Line #59 Main/DangerousWindows


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3	%% The examples have been alphabetized. Please put any new example in its proper place in the folder rather than at the end.
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9	[[quoteright:350:[[Film/FridayThe13thPartVIIIJasonTakesManhattan https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dangerous_windows.jpg]]]]
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11	->'''Marshal Martin:''' Get away from the window. How many times I got to tell you? Tubby!\
12	'''Tubby:''' ''[turning away from window]'' My name... is Lawrence!\
13	'''Marshal Martin:''' All right. Lawrence... Larry... please, ''for the love of God!'' GET AWAY FROM THE GODDAMN WINDOW!\
14	''[Tubby gets shot through the window]''
15	-->-- ''Film/InAValleyOfViolence'' (2016)
16
17	In the horror genre, windows are not the safest thing. They're mostly thin breakable glass, often big enough to let monsters and crazed madmen use it as an improvised entrance and make for a nice spot to grab unsuspecting victims to their doom. SoftGlass seems to be in effect as such monsters or madmen are rarely harmed by breaking them with their bare hands. Barricading windows can be hard work if there are too many of them and more often than not whatever is trying to get through, will.
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19	There is some TruthInTelevision to this, during severe storms, such as hurricanes and ''especially'' {{UsefulNotes/Tornadoes}}, it is a bad idea to even be in the same room as a window, since they are giant weak spots that allow pieces of debris to blast in and [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impale]] an unfortunate sap on the other side. And if the piece of debris doesn’t do you in, the flying glass shards [[DeathOfAThousandCuts probably will.]]
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21	Compare SuperWindowJump and DestinationDefenestration, in which windows are used for improvised entrances, deliveries and exits, rather than monsters using them. See also HelplessWindowDeath, when a character witnesses a murder occurring on the other side of the glass. May overlap with BackingIntoDanger.
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23	----
24	!!Examples:
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26	[[foldercontrol]]
27
28	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
29	* The Rail Tracer from ''Literature/{{Baccano}}'' kills several mooks by pulling them out the windows of the train.
30	[[/folder]]
31
32	[[folder:Comic Books]]
33	* In ''Recap/TintinTheSevenCrystalBalls'', two of the members of the Sanders-Hardiman expedition fall victim to crystal balls hurled through their windows. Professor Cantonneau is attacked this way just as Tintin tries to warn him not to go near the window. Dr. Midge is then placed under police guard, but TheGuardsMustBeCrazy and turn away from the window just long enough for another glass-shattering attack to happen.
34	[[/folder]]
35
36	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
37	%%* ''Film/FourteenOhEight'' has way too much fun with this trope.
38	* In ''Film/{{Abominable}}'', Tracy is yanked through the bathroom window by the Yeti after she's gotten done taking a shower. It's too small for her, so she bends in half backwards and snaps in two, becoming [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe Half the Woman She Used to Be]].
39	* The final act in ''Film/Alien3'' has a bait-and-chase plan to lure the xenomorph into a lead mould by having it chase the inmates, who then close doors behind them to corral it where they need it... until the xeno takes advantage of the glass windows set into the doors to smash through and pick off the unlucky prisoner. The next inmate to try this is understandably [[OhCrap rather nervous]].
40	* In ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'', a zombie pulls [[spoiler:Marty]] through a window out of the cabin.
41	* In ''Film/TheDescent'', Sarah gets impaled in the head by a steel beam crashing through the window. But don't worry, it was AllJustADream.
42	* ''Film/{{Dreamscape}}''. While Alex and the boy Buddy are in the house, the snake man breaks in through a window and attacks Buddy.
43	%%* ''Film/{{Feast}}''
44	* In ''Film/FiendWithoutAFace'', after Sergeant Kasper is killed by one of the "fiends" breaking in through the patio windows during TheSiege, the other survivors hurriedly board the windows up. This holds them off for a while, allowing the armed Air Force officers to shoot at them through the gaps in the boards, but eventually the fiends just use their prehensile spinal cord "tails" to pry enough of the boards loose so they can get in.
45	* ''Film/{{The Fog\|1980}}''. Zombies break through stained glass windows in a church to attack the protagonists.
46	* ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'':
47	** The very last scare of ''Film/FridayThe13thPart2'' was Jason busting through the window in slow motion in a hallucination the FinalGirl had.
48	** It also happens twice in ''[[Film/FridayThe13thTheFinalChapter The Final Chapter]]'' when Jason tries it on Tommy. Trish decides to bludgeon him as a result.
49	** Jason tries to grab Rennie in ''[[Film/FridayThe13thPartVIIIJasonTakesManhattan Jason Takes Manhattan]]'' through a cabin window, but she manages to deter him by stabbing him in the eye with an ink pen.
50	* Invoked in ''Film/{{The Game\|1997}}'' in a dramatic cut when Nicholas Van Orton [[BrokenMasquerade confronts Christine at her "apartment"]] about her involvement with [[TheConspiracy CRS]], before several CRS goons who had been monitoring the situation exit a nearby van and unload a few clips of SMG rounds into the apartment.
51	-->'''Christine''': [[ExploitedTrope Get away from the windows.]]
52	* Subverted in ''Film/IndependenceDay'': the monster smashes into the window but it doesn't break. And then promptly Inverted when Grey comes up with an idea to get rid of the threat.
53	-->'''General William Grey:''' Is that glass bullet-proof?\
54	'''Major Mitchell:''' No, sir!
55	* DirtyCoward Halsey backs up against a window during TheSiege in ''Film/IslandOfTerror'', allowing some of the Silicates to smash through the glass with their CombatTentacles and grab him.
