Uma Musume - Earth but there are no actual horses exists. There are rare women with horse traits. The world building solely exists for the legacy of the actual real horses that existed in our world. My favorite examples is that the Statue of Liberty is a horse lady, their land line phones are giant so they can reach their ears and there is a lane on the highway for them to run, but the speed limit is higher than it is for actual cars. Also one of the horse girls, Fine Motion, is the Princess of Ireland which implies that Ireland was never colonized.

Steven Universe - Earth was basically invaded by aliens 1000s of years ago and they kiiiiiiiinda terraformed it a little but still let humans evolve naturally so there are huge chunks of geography missing. The show takes place in a fictional state called Delmarva which is suppose to be Maryland and (i think) New Jersey combined into one. There is also a huge chunk taken out of a IRL diamond deposit in Russia for spoiler reasons. Humans are kinda over the entre alien thing so its not a big deal when they see them.

Edit: Thanks everyone who added to this! I know now that Delmarva is actually a real place and is also a combination of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. I guess I kinda head cannoned it was NJ cuz Greg just reminds me soooooo much of some from Jersey shore where i spent many of my summers lol also empire city

Thought about adding dragon ball since they constantly refer to the planet as "earth" but there are no references of actually things that exist on IRL earth and also dinosaurs exist there even tho they seem to forget about that sometimes. Sooooo to fit this trope there should be mentions on references to real places and/or people.

just chloroform (the Simpsons)

everything but fabric softener (Capitan underpants)

Bird island and the stop signs-Angry birds.

There arent vehicles in the island , not that go fast enough to be dangerous atleast.

Yet they still have stop signs and speeding tickets to penalize Chuck.

The fence from the flooded museum-Elemental.

When ember and wade go to the museum we see that both water and fire can just walk through the fence blocking the entrance.

And air elements can fly above/through it.

Thus wade's question: "why do they even have these?".

Well , theres only one element that cant get through the fence (as far as we know) and thats the earth element.

They put up a fence that can stop nobody but earth elements.

I swear to GOD I am sick to death of the same bullshit 'scare' trope in horrors that involve a character slowly looking around a dark place with a building ascending violin note in the background that suddenly cuts to silence when the character finally looks round the corner, then they turn around and BAM! That dreadful LAZY rinsed jumpscare trope is what has prevented me from enjoying a lot of horror, which is what makes scenes like these all the better....

1. The Xenomorph vents (Alien 1979) - There's definitely some anxiety here but also a load of uncertainty with all the characters arguing about the direction our focused guy should go. The alien hasn't been seen for a while and darkness surrounds the screen. All we have is a crude beeping device for any anomaly whereabouts. The arguing about what direction to go in goes on for a while until the alien suddenly pops out and grabs him without warning.

2. The Creature's boat attack (Creature from the Black Lagoon) - I was genuinely surprised that a cheesy 50s monster flick could get me but one moment genuinely creeped me. Two crewmates talk about the situation on the boat and it's all treated as a normal dialogue scene. One of the crewmates then leaves and the other proceeds to look off balcony. It makes you think it's about to cut to the next scene, especially with no change in camera shot and no music being added. Suddenly, the creature quickly walks on-screen and grabs the chilling crewmate with zero warning. There is NO cinematic hint to it whatsoever, which makes it hit even for a rubber-suit classic!

3. The red demon (Insidious) - Probably the most famous example, where a normal coffee conversation between a couple is interrupted with the woman suddenly seeing a red demon pop up behind her man's head. It's not just the lack of any buildup, but how the blue color scheme of the scene trickily relaxes you into thinking it's a normal conversational moment before this blood-scarlet dude bangs out.

1). Gachiakuta:

• The mysterious floating city known as "The Sphere" flies across the world.
• Somehow, the (entirely self-sufficient) Sphere dumps an endless amount of garbage onto the surface. The debris physically damages the surface below, but also endlessly pollutes it.
• "Spherites" who make it to the surface alive as usually killed on-sight by angry surface-dwellers.

2). Arcane:

• Nominally, "the undercity" is just another part of "Piltover." But functionally, it exists as "Zaun."
• The aftermath of Piltover's meteoric expansion is mostly brunt by the poorer Zaunites. Disease is rampant.

3). Dorohedoro:

• Magic residue from the homeworld of "sorcerers" pollutes the environment of humans living in "the hole."

4). Amphibia:

• After re-activating their ancient technology, the city of Newtopia begins strip-mining the surface of Amphibia below.

The pandorica from doctor who. An incredibly powerful cube designed to act as a prison for the doctor who the makers feared would bring about the end of the universe

Chorh gom prison from kung fu panda. A prison made to hold tai lung. Featuring a thousand guards and only one way in or out

Give or take 1 or 2 survivors, may or may not be limited to humans*

The Silent Age - The game focuses around trying to prevent a deadly virus that leads to the extinction of humanity. Through the game's time travel mechanic, you can travel to this future, with the world overgrown and decaying, littered with skeletons. There are only 2 survivors from the future, and neither of them last for very long.

Life After People - A TV series where experts basically speculate on what would happen on Earth if every human suddenly disappeared at once, with a focus on things like infrastructure and other man made things which require human oversight.

