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%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries and poorly written examples have been commented out. If you want to re-add an example, please provide context that explains how the trope is used in this work.
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->''"Ooh, swimming! Ooh, golf! Ooh, waving people! Ooh, creepy smiles!"''
-->-- '''Mr. Turner''', ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents''

A beautiful, seemingly utopian community which is [[BrokenMasquerade not what it seems.]] Often either under control of a morally questionable conspiracy or [[AIIsACrapshoot demented supercomputer]] or protected by a DealWithTheDevil. May even be an entire ''town'' of {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s.

Not quite the same as TownWithADarkSecret as these are usually not particularly idyllic nor do they have The Village's uncanny quality. May overlap with StepfordSuburbia. Contrast QuirkyTown. A WrongGenreSavvy character may take it for a CloseKnitCommunity -- or vice versa. Might also be a SupernaturalHotspotTown.

See also PoweredByAForsakenChild. May or may not be used tandem to UncannyValley.

If the setting as a whole comes off as this, see CrapsaccharineWorld.
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!!Examples:
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
%%* Pick a Creator/JunjiIto manga. Any Junji Ito manga. 99% of the time, if the setting isn't a TownWithADarkSecret, it's one of these.%%General examples are not allowed.
* Several are encountered in ''Literature/KinosJourney''. Probably the most notable one is Kino's own home country, which seems as happy as a place can be, [[spoiler:but it's because every child on the cusp of adulthood is given a lobotomy, which prevents them from feeling unhappiness, no matter what. And children who question the procedure get summarily killed by their parents, who can't help but feel happy about the whole thing.]]
* ''Manga/{{Soil}}'': Soil New Town is so picture-perfect that you just know something bad is happening. Compared with the [[spoiler:possible alternate dimension shenanigans ripping apart the whole world]], the mundane stuff like [[spoiler:a pedophilic dentist raping all the boys for about a decade while keeping the whole town under surveillance with hidden cameras]] are much worse. [[spoiler:Fortunately, he gets his; unfortunately, his favorite victim's the one who wants to destroy the world.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/AvengersStandoff'' features an archetypal example in Pleasant Hill, an excruciatingly perfect small American town. It's actually ComicBook/{{SHIELD}}'s ultimate supervillain prison, where offenders are mind-wiped with Cosmic Cube powers and brainwashed into [[StepfordSmiler idyllic bliss]]. Pleasant Hill even scores literal points for PoweredByAForsakenChild, as the Cosmic Cube making it all possible manifests as an 8-year-old girl named Kobik. Besides being immediately awful for all the obvious reasons, the Pleasant Hill fiasco also lays the groundwork for [[ComicBook/SecretEmpire much greater infamy to come]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
* Played with in ''Film/BigFish''. There's nothing really wrong with the town of Spectre, it appears to be just as nice as everyone says it is, but until the protagonist leaves, you can't shake the feeling that something's off...
* Sandford from ''Film/HotFuzz'' is a textbook example of this setting. A mostly [[IdyllicEnglishVillage peaceful and bucolic village]] in the English countryside where [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch people have a tendency to die in suspicious "accidents"]]. Nick Angel thinks there's some kind of [[VillainousGentrification real estate scheme]] going on, but the truth is weirder and somehow worse: [[spoiler:the Neighborhood Watch Alliance is desperate to make sure Sandford becomes Village of the Year again, and everyone who died was killed ''for making the town look bad'']].
* The Harga commune in ''Film/{{Midsommar}}'' seems at first like a peaceful, welcoming community built around a traditional form of paganism. [[spoiler:It's just that some of those traditions include incest and human sacrifice.]]
%%* Rockwell Falls in ''Population 436''.
* ''Film/TheVillage2004'' -- the [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes former]] {{Trope Namer|s}} -- looks like an idyllic 19th-century village but its surrounding dense forest is inhabited by nameless, unseen beings that seem to be holding the inhabitants captive.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Candor'' by Pam Bachorz, the protagonist's father created a town where everybody is happy and there is no crime by putting subliminal messages in the music played through speakers in the town.
* In ''Literature/TheDarkTower2004'', we have "Blue Heaven", an idyllic 1950s-style college town with some (justified) anachronisms (such as holographic sex partners and [=DVDs=], though they aren't called so by name), lovely houses, up-to-date entertainment, and the best food. Oh, and it's surrounded by layers of electrified barbed wire (the outermost kills), the borders are patrolled by armed guards, all the sunlight is artificial, the town is set in an AfterTheEnd wasteland and the [[spoiler:telepathic, Beam-breaking]] inhabitants are happily working on bringing about the end of all of creation.
