History Main / NotSoFakePropWeapon

* In ''Film/TheClonesOfBruceLee'', the gold-smuggling director's yes-man suggests using this to kill the BruceLeeClone they suspect to be a secret agent. As [[WebVideo/TheSpoonyExperiment Spoony]] pointed out in his review, this is '''very badly''' HarsherInHindsight, since Bruce's son Brandon was killed on the set of ''Film/TheCrow'' by a weapons malfunction.

** Creator/BrandonLee, accidentally killed during ''Film/TheCrow'' because the crew left a cartridge in the barrel before loading the blanks, which then hit his spine.

* ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'': In the episode "Movie Madness", the Rangers go to the filming site of a movie starring Jen's favorite actor Frankie Chang. When a stunt double gets injured, Wes volunteers to take his place. The scene involves him fighting Frankie Chang who's wielding a sword against him, and only when he suddenly sees an actual cut in his clothing (''barely'' missing his skin) does he realize something is very wrong there.

** Happens in the episode "Death of a Hollow Man", based on the novel above under Literature.
** And in "The Magician's Nephew", where the spikes inside an illusionist's 'Cabinet of Death' are coated with a fast-acting poison.
** And in "Send in the Clowns", the killer sabotages the retraction mechanism in a trick knife used in a sword cabinet routine, resulting in the volunteer from the audience being fatally stabbed. Subverted earlier in the same episode, where it appears that a clown has been shot dead as a result of a prop gun being replaced with a real one -- but it turns out that this was only done to scare the victim, and the gun was loaded with blanks. The real killer, who had learned about this plan, used it as cover by shooting the victim with a rifle at the same moment.
** Then there is "They Seek Him Here", where a film director dies via a guillotine being used as a movie prop, as does the second VictimOfTheWeek.

* ''Theatre/Hamlet'' features this to close the play. Hamlet is offered a big handicap in a fencing competition with Laertes, but it turns out that Laertes’ foil is not only live, but coated with poison.

-->Now Billy asked if there was anything he could do for me, and we had this awful Spanish gun for Mike Hammer, so I asked him if he knew where we could find a .45, and next day he shows up on the set with a gunny sack, and he says "I got your pieces for you, where should I put them?' and he dumps about two dozen .45s there, and ammo, and the prop boy nearly hit the roof, "those are REAL GUNS". Bob Fellows the producer, knew this, but he didn't pay any attention, he just got them registered. The paperwork was incredible.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'' had two variants:

* Happens in the Music/ElvisPresley film ''Film/FrankieAndJohnny'' with a prop gun that's been loaded with real bullets.

-->-- '''The Conductor''', ''Videogame/AHatInTime''

* Inverted in ''Fanfic/VowOfNudity'' when Spectra is ordered by Iaqo to kill Gloria. Spectra tricks him by swapping her pact weapon into a theatrical saber (complete with a collapsible blade) instead of its regular rapier form before "stabbing" Gloria in the chest.

* ''Fanfic/VowOfNudity'': When ordered by Iaqo to kill Gloria, Spectra tricks him by summoning her pact weapon as a theatrical saber (complete with a collapsible blade) instead of its regular rapier form, and then "stabbing" her in the chest.

* In ''Film/MurdersInRueMorgue1971'', Marot was scarred when the fake acid in a prop bottle on the stage was replaced with real acid, and Madeline's mother tossed it into his face during a performance.

* Toyed with in ''Manga/CaseClosed''. An {{otaku}} shoots himself in the head with a ''real'' gun in public, apparently thinking it was a fake one. For worse, he had just shot a cosplayer under the same belief. [[spoiler: This is intentional: the cosplayer who was shot is the one who tricked that {{otaku}} into first shooting him (he was wearing protection as a part of his outfit) and then shooting himself, in revenge for having caused the death of his younger brother.]]
* Played straight in ''Manga/TheKindaichiCaseFiles'': One case got kicked off as an actress died from drinking a glass of wine that has been poisoned. [[spoiler: Later averted when in the same case, a prop has been switched with a murder weapon that was about to be used but the would-be victim blocked it in time.]]

