The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You / Theme Parks

• Disney Theme Parks
  • On Hollywood Studios' The Great Movie Ride: Halfway through your friendly tour guide goes off to investigate something and has the tour get hijacked by a far less benevolent movie character—depending on which ride vehicle you're in, it's either a gangster or a cowboy. The tour guide winds up dealing with them in the Raiders of the Lost Ark scene.
  • In Hollywood Studios' Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!, a "hapless tourist" (i.e. a cast member dressed up as such) is called down from the audience to demonstrate fight choreography and is "beaten to a pulp" by Marion's stunt actress.
  • Disneyland's version of Snow White's Scary Adventures at first makes it seem as if you're just a mere observer of the famous story unfolding... until, towards the middle of the ride, the Evil Queen offers you the poisoned apple.
  • In the 3-D Movie Short Film Honey, I Shrunk the Audience (multiple parks), mice pouring out of a duplicating machine "jump" into the theater...something ( relax, rat-phobics and animal lovers, it's just puffs of harmless air) brushes past the spectators' legs row by row! And soon afterward...just look at the title. And there's a hungry python on the loose by then...but all ends well for the audience — unless they're not fans of dog sneezes.
  • It's Tough to Be a Bug! (American parks) has similar effects built into the seats. They fit the trope especially well, since one can cause actual discomfort - there are rods that poke out of the back of the seat to simulate giant bee stings. At this particular point, it's common to see most of the audience lean forward. Also, the announcement at the end "All bugs leave in an orderly fashion first" ...cue waves of bumps running under your feet. It counts on viewers hearing the announcement about the bugs leaving and lifting their feet... which in turn makes them fail to prepare for the simulation of bugs running across the seats themselves.
  • Muppet*Vision 3D (American parks) also has its perils. In this case, though, while the fourth wall won't save you, Rule of Funny will; the only thing that happens to the audience is getting squirted by a gag lapel flower, because the rest of the time, the Muppets are too busy inflicting their shenanigans on each other to bother the audience.
  • Alien Encounter (Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom) took this one step further. The audience was actually strapped into their seats for the show, which is supposed to be an exhibition of an alien creature. But there's a reason there were harnesses on the seats... They kept you from fleeing in terror as the alien escaped, as well as preventing you from turning around to watch the alien as it circled the perimeter of the now-darkened theater. The harnesses were rigged to puff warm air on the back of your neck as the alien stalks, simulating it moving behind you, and when a technician tried to fix the lights and turn them back on, he was devoured messily by the alien (one couldn't see the struggle but certainly HEARD it, and saw his flashlight wavering) and the audience was sprayed with a liquid in the dark — supposedly the hapless man's blood. The warnings outside of the ride about how it might be frightening for small children were very much there for a reason. Its subsequent Lighter and Softer Retool Stitch's Great Escape! toned this down (though not enough for the warnings to be dropped); the biggest threat here is getting a chili dog belch in one's face.
  • One of the oldest examples is the final stretch of The Haunted Mansion, when the Lemony Narrator warns of the ghosts coming home with you uninvited just before passing mirrors which reflect ghosts sitting in the cars beside passengers. In the newest update to the Florida version of the ride, one of the effects has you look into the mirror to see the "hitchhiking ghost" pull your head off and exchange it for his.
    • The Parisian counterpart Phantom Manor has the Phantom turning his attentions to the riders halfway through, digging an open grave for the vehicles to descend into the Underworld. Upon leaving the western ghost town, he gestures to an open grave as if trying to snatch guests away, but the skeletal spectre of the Bride Melanie appears to point out an escape route, though the traditional mirror hallway features the Phantom clinging onto the backs of the Doombuggies to try and follow the riders home. After the 2019 refurbishment, the Stretching room, instead of the Phantom hanging Melanie's fiancee, now holds an empty noose while looking directly down at the guests, and Melanie replaces the Phantom in the mirror hallway begging guests to marry her so she can leave the Manor.
  • Pooh's Hunny Hunt (Tokyo Disneyland) has this during the "Heffalumps and Woozles" portion, in which a family of them is riding in a honey pot alongside the guests (the youngster even has a camera and Mickey hat). Also, if you look into a mirror, you can see an animated heffalump drinking the honey out of your pot.
  • In Star Tours, one of the riders is selected to be a rebel spy. Unfortunately, this also means that the most terrifying villains in the Star Wars series are after them, including, but not limited to, Boba Fett, Kylo Ren, and Darth Vader himself, putting the entire audience in jeopardy as C-3PO and R2 try to escape.
  • In another Star Wars attraction, Rise of the Resistance, riders are taken prisoner by the First Order themselves on-board a Star Destroyer. In a particularly jarring sequence, riders are greeted by an entire squad of animatronic Stormtroopers and led to an interrogation room. Luckily, Finn manages to break them out and helps them to escape the spacecraft. However, this is only the beginning as a good portion of the rest of the ride is spent avoiding troopers and Kylo Ren himself, who chases after the riders like a slasher villain.
• Tactile effects are popular in 3-D attractions (often labelled "4-D"). Shrek 4D at Universal Studios and Borg Invasion in the (now closed) Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas are two more examples.
• At an Alien vs. Predator performance the Predator actor would routinely walk among the audience and scare them.
• In haunt events such as Universal's Halloween Horror Nights and Busch Gardens' Howl-O-Scream, there's some shows where a "plant" in the audience (an actor dressed up as a regular guest) is forcibly brought up on stage and then "killed".
• The old Corkscrew Hill ride at Busch Gardens had a scene with a troll reaching into the (miniaturized) audience and picking up a generic CGI tourist, and another where a wicked witch stabs at the audience with a fork.
• The Revenge of the Mummy ride at Universal Studios Florida does this with a false ending halfway through. The ride comes to a stop at what looks to be the exit, with the ride operator telling guests "we hope you enjoyed your ride, please remain seated until-", at which point Imhotep disintegrates her, sets the ceiling on fire, and throws you into the ride's actual finale.
• In the Doctor Who Experience, guests are treated to a walkthrough attraction where they can come face to face with the likes of the Daleks and the Weeping Angels in the flesh. Just don't blink when they're in your line of sight...