrook. |
| 407 | * ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' has Death Mountain, Troll Country, Blackfire Pass, the Forest of Shadows, the Blighted Isle, the Badlands, the Spiteful Peaks and many more. None of which are good places to be. Some regions, such as Naggaroth, land of the [[OurElvesAreDifferent dark elves]], are ''full'' of places like this. |
| 408 | ** Hell, there's a (now-ruined) city called TabletopGame/{{Mordheim}}. ''Mordheim''. That's "Murder-House" in German. Would ''you'' ever visit a city called that!? |
| 409 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': |
| 410 | ** A planet named "Armageddon". Even without being part of a war-game named ''Warhammer'', visiting it sounds like a bad idea. It was mentioned that the name has become a byword for destruction, so its name might translate to Armageddon in later times, not actually being that. Also, the planet got that name after three major wars there (named the First, Second and Third Battles for Armageddon), implying it was fairly peaceful for the many millennia humans had lived there up to that. |
| 411 | ** Another planet was named "Murder". As expected, the environment and wildlife devastated the expedition forces. |
| 412 | ** And another planet is named "Krieg" -- which is German for "War". |
| 413 | ** The current Imperial Guard codex tells of a nightmarish world known as [[UsefulNotes/OtherBritishTownsAndCities Birmingham.]] |
| 414 | ** And of course, the interstellar {{Mordor}} known as the [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Eye of Terror]]. |
| 415 | ** Subverted by the Fang, a hollowed out mountain revered by the citizens of the Imperium as, despite its name, it is home of one of the original Astartes Legions who are now known as the heroic Space Wolves Chapter of Space Marines. |
| 416 | ** The Literature/NightLords live on a planet they call the Carrion World (Tsagualsa). A palace ([[HumanArchitectureHorror made of people]]) on the planet is even called the Screaming Gallery. |
| 417 | ** On Nocturne, the home planet of the Salamanders, the largest volcano is called Mount Deathfire. |
| 418 | [[/folder]] |
| 419 | |
| 420 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 421 | * ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': The Halls of Ritual, a secluded area located within the depths of The Consortium's facility filled with ancient artifacts. A {{Story Breadcrumb|s}} conversation between C and Castor has the latter given the creeps due to hearing a formulated theory regarding that location's capabilities. |
| 422 | * ''VideoGame/BlueDragon'': Devour Village. |
| 423 | * ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIII'' has the Desert of Death. |
| 424 | * ''VideoGame/BugFables'' brings us the Forsaken Lands and the Dead Lands, both of which are very dangerous locations. The former is a drab, foggy valley that's easy to get lost in, and the latter is [[spoiler:a long-abandoned house that's infested with horrific, damn-near eldritch monsters stronger than anything Bugkind has ever seen]]. |
| 425 | * Shay's story in ''VideoGame/BrokenAge'' sees him visiting systems like "Danger System 5", and "Prima Doom". |
| 426 | -->'''Shay:''' ''Danger System 5, I know of only four more dangerous places in the galaxy!'' |
| 427 | * The first three starting map names in ''VideoGame/CabalOnline'' are "Bloody Ice", "Green Despair", and "Desert Scream" to emphasize how desolate the small human settlements are living in an post-apocalyptic world ravaged by monsters. |
| 428 | * The ''VideoGame/CatacombFantasyTrilogy'' is full of these. The titular Catacombs of Despair contain such levels levels as The Garden of Tears, The Demon's Inferno, The Town of Morbidity, The Garden of Forgotten Souls, The Lost City of the Damned, Hall of the Wretched Pox, The Chamber of the Evil Eye, The Chamber of the Invisible Horror and so on. Meanwhile, the levels contain areas named The Corridors of Death, The Way to Certain Peril, The Insufferable Ways of Pain, The Chamber of Ultimate Doom... |
| 429 | * ''Franchise/TheChroniclesOfRiddick: VideoGame/EscapeFromButcherBay''. The administrators just had to name the prison "Butcher Bay" to make [[HellholePrison its nature]] abundantly clear. |
| 430 | * In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', Crono and his friends visit Death's Peak, the Mountain of Woe, and the Black Omen. |
| 431 | * Cap au Diable from ''VideoGame/CityOfVillains''. |
| 432 | ** Also, the ghost-infested Fort Hades. |
| 433 | ** And in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'', the literal ghost town Dark Astoria. |
| 434 | * Skull Island and Blood Island from ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland''. Of course, Skull Island looks like something distinctly different from a skull. |
| 435 | * The land of Lordran in ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' has the Undead Burg and Undead Parish, Blighttown, Demon Ruins, Lost Izalith, The Abyss, Tomb of Giants, etc. Apparently, they're big on honesty in advertising. |
| 436 | * Before that, ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' gave us the Valley of Defilement, which serves as the entire world's singular garbage dump, sewer, and ghetto all at once. The remake ramped it up by inventing names for each individual level instead of just each world, which in this case became Depraved Chasm, the Swamp of Sorrow (not to be confused with the [[Film/TheNeverendingStory Swamp of Sadness]]), and Rotting Haven. |
| 437 | * ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' is full of these. The very first wilderness you enter is called Blood Moor, which contains a cave called The Den of Evil. In Kurast, there's the Flayer Dungeon, the Spider Forest, and the Durance of Hate. In Hell, you have the Plains of Despair, the City of Torment, and so on. |
| 438 | * ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'' has the supercontinent Pandyssia. That's "pan" as in ''Pandaemonium'' and "dys" as in ''dystopia''. The name means something like "all that is bad," which rather succinctly reflects the attitude the Empire of Isles has to the place. Not without reason, either. It's DarkestAfrica taken [[ExaggeratedTrope Up to Eleven]], a DeathWorld with EverythingTryingToKillYou from the smallest rat to the largest predator (and even [[RodentsOfUnusualSize the smallest rats aren't actually very small]]). Almost everyone who goes there dies, or [[GoMadFromTheRevelation goes mad]] and ''then'' dies. |
| 439 | * ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'': Not quite a full blown level, but anything named after KAOS. KAOS Kore and Kastle KAOS are bad, but KAOS Karnage takes the cake for 'scary level name'. |
| 440 | * ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'': |
| 441 | ** Episode 3 has many: "Hell Keep," "Slough of Despair," "Pandemonium," "House of Pain", "Unholy Cathedral," "Mt. Erebus"[[note]]Erebus was a Greek god, son of the god Chaos, and represented the personification of darkness.[[/note]], "Gate To Limbo", and "Dis". |
