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This is a must-be effect of almost every zombie movie. The hero sees a person who is facing away. The hero approaches slowly (as does the camera), maybe trying to enter a conversation with that person. More often than not an unnerving music plays. When we come close enough, the person suddenly turns around, revealing decaying flesh, bloody teeth and a missing eye. Oh my God, it's a zombie! Cue the Scare Chord.
Of course, the trope isn't limited to zombies. Multiple face distortions can be shown this way.
Not to be confused with anything related to Heel Face Turn or Face Heel Turn.
Examples:
- Resident Evil movies (at least, the first two have examples)
- The most disturbing example was probably in Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse with the zombie child.
- And the games in which they are based. Most notably Resident Evil Zero, although it was with a colony of leeches taking the shape of a man rather than a zombie.
- The Silent Hill movie has this with a Grey Child and a slightly different version of this with Lisa Garland, who has lid- and pupilless eyes.
- The 2004 Dawn Of The Dead did a variation on this. We met the little girl, alive and well, and the next morning she's standing in the hallway in shadows. Only when she steps forward into the light do we see that her lower lip is torn off.
- An excellent example is in Psycho. Not a zombie, but definitely a 'Face Revealing Turn.'
- Several examples in the Doctor Who two-parter "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead", when it's discovered that the explorers have been devoured within their suits by the Vashta Nerada. (Also, would Miss Evangelista's face in the same episode count?)
- Doctor Who then subverted it in the very next episode, where we get the whole build up in revealing Sky's face, only to find that she looks perfectly normal.
- A bad example in MST 3 K episode "Horror Of Party Beach", in that the dead guy's (lack of) face is actually pointed at the character who doesn't notice, but away from the camera. To be fair, he was drunk.
- Futurama spoofed this in one episode, where at one point two versions of the Planet Express crew, (from two different parallel universes) are chasing both their Zoidbergs through other universes. In one Leela pops out and sees another version of the crew and asks if they saw the Zoidbergs. They all turn around, revealing that their faces have no eyes and the version of Hermes says "We didn't see anything... ever!"
- There's a scene in Land Of The Dead where Zombie Infectee Cholo was heading back to the city, determined to settle things with his Bad Boss Kaufman before dying. When Kaufman is trying to flee the zombie invaded city, we see Cholo take a shot at him while standing in the shadows and miss. Kaufman shoots back, hitting him in the chest, and Cholo falls. Kaufman goes back to packing his bags into the escape car only to hear a noise. Turning, he turns to see Cholo walking towards him. "You're dead!" Kaufman shouts. Cholo then comes into the light, revealing that he must have turned into a zombie while walking back into the city, and he's now close enough to do a Deadly Lunge at Kaufman. Kaufman reacts by saying "Oh god, you are dead!" in dismay.
- Silent Hill Origins also has an example. When Travis encounters the first nurse in the Alchemilla Hospital, he tries asking her for help. She turns around, revealing her deformed/melted face and inmediately attempts to stab Travis with a syringe.
- Done in Shaun Of The Dead. They don't even think the zombie in the backyard is an undead cannibal until they see the news.
- In Neil Gaiman's wonderfully creepy kids' novel Coraline, the "Other Mother" turns and reveals that she has shiny black buttons instead of eyes.
- Star Trek "The Conscience of the King"— at the beginning, we are introduced to the captain of a base. We only see the left side of his face for five minutes, until he says that he survived a massacre by Kodos the Executioner, at which point we see that the right side of his face is covered by a patch.
- In various incarnations of Batman, the villain Two-Face is sometimes revealed this way.
- In both The Grudge and its Japanese counterpart, Kayako's first on-screen victim (the original caretaker) suddenly shows up at the volunteer institution after being missing for several days. Her colleague calls her, she turns around... she's missing her jaw, causing her tongue to flap down helplessly and blood to pour constantly from her throat. It is quite obvious she's a walking dead, however.
Counter-examples:
- A particularly strong counter-example is seen in the beginning of Resident Evil 4. Racoon City incident survivor Leon approaches a strange man from the back, the man doesn't answer his question and in general doesn't seem to be aware of Leon. Everyone who has a slightest notion of what the previous three games were about goes shrieking, "No, Leon, no, it's a zombie, and it will do its Deadly Lunge now!" The man turns around and - he's normal. He even answers Leon with a few insults in Spanish. Of course, he is still a murderous maniac as well as the other villagers, but definitely not a zombie.
- This troper's favorite moment in Half-Life 2 was when he approached a person sitting in a chair watching television in one of the later levels. Going around and looking at the front of the person, he turned out to be dead, but just the regular run-of-the-mill harmless kind of dead. This troper was in the middle of his sigh of relief when a legit zombie burst through the kitchen door.
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