History Main / SymbolicBlood

* ''Film/ShortCircuit 2'' takes this to its [[FauxSymbolism symbolic extreme]] with Johnny 5's battery; when it's punctured during his beating from the bad guys, one of the baddies gets sprayed by the battery's fluid, and the supporting cast refer to the leak as him "bleeding to death". Which, given how batteries don't work AT ALL after they're punctured, despite how it clearly does after it's "patched" in the movie, opens up a whole new can of FridgeLogic.

* ''VideoGame/NineMonkeysOfShaolin'' have you playing as a Shaolin monk, and fitting your character's pacifist nature, slain enemies will bleed black smoke instead of blood - as a symbol of the "evil" in themselves being purged by your attacks.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'', ''Missing Hearts'': Motoko stabs toward a criminal cowering in the corner and a liquid sprays out. The next shot reveals that she stabbed an organ transplant bag she was carrying.

* In the first episode of ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' you see small vials of a red drug floating in space, near the woman that was carrying them in a bag inside her dress, who just got killed. The drug ''is'' a liquid ([[EyeScream which is sprayed into the user's eye]] and appropriately named "Red Eye" or "Bloody Eye"), making the symbolism doubly effective
* In one episode of ''Manga/RosarioPlusVampire'' the GoryDiscretionShot for a character's fate is a splash of curry sauce.
* In an episode of ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'', Osaka goes to wake up Yukari with a frying pan. When we see her enter Yukari's room with a knife instead, we get a quick shot of Tomo [[strike:putting ketchup]] putting a huge amount of ketchup all over her breakfast and some even ends up on Kagura's face, who's sitting next to her.
* ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'': When an Evangelion is injured the corresponding body part of the pilot is wreathed in a stream of foaming bubbles.
* A non-spill variant shows up in the ''Anime/{{Hellsing}}'' anime. Seras asks for a glass of tomato juice after tailing a possible leak into a pub. She probably just wanted something that was non-alcoholic, but given that she's a recently turned vampire...
--> '''Seras''': [[LampshadeHanging Well, that was a bloody stupid choice.]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

* In ''Anime/YokaiWatchShadowsideTheReturnOfTheOniKing'', [[spoiler:Touma]] is fatally stabbed with a red object.
* In Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}'', Quasimodo is [[ProducePelting pelted with red tomatoes]], leaving him soaked in tomato juice. This emulates a scene from [[Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame the book]] where he's publically whipped.
* In ''WesternAnimation/WatershipDown'', Fiver sees the sunset turning the field red and is horrified to see it covered in blood. Although the red is simply light, the animation style makes it appear to run down like liquid.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBraveLittleToaster'': The appliances watch in horror as the cheerful hardware store owner who took them in dismantles a blender for its motor, which in their perspective is like watching a man get gutted alive. After he's done, he leaves the remains of the blender in his workbench, dripping grease onto the floor.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* ''Film/TheMermaid'' has the scenes where Brother Octopus, a [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent mer-octopus]] masquerading as a human, getting his limbs mutilated and ground up, where he throws up ink in a manner reminiscent of BloodFromTheMouth.
* ''Film/ShortCircuit 2'' takes this to its [[FauxSymbolism symbolic extreme]] with Johnny 5's battery; when it's punctured during his beating from the bad guys, one of the baddies gets sprayed by the battery's fluid, and the supporting cast refer to the leak as him "bleeding to death". Which, given how batteries don't work AT ALL after they're punctured, despite how it clearly does after it's "patched" in the movie, opens up a whole new can of FridgeLogic.
* Near the end of ''Film/OhWhatALovelyWar'' the sound of a gunshot is accompanied by a splash of red... which turns out to be an out-of-focus poppy in the foreground. No blood is ever shown in the film.