| 442 | ** See if you can tell the exact point at which Hell starts to bleed over into the Deimos base in episode 2: Deimos Anomaly. Containment Area. Refinery. Deimos Lab. Control Center. [[BreadEggsMilkSquick Halls of the Damned. Spawning Vats.]] [[Literature/TheBible Tower of Babel]]. |
| 443 | * Parodied in the ''Franchise/DotHack'' series with Bewildering Fool's Hiding Place. And played straight with the area keywords for the showdown with Skeith: Chosen Hopeless Nothingness. |
| 444 | * ''VisualNovel/DoubleHomework'' has a mountain named “Barbarossa.“ The name means “red beard” in Italian, and is also a reference to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. |
| 445 | * ''Franchise/DragonAge'': |
| 446 | ** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' the deepest, darkest part of the Deep Roads is called the Dead Trenches. With reason. |
| 447 | ** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', Anders references Awakening with the Blackmarsh and Varric wonders why you would ever even consider going to such a place. The two then go on to talk about better places to go to but then realize that adding 'marsh' to the end of anything really makes it seem like a place to avoid. The Flowermarsh, the Kittenmarsh... |
| 448 | ** More explicitly discussed is "[[WhatDidYouExpectWhenYouNamedIt The Bone Pit]]." Hawke can immediately say that the mine owner's first mistake was calling it that, though he assures you that it's just what the miners call it. |
| 449 | * The grottoes of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'' have names generated more-or-less randomly, based on their general difficulty. The Clay Tunnel of Joy doesn't sound very menacing, but the Diamond Void of Ruin isn't so inviting. |
| 450 | * In the ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'' series, the game world ''starts out'' with very nice and cheerful names, such as Eversmile, Water Dream Fall, and Flower Hat. It becomes less pretty after the BigBad (you) are through with it, and the new names reflect this trope straight: Brana Hawk, Wither's Tread, and Fire Wall, respectively. Your assistant then praises you for all the horrible things that have taken root, such as cannibalism, anthrax, and a "healthy disrespect for life." |
| 451 | * ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' provides many examples, thanks to its randomly generated names. ''Blog/{{Boatmurdered}}'' is the most (in)famous, and among the most grand, but such names are most commonly seen in [[DarkWorld evil lands]] and goblin fortresses. Sometimes they're [[DeathbringerTheAdorable just fine]], sometimes they're [[{{Mordor}} not]]. The fortress of LetsPlay/{{Battlefailed}} was set between the Plains of Ooze and the Blueness of Malodors. |
| 452 | * ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim 3D'': Violent Death Valley. |
| 453 | * ''VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin'': Planet Vortex, Dark Water. |
| 454 | * ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'': |
| 455 | ** Many of the [[EldritchLocation planes of Oblivion]], realms of the [[OurGodsAreDifferent Daedric Princes]], have names like this. These include [[DestroyerDeity Mehrunes]] [[OmnicidalManiac Dagon]]'s "[[FireAndBrimstoneHell Deadlands]]", [[GodOfEvil Molag]] [[TheCorrupter Bal]]'s "[[BloodyBowelsOfHell Coldharbour]]", [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer Malacath]]'s "[[DeathWorld Ashpit]]", [[ImAHumanitarian Namira]]'s "[[BodyHorror Scuttling]] {{Void|BetweenTheWorlds}}" etc. |
| 456 | ** In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'', [[ReligionOfEvil Sixth House]] bases often have rooms, corridors and halls with ominous names like "Soul Rattle", "Black Heart" etc. |
| 457 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'': |
| 458 | *** You get the chance to visit the aforementioned Deadlands during the main quest and it very much lives up to its billing. |
| 459 | *** {{Subverted|Trope}} with the Inn of Ill Omen, which is just an ordinary inn... Which is then played straight in the basement where a man is murdered by you. |
| 460 | ** Done to ''death'' in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]''. A short sampling: Frostflow Abyss, Sightless Pit, Hag's End, Bleak Falls Barrow, Blackreach, Benkongerike (means 'Kingdom of Bones'), Snapleg Cave, Bloated Man's Grotto, and Stillborn Cave. It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise when you remember that Skyrim is a GrimUpNorth land with almost EverythingTryingToKillYou and these places were named by the Nords, a {{Proud Warrior Race|Guy}} of HornyVikings. |
| 461 | * ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyIIITheDrownedCity'' has the Cyclopean Haunt. It's a nearly impassable labyrinth full of scary monsters, walls made of alien-like flesh and tentacles, and it houses a hell of a final boss in the end. |
| 462 | * ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'': |
| 463 | ** ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' has the delightful "Murder Pass". Just past the souvenir shop! Another one specific to ''Fallout'' fans is "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Deathclaw]] Sanctuary". |
| 464 | ** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' has the [[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Devil%27s_Throat Devil's Throat]]. (Which is based off a real place in the Mojave desert!) The ''Lonesome Road'' [=DLC=] has a location in the Divide called "Cave of the Abaddon". Abaddon is the name of an angel in the Bible associated with destruction and locust plagues. |
| 465 | ** ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' has the Glowing Sea. The "Glowing" refers to the intense radiation resulting from the atom bomb that leveled Boston and will kill you in a few minutes without protective clothing or liberal doses of Rad-X and Radaway. |
| 466 | * [[JustForFun/TropeOverdosed As it does everything else]], ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' loves these. They're not even reserved for final dungeons, either: |
| 467 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'': The Temple of Fiends, also known as the Chaos Shrine (which is both the first and final dungeon). |
| 468 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'': Pandaemonium (also appears in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX''). |
| 469 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'': Fanatics' Tower (part of the World of Ruin.) |
| 470 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'': Lunatic Pandora, Island Closest to Heaven, and Island Closest to Hell. (Don't think "Island Closest to Heaven" sounds bad? Think about the last thing you have to do to get to Heaven.) |
| 471 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'': Evil Forest. Lampshaded: |
| 472 | -->"Plants that attack people... I guess they don't call it Evil Forest for nothin'." |
| 473 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'': The Den of Woe. No surprises, [[spoiler:entering the place drives you insane. And that’s if you don’t get possessed by the evil spirit that was sealed there.]] |
| 474 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'': Abyssea is a post-apocalyptic parallel universe of Vana'diel. [[spoiler:Although it turns out that it's more like Vana'diel is the alternate version of Abyssea.]] |
