History Main / DeadlyPrank

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': Provides the motive for murder in "Death's Shadow". A group of schoolboys decide to haze an unpopular boy who wanted to join their gang by making him undergo an initiation. They make him stand on a rickety chair, blindfolded, with his hands tied behind his back and a noose round his neck. They then leave him for hour, planning to make him think they had abandoned him and panic. However, when they return, they discover he has fallen off the chair and slowly strangled. They remove the blindfold and untie his hands so it looks like he committed suicide. Decades later, these events will come home to roost...

* Subverted in ''Fanfic/TheCuriousCaseOfMrPamuk''. Bates reveals that [[spoiler:Evelyn Napier tried to play a trick on Kemal Pamuk by drugging him with laudanum but mixed it with Pamuk's aconite heart medication. However, it turns out that Napier had been ordered to assassinate Pamuk, and let Bates believe Pamuk's death was an accident.]]

* ''Webcomic/BooItsSex'': Tara is the ghost of a sorority girl who died when an unspecified prank went too far.

*** Anything more than a few drops of many eyedrops formulas, including Visine, will cause death by shutting down the nervous system. Nothing more is necessary. See the Visine example below in the Real Life section.

* ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainBoilingPoint'' [[ForWantOfANail practically happens thanks to one of these]]: Boscha prepares a potion that can revive a [[PlantPerson Mandragora]], which she tricks Amity into reviving. The revived Mandragora nearly ''endangers the school'' until Principal Bump rips its heart out, and in the aftermath of the prank, [[LaserGuidedKarma Boscha gets suspended]].

* ''Film/HalloweenEnds'': In the beginning, a kid named Jeremy tricks his babysitter, Corey, by pretending to go missing, then locks him in the attic while mocking him. Corey angrily kicks the door open, and the door hits Jeremy and knocks him over a staircase railing to his death.

* ''[[LetsPlay/LifeSMP 3rd Life SMP]]'': The first death on the server is caused by Grian leading a [[ActionBomb creeper]] over to a cluster of players to scare them, then setting it off by accident, blowing [=GoodTimesWithScar=] up. This ultimately kick-starts the plotline of the season.

* In the HalloweenEpisode of ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'', Bloo pulls the old snake-in-a-can gag on Mr. Herriman. Herriman has a heart attack and dies, and Bloo hastily buries him in the yard. Herriman then comes back from the dead and unleashes a ZombieApocalypse. No, really! [[spoiler:Well, not really. In the end, it all turns out to be a prank pulled on Bloo by the whole house, only ''it'' backfires when Bloo unleashes a berserk Mac (hopped up on candy) upon them.]]

* ''[[LetsPlay/LifeSMP 3rd Life SMP]]'': The first death on the server is caused by Grian leading a [[ActionBomb creeper]] over to a cluster of players to scare them, then setting it off by accident, blowing Scar up. This ultimately kick-starts the plotline of the season.

* In ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'' there is a ghost on Tsurumi Island named Rero who loves to play pranks on anyone, and proves to be an even worse prankster than [[TheGadfly Hu Tao]], since some of his pranks include potentially ''lethal'' ones. To elaborate; his idea of a prank is to sic a '''Lawachurl''' on the Traveler and co while they are digging up treasure from his wife's grave (at Rero's behest), nevermind that such a beast can and will maim and pulverize anyone on their path. The Traveler can call him out for this, but his response makes it very clear he [[TheUnapologetic shows no remorse for his actions]].

* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': One episode has a middle school girl go missing during a day of pranking from her friends. At first, it seems like she's been abducted by a man they dared her to go up and kiss, but they eventually reveal that he wasn't involved. When they then made her run around on the bleachers in the gym, she slipped and hit her head, killing her.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Combine this trope with TeensAreMonsters and GayngstInducedSuicide, and you have the story of [[http://abcnews.go.com/US/victim-secret-dorm-sex-tape-commits-suicide/story?id=11758716 Tyler Clementi.]] Tyler's roommate filmed Tyler and another man having a sexual encounter and posted it on Facebook. Tyler got so much negative reaction that [[DrivenToSuicide he killed himself]].
* [[http://www.newser.com/story/87719/man-dies-after-friends-insert-eel-in-his-rectum.html This story]] about a man who got drunk and passed out, and his friends stuck a 20-inch live eel [[AssShove in his anus]]. The eel proceeded to [[CruelAndUnusualDeath EAT HIS INSIDES, resulting in his death]]. The above-mentioned episode of ''Series/OneThousandWaysToDie'' titled "Eel Effects" seems to be based on this.
* During the TroubledProduction of ''Film/{{Titanic 1997}}'', disgruntled crew members put phenylcyclohexyl piperidine (PCP, aka angel dust) in the crew's ''soup.'' The main target, Creator/JamesCameron, vomited upon ingestion, while over 50 others were hospitalized.
* Two Australian [=DJs=] made a prank call to the hospital Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, was staying in with morning sickness. The receptionist who answered the call fell for the prank and divulged confidential information. Two days later, the receptionist was found dead in her home after committing suicide.
* There have been numerous cases of people putting Visine in drinks, thinking that it's a harmless diuretic. [[http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/visine.asp It's actually a poison that can kill and induce comas]]. For this reason, this and any other kind of LaxativePrank has been outlawed in many US states.
* Thirteen members of the Florida A&M University Marching Band faced various criminal charges up to and including manslaughter in the death of their drum major, Robert Champion, after a prank on a school bus went horribly wrong. (In Florida, the hazing itself is a third-degree felony, whether Champion had died or not.) An InitiationCeremony involving a beating endured at the hands of other band mates was taken way too far; the bus was literally ''shaking'' with the force of the violence and Champion passed out from his injuries shortly after and died on the way to the hospital.
* One of the many popular myths about the pagan festival of Samhain is that the celebrants were legally permitted to commit grotesque and often lethal pranks on anyone who violated SacredHospitality during the festival, which is said to be the root of Trick or Treating in modern Halloween celebrations. [[CommonKnowledge This doesn't appear to have actually been the case]]; pranks (of a decidedly less deadly variety) were probably part of the celebration, but more akin to the way wassailing is in modern day Christmas celebrations.
* On 18 January 1977, legendary Lazio footballer Luciano Re Cecconi, who had a reputation as a prankster, decided it would be a brilliant idea to put on some ski masks and pretend to rob a jewelry store owned by teammate Bruno Tabochini. They were unaware that the store had been robbed for real a few weeks previously, and that Tabochini had bought a shotgun to defend himself from future robberies. When Tabochini pulled the shotgun, Re Cecconi's friends abandoned the prank, but Re Cecconi (perhaps thinking Tabochini was playing along) did not. He was promptly shot in the chest and fatally wounded, with his LastWords reportedly being, "It was just a joke!"
* In 1994, a teenage girl named Matilda Crabtree decided to play a prank on her parents by hiding in a closet, planning to jump out and scare them when they came home. But her father Bobby thought she was staying at a friend's house, and when he came home and heard noise in the house, he assumed it was an intruder. When she jumped out at him, he fatally shot her.
* ''Swatting'' is a term where perpetrators would deceive an Emergency Services into sending [[SWATTeam SWAT Teams]] onto someone else's home (hence the name) as a prank just to [[ForTheEvulz get a kick out of it]] often at the expense of both the victims and the SWAT Officers involved (as it amounts to wasting resources and assets). Since the SWAT are trained to engage armed suspects this squares firmly to this trope (especially for livestreamers).
** For example, on December 28th, 2017, a bet over a game of ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' [[https://nypost.com/2017/12/29/prank-stemming-from-call-of-duty-bet-leads-to-deadly-police-shooting/ led to police receiving a fake emergency call, which resulted in an innocent man being gunned down by the authorities]].
* In 2017, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsUQ-raEDbU five teens were charged with second-degree murder]] for "dinging" a car (dropping a rock on the windshield) at highway speeds from an overpass, killing a father of four.
* Many birthday party pranks involving spraying somebody with silly string can turn into a burning nightmare when said silly string ''easily'' catches fire from the birthday candles.
* The ultimate Deadly Prank is perhaps the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Kim_Jong-nam assassination in 2017 of Kim Jong-nam]], the more so that the assassins ''thought'' they were only pulling a prank. Kim was the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, and the half-brother of current leader Kim Jong-un. He was at Kuala Lumpur International Airport when two young women came up behind him and splashed some liquid on his face in a "Guess Who?!" prank, then walked away. He immediately felt something was wrong, and contacted a receptionist, but he was soon sweaty, unresponsive and vomiting blood. He was dead within two hours. The two young woman, Siti Aisyah and Đoàn Thị Hương, were quickly identified and arrested from CCTV footage. It turned out that they had been training--or so they thought--to be on a prank TV show, and had been under the impression that they were simply pranking some random guy. The liquid they had splashed on Kim had been the deadly VX nerve agent. Their handlers, the people who'd persuaded them that it was all for an innocent TV show, were never found. The court eventually concluded that there was zero evidence that either of the women had the faintest idea that they were committing a murder. Siti Aisyah's charge was dropped, and Đoàn Thị Hương was released after little more than a year in prison.
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If you're in a drama, you will most likely have to deal with the fallout, emotional and otherwise, of what you've done, with plenty of {{Anvilicious}} CantGetAwayWithNuthin overtones. And god help you if this happens in a horror movie, as chances are excellent that your victim or one of their loved ones will come after your sorry hide for some [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge very bloody vengeance]], even if they have to [[BackFromTheDead rise up from the grave]] to do it.

Contrast YouthIsWastedOnTheDumb. This is often also TrickedToDeath, especially if the death is intentional. The variants of ShockParty wherein someone gets killed could be considered an example of this, as well, depending on the setup for the "surprise". For nonlethal instances, see PrankInjuries. The PrankGoneTooFar runs in the other direction: it impacts the ''mood'' of the victim more than it does their body parts.

* The high school film ''Film/{{Jawbreaker}}'' features the main characters staging a kidnapping for their friend's birthday. Unfortunately, this goes horribly wrong when their friend ends up [[DiedOnThierBirthday dying on her birthday]] after she chokes on the jawbreaker that they were using to gag her.