Scream Discretion Shots in Live-Action Films.
- The Real Life documentary 9/11, which contains the only footage from inside the World Trade Center before they collapsed: When Jules enters the lobby a woman was screaming, on fire.Jules Naudet: There was a person that was on fire just out of shot, and I decided that I didn't want to film that. I said, "No one should see this".
- The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension: When Lizardo puts a lectroid taser at Buckaroo's crotch, the shot pulls back to Buckaroo's wide eyes and his screaming mouth.
- Alien features this at the death of Lambert. The camera cuts away from the Alien doing horrible things, to Ripley who reacts to Lambert's lingering death scream. There's another death wherein the camera cuts away from the death to the cat, who is curled up cringing in fear but unable to look away from the horror.
- A particularly frightening example occurs in the notorious 1977 public information film Apaches, when Sharon wakes up screaming and crying in pain and calling for her mother in the middle of the night as the effects of the pesticide she unintentionally swallowed earlier that day, which would end up killing her, kick in. The only thing the viewer sees during that scene is the outside of her house as the lights turn on. This particular scene is one of the film's most nightmarish moments.
- In the opening scene of Batman Returns, when the Penguin was born, his father hears his wife screaming as she gives birth, followed by the sounds of squawking-like crying. As the doctor and his aid leave the bedroom, Mr. Cobblepot runs in...and we hear his horrified yelled as he sees how grotesque his newborn son is.
- Used for comedic effect in The Birdcage when Albert walks into the apartment which has been emptied in his presence.
- The Blob (1958): Admittedly this was because technology was limited at the time, so it couldn't show too much skin corrosive gore without, y'know, actually torturing the actors with acid. Whereas its 1988 remake left nothing to the imagination. But surprisingly enough, it actually works for the 1958 version in hindsight, because the viewer never seeing the blob eat its victims, makes it feel a lot more unknown and sinister. I.e. is it quick, is it painful? You don't know.
- Bordello of Blood:
- In the prologue, when Vincent offers the last of the expedition team to Lilith in return for her servitude. We see Lilith shooting out her tongue at said team member and him screaming before cutting to the Mummy and Cryptkeeper, the former telling the latter how the scene is playing out.
- Rafe has managed to sneak into the Bordello to look for clues where Catherine's brother, Caleb, disappeared. At one point he passes by a room where the vampiress, Lilith, is talking to a very unaware interviewee named Tammy who was recommended to work at the building. Rafe continues on, but as he's going downstairs, he hears Tammy suddenly scream followed by a loud, meaty thud. Considering we see Lilith a moment later, picking her teeth, it's not hard to guess what happened.
- The directors of Captain America: The Winter Soldier credited The Empire Strikes Back with providing the base inspiration for their own horrifying scene, in which the titular Winter Soldier, who has just been revealed to be Bucky Barnes as an amnesiac Sympathetic Sentient Weapon, gets his memories painfully erased while the camera follows Big Bad Alexander Pierce strolling away as if he can't even hear the screaming.
- The Count Yorga film The Return of Count Yorga opens with one of the orphans, Tommy, playing with his ball near an abandoned graveyard just as Yorga is summoning his vampire brides to rise from their graves. When Tommy eventually notices them, he quickly flees only to run into Yorga himself in complete vamp Game Face. As Tommy screams, it cuts to the local fundraiser party.
- The famous scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off when Cameron finds out that the valet stole his dad's car.
- The scene would be parodied on Family Guy with Brian being the one who screams.
- In A Field in England, the alchemist O'Neill takes his prisoner Whitehead into a tent. There is a long moment with the other prisoners covering their ears while Whitehead's horrific screams can be heard... and then he emerges from the tent in a strange trance. The audience never learns what happened inside the tent. Although given O'Neill's creepy I Have You Now, My Pretty attitude towards Whitehead in an earlier conversation, some viewers have speculated it was very nasty indeed...
- The Grey Zone: Set during the Auschwitz-Birkenau uprising of 1944 and shown from the point of view of the Jewish prisoners who were forced to assist in the killing, there are two scenes which use this. There's the collective screaming that Hoffman hears coming from the gas chamber after the door is locked, and an earlier scene where Simon listens to the screams of a nightly group.
- Jurassic Park:
- In Jurassic Park (1993), when Dennis Nedry gets a nasty surprise in the form of a Dilophosaurus eating him in the Jeep, the camera pans toward the ground as the Jeep is shaking wildly and he's screaming.
- In Jurassic World, a worker is grabbed by the Indominus Rex while he and Owen are searching its enclosure. The scene cuts to the control room as they listen to the poor sap being ripped to pieces.
- In Loose Screws, this takes place when Steve Hardman got whacked in the groin when a golf ball lands near that area while he is still lying down on the ground in the woods and the golfer persists in playing it where the ball lies, cutting to a shot outside the woods soon after the golfer starts his swing.