| 475 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'': Necrohol (city of the dead) of Nabudis, Nabreaus Deadlands, Mosphoran Highwaste... And individual sections within these regions have their own ominous names of doom. A sampling: Subterra: Abyssal (Pharos at Ridorana), The Lost Way (Tchita Uplands), and, best of all for creepiness, a hidden and unmapped area called The Fog Mutters (Nabreus Deadlands). |
| 476 | *** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'', set in the same world, has the Necrohol of Mullonde. In the [[TranslationTrainWreck PSX version]], it was Murond Death City. The map of the final battle? Graveyard of Airships. |
| 477 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'': Hanging Edge, The Vile Peaks, [[spoiler:Orphan's Cradle]]. Individual zones within also have ominous names, for example: A Silent Maelstrom and A City No Longer (Lake Bresha), Wrack And Ruin and Devastated Dreams (Vile Peaks), and Maw Of The Abyss and Deep In The Dark (Mah'habara Subterra). |
| 478 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has "The Void", home of the [[EldritchAbomination voidsents]] that love to intrude upon Eorzea and cause trouble. [[spoiler:It is later revealed that the Void is one of the thirteen "reflections" that makes up Hydaelyn's [[TheMultiverse multiverse]]: specifically, "The [[ThirteenIsUnlucky Thirteenth]]. This reflection saw its existence completely consumed by the darkness, turning it into a DeathWorld where the laws of death and rebirth are thrown out the window: anyone who isn't devoured by another denizen of the Void eventually comes back to life, trapping everyone in a perpetual cycle of purgatorial undeath.]] |
| 479 | *** {{Exaggerated}} for the final dungeon of the "Shadowbringers" expansion. [[spoiler:Amaurot, in and of itself, is not the scary name at play here, as it was simply the name of an important city in the pre-Sundered world, one that Emet-Selch speaks fondly of. When you venture into Amaurot, however, it is during [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the "Final Days"]] when the world was brought to the brink of total annihilation. The location names within this dungeon are not normal names, but lines from a poem detailing the world's destruction. The first three areas, for example, are thusly called: "And lo, vile beasts did rise", "Leaving naught in their wake but blood and ash", and "Thus did the first doom befall us."]] |
| 480 | * ''Franchise/FireEmblem'': |
| 481 | ** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' has the Dread Isle, where the main villain of the game hangs out and, coincidentally, where no one wants to go if they can help it. Your party has to fight a bunch of pirates to prove themselves worthy to get there, and the one character who ''does'' want to go there is established to be obsessed with seeking knowledge to his detriment. Interestingly, it's also known as the Isle of Valor, or just Valor, but almost no one calls it that. |
| 482 | ** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' has the Valley of Torment, a LethalLavaLand that was once a sprawling forest until it was bombarded by "javelins of light" in ancient times. |
| 483 | * ''VideoGame/FutureCopLAPD'' has the delightfully named [[TheAlcatraz Hell's Gate Prison]]. A classic maximum security prison, with the only ground routes essentially being ''killzones and firing lanes'' protected by multiple turrets with overlapping arcs of fire and elevated positions for guards, ultimately designed to make a mass-escape from within the facility absolutely suicidal. |
| 484 | * ''VideoGame/GuildWars'': Hell's Precipice, Dunes of Despair, and the Desolation. On top of those are the realms of a couple of gods: the Fissure of Woe (Balthazar) and the Realm of Torment (Abaddon's prison). |
| 485 | * ''VideoGame/HalfLife'': Ravenholm, though not nearly as foreboding as most examples. |
| 486 | * ''VideoGame/HeavyWeapon'' has its stages named after real-world counterparts of either war-torn places or areas that were controlled by Soviet Russia. Two of them are "Antagonistan" (Afghanistan) and "Killingrad" (Stalingrad). |
| 487 | * ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'' has the aptly-named "Path of Pain", an optional ultra-hard platforming challenge. |
| 488 | * ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'', being made by the same guys as ''Final Fantasy'' above, is not shy about this trope. |
| 489 | ** The most recurring world in the series (counting cutscene appearances) is called Hollow Bastion. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Merlin in ''II'' when he asks how the place got its name, [[spoiler:right before Sora and co. find out the world's real name: Radiant Garden. Hollow Bastion is just the name of the castle]]. |
| 490 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'' has The End of the World. Yes, that is a level name, not an event. ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' has the similarly named The Final World. |
| 491 | ** ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories Chain of Memories]]'' takes place entirely within Castle Oblivion. |
| 492 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'': |
| 493 | *** The game ups the ante with The World That Never Was, which itself has subsections like The Hall of Empty Melodies, Brink of Despair, and the Altar of Naught. |
| 494 | *** Honorable mention goes to Proof of Existence, which isn't ominous sounding by itself until you remember [[FridgeHorror the true nature of the antagonists as undead/non-existent beings]]. What is Proof of Existence then, you ask? ''A graveyard''. Sure, it works as a connecting room to each Organization member's quarters, but ''still''. |
| 495 | *** Even [[MundaneMadeAwesome mundane]] areas in the World That Never Was get ominous monikers. The break room is called the Grey Area. An ''elevator'' goes by Crooked Ascension. |
| 496 | ** Almost every installment at least mentions the Realm of Darkness, which is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly what it sounds like]] and includes such location names as Forest of Thorns, Depths of Darkness, Valley of the Dark, and the Dark Margin. It also goes by the name Dark World and is usually only possible to enter and exit by using a Corridor of Darkness. Basically, you may want to bring a flashlight. |
| 497 | ** ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep Birth by Sleep]]'' introduces the [[FieldOfBlades Keyblade]] [[WeaponTombstone Graveyard]]. When it's visited in the climax of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'', Xehanort forms a sub-location called the Skein of Severance. |
| 498 | * Disc 2 of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfDragoon'' has [[spoiler:The Valley of Corrupted Gravity]], a place with guards that won't let you in without permission from the King of Fletz. Yeah, ''it's that bad.'' |
| 499 | * ''VideoGame/LegendOfGrimrock'': Mount Grimrock, it and its deep dungeon, with its skeleton soldiers and its giant spiders. |
