History Main / PhantomZonePicture

* In Music/{{PVRIS}}' music video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4wo8VRCtSU "Anyone Else"]], each band member visits a room with a painting that comes to life and traps them in the frame.

* In one Comicbook/DoomPatrol story, the heroes had to save ''the entire city of Paris'' from being trapped in a magic painting by the [[CloudCuckooLander Brotherhood of Dada]] (who are based on an actual artistic movement.)

* ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse'':

* One episode of ''Series/NightGallery'' offered a surprisingly pleasant take on this trope. A middle-aged man named Joseph Strobe discovers a beautiful, idyllic painting of a man fishing in a lake in a Buenos Aires museum. He's captivated by the image and begins to see himself literally inside of it. As the episode progresses, the truth comes out: "Strobe" is actually a former Nazi and concentration camp commander, who escaped to Argentina to avoid punishment. When Strobe eventually snaps and murders an elderly Jewish man who's figured out his identity, he flees from the authorities and enters the room with "his" painting, and finally manages to permanently will himself into it...[[spoiler: but the fishing painting has been replaced with one showing a ''crucifixion'', and [[KarmicTwistEnding Strobe finds himself doomed to eternally suffer for his crimes.]]]]

* This trope is named for the visual effect used to depict people trapped in the Phantom Zone in ''Series/{{Smallville}}.'' It's pretty much the same as in the ChristopherReeve movies.

* An interesting variation occurs in "Portrait in Brown", an episode of ''Series/MyFavoriteMartian''. Uncle Martin (the Martian) is using his dimensional separator, when the landlady Mrs. Brown walks into the room and is reduced to two dimensions. To prevent her from injuring herself, Uncle Martin freezes Mrs. Brown and paints a quick portrait around her to hide the fact she's been frozen in 2D. As, of course, Martin (and, all Martians for that matter) are friendly and superior, this is only used as a temporary measure until Martin can effect a cure.

* ''TheWitches'' by Roald Dahl has an anecdote about a girl who was trapped in a picture by a witch. She was seen to age in the painting and moved around (but no one actually saw her move), eventually disappearing altogether. In the book she accepted an apple from a witch, in TheMovie she was simply grabbed off the street, she was going to buy some milk in both instances.

* [[Literature/ThroughTheLookingGlass Lewis Carroll's mirror]] turns out to be one of these in ''{{Warehouse 13}}''.

-->-- '''Ravio''', VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkBetweenWorlds

* ''VideoGame/{{The7thGuest}}'' uses a type three in a couple of eerie paintings inside Stauf's Mansion. The first one shows hands trying to push through the picture but to no avail; and the second, of Stauf himself, has a puzzle of restoring his face to human features, and once that's solved, he attempts to attack the player while clinging to the painting's background. The basement maze's background music playing overtop truly makes it NightmareFuel.

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* In ''Anime/YuGiOh'', people's souls were often trapped within playing cards. The card art looked much like paintings of said souls. When empty, they resemble regular duel cards with a blank picture where the soul will be.
* In ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'', this is done via technology embedded in the disks; it's the ''de facto'' was of dealing with an enemy in the Fusion Dimension, done by both factions.

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* ''[[Tabletopgame/DungeonsAndDragons Dungeons & Dragons]]'' has the ''Mirror of Life Trapping'', which can imprison multiple victims who look into it.

* ''[[WarhammerFantasyRoleplay WFRP]]'' has a (cursed) painting known as ''The Blessed Ones'', which shows an idyllic landscape with beautiful and lifelike figures apparently enjoying all the comforts of paradise, and each attended by a strange ethereal spirit. It is said to grant eternal life to its owner if they perform a particular ritual. [[GenreBlindness The fact that many of the painting's former owners have disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and that many of the figures share a strong resemblance to said former owners is pure coincidence]], and the [[TooDumbToLive claims that each person depicted shows every sign of enjoyment but a look of terror and pain in their eyes is pure rumour]]. In fact, the daemons of the painting can leave it if blood is spilled on the canvas, and will [[AndIMustScream drag the blood's owner into the painting to join the others]].

* In ''Anima/YuGiOhArcV'', this is done via technology embedded in the disks; it's the ''de facto'' was of dealing with an enemy in the Fusion Dimension, done by both factions.

* In White Wolf's Exalted, on of the Sidereal Marial Arts charms Vanished Within The Glass of Obsidian Shards of Infinity Style draws your target into a mirror dimension where they are unable to interact with anything.

* In ''{{Bionicle}}'', Teridax does this to Miserix by forcing him to shapeshift into a Picasso-type picture, combined with a Mind Rape that convinces Miserix that he's dead and unable to move. He gets better.

* Vigo the Carpathian used a painting of himself as a SoulJar in the second ''Film/{{Ghostbusters}}'' movie.

* At the end of one ''Challenge of the SuperFriends'' episode, Green Lantern captures Lex Luthor by turning him into a hundred-dollar bill. He is now flat and green.

** Graham Masterton's ''Family Portrait'' has an entire family of sociopaths using this method, named after Dorian Gray.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' uses the fourth type extensively, however, Mario is never trapped. Bowser used the paintings as zones to control the Stars that powered Peach's castle. It's DS remake, however, played with this trope by having pictures of the captured playable characters holding the bosses that have the keys to their actual prisons, not the characters themselves.

** Similarly, another game by the same studio, ''Soul Blazer'', featured a scientist trapped in his own painting (A type 4), an abstract piece titled "The World of Evil." A couple of his town models had also been made into portals, but no one particular was trapped in them.