History Main / MurderWater

* ''Film/Creepshow2'': The Raft segment is about a malevolent oil slick in malevolent water. "I beat you!"

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

For obvious reasons, ordinary water acting on its own will is hard to believe. This can be {{Justified}} with the explanation that someone or something is MakingASplash: the water is being possessed or manipulated by a malevolent force. If this thing or person can be stopped, the water will probably [[NoOntologicalInertia return to normal]].

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': The special "SpongeBob SquarePants vs. The Big One" has the eponymous "Big One", a sentient and evil gigantic wave with a demonic face that forms every 1000 years, known for always demanding a HeroicSacrifice and literally eats and kills anyone who rides it.

When HazardousWater indirectly trying to kill you isn't good enough, it's time to take this to the extreme: The water itself has somehow developed a mind of its own. Current desire? Kill the meatbags.

For obvious reasons, actual water trying to murder someone is a little unlikely, so a common [[HandWave workaround]] is that the water is being possessed or manipulated by a malevolent force — in which case, the only way to stop it is by [[NoOntologicalInertia taking out whoever is doing the controlling]]. (This doesn't always mean ''killing'' them; sometimes the heroes can reach an agreement, such as doing a favor or request in return for stopping the water's deadly rampage.)

Compare and contrast EvilLivingFlames and LivingLava.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' has [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3280 SCP-3280]], sentient water that turns ordinary water into more of itself. It has a fondness for live human prey and uses a silent OrificeInvasion to enter its victims, followed by a violent expulsion to kill them. Worse still, it is mentioned that it will cause an [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt XK-scenario]] if it ever escapes containment and infects all of Earth's water.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E16TheWatersOfMars "The Waters of Mars"]] has an ancient contagion released from beneath the surface of Mars that's so virulent that just one single drop can infect a victim completely. Oh, and turn them into a walking, bloated, terrifying zombie.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E2TheGhostMonument "The Ghost Monument"]]: The water on the planet Desolation isn't safe to even ''touch'' because of the huge numbers of flesh-eating bacteria in it.

* ''Series/H2OJustAddWater'': The overarching plot of the third season is a strange water tentacle that appears out of any body of water during the full moon and drags one of the girls to the Moon Pool. Rikki is grabbed and nearly drowns during the first encounter (mermaids breathe air, like dolphins), and when Bella is captured in a later episode, she's nearly dissolved into water by the tentacle. [[spoiler:Eventually subverted, the tentacle was the Moon Pool's means of getting the girls to see a prophecy involving a comet heading towards Earth]].
* ''Series/RoundTheTwist'': An non-lethal example appears in an episode featuring a vengeful water spirit using her water-controlling abilities against those she perceived as having damaged her stream by building a dam in it.
* The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "The Naked Time" has Polywater, which renders crewmen recklessly uninhibited. Normally, this just makes them seem obnoxiously drunk and short-tempered, but it causes one crewman (lightly implied to be a DeathSeeker) to literally lose the will to live. This is ''not'' the case in the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]'' episode "The Naked Now", which otherwise was pretty much a revisiting of the episode -- polywater was a proposed substance in the mid-late 60s, but it had been disproven only a few years after the original series went off the air, so "The Naked Now" retconned it to a virus found in water.

* ''Series/TheXFiles'': The episode "Aqua Mala" (Latin for "bad water") seems to have this in the most literal form. Mulder speculates that there was a sea monster carried from the sea by the hurricane. As usually, his guess is confirmed.

* ''Literature/TheCityOfBrass'': The lake on which [[CityOnTheWater Daevabad is built]] was {{curse}}d by the Marid {{Elemental Embodiment}}s. It looks normal, but any [[OurGeniesAreDifferent djinn]] who falls in is immediately sucked under and torn apart.

* ''Manga/OnePunchMan'': Being set in a world full of monsters, the story has its own evil aqua-based entity: [[spoiler:Evil Natural Water]]. Being merely a mass of sentient water with a pair of eyeballs, it's primary means of attack is to shoot out tendrils of high-velocity water at its opponent, hoping to pierce or otherwise harm them. It isn't as evil as it is bloodthirsty, and merely lies around until it senses murderous killing intent nearby.

* ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan'': Evil Natural Water is a monster made up of water that responds to the emotions of other people and attacks accordingly.

* A two-part ''WesternAnimation/GIJoe'' episode featured a plot to make Shipwreck believe he'd just woken from a decade-long coma as part of a plan to obtain the missing ingredient from a chemical formula that turned water into a weapon-grade explosive.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/MummiesAlive'' had [[BigBad Scarab]] unleash Nuhn, the spirit of primeval waters, on the town to capture Presley. Nuhn quickly decides he'd rather just absorb every last drop of water to [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt flood the entire world]] [[ForTheEvulz just for kicks]].

* The Puddlies from ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'' consist in a whole race of humanoid pygmies made of water and able to melt into puddles of water when they like. Normally shy and fearful, they can become a threat when they get serious, with their legendary hero Percemool being an actual warrior.
* One of the mutant hazards on the surface in ''WesternAnimation/KipoAndTheAgeOfWonderbeasts'' is a hive mind colony of tardigrades, named Tad Mulholland, that inhabit one water supply and can freely shape it to their will. They induce an [[LotusEaterMachine idyllic dream state]] when drunk, to feed on mental energy, as well feeding on bodies once they die. Once confronted, Tad is talked out of continuing to feed in this manner and becomes an ally for the rest of the series.

* ''[[VideoGame/TalesOfLegendia]]'': The water diety, Nerifes seeks to flood the world, both to reverse the damage caused by the Orerines' terraforming and to avenge the fallen Ferines.

Compare and contrast EvilLivingFlames.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': In addition to more traditional water elementals (which pretty much embody this trope in their own right, especially when on a rampage trying to kill the summoner whose leash they've just slipped), earlier editions of ''D&D'' classically featured the "water weird", a monster that would lie in wait looking for all the world like a harmless pool of water until some careless adventurer approached closely enough to make the effort of suddenly turning into a watery snake and trying to drown them worthwhile.

* One of the artifacts in ''Series/WarehouseThirteen'' is a tank of water that moves to envelop whoever's nearby, drowning them. Claudia almost falls victim before Leena neutralizes it. Supplementary materials suggests it was intended to form a hydrodynamic shell for increased speed in water but went wrong.

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'' has [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3280 SCP-3280]], sentient water that turns ordinary water into more of itself. It has a fondness for live human prey and uses a silent OrificeInvasion to enter its victims, followed by a violent expulsion to kill them. Worse still, it is mentioned that it will cause an [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt XK-scenario]] if it ever escapes containment and infects all of Earth's water.

* In ''Literature/TheTalesOfAlvinMaker'', the BigBad (the Unmaker) primarily acts through possessing water for some reason. Apart from simply drowning people, at one point it froze the water, causing a knot to form in a particular tree, causing a weak point in a particular log, causing a building to collapse on the hero.

-->'''LetsPlay/ProtonJon'''