%%* The setting of ''Literature/TheGiver''.
%%* This is pretty much the basis of the story "Literature/TheLottery". Also contains all the [[RuleOfSymbolism creepy tropes associated with such]].
* Omelas from ''Literature/TheOnesWhoWalkAwayFromOmelas'' is a {{Utopia}}, but its happiness depends upon [[PoweredByAForsakenChild the eternal suffering of a child]]... [[UnreliableNarrator supposedly]].
* ''Literature/ThePhoenixFiles'' {{subvert|edTrope}}s this. The town of Phoenix is way too good to be true, but it's not the community who are behind it all. It's the Shackleton Corporation -- the creators and maintainers of the town -- who are plotting the end of the world.
* In ''Literature/RunningOutOfTime'', the protagonist finds out that her whole village that she thought was in the eighteenth century was actually a tourist attraction. It turns out their true use is [[EvilutionaryBiologist to make a master race of people stronger than the disease there]].
* Harfang from ''Literature/TheSilverChair'' seems like a beautiful, luxurious city, until you find out that [[spoiler:the [[SuperFunHappyThingOfDoom so-called]] {{Gentle Giant}}s will [[ToServeMan eat any creature that isn't a giant]], including their guests]].
%%* Idyllic Stepford from ''Literature/TheStepfordWives''.
* The small town of Warrick in ''Literature/{{Twig}}'' is not-so-secretly the private playground of the [[TheCaligula Baron Richmond]]. The entire population is composed of convicts or vagrants who were offered a chance at a life of relative luxury in exchange for signing over their lives to him and is organized as a parody of normalcy with every person paired off with another, and each couple watched over by an engineered monstrosity created from their firstborn children which follows them everywhere. The town lives in constant fear, and that's ''before'' the Baron decides to pick out some people for stress relief...
* In ''Literature/WatershipDown'', the rabbits come upon a warren where food is abundant and everything seems perfect, except that it's utterly taboo to ask where someone is. Turns out the entire place is being tended to by the local farmer as a sort of free range rabbit farm with traps laid everywhere. The inhabitants respond to the regular disappearances by pretending it isn't happening.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
%%* ''Series/AmericanGothic1995'' situates in such a town, with their very own devil acting as the sheriff.
%%* An episode of ''Series/TheAvengers1960s'' called "Murdersville".
%%* The village of Milbury in ''Series/ChildrenOfTheStones''.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E7AmysChoice Amy's Choice]]", Upper Leadworth, where Amy and Rory live in one reality, is a beautiful, quiet village... that's spookily empty, with people who live unnaturally long lives...
* The titular small town of ''Series/EerieIndiana'' is an outwardly normal town where Elvis swaggers around in full costume, Bigfoot eats out of garbage cans, people stay young by sealing themselves in Tupperware boxes and the dogs are plotting to take over the world, among other things.
* ''Series/TheInvisibleMan'' has an episode set in "The Community", a village for secret agents who blew their cover.
* ''Series/NecessaryRoughness'' season 3 has V3, a sports agency, that treats its clients and employees like family and nurtures young athletes till they are able to go pro and become millionaires. However, from the beginning, we know that the agency has a dark secret that it has spent considerable time and money covering up. One executive killed himself rather than have his family find out about what he did. Then there is the sports medicine clinic that offers miraculous 'experimental' treatments.
* ''Series/OnceUponATime'': Storybrooke, Maine is a quaint little town, only needing one or two cops to keep the peace... and ruled with an iron fist between [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Snow White's stepmother]] and [[MagnificentBastard Rumpelstiltskin]].
* ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'' has the Village, the former {{trope namer|s}}, a [[IdyllicEnglishVillage sunny seaside resort with quaint and charming architecture]] inhabited by [[YouAreNumberSix people with numbers instead of names]] who are under the strict control of 'Number Two' enforced by eerie white orbs... and nobody leaves without its masters willing it, ever.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'': "[[Recap/StargateSG1S7E5Revisions Revisions]]" features a town under a dome on an otherwise uninhabitable planet so bucolically pretty and perfect that viewers know at once the Team is in deep trouble. [=SG1=] soon notices that villagers are not just disappearing but being written out of the memories of their friends and families, better still the area of the dome is shrinking...
