History Main / RazorApples

* ''ComicBook/OddThomas'': ''Odd is on Our Side'', a graphic novel based off the ''Literature/OddThomas'' series by Dean Koontz, has a miserly man sick of trick-or-treaters trampling his garden pass out candy laced with corn cockle seeds (a Class IV toxin). One kid dies. The worst part? The candy laced with said seeds: candy hearts, purchased on the cheap after Valentine's Day. He was such a bastard he didn't even poison ''good'' candy.
* Parodied in a ''ComicBook/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice'' comic when the duo find an entire razor sticking out of a kid's apple.

* In ''ComicBook/ILuvHalloween'', Finch fills an apple with razor blades after he and his friends were cheated out of their candy. He gives the apple to a cop. The result isn't pretty.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* The original ''Film/NightOfTheDemons1988'' featured a frame story of this. A cranky old man is angered by children, and comes home on Halloween with a bag full of apples and razor blades. The final scene involves the old man sitting down for a breakfast of apple pie made by his wife. He only asks her after taking a few bites where she got the apples...
* In ''Film/TrickRTreat'', the SerialKiller principal puts poison in some of his candy. There's also CreepyChild Sam, who uses a razor-chocolate bar as a weapon in one scene. Also, as a nod to this trope, [[spoiler: when Mr Kreeg falls down the stairs, they're littered with hypodermic needles, straight pins, shards of glass, razor blades and candy]].

* In ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive,'' Paul Lazzaro boasts about killing a dog by feeding it a steak with razor-sharp pieces of a spring

* In Creator/ChuckPalahniuk's novel ''Literature/{{Rant}}'', the main character's mother puts things like ceramic beads and tacks in all the food she cooks so that the people who are eating it have to eat it very slowly and carefully, and thus actually get a chance to enjoy the flavor, not just wolf it down.

* Played with in Creator/JRRTolkien's novella ''Literature/SmithOfWoottonMajor'': for the Feast of Good Children, a Great Cake is baked full of toys and prizes (like the "gateau de roi" mentioned below in the Real Life section). One prize is a strange little star. Young Smith gets it in his slice of cake and swallows it, which later allows him to travel to Faery.

* In the Creator/SvenHassel novels, before they become FireForgedFriends [[DumbMuscle Tiny]] is fed ground glass by the Legionnaire, but it only seems to increase his ''joie de vivre''. This is probably meant to imply the big brute is MadeOfIron, rather than because the technique doesn't work.
* Discussed in ''Literature/{{Blubber}}'': VillainProtagonist Jill mentions that her mother worries about the possibility of razor blades being found in apples given out on Halloween, so Jill and her brother Kenny have to give any apples that they get when trick or treating to their family's housekeeper to cut up (said housekeeper has never found a razor blade in any of the apples).

* ''[[Series/Adam12 The New Adam-12]]'' {{Revival}} series had a Halloween episode where someone was handing out caramel apples with razors stuck in them, but only to children of Asian descent. The officers trace it back to an bigoted old man who sees them as YellowPeril taking over "his" country.

* Non-Halloween example: in the "Prophecy" episode of ''Chiller'', Edward picks a plum for Frannie to taste-test, only for a wasp hidden inside the fruit to sting her in the mouth. It's unclear whether the boy (who has both CreepyChild and psychic tendencies) deliberately chose an infested plum to harm Frannie, if he foresaw the wasp's attack and [[BecauseDestinySaysSo merely facilitated what he felt was inevitable]], if the spirit of Edward's evil ancestor arranged for it, or if the whole incident was an accident meant to build up viewers' suspicions of Edward.

* [[Music/InsaneClownPosse A couple of well-known rapping clowns]] seem to [[AuthorAppeal love]] this trope when mentioning Halloween. Check out "Mr. Rotten Treats" and "Halloween on Military Street" to name a couple.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* A Halloween special for Webcomic/{{Clarissa}} had Clarissa go trick or treating as an apple with a razor in it. She makes up a sob story about a (nonexistent) sister getting seriously hurt from eating an apple with a razor in it to get more candy for her brother.
* {{Subverted}} in ''WebComic/ThePerryBibleFellowship''. [[https://pbfcomics.com/comics/the-treat/ A syringe in a trick-or-treater's bag]] turns out to be insulin, saving the family a great deal of money on medical bills.

* At the beginning of his review of ''Film/TrickRTreat'', Creator/CountJackula is busy preparing for Halloween by jamming razor-blades into fun-sized chocolate bars, citing that he is forgoing the usual partying he does on Halloween in favor of passing out candy to trick-or-treaters due to not having a costume.