* ''Film/DarkNightOfTheScarecrow'' cuts from Arliss being pushed into his wood chipper to runny strawberry jam being spooned on to Otis' plate by his landlady.
* ''Film/AcrossTheUniverse2007'': "Strawberry Fields Forever" does this with strawberry juice in a {{Montage}} that combines an art project with a UsefulNotes/VietnamWar NightmareSequence whose disturbing images include Vietnam being bombarded with giant flaming strawberries.
* ''Film/DaveMadeAMaze'' would be an extremely gory movie if it weren't for the fact that all the "gore" was ''red cardboard''.
* ''Film/WhenEvilCalls'': When the fat kid is squashed between the van and the wall, the shot cuts from his face to the janitor pressing down on his sandwich and strawberry jam squirting out the sides.
* In ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', in the aftermath of Judge Doom [[KickTheDog using the Dip on an adorable shoe Toon]], the dissolved red paint from the poor shoe on his black rubber glove is ''very'' symbolic of blood, making for [[NightmareFuel quite the nightmarish little image]]. It doesn't help that the Dip is the only way to ''kill'' Toons.
* In ''Film/CrimsonPeak'' the red clay beneath the Sharpes' lands is an example of this (although plenty of actual blood gets spilled too). The clay oozing through the walls and ground clearly reflects Allerdale Hall's dark and bloody past. A particularly notable example is when [[spoiler: Lucille pushes Edith over the balcony]]; there's an overhead shot of her lying unconscious on the snowy ground as the clay forms a pool around her.
* The T-1000 from ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'', being a ChromeChampion made of liquid metal, would bleed mercury similar to blood. Notably the scene where Arnie empties a machine-gun into the T-1000 in a nitrogen truck's driver seat, resulting in a massive splatter of liquid metal everywhere reminiscient of LudicrousGibs.

* ''Series/That70sShow'' Kelso is in the shower and Laurie catches him using her shampoo (which happens to be red). This causes him to spill it, at which point we see it going down the drain as she hits him is a stabbing motion ([[Film/{{Psycho}} parodying a scene from that movie no one remembers...]])
* Sparks fly when a ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' character is hit, and on some occasions, a character has had a stream of sparks spraying from the same point for an extended time (usually the MonsterOfTheWeek, after being dealt the FinishingMove that's about to result in [[DefeatEqualsExplosion utter kablooification]].) On some extremely rare occasions, the sparks have come out when a ''non-armored/unprotected'' character is hit.[[note]]It happened in ''[[Series/PowerRangersInSpace In Space]]'' when Zhane struck a humanoid character who was a mole for Astronema with his Super Silverizer, and later, in ''[[Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy Lost Galaxy]]'', it's happened to both Leo and Damon.[[/note]]
* ''Series/WhiteCollar'': After [[spoiler:Elizabeth is kidnapped by Keller]], the FBI shows up to the crime scene, and Peter sees a red pool on the rug from a spilled pot of spaghetti sauce.
* In ''Series/RobotCombatLeague'', the robot fighters sometimes get so damaged, they spray hydraulic fluid everywhere. Without hydraulic fluid, the robots' limbs won't work properly, essentially paralyzing the limbs and leaving the robot at a disadvantage.
* The title sequence of ''Series/{{Dexter}}'' is framed to make the title character's morning routine look violent. There's some real blood when he [[ThereWillBeToiletPaper cuts himself shaving]], but we also see him squirting bloody looking tomato sauce on his eggs as he cuts them.

* ''Series/MissFishersMurderMysteries'': In "Murder and Mozzarella", the killer spills a pot of tomato sauce on the floor while murdering the victim.

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "Drawing Dead", the second VictimOfTheWeek runs a print shop and is murdered by having his throat cut with a paper guillotine. As they do so, the killer knocks over bottles of blue and yellow ink that spill and pool under the victim's chair like blood.

* In Music/LeonardBernstein's ''Mass'', the Celebrant contemplates the shattered Chalice:

* ''VideoGame/NineMonkeysOfShaolin'' have you playing as a Shaolin monk, and fitting your character's pacifist nature, slain enemies will bleed black smoke instead of blood - as a symbol of the "evil" in themselves being purged by your attacks.
* ''VideoGame/MarioParty2'': Done in the Horror Land board, where there's a red bloodstain type puddle, which is just about shown coming from a huge overturned ketchup bottle that's been held by a gravestone.

* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** In ''VideoGame/DirgeOfCerberus: VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', Shalua is killed by Azul, in a scene in which she holds a door open with her mechanical arm so that the others can escape. When the arm is destroyed, some medical liquid starts to flow from under the door. And as you may guess, blood-like.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'' uses a dark purplish/black energy to instead of blood when [[spoiler:Noel, Serah and later Caius]] are stabbed/impaled; it represents the Chaos bestowed on every human's heart by Etro.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fishgun}}'', a parody of FPS games in general, sees you fighting anthropomorphic killer ''fruits'' as enemies. With colorful fruit juice in place of blood whenever you gun down hordes of enemies.
* In the Japanese and European versions of ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'', the enemies die in what could only be described as a fountain of digitized ash.
* In ''VideoGame/Persona5'' after an All-Out attack destroys the last enemies, a short cutscene is shown where the silhouettes of said enemies shoot HighPressureBlood. However, Joker appears as a GuestFighter in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'', which is a more family-friendly game, so when using All-Out as his [[LimitBreak Final Smash]], the enemies instead shoot sparkling stars; much less violent, but still similar to the original blood.
* ''VideoGame/PiratesTheLegendOfTheBlackBuccaneer'' have your enemies bleeding purple smoke, for some reason, when you slice them apart via cutlass.
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'' short "Honor and Glory", Balderich's armor is shown leaking blue fluid from where he was cut by an [=OR14=] unit's blade before he made his final stand in Eichenwalde's castle.
* ''VideoGame/GoldenEyeRogueAgent'': If you look carefully, the various thugs and guards emit blue sparks when hit with bullets. This positions ''Rogue Agent'' as a little more violent than the typical BloodlessCarnage of the Bond games, but still in keeping within the relative fantasy of the 007 universe.

* Sparks fly when a ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' character is hit, and on some occasions, a character has had a stream of sparks spraying from the same point for an extended time (usually the MonsterOfTheWeek, after being dealt the FinishingMove that's about to result in [[DefeatEqualsExplosion utter kablooification]].) On some extremely rare occasions, the sparks have come out when a ''non-armored/unprotected'' character is hit.[[note]]It happened in ''[[Series/PowerRangersInSpace In Space]]'' when Zhane struck a character who was a mole for Astronema with his Super Silverizer, and later, in ''[[Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy Lost Galaxy]]'', a Monster-of-the-Week struck Damon across the back with a power-sapping weapon.[[/note]]

[[caption-width-right:350:That's gotta hurt.[[note]]Nah, it's just spilled water.[[/note]]]]

* In ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'', when Antimony falls off the bridge, there's a {{flashback}} to a glass of water--that she dropped--spilling and shattering. Annie then thinks, "Well, now I know how the glass felt," as she falls.
* In [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/3503 this page]] of ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep Mom and Dad]] are shown holding hands over a wine-stained table cloth. [[spoiler:On the next page, however, the same picture is shown as a reflection in [[BigBad Bec Noir's]] glasses, making it look more like blood. The next time Mom and Dad are shown in the comic, they're dead.]]
* In the first comic page of ''Webcomic/{{Daniel}}'', we see what appears to be goopy blood dripping down slowly....turns out it was just ketchup.

* One ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' commercial showed Kalmah's tentacle being cut off, and a dark liquid flowing into the water. We know that characters in the Matoran Universe don't bleed, so it was either some other fluid (ink?), or completely non-canon. [[EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks Pridak]] also has some suspicious red markings around his mouth...

* The "Executioner" arc in ''Webcomic/DailyJoJo'' involves people (mostly Josh) thinking that their coworkers should die (of shame) for committing slights against them. At the end of the arc, Woong and Josh drink cherry juice while meeting. Josh does a Spit Take after being passed up for promotion, causing the juice to drip from his mouth to his shirt. Then Woong spills juice on his own shirt while apologizing, and Josh thinks that he should die if he's really sorry. Josh leaves the office still dripping in juice as if an execution really took place.

** Pirdak's markings have been confirmed to be just that, but since his design is based on a shark's it is obvious that they meant for it to be reminiscent of blood. Also, unlike the rest of the Matoran Universe, the Endless Ocean ''does'' have fully organic creatures, like fish.

* Possibly done in ''VideoGame/MarioParty'''s Horror Land board, where there's a red bloodstain type puddle, which is just about shown coming from a huge overturned ketchup bottle that's been held by a gravestone.