| 500 | * ''VideoGame/LegendOfMana'' has The Bone Fortress, which is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin constructed of bones]]. The Lucemia dungeon (skeletal remains of a titanic wyrm) has a section named Avenue of Deterioration. |
| 501 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': |
| 502 | ** Death Mountain, the Shadow Temple, the Lost Woods, Forsaken Fortress... and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Curiously, Death Mountain is rarely considered an ''evil'' place in the ''Zelda'' series. While it is certainly dangerous to most people for being a perpetually-active volcano, the native Goron people are very friendly and tourism and trade with them are usually going quite strongly, and the wildlife isn't particularly more dangerous than in other locations. It's only in [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI the original game]] that it has any negative connotations, due to being where [[BigBad Ganon]] made his home. |
| 503 | ** Both ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' and ''VideoGame/EverQuest'' have "The Lake of Ill-Omen". |
| 504 | ** Basically everywhere in ''A Link to the Past'''s DarkWorld has a name like this: Swamp of Evil (Misery Mire), Plains of Ruin, Skeleton Forest (Skull Woods), Village of Outcasts (Thieves' Town), Palace of Darkness... |
| 505 | * Baol Dungeon in ''VideoGame/{{Mabinogi}}'' could count as baol is Gaelic for "Danger". For a plus, it lives up to its name as its one of the hardest dungeons in the game. |
| 506 | * ''VideoGame/{{Madagascar}}'': The worst offender of this has got to be the "No Chance of Survival Trail". Other instances include "[[SpiderSwarm Tarantula Town]]", and the "[[GustyGlade Trail of Excessive Wind]]". |
| 507 | * The first ''VideoGame/{{Manhunt}}'' takes place in the fictional Carcer City in United States. "Carcer" means "prison" in Latin, as in "in''carcer''ation". |
| 508 | * ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonorVanguard'' has the mission 'Predators' take place in a town in the Netherlands called 'Grave', which is a real town. |
| 509 | * San Heironymo Peninsula, from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPortableOps''. It means "Peninsula of the Dead", according to Campbell. This is either a nickname or an in-character made a mistake -- "San Heironymo" is simply Spanish for "Saint Jerome". |
| 510 | * Inverted big time in ''VideoGame/Mother3'', with the BigBad's giant lightning generator, the [[InNameOnly Tower of Love]] [[SuperFunHappyThingOfDoom and Peace.]] But played straight with the tower's REAL name (Thunder Tower). |
| 511 | * ''VideoGame/LaMulana'' has the Chamber of Extinction, which isn't quite the formidable challenge its name implies. (The Chamber of Birth is arguably worse.) |
| 512 | * In ''VideoGame/MySimsKingdom'', when you first go to Spookane, Buddy is scared of going there, but Lyndsay is sure it's just a name... ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' has a town called Spookane as well. |
| 513 | * ''VideoGame/MysteryScienceTheater3000PresentsDetective'' lampshades this: taking a wrong turn at one point leads you to "the so called 'Murderers Lounge'. Unfortunatly, there ARE murderers here, and when you check around, they get angry." Cue instant game over. |
| 514 | --> '''Crow:''' But it's nice to know that this city has establishments that cater exclusively to criminals. |
| 515 | * If your region's Delegate and/or [[TheManBehindTheMan Founder]] in ''Website/NationStates'' is sufficiently annoyed with you, they can eject you to the "Rejected Realms". Subverted since GameplayDerailment has turned it into a [[AHellOfATime nicer place]] than most of the regions you're likely to get kicked out of. |
| 516 | * ''VideoGame/NobodySavesTheWorld'': The Mouth of Hell is where the malevolent EldritchAbomination is at its strongest [[spoiler:and it's also where the final battle with it takes place]]. |
| 517 | * ''VideoGame/OkageShadowKing'' has the Escapeless Abyss. Unfortunately, [[ThatOneSidequest that's not an ironic name]]. |
| 518 | * The protagonist of ''VideoGame/PeasantsQuest'' has a souvenir tee-shirt from Scalding Lake. This place is, apparently, a tourist destination for peasants. |
| 519 | * In ''VideoGame/PillarsOfEternityIIDeadfire'', an island called "Ori o Koīki" brings up a question of translation. There's two ways to translate "Koīki" from Huana -- it can refer to either a corpse or a pungent-smelling fruit, akin to a durian, considered a delicacy in the Deadfire. Queen Onekaza II insists on the second translation when asked about it after sending the player to investigate the island. Unfortunately, the "Ori" still means "cursed land". Ori o Koīki is either the "cursed land of corpses" or "cursed land of fruit trees"; the latter is less ominous than the former, but not by much. |
| 520 | * Subverted in ''VideoGame/Pirate101'' with the Isle of Doom: its name only comes from its discoverer Von Doom. [[DoubleSubversion It's actually a pleasant place, provided you avoid the carnivorous bees and plants and the frogmen with poisonous skin]]. |
| 521 | * VideoGame/PizzaTower: The last world has several level titles that fit this description, such as "Don't Make A Sound." and, to a lesser extent, "[[WarIsHell WAR]]." |
| 522 | * In ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'', the final few levels of the game are set in the Fortress of Regrets, which is located on the Negative Material Plane. In keeping with [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve the setting]], the name is ''literal'': the place is actually built from the regrets of all the Nameless One's past incarnations. And it is, of course, a quintessential EvilTowerOfOminousness. And that's after visiting such places as Curst, the Pillar of Skulls, and the Hive. And after discovering that the city's inhabitants usually refer to Sigil as "the Cage." |
| 523 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': |
| 524 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum'' has Pyrite Town. Pyrite as in "Fool's Gold", for all the riches you will part with if you don't watch your back for hoods. One of the few good things to come out of that city happens to be ONBS. |
| 525 | ** Citadark Isle from ''VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness''. |
| 526 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'' has Turnback Cave and Sendoff Spring that appropriately lead you into a dark, heavily fogged labyrinth. It's even lampshaded in the guidebook. |
| 527 | ** There's also the [[AnotherDimension dark, sinister dimension]] where Giratina lives, which Cynthia names the Torn World, or Distortion World in the American version. |
| 528 | ** Fittingly enough, the ''Platinum'' version of Turnback Cave contains a portal to the Distortion world. |
| 529 | * Mordavia from ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryIV''. Guess what sorts of [[OurVampiresAreDifferent inhabitants]] you might meet [[{{Uberwald}} there]]. |
| 530 | * ''VideoGame/RomancingSaGa'' has the Isle of Evil, where MadScientist Ewei lives. |
| 531 | * ''VideoGame/RomancingSaGa3'': |
| 532 | ** The Deadman's Well located in Mazoz. According to the townsfolk, when the 4 devils used to rule the land, the sick and the elderly were thrown down the well until it became a mass grave. |
