Basic Trope: During a suspenseful moment, there is a quick moment of relief via something harmless (often a cat) being shown to be the source of suspicious noises.
- Straight: A character investigates some strange noises... and a cat jumps out at them, apparently the source.
- Exaggerated: A character hears strange, frightening noises, and finds... a pile of puppies and kittens.
- Downplayed: A character is caught off-guard by the sound of a meowing cat, but quickly recovers their wits.
- Justified: A cat jumps at a character investigating a strange noise, because it was fleeing terrified from the killer.
- Inverted: The cat's owner jumps out and frightens it on purpose...then the real threat arrives as the owner is oblivious to his pet's continued reactions
- Subverted:
- The cat jumps out, and the character is initially relieved after the scare, but it turns out the cat is the monster and it kills the character.
- It is set up for a monster to jump out, but then nothing happens.
- Double Subverted: A character investigating frightening noises has the cat jump out at them, and feels relieved, nothing happens for a good while. And then the psycho jumps out.
- Parodied:
- An intelligent cat hangs by its claws from ceilings and makes a bunch of noise so it can jump out at those who investigate and laugh at their reactions.
- A character investigating frightening noises finds a cat... it's a ''Panther''. note
- A cat walks through the house, we hear strange noises... then someone jumps out at the cat.
- The cat scare leads to...another cat scare...then another and another.
Eventually, the victims of the cat scare ignore the actual threat to deal with the cat.
- Zig Zagged:
- The cat is the psychopath, and tries to kill the character. But wait, no it's not, it was just very startled- it's harmless after all. Wait a minute, the cat couldn't have made all that noise, there must be something worse there! Wait, no there isn't...
- Both the cat and the psycho jump out at the same time, startling each other.
- Averted: A character investigates strange noises. The killer pops out right away.
- Enforced: The hero is way too smart and fast to be surprised by the clumsy, slow monster. So a Cat Scare is used to lower his defense and let the final showdown begin.
- Lampshaded: "Oh, it's just the ca- wait a minute, there's something worse waiting for me, isn't there?"
- Invoked: A killer hides in houses and throws cats at those who investigate in order to keep suspicion off himself.
- Exploited: The killer knows that the hero will be distracted by the cat, and sneaks up on the hero by surprise.
- Defied: When the cat jumps out, the character is not at all relieved and gets ready to face whatever else is lurking.
- Discussed: "Uh-oh. The cat jumped out at me. I shouldn't be relieved, it probably means something worse is going to follow."
- Conversed: "No no no! Augh, she thinks the noise was just the cat- how could she be so stupid?"
- Deconstructed:
- The cat actually scares the victim into a fatal heart attack, and the killer finds their dead body.
- The killer is actually a pissed-off feral cat.
- Reconstructed: Cats are benevolent creatures that are trying to warn the hero.
GYAAAAH!! O-oh, it was just a cat... ...Wait a minute...