* [[JailBake Although the objects were intended to be helpful,]] sometimes Burger Beagle of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' would eat Ma Beagle's cooking before checking it for nail files or grenades.

* ''VideoGame/Mother3'': After Flint is arrested during the first chapter, Claus leaves him an apple right outside his cell. Flint takes a few bites only to discover a hand file, which he promptly uses to cut his way through the cell bars.

* ''VideoGame/Mother3'': After Flint is arrested during the first chapter, Claus leaves him an apple right outside his cell. Flint takes a few bites only to encounter the razor blade, which he promptly uses to cut his way through the cell bars.

* Non-Halloween example: in the "Prophecy" episode of ''Chiller'', Edward picks a plum for Frannie to taste-test, only for a wasp hidden inside the fruit to sting her in the mouth. It's unclear whether the boy (who has both CreepyChild and psychic tendencies) deliberately chose an infested plum to harm Frannie, if he foresaw the wasp's attack and [[BecauseDestinySaysSo merely facilitated what he felt was inevitable]], or if the whole incident was an accident meant to build up viewers' suspicions of Edward.

* Non-Halloween example: in the "Prophecy" episode of ''Series/{{Chiller}}'', Edward picks a plum for Frannie to sample, only for the wasp inside it to sting her in the mouth. It's unclear whether the boy (who has both CreepyChild and psychic tendencies) deliberately chose an infested plum, if he psychically foresaw the wasp's attack, or if the incident was an unlucky coincidence to build up viewers' suspicions of Edward.

* A real-life {{Subversion}} was the death of Timothy O'Bryan of Pasadena, Texas in 1974. It turned out that he and four other children (including his sister) had been given poisoned Pixy Sticks. Thankfully none of the other children ate their poisoned candy. But the culprit turned out to be none other than [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Clark_O%27Bryan Ronald O'Bryan]], Timothy's father, who had poisoned one of his children and attempted to poison the other in order to collect on their life insurance by capitalizing on this trope.

* In fall 2018, UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} saw a rash of [[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Australian_strawberry_contamination needles in strawberries.]] A farm supervisor was arrested for the tampering, but charges were ultimately dropped due to lack of evidence. This also led to copycat cases and hoaxes, including one man who was arrested and charged with making a false report after faking a contamination.

