Game Faces in Live-Action TV series.
- Angel:
- The vampires. Angel even keeps it when turned into a muppet. One episode states that he gets stronger with his Game Face, but his bloodlust also increases. Vampires' demonic faces become much worse (and the advantages and drawbacks both get amped up) in the dimension of Pylea, due to its unique metaphysical properties causing hybrid species such as vampires to manifest as either fully human or fully demon. When Angel changes his face during a fight in "Through the Looking Glass", he ends up turning into a ferocious demon called a "Van-Tal", the Pylean name for vampires, with green skin, red eyes, and horns. His strength and durability massively increase, but he can barely control his bloodlust in this form and nearly kills all his friends, and when he finally changes back to his human form, he's horrified. It's explained that in Pylea, the demon fully manifests, which means that's the true form of Angelus.
- Doyle has one too; his demon form has green skin and is covered in spikes. He's stronger in demon form, but prefers his human form, but this is because he likes to pass for (relatively) human, not due to bloodlust. Played for humor in that Doyle involuntarily shifts to his demon form (though only for a moment) when he sneezes.
- Jasmine, with her maggoty, revolting true face and her beautiful false one.
- Vampires in Being Human (both versions) normally look completely human, but when about to bite people or otherwise get violent, their eyes turn solid black and their fangs come out. They're also able to consciously activate this when they aren't being violent, but still want to scare people.
- Henry Fitzroy in Blood Ties (2007) extends fangs, and his eyes go black. The eyes also go black during hypnosis.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Vampires have a human face and a demonic face. The demonic face has vaguely bat-like bumps along their foreheads, yellow eyes, and of course, fangs. Some vampires are Shapeshifter Mode Locked into their demon face, such as The Master and Kakistos, presumably because of their extreme age (the Master being identified as the oldest known vampire at the time of his introduction). It's implied that their demon face is stronger, given Buffy told Angel to put his Game Face on during the Season One Finale, and it's confirmed in the spin-off (see above).
- On the flip side, there is Dracula in "Buffy vs. Dracula", who only has a human face but always has fangs. Spike says it's due to gypsy magic, which is the handwave used to explain all the ways Dracula differs from other Buffyverse vampires.
- The Anointed One is one of the few recurring vampires to never show his, leaving it ambiguous as to whether or not it would've been Nightmare Retardant or just silly.
- Vengeance demons as well.
- Willow has two game faces, her lesser used "Light Willow" look and her more well-known "Dark Willow" persona that comes complete with black eyes, black hair, and evil face veins.
- Charmed (1998) has half demon-half human hybrids able to do this. Cole has a human form but has to embrace his demon self fully if he wants to tap into his powers. The demon self comes complete with red skin and black tribal markings. One Monster of the Week has the same appearance in demon form, but with the colors inverted.
- Doctor Who:
- "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit": A person who has been taken over by the alien of the week has red eyes (red eyes only for the Ood) and mysterious writing tattooed on their skin (including their faces) as well as an I-will-hurt-you expression in general, complete with narrowed eyes and a mischievous grin.
- "The Shakespeare Code": Lilith shows her true Carrionite face after her unfortunate swain in The Teaser kisses her.
- "The Vampires of Venice": When the Saturnynians are preparing to feed on someone, their real teeth become visible through their Perception Filter. It's explained as would-be victims' survival instincts overriding the mirage.
- Forever Knight vampires get golden eyes and their fangs, which are normally not visible, appear in the mouth. If it's dark, the eyes can appear to glow.
- All Wesen in Grimm have this, which is how they are recognized by Grimms and each other. Normal (non-Grimm) humans still can't see it unless the Wesen want them to. The latter is called "woging" (pronounced with a "v") from German "woge" meaning "wave". Interestingly, while Grimms don't have a Game Face, their obvious reaction to a Wesen briefly showing theirs is what gives the Grimms away (the Wesen know when they're woging).
- The last part was Retconned into the Grimms having Black Eyes of Evil that can only be seen by a woged Wesen. The eyes reflect the Wesen's true nature back at it, although sunglasses block the effect.
- An episode deals with the side effects of a Wesen being forced to go "full woge" (i.e. being seen by all) frequently, eventually causing the Wesen to start losing control over his Wesen nature and occasionally going into "full woge" without meaning to and amplifying his aggression.
- Kamen Rider:
- In Kamen Rider 555, an Orphnoch will typically show a shadowy version of its transformed state over its face as a way of saying "don't screw with me." This isn't the actual battle mode, though (that would be a full transformation into the rubber suit, which starts with the 'game face' appearing.)
