Line #39 Main/RealFakeDoor


1	%%
2	%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
3	%%
4	%%
5	%%
6	[[quoteright:270:[[Film/SinginInTheRain https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/singin_in_the_rain_1.jpg]]]]
7	[[caption-width-right:270:The realization hits you like a brick in the jaw.]]
8
9	->''"Hey! Are you tired of real doors clutterin' up your house? Where you open 'em and they actually go somewhere, and you go into another room? Get on down to Real Fake Doors!"''
10	-->-- ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty''
11
12	Simply put, when a door opens to an unexpected impasse, most characteristically a wall. This wall is often made of brick. Most times this occurs, it indicates something has gone deeply wrong.
13
14	Although (as stated above) this is most commonly a wall, a variation occurs if the door is supposed to be [[PortalDoor a portal of some kind]], where nothing is behind the door but whatever is physically behind the door. It can also occur with other things as stand-ins for doors, such as curtains.
15
16	----
17	!!Examples:
18
19	[[foldercontrol]]
20
21	[[folder:Comic Books]]
22	* In ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}: [[Recap/TintinTheSevenCrystalBalls The Seven Crystal Balls]]'', Haddock runs into a wall behind what turns out to be a prop door at the theater.
23	[[/folder]]
24
25	[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
26	* ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc1'': {{Portal Door}}s not connected to power will open to nothing. [[spoiler:Waternoose banishes Sully and Mike by sending them through a door to a remote cold area and then disconnecting it, causing it to open to nothing on the other side.]] This also applies to the closets the factory uses, which open as normal in the human world when not connected to a powered door, and especially when those closets are destroyed.
27	[[/folder]]
28
29	[[folder:Films -- Live Action]]
30	* This helps form a BookEnd in ''Film/DungeonsAndDragonsHonorAmongThieves''. When [[spoiler:Forge Fitzwilliam]] gets arrested at the denoument, they attempt to escape the wintry prison through the same method Edgin and Holga used in the beginning... only to discover that the window had since been replaced by brick.
31	* ''Film/FourteenOhEight'': As soon as Mike fully realizes how dangerous the room really is and tries to make a break for it, it creates a brick wall behind the front door so he can't leave.
32	* ''Film/TheMatrix'': PlayedForDrama when an alteration to the Matrix results in a brick wall hidden behind a curtain, where a window should be, trapping the protagonists inside that building.
33	* During the "Make 'Em Laugh" number in ''Film/SinginInTheRain'' Cosmo opens a movie prop door, "discovering" a prop brick wall behind it. He pretends to slam into it, then pretends that his face has been messed up by the collision.
34	* ''Film/SeeHowTheyRun'': Köpernick, fleeing from a killer backstage at the theatre, sees an exit sign above a door...only for it to be a prop door in front of a brick wall. He's promptly offed.
35	[[/folder]]
36
37	[[folder:Literature]]
38	* In ''Literature/{{Coraline}}'', this occurs one time when Coraline is going to the Other World, with a brick wall appearing behind the door.
39	[[/folder]]
40
41	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
42	* ''Series/DoctorWho''
43	** A mundane version occurs in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" when Ian opens a door and nearly falls to his death, as the stairs have been destroyed along with most of London.
44	** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E8FathersDay "Father's Day"]], when the Doctor leaves Rose [[spoiler:to stay with her father after she saved him]], the TARDIS turns out to be completely empty, with the doors opening to the inside of a box as one would normally expect.
45	** At the end of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens "The Pandorica Opens"]] and through the beginning of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E13TheBigBang "The Big Bang"]], [[spoiler:River Song is stuck in a time loop inside the TARDIS where she plays around with the controls a bit and then runs to the door to try and escape]], behind which is a solid concrete wall.
46	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E11TheGodComplex "The God Complex"]]: The Doctor tries the doors in the hotel lobby only to discover a brick wall behind them. Also, there are no windows behind the curtains.