| 533 | ** The Rotten Sea ruins. It used to be the place where the inhabitants of Rashkuta lived before the Archfiend cursed them into becoming elephant people. Now they're nothing but putrid remains in the middle of a deep swamp. |
| 534 | * ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' has quite a few of these. |
| 535 | ** Daemonheim, or "Demon halls". The fact that it is a massive cursed dungeon with ''Occult floors'' and ''Warped floors'' doesn't help. |
| 536 | ** The Wilderness in general. Packed with places like Graveyard of Shadows, Demonic Ruins, plus a couple of Chaos Temples. |
| 537 | * The Dark Souls inspired ''VideoGame/SaltAndSanctuary'' likewise has a host of miserable sounding places. "The Festering Banquet," "The Mire of Stench," "The Red Hall of Cages," "The Crypt of Dead Gods," "The Blackest Vault," and so on. The Village of Smiles ''sounds'' like a reprieve from that bleakness. [[SuperFunHappyThingOfDoom It isn't]]; you soon find out all those smiles are of the [[GlasgowGrin Glasgow sort]]. |
| 538 | * The Gallery of the Dead from ''VideoGame/ShadowHeartsCovenant''. Located beneath [[UsefulNotes/SaintPetersburg Petrograd]], the place is a hybrid between catacombs, prison cells, and a storm sewer. |
| 539 | * The PC AdventureGame ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheComet'' takes place in [[strike:Innsmouth]] Illsmouth, just a small New England town that is [[SarcasmMode absolutely not]] a reference to Creator/HPLovecraft's stories, [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial why ever would you think such a thing?]] |
| 540 | * ''VideoGame/ShantaeAndTheSevenSirens'' has a labyrinth called "The Boiler". |
| 541 | * ''Franchise/SilentHill'', which is just about the creepiest name for a [[TownWithADarkSecret sleepy little tourist town]] ever. Not to mention [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLY3R32DSEA The Devil's Pit]] in ''VideoGame/SilentHillDownpour''. |
| 542 | * One spawn point in ''VideoGame/{{Skate}} 2'' is called the Murderhorn. It is one of the best places to "die", just behind the Hideki Tower spawn point. |
| 543 | * ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'': The Dark Rift, the Maw of Tartas. |
| 544 | * ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'': |
| 545 | ** ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2'' was [[WhatCouldHaveBeen originally going to have a level called "Genocide City"]], but it was ultimately cut from the final version. WordOfGod is that the game's creators wanted to give the place a name that "sounded dangerous", and overshot; Cyber City was considered as a possible alternate name before the level was dropped. |
| 546 | ** The Death Egg, from ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2'' and ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'', is a massive space station that Eggman hopes to use to conquer the earth. |
| 547 | ** ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' has Eggmanland, a sprawling {{Egopolis}} with a touch of AmusementParkOfDoom, as well as the game's final level. |
| 548 | * ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'' has Char, the volcanic and fiery homeworld of the Zerg. |
| 549 | * ''Videogame/StardewValley'' has Skull Cavern in the Calico desert, it's home to many high-level monsters but it contains the rarest and most valuable drops and treasures. |
| 550 | * ''Videogame/{{Subnautica}}'': |
| 551 | ** The deep, dark trenches full of Ampeels, Blighters, Crabsquids and even a Ghost Leviathan leading down to the Lost River are called the Blood Kelp Zone. |
| 552 | ** In early development, the zone marking the edge of the map was called "The Void" or the "Dead Zone"[[note]]A reference to this still exists in the final game, as entering the Crater Edge leads the PDA to refer to it as an "ecological dead zone"[[/note]], before being renamed to the much less terrifying "Crater Edge" during final release. |
| 553 | * ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' Several stages qualify. |
| 554 | ** LethalLavaLand, Deep Dark Galaxy, Melty Molten Galaxy, Melty Monster Galaxy, BigBoosHaunt, Dreadnought Galaxy... Dark Land in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' says it fairly clearly, even without you knowing it's hell incarnate. Or maybe Bowser in the Dark World/Fire Sea. In the case of Melty Molten Galaxy, its foreign names are ''even scarier'': Hell Prominence Galaxy (Japanese and Korean), Infernal Stroll Galaxy (Spanish), Infernal Erupting Lava Galaxy (Chinese), etc. |
| 555 | ** ''VideoGame/MarioParty''. Bowser's levels have some mighty dangerous sounding names: Bowser's Warped Orbit, Infernal Tower, Bowser Nightmare, Bowser's Enchanted Inferno... |
| 556 | ** Averted in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' -- [[MonsterTown Monstro Town]] is actually a pretty nice place. |
| 557 | ** Rogueport in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' is a straight example though. As it's ''VideoGame/PaperMario'', this gets lampshaded relatively quickly. Twilight Town isn't so bad ''most'' of the time, but the Creepy Steeple in the woods outside it is a straight example. |
| 558 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' has Crumbleden of the Ruined Kingdom. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin It's just as dilapidated as it sounds and more]]. [[spoiler:You also have to deal with a [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever giant]] [[ShockAndAwe lightning-breathing]] ([[NonStandardCharacterDesign and over-realistic]]) [[DragonsAreDemonic dragon]] there to clear a path to Bowser's Castle.]] |
| 559 | * ''[[VideoGame/ASuperMarioThing A Super Mario Bros X Thing: Prelude to the Stupid]]'' has murder death place zone. It's [[BrutalBonusLevel aptly named]], much to the chagrin of [[LetsPlay/{{raocow}} its creator]]. |
| 560 | * In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'', there's a town called Ruin (changed slightly in the English version to Luin to make it a little less obvious) that has the nickname "The Village of Hope." [[spoiler:[[WhatDidYouExpectWhenYouNamedIt Yeah, how'd that work out for you, guys?]]]] |
| 561 | * ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'': Most of the maps have names appropriate for where hat-obsessed mercenaries kill one another on a constant basis (Badwater Basin, Double Cross, Offblast, etc.) |
| 562 | * ''VideoGame/{{Tibia}}'' has the Dark Cathedral, [[{{Mordor}} Demona]], the Pits of Inferno and the Plains of Havoc. |
| 563 | * ''Franchise/TouhouProject'': The Muenzuka, or The Mound of The Nameless, the final battle site of ''VideoGame/TouhouKaeidzukaPhantasmagoriaOfFlowerView''. Even [[MemeticBadass Cirno]] shudders! |
| 564 | ** Scarlet Devil Mansion. |
| 565 | ** The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Hell of Blazing Flames]] is a former hot naraka of Buddhist hell. As of ''VideoGame/TouhouChireidenSubterraneanAnimism'', the hell may have been completely reactivated, and part of it upgraded into a nuclear reactor that opens up to Gensokyo directly in ''VideoGame/TouhouHisoutensokuChoudokyuuGinyoruNoNazoOOe''. |
