History Main / ShadowDiscretionShot

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' - Dhoulmagus repeatedly murders people by running them through with a long magical staff, and this trope comes into play each time this happens.

** The page image comes from "Feat of Clay". Matt Hagen's desperate attempt to steal Roland Daggett's Renuyu (a salve that temporarily turns a person's skin into something malleable like clay) after his supply was cut ends poorly when Daggett catches him in the act. His goons attempt to ''drown'' Hagen in Renuyu. This backfires when the overdose transforms Hagen into the shapeshifting menace Clayface.

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6vdg2ytDy0 7th life]] of ''WesternAnimation/{{Garfield|Specials}}: His 9 Lives'' has this during the final shots of a PainfulTransformation (though doesn't reduce the horror considering ''[[TransformationTrauma what is shown]]'' and the overall tension of the segment).

* VideoGame/{{D|evilMayCry}}ante does this to Patty in the first episode of ''Anime/DevilMayCryTheAnimatedSeries'', using a theatre backdrop while taking on the demons trying to kill her.

* ''Series/FraggleRock'': In the episode "Red-Handed and the Invisible Thief", Red wakes up to find her radish bars missing and assumes someone stole them. When no one will confess, Red sets a trap in her room, putting two radish bars by her bed as bait, just before she and Mokey lie down for a nap. The camera moves around the room to show Lanford, Mokey, and Red asleep, then focuses on the radish bars, in a handkerchief next to a flickering lantern. Next, the camera moves away from the radish bars, so that all that can be seen is the shadow of the lantern. Moments later, the shadow of a hand reaches in, picking up a radish bar. This scenario is repeated during their second nap, after Red puts Wembley's radish bars out as bait and has him watch from hiding.

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6vdg2ytDy0 7th life]] of ''WesternAnimation/{{Garfield}}: His 9 Lives'' has this during the final shots of a PainfulTransformation (though doesn't reduce the horror considering ''[[TransformationTrauma what is shown]]'' and the overall tension of the segment).

Compare and contrast with GoryDiscretionShot and SoundOnlyDeath. Played for laughs or deception, you end up with BigShadowLittleCreature. See also TheShadowKnows. Not to be confused with CensorShadow (in which the scene is viewed directly with key portions hidden in shadow). Related to VomitDiscretionShot but obviously less horrifying. Compare SexySilhouette, which is used in a similar fashion to suggest but not outright display nudity.

* In ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist'' in a flashback scene where Colonel Mustang is about to immolate a ChildSoldier with his flame alchemy, the camera suddenly pans off to the side at the critical moment, showing the wall behind them lighting up and his shadow stretching.

Compare and contrast with GoryDiscretionShot and SoundOnlyDeath. Played for laughs or deception, you end up with BigShadowLittleCreature. See also TheShadowKnows. Not to be confused with CensorShadow (in which the scene is viewed directly with key portions hidden in shadow). Related to VomitDiscretionShot but obviously less horrifying.

* Used in ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''. Zaphod's second head is cut off behind a curtain, and the viewer just sees silhouettes and hears [[MadDoctor the sound of the surgical instruments]] [[StrappedToAnOperatingTable and Zaphod pleading]] [[NothingIsScarier and]]...

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' uses this trope liberally, and it fits quite well with the series' {{Film Noir}}-inspired aesthetic:

* The ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' episode "Crash" uses one PlayedForLaughs. Gizmo refuses to help the virus-infected Cyborg until Raven pulls off her hood...the shadow implies what Gizmo sees is some sort of Lovecraftian horror. A completely terrified Gizmo agrees to help rather than be subjected to it again.

-->'''Porky Pig:''' Shadowboxing! ''(laughs)'' [[{{LampshadeHanging}} This way no one gets hurt!]]

* ''{{WesternAnimation/Steven Universe}}'': In "Steven the Sword Fighter", when Holo-Pearl impales Pearl, part of the scene is shown as shadow.

* This is how turning into a toadstool is shown in ''{{WesternAnimation/Toad Patrol}}''.

* ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail 3: Treasure of Manhattan Island'' has a scene where one of main villains, NYPD chief Chief Mc Brusque, and one of his men beat a mouse that is smaller than either of them because he was protesting. To be even more brutal, the protestor had big glasses that after the beating were broken.

* Several times in ''Film/TheMummy1999'', Anck Su Namun and Imnotep killing the Pharaoh ''starts'' with us seeing it, but then changes to this. [[spoiler: Anck Su Namun's suicide]] is done this way, so we just see the silhouette lifting the knife and striking. Likewise, the Mummy's absorption of one of the doomed Americans is done with shadows only. And the [[spoiler:destruction of Anck Su Namun's animated corpse]] is shown entirely in shadow. The ''same way'' the Pharaoh was killed in fact.

** Also used in a flashback episode showing how Yuugi's grandfather found the Millenium Puzzle, when his companion betrays Yuugi's grandfather, shooting him and attempting to steal the Puzzle, the tomb's curses summon up an insect monster that dismembers and eats him, showing only the shadow of this happening (though we still get to [[{{Squick}} hear]] it just fine).

---> "They let me off with a warning, but my shadow wasn't so lucky."

* In ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'', [[spoiler:Arthas stabbing his father]] was shown this way.
* The company logo for Darkling Room shows a bare-headed man's silhouette standing in a doorway; his shadow, cast on the floor by the light from the door, is wearing a hat. Similar hats are worn by the evil ghosts of the [[spoiler: Ager brothers]] in Darkling's game, ''The Lost Crown: A Ghost-Hunting Adventure''.

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' - Dhoulmagus repeatedly murders people by running them through with a long magical staff, and this trope comes into play each time this happens.

* Happens several times in the horror-sci-fi AdventureGame ''VideoGame/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream'', when a particularly awful event is happening, such as a merciless stabbing, a rape or a wolf attack.
* This happens in the cutscene before your first terror mission in ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown''. A man is cornered by [[DemonicSpiders Chryssalids]] in an alleyway, and his brutal death is shown in silhouette.
* In ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter 2'', Stevens executes an innocent police officer, with shadows and the bright muzzle flash showing the act.
* ''VideoGame/SandsOfDestruction'' uses this in the Valley of the Dragons, when Naja [[spoiler:kills Kyrie: we see the silhouette, but Naja's claw is quite clearly going through Kyrie's chest]].
* ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal Black'' gives us Mr. Grimm's flashback to when he and his squadmate Benny were trapped in a hole in Vietnam. When Benny dies from his injuries and Grimm has been starving long enough for self-preservation to win out, his [[ImAHumanitarian consumption of Benny's corpse]] is presented this way.

* ''WesternAnimation/ToddMcFarlanesSpawn'' uses this trope frequently. One prime example comes from the very first episode, just a couple of minutes in. Spawn bends a mob enforcer's arm back at an impossible angle and makes him [[HoistByHisOwnPetard shoot himself with his own gun]]. But, perhaps the best example comes from episode 11 (Season 2, Episode 5); after [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown protecting]] [[BerserkButton Wanda]] from one of [[spoiler: Jason Wynn's]] assassins, Spawn finishes the guy off by lifting him into the air with his chains and ''snapping him in half''! While both of these deaths are shown only in shadow, Wanda witnesses the latter firsthand, and is justifiably [[StunnedSilence horrified at the sight]].

** The ComicBookAdaptation of ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV'' ended up ''completely'' [[SubvertedTrope subverting the tropes in question]] via ramping up the violence and gore UpToEleven and depicting the scene (in what was already a BloodierAndGorier adaptation) in what is easily the bloodiest scene in the entire manga--apparently as a ''very'' deliberate TakeThat to the international censorship.