Basic Trope: Something horrifying lurks in the backseat.
- Straight: Bob gets into his car and gets attacked by a werewolf that was hiding in the backseat.
- Exaggerated: Bob steps into an armored vehicle, and performs a thorough search before locking down. The killer still finds his way in.
- Downplayed: The intruder and Bob have a simple conversation albeit one with threatening undertones due to Bob being a captive audience.
- Justified: The horrifying something can think and wants to ambush Bob.
- Inverted:
- Bob goes to his car and finds a werewolf lurking in the front seat.
- Bob goes to his car and finds his sister Alice sitting in the backseat.
- Subverted: Bob goes to his car and finds a werewolf in the backseat...but it turns out to be friendly and was just trying to hide from an overenthusiastic hunter.
- Bob thinks he saw something in the mirror... but nothing's there.
- Double Subverted: But later Bob gets bitten by a vampire that was hiding in the backseat.
- Turns out there was a vampire, they just remained hidden until he got out.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob goes to his car and finds a werewolf in the backseat...but it turns out to be friendly and was just trying to hide from an overenthusiastic hunter. However, later Bob gets bitten by a vampire that was hiding in the backseat. However, it turns out that Bob has a terminal illness and the vampire was trying to help. The next time he goes out to his car, he finds his sister Alice in it, and the time after that, it's empty.
- Parodied:
- The backseat spews monster after monster like a Clown-Car Grave.
- Bob climbs into a bus. A monster attacks him from behind, only to be attacked by another monster behind it, and so on and so forth until the back of the bus.
- Averted:
- Nothing is in the backseat.
- No cars or other vehicles applicable for this trope appear in the work.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded:Bob: Wait, breathing in the backseat...uh oh.
- Invoked: Dr. Evilstein hides a werewolf in the backseat to attack Bob, and personally escorts him into the vehicle.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- Bob always locks his doors and leaves a variety of objects to scare away intruders.
- Alice stops Bob from going to his car because she has a gut feeling that a threat is lurking inside.
- Discussed: "Always inspect the backseat of a vehicle. You might get ambushed".
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: We see this trope from the intruder's perspective, who struggles to get inside the car because it's securely locked, and even upon making it in gets bored because Bob is taking too long to return, falls asleep and misses the chance completely, waking up after Bob has already driven home and gotten out of the car again.
- Reconstructed:
- This still means the intruder is now in front of Bob's house and can try breaking in to ambush him in his own home.
- The intruder decides to only attempt this on people who don't lock their cars securely, and only when having a clear notion of when the victim will return.
- Played for Laughs: Bob gets inside his car and gets ambushed by his Sitcom Arch-Nemesis Dave, who was in the backseat. Dave gives Bob a Slapstick beatdown.
Back to Danger Takes a Backseat...wait, is something behind me?
ROAR!