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' has a number of episodes featuring Uncanny Villages. "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E21TheReturnOfTheArchons The Return of the Archons]]" gives us a peaceful low-tech society of mindlessly smiling people policed by creepy hooded figures. "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E24ThisSideOfParadise This Side of Paradise]]" and "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E5TheApple The Apple]]" are set on literally Edenic worlds with carefree populations living lives of prelapsarian happiness. "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E26ErrandOfMercy Errand of Mercy]]" gives us such a society under threat from the Klingons and refusing to raise a hand in their own defense. ''Franchise/StarTrek'' in general has a thing for this trope, with the [[AnAesop Aesop]] being that [[FalseUtopia Utopia ain't possible]].
* In ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', the Winchester brothers visit one or two of these. In "[[Recap/SupernaturalS01E11Scarecrow Scarecrow]]", they encountered a town that makes yearly sacrifices to some evil spirit of one man and woman, and a couple conveniently lost in the road is their target. The brothers intervene, and the spirit instead takes a local couple as his tribute.
* The ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' episode "[[Recap/TorchwoodS1E6Countrycide Countrycide]]" explores a [[IdyllicEnglishVillage nice-looking country village]] where the villagers have a [[AFeteWorseThanDeath decennial event]] in which they [[ImAHumanitarian eat whoever passes through]].
* ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'': Mystic Falls may also count as a TownWithADarkSecret. The vampires, witches, and werewolves are one thing, but the level of civic pride shown by the good folk of Mystic Falls just screams weird.
* ''Series/TheWalkingDead2010'':
** The walker-free fortified town of Woodbury seems like the safe haven the ''survivors'' have been dreaming of, but it's really not. Its leader is a murderous, paranoid, and authoritarian man that eliminates all outsiders to take their belongings.
** "Terminus" publicizes itself as a "sanctuary for all", including open gates and welcoming newcomers with barbecue and no questions asked. It turns out that [[spoiler:the place is a community of [[ImAHumanitarian cannibals]] that either locks up newcomers to serve as cattle or feeds them human flesh and then reveals the truth, giving them the choice of JoinOrDie]].
* ''Series/TheXFiles'': The Falls at Arcadia, from "[[Recap/TheXFilesS06E15Arcadia Arcadia]]", is a beautiful, peaceful planned community with a sinister secret. The peace is controlled by the Homeowners' Association, represented mainly by President Gene Gogolak. They have strict rules and regulations about everything and observing them is enforced by a murderous {{Tulpa}}. Most of the inhabitants know, but newcomers are not as lucky.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Podcasts]]
%%* ''Podcast/DiceFunk'': Rotswald is so nice that the players are immediately and violently suspicious.
* The title town of ''Podcast/KingFallsAM'' is a town plagued by government conspiracies, various eldritch horrors, rainbow lights, Jack in the box Jesus, zombies, weird late-night callers, and even the ghost of Helen Keller.
* The title town of ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'' is a friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead as they all pretend to sleep.
[[/folder]]

%%
%%[[folder:Roleplaying Games]]
%%* The LJ-RPG ''RolePlay/{{Mayfield}}'' is built off of this trope.
%%[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/AlanWake'': Bright Falls, WA, with the twist being that [[spoiler:most of its denizens are hopelessly unaware of the ongoing horror because it is technically captured inside a Creator/StephenKing-esque horror plot itself, implemented by said dark forces with the help of the human protagonist. In other words, it was literally ''written'' to be this trope]].
* The city of Columbia in ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' initially appears to be a utopian paradise where everything is perfect and the technology is far beyond anything else at the time, when it is actually a brutal theocratic dictatorship that oppresses minorities like black people and eventually plans to [[spoiler:use its weapons to destroy the "Sodom Below"]].
* In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', the floating continent of Zeal is a highly magical, beautiful city where people's every need is taken care of. The only problem? Well, there's a new power source for all of this magic [[spoiler:Lavos]] which has a minor side effect [[spoiler:making the Queen insane]].
%%* [[spoiler:Haven]] from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''.
%%* ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' has several of these.
* Andale from ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' is made all the more jarring by being smack in the middle of an irradiated, mutant-strewn wasteland, and one of the few settlements not surrounded by scrap walls and armed guards. [[CannibalClan There's a good reason for that]].
* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'': Can you say Hinamizawa? A gorgeous little Japanese town in the country where everyone knows everyone's name [[BlatantLies can't possibly be bad]].
%%* In ''VideoGame/Mother3'', some places in the game don't even start out as this, but over the course of the game become uncanny villages due to [[spoiler:Porky's influence]].
* ''VideoGame/NelsonTethersPuzzleAgent'', the people in Scoggins are part of a brotherhood that worships the "Hidden People" ([[OurGnomesAreWeirder gnomes]]). [[spoiler:They allow them to take people because they were chosen by them to help them get home.]]
* ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheCuriousVillage'' has the eponymous curious village of St. Mystere. The reason the villagers are so strange is that [[spoiler:[[RoboticReveal they're actually robots]] built to watch over Flora and her inheritance]].
* In ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'', [[ChurchOfHappyology the Morninglight]] seems to create these kinds of communities wherever it sets up shop, from the peaceful hippy camp that just so happens to be [[EvilSorcerer Freddy Beaumont]]'s base of operations, to the kindly youth support center that's actually doubling as a training ground for suicide bombers. However, the biggest and most obvious example of this takes the form of "The Clubhouse," an underground club for young Morninglight prodigies: along with all the luxurious amenities offered to new recruits, it lacks the soul-crushing indoctrination used in other centers, and by all accounts, it was a pretty fun place [[spoiler: before the Filth outbreak]]. However, those who eventually prove themselves to the Morninglight leadership are granted access to the temple -- and initiation into the deepest secrets of the cult.
* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' has several examples. Roppongi in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI'' and the whole of East Mikado in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' are good examples. [[spoiler:The first is actually populated exclusively by undead, two demon kings and an even crazier UndeadChild, and the latter seems like a near-fairytale kingdom set in GhibliHills, except it's a brutally elitist citadel following an inflexible caste system, and demons just a few doors away.]]
* ''VideoGame/StoryOfTheBlanks'': Sunny Town seems like a happy little village of ponies until Apple Bloom [[spoiler:finds the remains of a dead body in a fireplace]]. ''Then'' [[MoodWhiplash things take a turn for the terrifying]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Ba Sing Se from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' is an uncanny ''metropolis'', outwardly safe and cosmopolitan but actually segregated and Orwellian.
* The township of Dimmadome Acres set up in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' by resident CorruptCorporateExecutive Doug Dimmadome.[[note]][[RunningGag Owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome!]][[/note]] It appears to be a nice, clean suburb, but it's soon revealed that if you haven't drunk Doug's mind-controlling milk yet, [[TheAssimilator the hive-minded residents are going to make sure it doesn't stay that way]].
* The quaint little town of Wychford in the ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuestTheRealAdventures'' episode "Village of the Doomed" turns out to be this (as if the title wasn't ominous enough). When Jonny and his father Benton Quest arrive at the town for a bonding fishing trip; the townsfolk all seem very nice and polite. Then the Quests get attacked by a rabid man and discover a microchip implanted in the back of his neck which can be activated to control his emotions and has malfunctioned, setting the man on a permanent UnstoppableRage. They start to investigate the case. It turns out that Dr. Smallwood, the MadScientist who created the controlling microchip, had been experimenting with ''all'' of the town's inhabitants, only everybody else's chips are set to "permanently nice" mode. Once Smallwood figures out that the Quests are sticking their nose in his business, he flips the switch on the chips, transforming the whole town into a horde of [[NightOfTheLivingMooks zombie-like, mindless, aggressive, drooling Mooks]]. Not quite the quiet vacation Jonny and Benton were hoping for.
* The town of Pottsfield in ''WesternAnimation/OverTheGardenWall'' looks like a small village in a clearing in a particularly quiet neck of the woods, only all of the inhabitants are actually [[spoiler:[[DemBones animated skeletons]] wearing [[ScaryScarecrows scarecrow outfits]]]]. {{Subverted|Trope}}, however, in that the townsfolk [[spoiler:[[DarkIsNotEvil are actually completely harmless and well-meaning]], and just wanted to make Wirt and Greg perform chores for breaking their stuff]].
%%* The second half of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E6TheComputerWoreMenaceShoes The Computer Wore Menace Shoes]]" centers on the Island, an AffectionateParody of The Village from ''Series/ThePrisoner1967''.
[[/folder]]

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