| 566 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' series has its share: |
| 567 | ** [[VideoGame/UltimaIII Exodus]] lives in Castle Death, on the Isle of Fire. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou The very floors of Castle Death, and the grass of the lawn, try to stop you]]. |
| 568 | ** The [[MacGuffin Codex of Infinite Wisdom]] can be found at the bottom of ''The Great, Stygian Abyss'' in ''VideoGame/UltimaIV''. For that matter, six of the dungeons bear the names of the ''inverse'' of virtuous character traits: Deceit, Despise, Destard, Shame, Wrong and Covetous. |
| 569 | ** ''VideoGame/UltimaV'' has the same six dungeons as the fourth installment, but closes down the Abyss in favour of the Dungeon '''Doom'''. Also has The Underworld. Oddly enough, the fortress where the three [[EldritchAbomination Shadowlords]] live is fairly innocuously named as Stonegate. |
| 570 | * The deadzones in ''VideoGame/{{Unturned}}'' are as frightening and dangerous as the name indicates. Everything in those places means "nope": the trees are dead and the soil is a dull grey, vibrant warning signs dot the outer perimeter, there ade indications of chemical spills like old barrels and such, the game puts an icon of a skull in your HUD whenever you're inside one, every single zombie is a walking ActionBomb of radioactive sludge, [[EliteZombie Megas]] very frequently spawn there, and the air itself is toxic, eating through filters in a matter of minutes. And woe betide thee if you stumble into a deadzone without a gas mask in your face, because your immunity will plummet down to zero like a mortar shell within ''seconds'' if you don't turn around and leave ''right that moment''. The only saving grace of these damned places is that they're DifficultButAwesome to explore, as the best items in the game spawn in them. |
| 571 | * In the ''VideoGame/WarioLand'' series, possibly Hotel Horror and Horror Manor. |
| 572 | * ''VideoGame/{{Wildstar}}'' has Malgrave, the Southern and Western Grimvault, and the home of the current BigBad, Blighthaven. They are even ''less'' inviting than they sound. And they're adjacent to each other. |
| 573 | * ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': Hellfire Peninsula, Dragonblight, Plaguelands. |
| 574 | ** There's also Bloodmyst Isle, Duskwood, Deadwind Pass, the Swamp of Sorrows, the Blasted Lands, Shadowmoon Valley and probably a few others, and that's not even counting instances or sub-zones. |
| 575 | *** A lot of these places were renamed to reflect what they became. The Plaguelands were simply part of Lordaeron, the Blasted Lands used to be the Black Morass (admittedly its original name is hardly friendlier), Bloodmyst Isle used to be called Silvergale, and Deadwind Pass, well... someone managed to kill that part of ''the planet'' and render it nigh-uninhabitable. |
| 576 | ** Lampshaded in the second manga series: "The Blade's Edge Mountains... the Hellfire Citadel... is there no place in Outland that speaks of peace?" (The answer is "very few") |
| 577 | [[/folder]] |
| 578 | |
| 579 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 580 | * The ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' HalloweenEpisode "[[Recap/HomestarRunnerMostInTheGraveyard Most in the Graveyard]]" has "Snarling Hungry Sheep Hill", which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin... except even worse because said sheep is undead. And the hill is in the middle of a cemetery. [[spoiler:However, the sheep ends up being an AntiClimaxBoss easily taken out by the Goblin.]] |
| 581 | [[/folder]] |
| 582 | |
| 583 | [[folder:Web Comics]] |
| 584 | * ''Webcomic/BloodStain'' has its protagonist realize she's living at "01 Fatal Accident St., Godknowswhere" after she tries to get an address for her sister to send her stuff. |
| 585 | -->'''Elly''': [[LampshadeHanging Oh seriously? This is the address I'm residing at??? Really??? Oh come on...who would go this far just for a prank...? Sigh...I can't send this address to my sister, she'll think I'm making stuff up.]] |
| 586 | * ''Webcomic/BumrapeIsland''. The title says it all, really. |
| 587 | * Parodied in ''Webcomic/{{Footloose}}'', where heroes ''seek out'' places named like this, because even though they're usually just as dangerous as the name implies, the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality tends to favor the heroes more strongly. |
| 588 | * Hellmurder Island from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}''. That isn't its official name (it has no name) but it just isn't a nice place to live. Also [[DeathWorld The Land of Wrath and Angels.]] |
| 589 | * Played straight in the ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'' [[http://irregularwebcomic.net/1449.html parody of said name]], "''Khazad-DoomyDoomsOfDoom''". |
| 590 | * ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': Several of the Seven Lords of Infinity have somewhat ominous-sounding home bases in the Red City of Throne: Gog-Agog's outpost is called "The Court of Worms" and Incubus is the lord of the Spire of Lethyx. The winner is probably [[OmnicidalManiac Jagganoth]], whose home is the citadel of ''al-Mumīt'', which is one of the 99 names of God in UsefulNotes/{{Islam}} and means "creator of Death". |
| 591 | * ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'': When Nodwick is stuck in a BadFuture run by the GodOfEvil Baphuma'al (a [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Name to Run Away From]] in his own right), he studies a map of the BigBad's Black Citadel... involving locations such as the Grand Hall of Pain, the Blood of the Innocent Causeway and the Hall of Evisceration. Promptly {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in this exchange: |
| 592 | -->'''Nodwick:''' Who named all of these places, anyway?\ |
| 593 | '''Future Artax:''' Who do you think? A worse question would be ''why''. |
| 594 | * ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': |
| 595 | ** [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0190.html The Perilous Path of Crushing Doom]]. |
| 596 | --->'''Redcloak:''' Please tell me it's actually filled with cute fuzzy bunnies, and they just named it that to be ironic.\ |
| 597 | '''Hobgoblin''': No sir. The path is very dangerous, as [[HairTriggerAvalanche even the slightest noise can set off a deadly rock slide.]] |
| 598 | ** Most of the nations on the Western Continent qualify: Dictatoria, Cruelvania, East and West Despotonia, The Empire of Blood, etc. |
| 599 | ** In the ''[[Recap/TheOrderOfTheStickStartOfDarkness Start of Darkness]]'' prequel book, there is Helldeathdoomfire Volcano, where Xykon's former master lived and trained his disciples. |
| 600 | ** In the ''[[Recap/TheOrderOfTheStickOnTheOriginOfPCs On the Origin of PCs]]'' prequel book, [[TheDitz Elan]] chose the "[[PilferingProprietor Rob-U-While-U-Sleep]] Inn" as a place for his then-employer Sir Francois and himself to stay for the night. |
| 601 | * Parodied in [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/3/20/ this]] ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' strip. |