47	--->"Big day for a fan of walls."
48	** At the beginning of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E8TheZygonInversion "The Zygon Inversion"]], when Clara is [[spoiler: trapped in the Zygon pod, and thus in a dream state,]] she notices some weirdness about where she is, and then attempts to leave, noticing that the front door to the apartment she's in opens to a brick wall, and the curtains appear to just be attached to the wall, with nothing but more wall behind it.
49	** Early on in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent "Heaven Sent"]], the Doctor uses a psychic link to open a door and escape from the creature, and it opens to a very short corridor, functionally just another wall.
50	* ''Series/TheGoodies'': In "The End", the Goodies open their front door only to run into a featureless wall of concrete, as their office has just been encased in a solid block of concrete (as a result of Graeme's architectural design to prevent squatters moving in).
51	* In an episode of ''Series/TheGreatestAmericanHero'', Ralph and Bill are checking out an ordinary house that's going to be torn down, to see if they want to buy any of the items inside. Ralph opens a door and finds a blank brick wall behind it. However, his super-suit lets him see and then walk ''through'' the wall and into a sort of "ghost room" beyond.
52	* ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'': Trivette encounters one in Season 2's "Unfinished Business". While he and Walker are on the trail of Petey Cevara, a guard tells him he can't enter a bar through that door, but Trivette pays no attention and beats him up, [[ShootOutTheLock shoots the lock]] and opens the door to find out too late it's bricked up.
53	[[/folder]]
54
55	[[folder:Video Games]]
56	* ''VideoGame/{{Antichamber}}'' has the exit door be this. Except for when it isn't.
57	* In the "Communications" level of ''VideoGame/Doom3'', there is a door covered in blood, with a white light above it that turns red to the sound of a pounding from the other side. Approaching it causes it to burst open to reveal a wall of flesh and teeth, and a gigantic snapping mouth to lunge out at you, before pulling back as the door slams shut.
58	* A couple of these can be found in Lost Bastille in ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII''. There's one door that contains a corpse sealed into the walls, and a door that just drops down nowhere but death.
59	* The House of All Worlds in ''VideoGame/DreamfallChapters'' has a door in the living room that apparently opens into a brick wall. Saga, a Playable Character who grew up there, learns that this was a deliberate design decision by her father, and, in the final chapters of the game, destroys the brick wall to [[spoiler: open a Shift into Arcadia at just the right moment to bring Kian (her future adoptive father) from the brink of death and save the day when everything seems lost]].
60	* In ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', there's a door that, upon opening, reveals a wall with graffiti saying "FUCK YOU".
61	* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'':
62	** In a remote region of the wasteland, there is a concrete structure with a very [[SchmuckBait conspicuously placed]] door. Opening it reveals a red skull decoration with the words "you look nice today!" Doing this spawns a Siege Breaker Sentry Bot ''[[OhCrap right around the corner.]]''
63	** If you follow the mysterious little girl up to the attic of the Grandchester Mystery House in the ''Nuka World'' DLC, you see her run through a door, shutting it behind her. Opening it leads to both a wall and one ''mother'' of a ScareChord. And the realization that she is a ''ghost.''
64	** The Kiddy Kingdom fun house in Nuka World, naturally, has several of these.
65	* Used as one of the many surreal events in ''VideoGame/LayersOfFear'', sometimes with messages scrawled on the brickwork behind the door.
66	* The first ''VideoGame/LegoStarWars'' game has, in one level, a room containing a bunch of doors that can be opened by droids. One of those doors, when opened, has just a brick wall behind it. One ''does'' wonder whether it was a MissingSecret or simply a gag, given the stuff found behind the other doors.
67	* ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'': A hazard found in the corridors. If Luigi tries to open one, it will [[TheDoorSlamsYou slam him into the wall]]. There is even a [[FollowTheMoney trail of coins on the floor]] leading to one to bait players into falling for the trap.