- Men in Black II: When Serleena eats the mugger at the beginning we don't see it directly. Instead, the mugger grabs her and holds her at knife point and drags her behind a huge bush completely obscuring the two from the audience. Then we hear the mugger suddenly become panicked and his legs fly up in the air kicking weakly. We hear his screams over the sounds of Serleena swallowing him whole as his boots are sucked down behind the bush. Serleena then confidently struts out from behind the bush with her stomach now large and distended.Mugger: Hey, what the—?! Urgh, aaahhh!
- Midsommar: This happens not long after one of the visitors to the commune, Connie, tries to leave. Her blood curdling screams are later heard by three different characters. We don't see Connie again until the final 10 minutes of the movie where she is now a bloated, waterlogged corpse being carted in a wheelbarrow by a cultist, confirming she was violently drowned off screen by members of the cult.
- Serves as a crucial moment in Mister Frost. A psychiatrist treating a patient/Serial Killer who claims to be Satan is approached by a former police officer who apparently believes the same. He gives her a video that the killer gave to him — a "home movie" he shot of his crimes. She watches the video, but we never see it. Instead, we hear screams in the background as her face contorts in horror.
- Madison's death in My Super Psycho Sweet 16.
- The Night of the Hunter applies this to a scene in which Rachel Cooper, sitting up all night with a shotgun to protect her adoptive children from a Serial Killer, notices an owl catching a rabbit. We never see the two animals in the same shot, but we see the owl swoop from a tree branch, and then we see Rachel's tired, unhappy face as the rabbit squeals in pain."It's a hard world for little things."
- Subverted in No Such Thing, when Beatrice must undergo spinal surgery without the use of anesthetics. Moments before the surgeons make the first incision, the camera cuts to the doctors watching from the gallery and the diegetic soundtrack drops out. The observing doctor's reaction to her screaming is enough to signal how painful the surgery is. The director stated that this was intentional: after all, Nothing Is Scarier.
- In Nope, this is what happens when the UFO sucks up its victims, whose horrific screaming can be heard for hours as the creature slowly digests them.
- Raiders of the Lost Ark uses this for comedic effect for the scene on the ship out of Egypt. Marion rotates a mirror — banging Indy in the face. Hard. Cut to a shot of the ship from the outside with Indy's howling scream audible.Marion: What'd you say?
- In Reservoir Dogs, the camera "looks away" as Mr. Blonde hacks off Marvin's ear. Quicky subverted, though, as Mr. Blonde walks back into frame to show the aftereffects.
- The Apocalyptic Log on Miranda from Serenity (2005) ends with the speaker trying to shoot herself before the Reavers get her. She's not quick enough. We don't see what happens next — but the Serenity crew does, and it's apparently horrifying enough to get tough-guy Jayne to say "Turn it off."
- Star Wars:
- A New Hope: Darth Vader and a torture droid enter Leia's cell, and then the door slams shut, and the camera follows a guard walking past.
- The Empire Strikes Back: When Han is being tortured, we can still see him when it just starts - resisting. Then flinching, then trembling and gasping in pain, and then, just before he loses control, it cuts to the passageway, where Lando Calrissian and Boba Fett can now hear him screaming through the walls.
- In The Stepford Wives (2004), when Joanna gets fired from her job as a TV executive, she puts on a cheerful smile and acts understandable. After she steps into the elevator and the doors close on her, however, she lets out a loud, piercing, pained scream while having a complete breakdown.
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street does this with the rape of Lucy Barker at the climax of the "Poor Thing" scene, not showing us anything beyond Judge Turpin descending upon her with the big cloak, showing us instead the nightmarish image of the masked crowd surrounding them and laughing at her, as well as the Beadle's sinisterly grinning face. We do get to hear Lucy's screams as the flashback/musical number concludes, as well as Sweeney's Big "NO!" when the scene snaps back to the present.
- Trading Places: When the Dukes see that their plan to corner the frozen concentrate orange juice market has backfired, sending them into financial ruin, Mortimer Duke absolutely loses it.Mortimer: Now, you listen to me! I want trading reopened right now! Get those brokers back in here! Turn those machines back on! (cuts away) TURN THOSE MACHINES BACK ON!!!
- Venom (2018): The first trailer
ends with Eddie grabbing an attacker by the throat, going full Venom, and slowly slithering his tongue toward the man's face. The screen cuts to black and the man's scream is heard along with a monstrous roaring/growling sound effect. However, the scene in the final film (part of which is more accurately depicted in the second trailer) only sees Venom lick the villain's face before being shot at by someone else before he can do anything else to the would-be victim. - In War of the Worlds (2005), Ogilvy's death plays out like this. When Ray goes into the room and closes the door behind him, we hear a few grunts followed by Ogilvy screaming, while Rachel holds her ears tighter and sings louder to block it out. We don't hear anything else.