| 602 | * The main city of ''Webcomic/TheSanityCircus'' is indeed called Sanity. Given that it has demons loose on the streets, shapeshifting is not uncommon and there is an unseen infestation of fear-eating {{Eldritch Abomination}}s underway, that name is like a sort of SuspiciouslySpecificDenial. |
| 603 | * The town of E-ville, which appears in a book-exclusive side-story in ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance''. |
| 604 | * ''Webcomic/WelcomeToDoomtlis'': The titular planet of Doomtlis is not a very nice place to live. |
| 605 | [[/folder]] |
| 606 | |
| 607 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 608 | * [[http://www.ichorfalls.com/ Ichor Falls]]. |
| 609 | * ''Website/OrionsArm'' has a few of these. A couple of major examples are the Hypercorruption Expanse, which is a battleground between the Metasoft Version Tree and a powerful hypertech blight, and the Solipsistic Panvirtuality, which regards foreign bionts as grime to be scoured away. |
| 610 | * Once Grif and Simmons are reassigned in ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'', the former makes sure to ask about the new location: "Does it at least have a better name than Danger Canyon?" And the name of the place does qualify, Blood Gulch. The [[Franchise/{{Halo}} source material]] has a few more of those, such as Damnation, Burial Mounds, Epitaph and Death Island. |
| 611 | * ''[[http://thesickland.blogspot.co.uk The Sick Land]]'' |
| 612 | [[/folder]] |
| 613 | |
| 614 | [[folder:Web Videos]] |
| 615 | * ''Blog/{{Boatmurdered}}'', [[LampshadeHanging "... a name which doesn't bode well for much of fucking anything."]] The name turns out to be partially appropriate: At no point do any ''boats'' play a role in the story... |
| 616 | * In the web short ''Film/TheHouseThatDripsBloodOnAlex'', the titular character played by Creator/TommyWiseau should have known better than to buy a house on Blood Street. |
| 617 | [[/folder]] |
| 618 | |
| 619 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 620 | * In ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', there's the Scary Dark Forest, the Sea of Sure Death, the Badlands, and the Desert of Doom. |
| 621 | * Lampshaded in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' episode "Spell-Bound" (which was, incidentally, the first half-hour episode starring Pinky and the Brain extensively). While travelling through the Enchanted Forest to the Murky Mountain, the pair comes across a signpost pointing to the "Glade of Woe", the "Chasm of Despair" and the "Pit of Barbecue". (In regards to the last one, the Brain says, "Perhaps later.") |
| 622 | * ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': |
| 623 | ** Arguably the entire Fire Nation. Within that, we have the Boiling Rock. |
| 624 | ** The Serpent's Pass, which should give you an idea [[SeaMonster what kind of critters you should watch out for]]. |
| 625 | ** Lake Laogai, named after the labor camps of communist China. |
| 626 | ** Si Wong Desert doesn't sound too bad, until you learn that "Si Wong" means "death" or "to die" in Chinese. |
| 627 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans'' episode "Save the Day" features Pablo, Tyrone and Uniqua as harbor patrollers, making sure nobody wanders into places with dangerous-sounding names (i.e.; Shark Bite Bay, Catastrophe Cove, etc.) A RunningGag in the episode is them "rescuing" Tasha from these places, who wanders into them hoping to catch a whopper. |
| 628 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheCrumpets'' has the "Do Not Disturb Room", the bedroom of Ma and Pa. |
| 629 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince'', Rayla asks Callum and Ezra to please tell her the Cursed Caldera is named after famous explorer Sir Phineas Cursed. It's not, the name is because it's full of monsters. [[spoiler:Subverted in that the monsters are illusionary.]] |
| 630 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheDreamstone'' has the Black Mountains of Viltheed which, while not directly corresponding to anything in real life, still sounds pretty ominous and serves as the homeland for the evil Zordrak and his nightmare legions. Between Viltheed and the Land of Dreams likes the Sea of Destruction (eternally lashed by storms and violent waves), with the Isle of Catastrophe (the junkyard of all Urpgor's failed invasion machines from expeditions that died in the Sea) halfway between the two lands. |
| 631 | * ''WesternAnimation/EarthwormJim'', trying to track down Psycrow, reads the Idiot's Guide To Hideously Dangerous Places; featuring entries on The Pit Of Unimaginable Fear, The Cavern Of Flesh Ripping Weasels, and [[TakeThat Det]][[UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}} roit]]. He turns out to be at The Boulevard of Acute Discomfort. |
| 632 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': |
| 633 | ** From "My Three Sons:" |
| 634 | --->'''Leela:''' Uh, Professor, are we even allowed in the Forbidden Zone?\ |
| 635 | '''Farnsworth:''' Why, of course! It's just a name, like the Death Zone, or the Zone of No Return. All the zones have names like that in the Galaxy of Terror! |
| 636 | ** [[SubvertedTrope Ironically]], the mission would have gone great, if [[ItMakesSenseInContext the Emperor hadn't survived Fry drinking him]]. |
| 637 | ** Also the Planet Express crew had a bad experience on Cannibalon. Bender enjoyed the food, though. |
| 638 | ** A few of Farnsworth's missions qualify, such as Sicily 8, the Mob planet (not helped by the fact that they were delivering subpoenas) and Ebola 9, the Virus Planet. |
| 639 | ** Inverted in the following exchange: |
| 640 | --->'''Leela:''' According to this, the fountain is located within the darkest, most ancient region of space, just past Teddy Bear Junction.\ |
| 641 | '''Prof. Farnsworth:''' Teddy Bear Junction. The worst scum hole in the universe. |
| 642 | ** A DoubleSubversion in "Bender's Game" with the Cave of Hopelessness. It was named after its founder, Reginald Hopelessness...the first man to be eaten alive by the Tunnelling Horror. |
| 643 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Gawayn}}'' has 'Nevercross Bridge': guarded by a pair of beavers who will [[TakenForGranite turn to stone]] anyone who cannot ask them a question they cannot answer. |
| 644 | * Abysus from ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex''. |
| 645 | * ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'' is set in the town of Miseryville. Better yet, it's implied to be located in ''{{Hell}}'' (and would have explicitly been if it weren't for ExecutiveMeddling). |
| 646 | * ''WesternAnimation/KickButtowskiSuburbanDaredevil'' has Mt. Hurtsmore where the Mellowbrook Drift race takes place. |
| 647 | * [[AbandonedCampRuins Camp Wannaweep]] in ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible''. |
| 648 | * ''WesternAnimation/LoonaticsUnleashed'': Who in their right mind would want to holiday on an island named 'Apocalypso'? |
| 649 | * In the pilot episode of ''WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw'', Zack panics when he and Milo find themselves in "Coyote Woods." Milo reassures him that it was named after actor Creator/PeterCoyote, [[DoubleSubverted who donated the land to the city to use as a wolf preserve]]. |