* ComicBook/TwoFace's most famous "imposter", [[https://about-faces.livejournal.com/17502.html Paul Sloane]], was scarred for real when he starred in a TV docudrama of Dent's life and a spiteful prop-man swapped in ''real'' acid for the prop. (Interestingly, this was {{Bowdlerized}} in an early reprint of the story, where he's scarred by a genuine accident with one of the studio lights.)

* In ''Film/HereComeTheGirls'', during a performance of [[ShowWithinAShow the titular in-universe play]], serial killer Jack the Slasher tries to use this as an opportunity to murder actor Stanley Snodgrass. [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope He uses the actual telescoping prop knife by mistake]].]]

** ''Swing Brother Swing'' uses a sneaky variation of this. It's suggested that a musician was murdered during an on-stage gangster routine by a dart, not a bullet, being loaded into a blank-firing pistol. But actually [[spoiler: he acted the death as planned but was surreptitiously stabbed to death afterwards while playing dead before the scene ended, so everyone thought the on-stage killing had been real]].

* The initial murder in ''[[Literature/InDeath Witness in Death]]'' is accomplished in this manner during a stage production of ''Film/WitnessForTheProsecution''. [[spoiler: It's subverted when it turns out that the actress who did the stabbing was the one who switched the prop knife with the real one, and knew very well what she was doing when she stabbed him. AssholeVictim: He also was a womanizer who slipped date rape drugs into the drinks of the women he slept with and after the murderer told him that a young actress in the production was their daughter [[MamaBear in hopes that he would not commit incest]], he [[MoralEventHorizon not only went right ahead and sleeps with his own daughter, he suggested to the mother that they have a threesome!]] That drove the actress to switch the knives.]]

* In the ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' episode "The Final Curtain", a gun loaded with blanks for a play has one live bullet, which really kills one of the actors in the final scene. Murdoch eventually realises [[spoiler: that while nobody had the opportunity to switch the bullet, the person who actually fired it was able to switch the entire gun]].

* Done in ''Series/{{Oz}}'' during the [[PrisonerPerformance prison production]] of ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'', though with a shank. Keller promises both Beecher and Schillinger he’ll replace their prop knife with a real shank for their characters’ final battle. The real weapon goes to [[spoiler: Beecher]].

** Subverted in the first ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' game, done to distract the player. The victim is killed with a large prop used for the TV show he co-starred in. Phoenix tries to argue that if it's a prop, it shouldn't have worked, but we realize that the blade itself is actually reasonably sharp. Subverted further in that [[spoiler: the prop wasn't the murder weapon, it was a really sharp fence the victim fell on.]] The giveaway is that [[spoiler:the only possible suspects aren't strong enough to have shoved the prop into the victim's chest with any sort of force, ruling it out as a murder weapon]].

* [[InvertedTrope Inversion]]: In ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'', Gordito's father is killed during his gunslinger circus act because [[spoiler: PETA]] ''[[ItMakesSenseInContext sabotaged his guns before the performance.]]'' Had the [[spoiler: PETA]] assassin UNLOADED Gordito's father's guns, the veteran shooter would have noticed the weight difference and presumably halted the act or loaded them. He sabotaged the guns so they were fully loaded, but were incapable of firing. Played with, since [[spoiler: Gordito originally believed that he accidentally killed his father by forgetting to load his gun, and made up the story about PETA in order to sound badass. But then it turns out that PETA really ''did'' sabotage his father's gun, and he didn't notice for the reasons listed above.]]

* Played straight in the ''Manga/TheKindaichiCaseFiles'': One case got kicked off as an actress died from drinking a glass of wine that has been poisoned. [[spoiler: Later averted when in the same case, a prop has been switched with a murder weapon that was about to be used but the would-be victim blocked it in time.]]

SubTrope of AccidentalMurder. For the accidental version of this, please see FatalMethodActing. When inverted, see ReplacedWithReplica.

* Done in ''Series/{{Oz}}'' during the prison production of ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'', though with a shank. Keller promises both Beecher and Schillinger he’ll replace their prop knife with a real shank for their characters’ final battle. The real weapon goes to [[spoiler: Beecher]].

* One ''Series/OneThousandWaysToDie'' clip has a magician killed this way while performing the bullet catch illusion.