56	* In ''Film/InTheMouthOfMadness'', a lunatic crashes through a café window with an axe in an attempt to kill Sam Neill's character.
57	* Lampshaded in ''Film/TheMist''; everyone is inside a supermarket, and once they realize that there actually ''is'' something God-awfully horrible out there, someone points out that the entire front side of the building is a row of windows. The next few minutes consist of the hold-outs piling up everything they can to block the windows off, with only a relatively small bit of the tops exposed.
58	* In the original ''Film/{{A Nightmare on Elm Street\|1984}}'', [[spoiler:the last scare of the movie has Freddy snag the heroine's mother through the front door window.]]
59	* In the original ''Film/{{Night of the Living Dead\|1968}}'', the hero is trying desperately to board them up while zombies reach through the broken glass for him. Great tension and suspense builder.
60	* ''[[Film/{{Phantasm}} Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead]]'' ends with [[spoiler: Tim being dragged through a shattered window by one of the Tall Man's minions.]]
61	* ''Film/ShaunOfTheDead''. Most notably when [[spoiler:David]] foolishly stands with his back right against a window, and (predictably, [[AssholeVictim considering his recent actions]]) the zombies break through and pull him out to eat him.
62	%%* The killer in ''Film/TheToolboxMurders'' gets to do this.
63	%%* ''Film/{{Tremors}} 2'', several times.
64	* A non-horror example: in ''Film/TheManWhoKnewTooLittle'', the hitman Spencer breaks a window and reaches through to grab Lori. But Wallace scares him off with a gun before Lori gets hurt.
65	[[/folder]]
66
67	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
68	* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
69	** In the episode where they throw a coming-home party for Buffy, they end up getting attacked by various monsters (of course), many of whom attack through the windows.
70	** After Xander acquires carpentry skills, he lampshades the frequency of this occurrence, saying he wonders why he even bothers fixing the frames.
71	[[/folder]]
72
73	[[folder:Video Games]]
74	* In the ''VideoGame/Action52'' game City of Doom, touching windows kills you instantly.
75	* This is the method used by the various enemies to enter in the Nazi Zombies mode of ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: World at War''. Barricading them (and their inevitable being broken down again shortly after) is an important game mechanic.
76	* The most common death in ''VideoGame/Die2Nite'' has zombies break into your house through a poorly barricaded window and eat you alive.
77	* In ''VideoGame/DinoCrisis'', the Tyrannosaurus smashes his head in through a big window in the administrator's office, eats the dead body of the man Regina just got done talking to, and then tries to do the same to her. Cue BossFight!
78	* In ''VideoGame/{{Ib}}'', there are many rooms with windows, and one of them will break to allow an enemy to keep chasing you.
79	* In one level of ''VideoGame/Metro2033'', there is an incredibly tense sequence where you are walking through a ruined library on the surface and are ambushed and trapped within a small room by one of the strongest monsters in the game, the Librarian. When you try and break down a rotting door to get out, the thing attacks.
80	* ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'', and Creator/{{Capcom}} horror games in general have things breaking in from windows.
81	** In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil1'' (the original), zombie dogs crash through certain windows in the mansion's hallways the player walks past. In the remake, a Neptune bangs against the viewing window of the Aqua Ring's control room, forcing the player to close the shutter for it before the glass breaks and lets the shark in.
82	** In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'', zombies and zombified crows will smash through windows. You have the option to seal the windows by using a cable to hotwire the switchbox... but it doesn't last long. A Licker also does a SuperWindowJump through a one-way mirror in the interrogation room. [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil2Remake The remake]] also allows you to use loose boards to block off certain windows.
83	** Subverted in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'' when zombies ''attempt'' to break through the windows, but are stopped by the boards put up by previous survivors: they can grab at Jill but, while it scares the bejesus out of you, it doesn't actually do any harm. Played straight when ''Nemesis'' smashes right through a window to chase after you, and [[ItCanThink now he has a rocket launcher]] ([[Film/DieHard ho ho ho]]).
84	* ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'' has one of its monsters punch through the window, grab Jessica, and ''pull her back out through the window''. If she survives, she ''is'' scratched up, but not nearly as much as you'd expect given the situation, and it's ambiguous if it came from the window or from the monster.
85	[[/folder]]
86
87	[[folder:Web Comics]]
88	* An early ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' strip features the line "'Survival Horror' is a fancy way of saying 'Monsters will come through windows'."
89	[[/folder]]
90
91	[[folder:Western Animation]]
92	* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': In "[[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS2E10TheDeserter The Deserter]]", while his house is under attack by damaged commando droids, Cut Lawquane makes the mistake of backing up to a window, and of course one of the droids smashes through and grabs at him. So he headbutts the droid to make it release him.
93	* ''WesternAnimation/SwatKats'':
94	** In "The Giant Bacteria", Dr. Zyme boasts that the huge windows in Megakat Biochemical Labs are "[[TemptingFate practically indestructible]]." Cue one of the bacteria monsters to smash the glass and reach inside...
95	** In "Enter the Madkat", Madkat, in the form of a giant octopus, uses his CombatTentacles to smash through the window of Commander Feral's office and grab "the queen" (Callie).
96	** In "The Deadly Pyramid", one of the giant mummies climbs up the side of City Hall and reaches in through the window to try and grab Mayor Manx, who does his best to hold it back with a [[ImprovisedWeapon golf club]].
97	[[/folder]]

Context Main / DangerousWindows