| 650 | -->'''Zack:''' ...You get how that's not better, right? |
| 651 | * ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': |
| 652 | ** Ghastly Gorge -- home to jagged rocks, huge thorned plants and giant eel-things that try to eat anything that passes by. |
| 653 | ** The prosaically named Scariest Cave in Equestria, apparently home to some rather horrifying monsters [[NothingIsScarier we don't actually see on-screen]]. |
| 654 | ** Tartarus, a prison for dangerous monsters that shares a name with the ancient Greek underworld. |
| 655 | ** The Peaks of Peril, on the other hand, are actually not that bad. Okay, so the {{Kirin}} who live there have a ''teensy'' little problem with [[BurningWithAnger literally bursting into flame when they get angry]], but otherwise it's just a fairly normal mountain area. |
| 656 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': The primary setting of the Boiling Isles isn't too bad, but the world the archipelago is in is a bit worse; The Demon Realm. |
| 657 | * ''WesternAnimation/RainbowBrite'': Before Rainbowland gets turned into the happy world it truly should be, it's full of such places as the No-Return River and the Tangled Forest. |
| 658 | * ''WesternAnimation/RocketPower'' has a dangerous mountain board course called "Bruised Man's Curve". |
| 659 | * In ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'', the evil Horde's headquarters are called the Fright Zone, which should probably have clued Adora in to the nature of the Horde... |
| 660 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 661 | ** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E2CapeFeare Cape Feare]]": |
| 662 | --->'''Agent:''' We have places your family can hide in peace and security: Cape Fear, Terror Lake, New Horrorfield, Screamville --\ |
| 663 | '''Homer:''' ''[enthusiastically]'' Ooh, Ice Creamville!\ |
| 664 | '''Agent:''' Er, no, Screamville.\ |
| 665 | '''Homer:''' ''[scared]'' Aah! |
| 666 | ** During Lisa's ImagineSpot in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E8LisaOnIce Lisa on Ice]]": |
| 667 | --->'''Judge:''' I sentence you to a lifetime of horror on Monster Island! ''[{{GASP}}]'' Don't worry, it's just a name.\ |
| 668 | '''Lisa:''' ''[[[DescriptionCut being chased by monsters]]]'' He said it was just a name!\ |
| 669 | '''Guy:''' What he meant is that Monster Island is actually a peninsula! |
| 670 | ** And then there's the Murderhorn from "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E23KingOfTheHill King of the Hill]]", the insurmountable highest peak in Springfield. |
| 671 | ** ''And'' there's Foreboding Widow's Peak from "Mr. Plow". |
| 672 | ** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E5TreehouseOfHorrorIII Treehouse of Horror III]]"'s "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E9MrPlow King Homer]]", we get this conversation. |
| 673 | --->'''Carl:''' Hey, I heard we're goin' to Ape Island.\ |
| 674 | '''Lenny:''' Yeah, to capture a giant ape.\ |
| 675 | '''Carl:''' I wish we were going to Candy Apple Island.\ |
| 676 | '''Charlie:''' Candy Apple Island? What do they got there?\ |
| 677 | '''Carl:''' Apes. But they're not so big. |
| 678 | ** When Marge joins the police force in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E23TheSpringfieldConnection The Springfield Connection]]", Chief Wiggum informs her that, as a new officer, her beat will consist of Bumtown and Junkieville. |
| 679 | ** [[DoubleSubversion Double-Subverted]] in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E5LisaTheVegetarian Lisa the Vegetarian]]", when Troy [=McClure=] is featured in a promotional video for the Meat Council: |
| 680 | --->'''Troy:''' Come on Jimmy, let's take a peek at the killing floor.\ |
| 681 | '''Jimmy''': Ohhh!\ |
| 682 | '''Troy:''' Don't let the name throw you, Jimmy. It's not really a floor, it's more of a steel grating that allows material to slice through so it can be collected and exported. |
| 683 | ** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E24LostOurLisa Lost Our Lisa]]", when Lisa gets lost while taking the bus: "I should have got off at Crackton..." |
| 684 | ** When Dr. Colossus is released in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E1WhoShotMrBurnsPartTwo Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part Two]]": |
| 685 | --->'''Wiggum:''' Okay, Colossus, you're free to go, but stay away from Death Mountain.\ |
| 686 | '''Colossus''' ''[sadly]'' But all my stuff is there... |
| 687 | ** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E10LittleBigMom Little Big Mom]]", Homer is trying to decide which ski trail to take: |
| 688 | --->'''Homer:''' "The Widowmaker"? [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Oh, that one's for the ladies]]. "Spinebuster"? Boring! Ooh, "Colostomizer"... |
| 689 | ** A mild example is Spittle County introduced in "Colonel Homer", "Birthplace of the Loogie" and home to various unpleasant rural stereotypes. |
| 690 | * ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': |
| 691 | ** The Roman Catholic Church is called the Bleeding Eyes of Jesus. It's actually a good fit for the amount of (dis)respect that the show gives the church. |
| 692 | ** There's also the appropriately named Hell's Pass Hospital. |
| 693 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Spliced}}'' is set on Keepaway Island. |
| 694 | * ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': |
| 695 | ** In "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS6E6ALifeInADaySunBleached A Life in a Day]]", [=SpongeBob=], Patrick, and Larry get hospitalized after crashing into the razor-sharp rocks of Rippers' Reef. |
| 696 | ** "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS11E9SquidNoirScavengerPants Scavenger Pants]]" shows the Bikini Badlands, a giant stretch of near-inhospitable desert. [[InvertedTrope The Bikini Goodlands, on the other hand, are much more pleasant.]] |
| 697 | ** "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS11E24TheGrillIsGoneTheNightPatty The Grill is Gone]]" has Mr. Krabs and [=SpongeBob=] racing a group of kids down Murder Hill. |
| 698 | ** [[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS13E18DeliveryToMonsterIslandRidePatrickRide Monster Island]], a faraway island full of vicious monsters. |
| 699 | ** In "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS13E18DeliveryToMonsterIslandRidePatrickRide Ride Patrick Ride]]", Patrick tries to ride his bike down Dead Man's Hill. He crashes down and ends up in a six-week coma. |
| 700 | * ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil''. |
| 701 | ** "Isolation Point" from "The Other Exchange Student". The Diaz family thinks it's a great place to have a picnic! |
| 702 | ** "Diaz Family Vacation" features a Mewni landmark known as the Forest of Certain Death. |
| 703 | * ''WesternAnimation/StormHawks'' gives us Terra Cyclonia, Terra Gruesomus, the Black Gorge, and the ever-popular Wastelands. |
| 704 | * ''WesternAnimation/WhoKilledWho'' is set in a spooky manor on the "Gruesome Gables". |
| 705 | [[/folder]] |
| 706 |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext Main / IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
