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{{trope}}{{Needs Image}}
The killer goes through a door, which closes behind them. Then we hear screams and gunshots - a '''Sound-Only Death'''. Used with those [[Driven to Suicide]] as well.
A subtrope of [[Gory Discretion Shot]] or [[Battle Discretion Shot]]. See also [[Scream Discretion Shot]] and [[Shadow Discretion Shot]]. Goes together well with the lethal variant of [[Mugged for Disguise]]. Sometimes an example of [[Nothing Is Scarier]] or [[Darkness Equals Death]], where the scene is more disturbing because we can't see it.
{{noreallife|Real Life does not have [[Discretion Shot]]s of any sort.}}
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
{{deathtrope}}
== [[Anime and Manga]] ==▼
* ''[[Elfen Lied]]'': The lone survivor of a squad of guards who had been trying to kill a [[One Man Army|naked teenage girl]] is [[Oh Crap|trapped unarmed and alone in a room with her.]] She crouches down in front of him as he cowers in a corner, shitting his pants in fear...▼
▲== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
▲* ''[[Elfen Lied]]'': The lone survivor of a squad of guards who had been trying to kill a [[One
* ''[[Noir]]''. The [[Mafia Princess|Intocabile]] murders the family of a Mafia boss this way, after he commits treason. This was done to get around the heavy restrictions placed on gore by the network (which is why the series uses [[Bloodless Carnage]]) and it works.
** Debatably, also the ending of the series. But most fans don't sign to this theory, as the gun-sounds in the end belong to the protagonists' guns, which at this point were destroyed.
* The Count's death in ''[[The
== [[
* Done in ''[[Watchmen (
* Archie's ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (
== [[Film]] ==
* Lambert's death in the first ''[[Alien (
* The James Cagney movie [[Angels
* A variation in ''[[Star Wars]] Episode IV: A New Hope''. In the Death Star, two stormtroopers are lured inside the Millenium Falcon, then we hear blaster fire. We never see any bodies afterward, but Han and Luke [[Mugged for Disguise|walk out in their uniforms]].
* The massacre at the Two Pines Wedding Chapel in ''[[Kill Bill|Kill Bill, Vol. 2]]''.
* A [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qheb3JyMHSU rather famous scene] in ''The Limey'' is this.
* The murder scene in ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]]'' remake, where [[Tom Cruise]]'s character goes into a nearby room to deal with the [[Crazy Survivalist]] whose actions threaten to give away their position to the invading aliens. The door closes, and....Dakota Fanning sings with her eyes closed so she won't hear the murder sounds.
* ''[[Ultraviolet]]'' has a scene star with a closed door, gunshots, sword sounds, screams, mayhem...and then Violet comes through the door alone.
* Occurs in the ''[[Rocky Horror Picture Show]]''. After Frank N Furter chases Eddie into the freezer, [[Gory Discretion Shot|we see Columbia's horrified face]] as we hear Eddie's screams and Frank chopping him to pieces with a pick-axe.
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* ''[[The Black Hole]]''. The visual aspect of Durant's murder by Maximillian is hidden by the book. We only see Durant screaming in agony.
* Done chillingly in ''[[Paranormal Activity]]''. Katie, appearing possessed, wanders downstairs out of view, and begins screaming bloody murder. Her boyfriend runs down after her, you hear him shout, and then they're both suddenly cut off. After many agonizing seconds of silence, his body is tossed at the camera, and it's revealed that Katie had just murdered him.
* The suicides of Hitler and Eva Braun, Mr & Mrs Goebbels and other Nazi bigwigs in ''[[Downfall (
* The hibernating astronauts who are murdered by evil computer HAL in ''[[
* In the film adaptation of ''[[Double Indemnity]]'' the protagonist Walter is shown popping up out of the backseat of a car, the shot changes to the wife of the victim driving while the victim's neck is audibly broken. In the novel, Walter sits up in the backseat of the car and grabs his victim by the neck, the author then (through the main characters voice) states "I won't tell you what I did then. But in two seconds he was curled down on the seat with a broken neck..."
* In [[Sucker Punch]], there's a scene where Blue talks to all of the girls about their escape plan, which Blondie told him about. When he shoots Amber and Blondie, there's just the sound of the gunshot.
* ''[[Hanna]]'' does this a lot- Erik Heller and Marissa Weigler are killed this way.
* Played for comedy in ''[[Dirty Work]]'', in the fish scene.
{{quote|
* ''[[Jurassic Park]]''- The goat eaten by the T-rex, the hacker eaten by the Dilophosaurus and, most notably, ''Anything'' eaten by the Velociraptors, and for good reason- '' they are all eaten alive''.