68	* ''VideoGame/Portal2'':
69	** A chase sequence ends with a door labeled "[=GLaDOS=] Emergency Shutdown and Cake Dispensary. Keep Unlocked.", which ''falls over'' when you approach it. And like most test chambers, [[MobileMaze the "wall" it was on is a series of movable segments]], which then come apart to show empty space behind it. [=GLaDOS=] mocks you for falling for her SchmuckBait, [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption but you actually had no option but to try the door]].
70	** Downplayed in a later sequence, where a massive door is opened to reveal a more mundane door (that actually leads somewhere)
71	* Played with in ''VideoGame/{{Scratches}}''. After Micheal Arthate finds a hidden room in the blueprints of Blackwood Manor, the supposed door is hidden behind wallpaper, and when Micheal cuts it open, he finds that the door's been bricked up. The only other way to get in is by ''rappelling'' down the outside of the house and entering through the window.
72	* In ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'', it can happen that you come across a door behind which you find a brick wall.
73	[[/folder]]
74
75	[[folder:Web Animation]]
76	* During the ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' episode ''Home Is Where The Hurt Is'', Giggles opens up a door, only to find a brick wall.
77	[[/folder]]
78
79	[[folder:Web Video]]
80	* In the ''WebVideo/GuaranteedVideo'' "Mr. Basement", the AnthropomorphicPersonification of basements gets killed, causing every basement in the world to disappear. The protagonists, the only two who still remember what basements were, find that the door to their basement now opens to a brick wall.
81	[[/folder]]
82
83	[[folder:Western Animation]]
84	* In ''WesternAnimation/ChalkZone'', one of Rudy's attempts to get into the impenetrable forest is to use his magic chalk to draw a door. Doors created this way usually work, but this door opens up straight into a wall of more tree trunks.
85	* Played with in ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017''. In one episode, the characters find out they're trapped in a ShowWithinAShow, at which point the door to the room they're in becomes this.
86	* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS2E9IfImDyinImLyin If I'm Dyin's, I'm Lyin']]", when Peter tries to complain to a network executive about a show being cancelled, the secretary tells him he can't go through a particular door, which Peter disregards and walks into a brick wall. The secretary tells him "No, you can't go in there [[NotHyperbole because that door leads nowhere]]. Use the one next to it."
87	* [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]] in the {{WesternAnimation/Popeye}} cartoon "Private Eye Popeye". After Olive Oyl's butler steals the gemstone that Popeye was tasked to protect, he makes his getaway through a seemingly normal looking door ([[BehindTheBlack though he does not open the door fully, so the audience can't see what's behind it yet]]). However, when Popeye then tries to follow the butler through the same door, he immediately runs into something. [[OffscreenRealityWarp It is then that the door swings open the rest of the way, revealing a brick wall]].
88	* The TropeNamer is ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', where one episode features an advertisement for 'Real Fake Doors' which may be mounted on a wall, [[ThisIndexIsNotAnExample but don't actually open]].
89	* A common occurrence in WesternAnimation/TexAveryMGMCartoons, where a character tries to go through a door, only to open it and crash into a brick wall with a sign reading "Imagine that--no door!" This happens in ''WesternAnimation/RedHotRidingHood'' as the Wolf tries to escape [[AbhorrentAdmirer Grandma's]] apartment, and then in the WesternAnimation/ScrewySquirrel short ''WesternAnimation/TheScrewyTruant'' when [[SkippingSchool Truant Officer Meathead tries to capture and return Screwy to school]].
90	[[/folder]]
91
92	[[folder:Real Life]]
93	* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_House The Winchester Mansion]] was purposely built with several of these. [[ItMakesSenseInContext To confuse vengeful ghosts.]]
94	* Sometimes can happen as a result of dividing up a house into multiple units. You don't want one tenant to just be able to waltz right in to another tenant's part of the house now, do you?
95	[[/folder]]
96

Context Main / RealFakeDoor