Basic Trope: The full monster isn't shown until later on.
- Straight: The film "Werewolf of Troperville" has a werewolf as the lead monster, but he isn't fully shown until halfway through the film, and before then, the only visible parts of the werewolf are his claws and his tail on occasion.
- Exaggerated: None of the monsters featured within the film are fully shown until either during the last several minutes of its runtime or possibly never even fully shown at all.
- Downplayed: The werewolf remains almost entirely hidden until about 15 minutes into the film's runtime.
- Justified: The werewolf made a deliberate effort not to show himself for as long as possible in order to avoid ever being attacked back by the film's human protagonists.
- Alternatively, the werewolf cannot fully come out from hiding until later on because he can only ever come out on the full moon nights.
- Inverted: The full werewolf is very prominently shown at the beginning of the film, but the humans aren't. Additionally, afterwards, only small percentages of the werewolf are ever shown on-screen with the humans now being the main visual focus from that point forwards.
- Subverted: It seems like the werewolf's gonna be hidden for most of the film, but after only his tail is visible, he finally comes out of the shadows...
- Double Subverted: ...and it's revealed that the "werewolf" in question's really just a regular dog all along whereas the actual werewolf doesn't appear until far later on.
- Parodied: The werewolf doesn't wanna be shown because he's aware that he's in a film and is likewise scared of being in front of a camera for too long of a period of time.
- The whole movie continually builds on just how scary the werewolf's gonna look and also how intense the final battle's gonna be, but then the werewolf finally reveals that he's really just a minuscule were-pomeranian all along.
- Zig-Zagged: The werewolf repeatedly decides for and against actually appearing on camera.
- Averted: There are absolutely no monsters featured within the film at all.
- Any monsters that actually do appear within the film are fully shown right when they're expected to be fully shown.
- Enforced: To invoke a sense of Nothing Is Scarier and build suspense on what the werewolf'll look like.
- The film's using Obscured Special Effects since actually showing the full werewolf for the whole entire film would easily be too budgetarily costly or logistically difficult.
- The protagonist is really the werewolf in question all along, but neither he nor the audience should know that prior to the film's climax.
- Lampshaded: "Did you see that? It looked like the monster, but where is the monster even at this moment?"
- Invoked: The werewolf intentionally hides until the heroes discover his true identity as such.
- Exploited: Because the werewolf won't show up until later on, the heroes begin using their free time to plan out how they intend to defeat him in the end.
- Defied: Bob gets tired of waiting for the werewolf to come out of hiding, so he actively seeks him out in order to show everyone the werewolf in question.
- Discussed: "I bet it's gonna be a while before we actually see the monster because that's usually what happens with stories like these."
- Conversed: "I wonder why so many horror movies don't even show us what the monster looks like until later on, but it's probably scarier that way, though."
- Implied: One day, Bob learns of reports of a werewolf continuously attacking and killing off random humans during the night, and he then assumes that he won't ever get to have an exceptionally great look at him until the very next full moon night happens.
- Deconstructed: The werewolf deliberately hides himself from his prey within the shadows, eventually leading to exceptionally effective humans kills on his part and later still-surviving humans using bright lights attached to machine guns and rocket launchers to first get a excellent full look at his very appearance and then to easily completely blast him right on into total oblivion.
- Reconstructed: Later on, another werewolf takes both an invincibility potion and an invisibility potion, later allowing him to remain both impossible to spot and also impossible to kill off during every single one of his future human hunts throughout the whole rest of his lifespan.
- Played for Laughs: A number of humans see the werewolf in question while he's still hiding within the distant shadows, and then they all laugh and make fun of him for not ever fully showing himself by then.
- Played for Drama: The humans soon become fully aware of the werewolf's general hunting tactics, so they then keep a far closer eye out for different bits and pieces of his body showing up within their different respective fields of vision, also allowing them to more effectively fight back against him to the point of him not ever even being fully seen at all prior to his death.
- Played for Horror: The werewolf deliberately hides himself in order to be able to invoke a greater sense of Nothing Is Scarier so that he can remain as scary as possible to his human prey from them not even knowing that he's actually a werewolf at all to start with, and that then allows the eventual revelation as to what he truly is to even send some of his intended victims into lethal panic attacks.
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