* In [[The Blair Witch Project]], this is what happens to Heather because the footage is from her camera, and most likely Mike and Josh, too.
* ''[[The Big Red One]]''. The German protagonist is [[Booby Trap
* ''[[
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* The murder of the entire Quorum in ''[[Battlestar Galactica
* The suicide of the protagonist in the TV adaptation of ''[[A Perfect Spy]]'' by Le Carre, involves him walking offscreen, then we hear a gunshot after a long pause, and then a gory shot of his body.
* [[Played for Laughs]] with ''The Death of Mary, Queen of Scots'', a radio [[Show Within a Show]] from ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]''.
* Series 3 of ''[[
* [[Played for Laughs]] in the ''[[
** Other straight examples:
** Harriet Jones's extermination in [[Doctor Who
** Adelaide Brooke's suicide in [[Doctor Who
** Also occurs in the Third Doctor story ''Spearhead from Space'', where an elderly couple's dog is killed by an Auton. The animal is heard barking offscreen, as its mistress berates it to be quiet; this is followed by a yelp, then silence.
** In "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone" the Weeping Angels move so quickly that this the only way they can snap the [[Red Shirts]]' necks.
* Part of what makes Haley's death in the 100th episode of ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' so horrific is that her ex-husband, Hotch, is listening to the Reaper torture her and his young son over the phone. They get [[Tear Jerker|a few minutes to say goodbye]], and then all Hotch can hear is Foyet's gun going off.
* Jenny Sheperd's death at the end of season 5 of ''[[NCIS]]''. Played with in that we see part of the fight in the next episode.
* In the second season of ''[[Jericho]]'', one episode has Bonnie fighting off a bunch of Ravenwood goons with a shotgun. We see most of the gun battle, but when Goetz walks into the house, perspective cuts to Mimi, who is in the storage closet, slowly bleeding from a gunshot wound. We here three shots- one from Goetz's gun, which we see go through the wall a strike a shelf, one from Bonnie's shotgun, and another from Goetz, which doesn't hit the wall. Cue Mimi's stunned look as she realizes that Goetz had the last shot. We don't find out that Bonnie is dead until the very end of that episode, and we never actually see her get shot.
* In the ''[[
{{quote|
* ''[[Highlander (TV series)|Highlander:The Series]]'' never shows any decapitations, instead opting for a shot of a person swinging a sword and perhaps a *''thunk''* as a head hits the floor.
== Literature ==
* ''[[The Guns of Navarone]]''. Mallory tells the others how Andrea Stavros killed a roomful of
== [[Theatre]] ==
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[
* Also used twice in ''[[Fable|Fable 2]]''. The Hero leaves the room where an artist is either painting or sculpting Reaver's likeness, followed by a comment about how the artist has made a mistake, and then a gunshot.
* ''[[Call of Juarez|Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood]]''. Mendoza orders his thugs to kill William, then leaves and closes the door as gunshots are heard from behind it. We later learn that those gunshots were fired by [[The Gunslinger]] Ray doing his [[Big Damn Heroes]] thing.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Star Wars: Dark Forces
* ''[[
** The cutscene ends after Saren pulls out his gun on Nihlus, but the player can hear the gunshot when gameplay resumes.
** In the DLC ''Bring Down the Sky'', one of the missing engineers' bodies shows signs of "burn marks and concussive damage." You can listen to her final audio log: "They're trying to find a way in. I think they're attaching something to the door. If I don't make it, tell my family I love--"(sound of huge explosion)
** In ''[[
* Done in the [[
* Subverted in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'': Delita approaches Valmafra, sword drawn, and the "camera" pans upwards out of the scene as a scream is heard. Later on, we learn that the person in question is still alive, Delita just cut out their tongue.
* ''[[Rule of Rose]]'' goes its way to avoid actually showing any violence against children, so all deaths involving them happen off screen, with only screams to accompany them. Even bodies don't appear afterwards, only empty clothes, though [[All Just a Dream|the nature of the story]] justifies this rather well.
* In the first level of ''[[Prince of Persia]] 2: The Shadow and the Flame'', after climbing down to the ground, if you go off the screen to the right (into the city) instead of left (towards the harbor), the view doesn't change screens, and you hear sounds of violence from offscreen while your health meter slowly decreases to zero.
* ''[[Disgaea 2
* In ''[[
** Although, it could be a way of showing that the extremely dark tone of chapter 6 is finally over, and that the story is now going to return to a more lighthearted state.
==
* In ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' Redcloak takes control over Tsukiko's wights and orders them to drain her to death and then eat her corpse. Then comics provides four panels of Redcloak's face and speech bubles with Tsukiko's dying screams as he watches her die.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Death Tropes]]
[[Category:Discretion Shot]]
[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
[[Category:
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