- Kamen Rider Kiva: The red and blue vein-like lines on a Fangire's neck and lower face before transforming.
- Kamen Rider Wizard: The Phantoms do a combination of both the Orphnochs' and Fangires' Game Faces (a shadowy aura of the monster face over their human forms before turning into their true forms).
- Ironically, Kamen Rider Agito had a heroic variation. Another Agito would proceed his Rider Kick by retracting his mouthplate to reveal a skeletal mouth underneath.
- In the Lost in Space episode “The Golden Man” (Season 2, Episode 15), Mr. Keema proposes to Dr. Smith that in exchange for the weapons from the Jupiter 2 to defeat his enemy the frog faced alien, he will transport Doctor Smith back to Earth. Dr. Smith brings the weapons without permission. As he is talking to the handsome alien about extending the hand of friendship, Mr. Keema transforms himself into his twisted ugly self and then tells Smith that after he disposes of the frog alien, he intends to destroy the earthlings.
- Angels and demons in Lucifer always appear on Earth in human guise but they can reveal their true form if they wish to.
- Lucifer's face is a bit like a melted Darth Maul and seems to come with a side effect of making people absolutely certain of his identity, which managed to drive one person insane and nearly do the same to another. However, if someone has already been to Hell, his face has absolutely zero effect on that person.
- Maze's true face looks about the same as in the original comic, half skull and half human. Trixie thinks it's awesome.
- Moonlight (2007) vampires extend fangs and morph into slightly beastly faces in a split second. When dehydrated, their eyes turn yellow.
- Vampires in Sanctuary gain slanted black eyes, long talons on their fingers, a full mouth full of fangs and deeper voices when they shift into vampire mode. Tesla's skin also became grey on the first occasion he shifted, but this was largely ignored during later transformations.
- Supernatural:
- Demons possessing a person's body look exactly the same as a regular human, except when their eyes go solid black. Used quite often as a dramatic reveal on the show.
- Angels' eyes occasionally glow bright blue when drawing on their powers. Since they clearly don't need to do this on a regular basis, it's safe to say it's an intimidation tactic.
- The Leviathans, also body-hijackers, would show their true form whenever they devoured people, with their face splitting open to reveal a gaping jaw lined with hundreds of teeth.
- Most of the monsters on the show do this, usually when they're about to feed or about to attack. Vampires and werewolves can disguise themselves as humans perfectly, with only their retractable teeth (and eyes and claws for werewolves) visually distinguishing them from actual humans.
- Teen Wolf:
- While werewolves do have a Wolf Man form, they can occasionally manifest their powers in a less visible version, which has them grow fangs, claws and glowing eyes (said eyes being red for Alphas, yellow for most Beta/Omega, and blue for non-Alphas who killed someone), but otherwise keep a human appearance.
- The Kamina (AKA Jackson) in season 2 tends to get yellow, reptilian eyes with slitted pupils) whenever he is still in human form yet being controlled by his master. He can also still manifest his poisonous claws without fully transforming.
- Played with regarding the Darach in season 3, who appears as a bald, hideously scarred humanoid on occasion. The twist to this trope is that this appearance isn't of supernatural origin; it's her real, human face which got disfigured in her backstory, and she is using Glamour magic to make herself appear as she was before the incident.
- The Vampire Diaries:
- Vampires get writhing, black Tainted Veins around their eyes (the whites of which turn red), in addition to growing fangs, when they exhibit bloodlust.
- Werewolves have a slightly more subtle version of this; whenever their werewolf side manifests outside the full moon, the only physical change they go through is yellow, wolf-like eyes. When the full moon does happen, one of the first signs they are transforming is getting these eyes plus fangs.
- The season 2 finale and season 3 introduce vampire-werewolf hybrids, whose game faces combine the Tainted Veins and Red Sclera of the former, the yellow irises or the latter, and a double set of fangs from both.
- Van Helsing (2016) usually subverts this, as vampires are typically always in monstrous form (the looks of which vary from being inhumanly pale to looking like Orlok). However, the most powerful vampires — the Elders, the Brides, and the Dark One — are capable of using illusions to make themselves look like normal people, which they tend to drop when getting into a fight.
- Witchblade: During the climactic fight between Sara and Gallo in the pilot, his face briefly morphs into a demonic grin after he tells her that killing her is Nothing Personal to him. This weird hint that he's Not Even Human is then dropped completely, as it's never brought up in later episodes.
