History Main / TrailOfBlood

* While it's not technically blood, near the end of ''Film/ShortCircuit 2'' Johnny 5 [[spoiler:suffers damage to his battery before going on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, forcing the rest of the protagonists to follow the trail of battery acid and help him.]]

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''Anime/NinjaScroll''. Shijima leads off Jubei this way, by stabbing a fox. He then doubles back while Jubei is following the false trail and [[IHaveYourWife kidnaps Kagero]].

* Subverted in ''[[Literature/SwordOfTruth Temple of the Winds]]''. Kahlan and Nadine are tracking a badly wounded wizard through tunnels. When they reach a fork, Nadine says they should follow the path with blood... but Kahlan points out there was no blood before the fork, so it's obviously a false lead, and they should follow the other path - where there are no people.

* Invoked in an episode of ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}''. The title character creates a trail of fake blood drops out of chemicals found nearby to throw a pursuer off

* In ''VideoGame/BioShock'' these trails include everything from bloody footprints to messages written in it.
* ''VideoGame/BlameHim'': There's some streaks of blood on the floor of the room beyond the first code-locked door.
** There's another one on the floor of the room that contains the first enemy.

* ''Videogame/ThiefIITheMetalAge'' has a level ''called'' "Trail of Blood", in which you follow a wounded Pagan courier through a forest village and into [[spoiler:The Maw of Chaos]]. It ends when you catch up to your target and find he's bled out.
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[[folder:Web Original]]
* The prevalence of this trope in violence-based games is lampshaded in the ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' {{Machinima}} ''WebVideo/FreemansMind'', in which Freeman points out that normally he'd like to go away from the trails of bloody corpses, but has no choice because there's literally no other valid path to follow.

->'''Drake''': Hang on a moment. I smell something.\\
'''Mash''': What is it?\\
'''Drake''': Blood... Well, with my job, I'm used to smelling stuff like this.\\
'''Mash''': Look, the drops form a trail.\\
'''Drake''': Looks like the wound itself wasn't too bad. A flesh wound.\\
'''Mash''': It's our only clue. We should follow it!

* In ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'', during Izaya and Shizuo's final fight, [[spoiler:Izaya fails to kill Shizuo and is hit into a building with a metal beam. Izaya survives, but coughs up a pool of blood and leaves a trail as he tries to escape, making it easy for Shizuo to track him.]]

* In ''VideoGame/RimWorld'', injured colonists will leave these behind when fleeing a battle or returning home to rest.

** The Snow Demon Legend murder case has a variation, as the scenario in question involves "a trail of money bills with bloodstains", but the trope gets played straight otherwise. Kenmochi, a FriendOnTheForce to main protagonist [[AmateurSleuth Kindaichi]], discovers one such trail that leads into a room, where he finds the [[AnAxeToGrind axe]] the culprit has been using before spotting the corpse of a guy who fell victim to said axe.

* ''Film/BlackWidow2021'': In the Budapest subway, Taskmaster follows the trail of blood from Yelena's to an access hatch to the service tunnels, only to discover it is a FakeoutEscape, Natasha having bound the wound so they could hide in the [[AirVentEscape air vents above]].

* ''Film/BlackWidow2021'': In the Budapest subway, Taskmaster follows the trail of blood from Yelena's to an access hatch to the service tunnels, only to discover it is a FakeoutEscape.

Compare to DetectivesFollowFootprints, FootprintsOfMuck and TrailOfBreadCrumbs.

* The prevalence of this trope in violence-based games is lampshaded in the ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' {{Machinima}} ''Machinima/FreemansMind'', in which Freeman points out that normally he'd like to go away from the trails of bloody corpses, but has no choice because there's literally no other valid path to follow.

* ''VideoGame/SlideInTheWoods'': After your sixth ride down the slide, you see a trail of blood going up the slide steps and along the top of it. At the end is something moving in a burlap sack that gets dragged into the slide by creepy hands.

* A case arc in ''Manga/TheKindaichiCaseFiles'' has a variation, as the scenario in question involves "a trail of money bills with bloodstains", but the trope gets played straight otherwise. Kenmochi, a FriendOnTheForce to main protagonist [[AmateurSleuth Kindaichi]], discovers one such trail that leads into a room, where he finds the [[AnAxeToGrind axe]] the culprit has been using before spotting the corpse of a guy who fell victim to said axe.