* There are only two instances of children actually dying from eating candy that was tampered with; in both cases, [[OffingTheOffspring the culprits were their own relatives, not random strangers]]. Both cases are [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/halloween.asp discussed]] on ''[[{{WebSite/Snopes}} Snopes.com]]'' as well as other cases which were initially thought to involve Halloween poisonings. The presence of foreign objects in candy, including needles, has occasionally been shown as true, but only in isolated cases.
** An eight-year-old boy died after eating Pixy Stix that had been laced with cyanide; however, it turned out that the poisoned candy had been planted in his trick-or-treat bag by his own father, who [[SerialKillingsSpecificTarget also gave a few pieces of tampered candy to his daughter as well as three other children]] in order to [[InvokedTrope cover his tracks]] so that he could collect on the life insurance (thankfully, neither the daughter nor any of the other kids ate the candy).
** In another case, a five-year-old child lapsed into a coma and died after getting into his uncle's stash of illegal drugs and consuming a lethal dose of heroin. The child's family sprinkled some of his Halloween candy with heroin in an attempt to invoke this trope as a cover-up; it didn't work.
** There are also a few cases of children dying after eating Halloween candy, and the media goes into a frenzy due to this trope and initially attributes it to poisoning, only for it to later be discovered that the child died of unrelated natural causes (the fact that it occurred after consuming Halloween candy being purely coincidental).
** It's also possible for purely accidental cases to happen if a screw, nut or other piece of metal becomes detached from the machinery in the factory; foodstuffs are supposed to pass through a metal detector after being packaged to prevent this sort of thing, but they're not perfectly reliable and corners sometimes get cut.
** Lastly, there are certain artificial sweeteners that can have [[PottyFailure deeply unpleasant side effects]] if ingested in more than tiny quantities, as described vividly in [[https://www.amazon.com/Haribo-SUGAR-Classic-Gummi-Bears/product-reviews/B006J1FBLM this Amazon review]]. They probably won't kill you, but they might make you wish they had.
* [[MediaScaremongering Fear of this happening]] causes some communities to go to extremes like x-raying the kids' candy. Of course, some parents choose a more low-tech solution like not letting the kids eat anything that's clearly homemade and making sure none of the store-bought candy looks like it's been tampered with.
* In Newfoundland, Canada, it was a common practice for people celebrating Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day) to put items in the pancakes — usually coins, but sometimes thimbles, rings, or needles. Obviously this necessitates eating the pancake very carefully — you don't want to bite into a coin, not to mention the needle.
* Similarly to the above, for Epiphany/the Feast of the Three Kings in France and Spain, it is the custom to bake a cake called the galette/gâteau des rois, with a trinket or bean in it, with whoever finds it getting to be "king for the day." You need to be careful eating the cake, however, because the "fève" (the aforementioned generally-porcelain trinket, after the French word for "bean") can make your teeth hurt a lot if you bite on it.
* Likewise, in England, it's traditional for a coin to be put in the Christmas pudding, to be kept by whoever's slice it turns up in. Because of the size of the coin (traditionally this was, and still is, a silver sixpence piece) and the consistency of the pudding, the recipient will usually notice it in the bowl and avoid biting it, though.
* The King Cake is a traditional pastry eaten during the Mardi Gras season, and oftentimes contains a small trinket inside representing the infant Jesus, usually a tiny plastic baby. The cake is hollow inside and the baby is easy enough to spot, but bakers have lately began leaving the baby outside the cake for the consumer to insert themselves, to avoid liability on the off-chance some idiot chokes on it while wolfing down a piece.
** Similarly, in Mexico this trope is [[InvokedTrope ''invoked'']] and birthed a related UrbanLegend with the "Rosca de Reyes". Eaten on "Mage Kings Day" (reference to the Three Wise Men from the Bible) on January 6th, it's the same concept as the King's Cake, except the one who finds the tiny plastic Jesus has to pay for the traditional food (tamales) for the celebration of Candelaria Day (February 2, the official end of the winter holidays). There are usually three or more "monitos" (figures) per cake so the expenses are shared, but there are tons of anecdotical tellings of people who ''swallowed the figures'' to avoid paying the tamales. Talk about cheapskates!
* In Ireland, the Hallowe'en Barm Brack (similar to fruit cake) generally has an (easily swallowed) ring in it as a fortune-teller, with the idea being that whoever found the ring would be married within the year. Traditionally, it may have included a dried pea, a stick, a coin and a piece of cloth: all small, hard objects.
* The NYPD seriously considered cancelling trick or treating in 2001 due to the instances of people receiving anthrax in the mail. One spokesman said that they didn't have time to examine all the Pixie sticks given out that night.
* The Hoornse Taart[[note]]"Hoorn" is the place it happened, "taart" is "cake"[[/note]] sentence is a core element within Dutch jurisprudence. In 1910, one man tried to murder another man by sending him a cake containing arsenic trioxide for his birthday. The intended victim didn't eat it, but his wife and maid did. The wife died, the maid barely survived. The perpetrator tried to get around the murder charge by arguing that there was no intent, because [[MurderByMistake the wife wasn't his target]]. The judges didn't buy it and introduced the concept of recklessness to modern Dutch criminal law.
* There have also been reported cases of [[http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/cheese.asp dog treats laced with poison or sharp objects littered around dog parks]], but more cases are reported than found true, and often it's the result of dogs eating poisoned bait set for vermin animals or small animals that were killed by the bait. This has led to increased regulations regarding the use of poisoned bait for pest control.
* An apparently unique case happened in Germany, where a man became sick after eating a banana, but he survived, if with great difficulty. The police initially suspected poisoning until the remaining bananas were analyzed and bite marks were found on one of them. What likely happened was that the man had ingested cobra venom after such a snake happened to bite into the banana and injected its venom into it, which slowly spread into the other bananas as well.

* In fall 2018, UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} saw a rash of needles in strawberries.

* ''[[Series/AdamTwelve The New Adam-12]]'' {{Revival}} series had a Halloween episode where someone was handing out caramel apples with razors stuck in them, but only to children of Asian descent. The officers trace it back to an bigoted old man who sees them as YellowPeril taking over "his" country.

"Now, now, eat something healthy first. How about that apple [[MeaningfulName Mr.]] [[CorruptHick Hick]] gave you?"

* An apparently unique case happened in Germany, where a man ingested cobra poison after eating a banana, but he survived, if with great difficulty. The police initially suspected a crime until the remaining bananas were analyzed and bite marks were found on one of them. What likely happened was that a cobra happened to bite into the banana and injected its poison into it, and the poison then slowly spread into the other bananas as well.

* [[YouCanPanicNow Fear of this happening]] causes some communities to go to extremes like x-raying the kids' candy. Of course, some parents choose a more low-tech solution like not letting the kids eat anything that's clearly homemade and making sure none of the store-bought candy looks like it's been tampered with.

* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'''s [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/All-Hallow%27s_Steve All-Hallow's Steve]] is that world's AnthropomorphicPersonification of this trope. Naturally, you can only fight him on Halloween, during the trick-or-treating event.
* ''VideoGame/{{Ib}}'': The story book ''Carrie Careless and the Galette des Rois'' tells of one particularly nasty ''subversion'', where it isn't the eponymous Carrie swallowing/biting down on the object that is painful or deadly, but rather [[spoiler:Carrie's best friend having to ''cut the object - actually a misplaced key - out of her stomach'']] as the story's horrific conclusion. [[DerangedAnimation It's even creepier than it sounds]].

-->--'''Caligari''', ''Film/AmericanNightmare''

** In [[Film/Candyman2021 the 2021 sequel]], the odd but kindhearted Sherman Fields, who delivers candy to children, is accused of adding razorblades after a white girl becomes a victim of one. Sherman, a Black man, is [[PoliceBrutality murdered by the officers who come to arrest him]]. He’s exonerated when the razors continue to be distributed, but Sherman ends up becoming part of the Candyman legend and Candyman takes his form often.

** [[VitriolicBestBuds Zoro and Sanji]] get into one of their usual fights. In an attempt to prove himself stronger than Sanji, Zoro states that if Sanji (the TeamChef) put blades and poison in his (Zoro's) food, he would be able to eat it without problems. WorOfGod is that Sanji actually did it, and Zoro did eat it without problems.

** [[VitriolicBestBuds Zoro and Sanji]] get into one of their usual fights. In an attempt to prove himself stronger than Sanji, Zoro states that if Sanji (the TeamChef) put blades and poison in his (Zoro's) food, he would be able to eat it without problems. WordofGod is that Sanji actually did it, and Zoro did eat it without problems.

* In the second episode of ''Series/{{Chucky}}'', a flashback shows a young Charles Lee Ray finding an apple with a very obvious razor blade in it among his Halloween treats. [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior He takes a bite out of it anyway and smiles as blood pours from his mouth]]. Later on, Chucky gives a clueless lady another such apple as thanks for giving him the information he needed. Next time we see her, she is bleeding profusely from her mouth as she reports the "horrible red-haired child" to the cops.

** An episode has the police x-raying the kids Halloween candy and finding [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking razors, syringes, and...white chocolate]], to which Chief Wiggum cringes at in disgust.
** Another episode has a metallic piece of cereal (which also has sharp, jagged edges) in Bart's Krusty-Os. A particularly nasty case of appendicitis results.

* In ''Film/HalloweenII1981'', a trick-or-treater and his mom are shown arriving at the emergency room of the hospital where the action of the film takes place. The boy has a razor blade stuck into his gums between his front teeth; presumably it got there when he bit into an apple.

* ''Odd is on Our Side'', a graphic novel based off the ''Literature/OddThomas'' series by Dean Koontz, has a miserly man sick of trick-or-treaters trampling his garden pass out candy laced with corn cockle seeds (a Class IV toxin). One kid dies. The worst part? The candy laced with said seeds: candy hearts, purchased on the cheap after Valentine's Day. He was such a bastard he didn't even poison ''good'' candy.

* In the first arc of ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'', [[CuteAndPsycho Rena]] and Mion give Keiichi a box of rice balls. The first one he bites into contains a sewing needle that makes his tongue bleed slightly. The sixth arc reveals some more about this: [[spoiler:[[UnreliableNarrator There wasn't really a needle]], and the "blood" was Tabasco sauce. Keiichi's escalating paranoia has started screwing with his ([[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness and the viewer's]]) perceptions, causing a {{hallucination|s}} based on a horror movie he saw.]]

* In the first arc of ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'', [[CuteAndPsycho Rena]] and Mion give Keiichi a box of rice balls. The first one he bites into contains a sewing needle. The sixth arc reveals some more about this: [[spoiler:[[UnreliableNarrator There wasn't really a needle]], it was actually Tabasco sauce. Keiichi's escalating paranoia has started screwing with his ([[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness and the viewer's]]) perceptions. He's had a phobia of needles in his food ever since he saw a horror movie where that happened. His increased paranoia made him {{hallucinat|ions}}e a needle.]]

* A Halloween special for Webcomic/ClarissaYungbluth had Clarissa go trick or treating as an apple with a razor in it. She makes up a sob story about a (nonexistent) sister getting seriously hurt from eating an apple with a razor in it to get more candy for her brother.

* ''VideoGame/Mother3'': After Flint is arrested during the first chapter Lucas leaves him an apple right outside his cell. Flint takes a few bites only to encounter the razor blade, which he promptly uses to cut his way through the cell bars.