* Sparks fly when a ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' character is hit, and on some occasions, a character has had a stream of sparks spraying from the same point for an extended time (usually the MonsterOfTheWeek, after being dealt the FinishingMove that's about to result in [[DefeatEqualsExplosion utter kablooification]].) On some rare occasions, the sparks have come out when a ''non-armored'' character is hit. (Either the character is not morphed, or they do not have a suit to morph into.)

* Sparks fly when a ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' character is hit, and on some occasions, a character has had a stream of sparks spraying from the same point for an extended time (usually the MonsterOfTheWeek, after being dealt the FinishingMove that's about to result in [[DefeatEqualsExplosion utter kablooification]].)

* In [[http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005403 this page]] of ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep Mom and Dad]] are shown holding hands over a wine-stained table cloth. [[spoiler:On the next page, however, the same picture is shown as a reflection in [[BigBad Bec Noir's]] glasses, making it look more like blood. The next time Mom and Dad are shown in the comic, they're dead.]]

* In Disney's ''WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'', Quasimodo is [[ProducePelting pelted with red tomatoes]], leaving him soaked in tomato juice. This emulates a scene from [[Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame the book]] where he's publically whipped.

* ''Film/AcrossTheUniverse'': "Strawberry Fields Forever" does this with strawberry juice in a {{Montage}} that combines an art project with a UsefulNotes/VietnamWar NightmareSequence whose disturbing images include Vietnam being bombarded with giant flaming strawberries.

See also AlienBlood for strangely colored fluids pouring out of alien beings and MachineBlood, for "bleeding" machines or robots. See ABloodyMess for red liquids being mistaken for blood.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': Most of the cast aren't human, or even animals, and thus spill various non-blood innards when injured. In “The Advice”, Banana Joe is run over and leaves behind a pool of banana juice. In “The Parking”, a living milk carton is stabbed and milk squirts out. In "The Girlfriend", Jamie beats up Sarah offscreen and ends up with melted yellow ice cream goop on her face and hands. In “The Blame”, Colin is eaten onstage and egg yolk splashes on the audience.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' has Homer get clobbered by baby Maggie with a hammer, while he's painting. The red paint spills all around him like... well, you know. The entire scene is a parody of the ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' shower scene at that, complete with the paint swirling into a floor drain.
** Another has Marge accidentally fold up Homer's power-adjustable [[MurphysBed bed]] while he's sleeping in it. A red liquid pours out from the bed. It turns out to be Homer's juice box.
** This was deliberately parodied in "Girls Just Want to Have Sums", when the Simpson family had gone to an Itchy and Scratchy-inspired play. On stage, when Itchy attacks Scratchy with a knife, red streamers pour out from the dummy, and fly everywhere. Lisa and Bart both find it appealing, but not for the same reason.
-->'''Lisa:''' I love the use of streamers as blood, it robs the violence of its power.\\
'''Bart (excited):''' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Woo-hoo! I'm drenched in blood!]]
** In another episode, Marge is horrified when she sees the Flanders family collapsed on the floor, spattered with red liquid...which turns out to be paint.
* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'' featured a scene where it appears the past incarnations of Green Lantern and Shayera were stabbed while on a bed, but as the camera moves up you see that it's a puddle of wine-- which poisoned them.
* Used on ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama''. Heather makes Lindsay drop some limited-edition nail polish, and the 'camera' goes to a bird's eye view of it pouring out of the bottle onto the carpet.

* ''Transformers: WesternAnimation/BeastWars'': when some bot got hit, bits of metal and hydraulic fluid go ''everywhere''.

* A memorable episode of ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' had a clan of ninja newspaper delivery boys (roll with it) attacking the neighborhood, flinging bundles of papers with deadly accuracy at everyone and thing besides porches and leaving Dee Dee's father collapsed in a pool of his morning coffee. After he [[DiedInYourArmsTonight gasps in her arms]] and she goes off for revenge, she returns home, finds him ''still'' lying there, and asks if he's overreacting a little.
-->'''Dee Dee''': You know, it's just coffee.\\
'''Dad''': (opens eye) Yeah, but it was really hot.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "Puhoy", when Finn kills the Blanket Dragon, he slashes its throat and a bunch of feathers spray from the wound.