SCP-2935 - A cave which, when traversed through, takes you to a version of Earth where every single living organism all perished in an instant some time in the past. Even bacteria, leaving food fresh and untouched, and the nigh-unkillable SCP-682. The kicker is that when you travel back through the cave to your own Earth, you bring whatever killed that world to yours, and everything in your own world dies the instant you step back into it.

Girl's Last Tour - The series focuses on 2 young girls travelling through a monolithic brutalist metropolis in the aftermath of a great war. Throughout the series, only 2 other living humans are ever encountered. Besides that, not so much as a corpse or a skeleton is ever spotted among the stark concrete ruins.

Cynosure Facility: Cyberpunk 2077

The game lets you play as a badass merc that had slain dozens upon dozens of gangoons. This one place is where you ended up as a prey to rogue AIs instead.

True Lab: Undertale

If you play on Pacifist, you'll find a lot of friendly and whimsical monsters who you became friends with. But then you were given a task by Dr. Alphys to enter the True Lab, which is a place where monsters were experimented and became twisted abominations called amalgamates.

House Beneviento: Resident Evil Village

The game itself have some creepy elements spread throughout each of the Lords' places. But House Beneviento is the only place where Ethan became completely helpless and incapable of fighting, added with the completely isolated and dark atmosphere in comparison to other locations.

Smile 2 - Spolier: Skye Riley at the end of the movie smiles to the audience before dying, giving one of the audience members the smile curse

KPop Demon Hunters: Saja Boys go full demon mode on the stage and the kpop demon hunters double down on their hunterness and beat on up ON STAGE, best show the audience will ever see

Trap - Dad takes his daughter to see a concert of her favorite pop star. Spolier: Little do they know he's actually a serial killer and the police are hunting him while the concerts still happening

Fringe Season 1 Final- you discover this is a world war 9/11 happened but instead of the twin towers it was the white house destroyed, with some other changes as well. I personally never watched it, but my Mom always had this on the TV.

Remember Me - Robert Pattison and Not Brittany Murphy; I gaslighted myself on her I don't know why; both have issues and trauma that meet and eventually fall for each other.you know it, that's right. ...... 9/11

Ascension- the story starts off on which JFK's space race sets a colony ship on a 100 year journey in which only the youngest and future grandchildren will see the new plantet. Everyone and everything has a early 1960s feel and communication with earth is distant and long to transmit. When suddenly it has its first murder turns out they are actually in a experiment to see how human will handle a enclosed long term journey and they never left

Earth. Vault tec style..

Pandorum- Turns out they have actually been on the destination planet for 900 years.

Can't have your future metropolis use flying cars or monorails, right? No, you gotta come up with something else entirely.

1). Meet the Robinsons:
Bubble travel.

2). Futurama:
Pneumatic tubes.

3). Robots:
Rube Golberg-esque marble contraptions.

1. The Gem Homeworld (Steven Universe) is broken in half. It was never explained what caused it to look like that, but it must have been a VERY catastrophic event
2. Copper-9 (Murder Drones) has a giant mark that looks very similar to the Absolute Solver's symbol, that was created during the final battle between Uzi, N, and Cyn in Absolute Finale

Tyrell corporation headquarters - Blade Runner

Neurograph Towers - Electric State

The Producers - Max Bialystok, Leo Bloom and Franz Liebkind all end up in the same prison in multiple counts of fraud against little old ladies and attempted murder, where they continue to run the same grift with their upcoming production of Prisoners of Love

The Blues Brothers - Jake, Elwood and the whole band area sent up the river and perform Jailhouse Rock to a literally captive audience.

The Irishman - Frank Sheeran and Russell Bufalino, in a sad echo of their ritual of sharing lard bread and red wine, grow old together in prison, dipping their bread in grape juice.

I'm using old games as examples so I don't tag spoilers.

1- Silent Hill 4: The Room

During the game, you find out about the existence of ghosts, who in this game are difficult to fight back and they won't stop chasing you until you pin them against the floor with a special sword (which you can't use as a weapon), not to mention that being close to them drains your health automatically.

Well, at least you can come back home quickly and rest a bit to heal... but then the second half of the game begin, you no longer recover health by resting anymore, and to make matters worse ghosts will also manifest inside your house and just like the main gameplay they will still drain your health if you get close enough. The only way to keep them away and have your apartment purified is to turn on special candles that you can find in the game and you may probably saved in your storage just in case, do not waste them.

2- Kingdom Hearts I

Destiny Island is the world where you start the game, you get to know how Sora lived here and his friends, then the darkness comes in and takes everything away from him.

After a whole journey fighting hundreds of heartless, you fly to The End of The World, the core of the darkness spreading through the universe devouring worlds and stars, everything unifying in a single point that slowly assembles the insides of a corpse, and when you dive at its deepest point... you are back home.

But the world where Sora grew in no longer exists, this place is empty, devoid of human life until the landscape changes and Ansem appears for the final battle.

3- Dead Rising 2

At certain point in the game, a sabotage happens and the hideout gets invaded by zombies, you must haste to stop it and close the doors immediately or else characters in the refugee may end up dying.

Toy Story 3

X-men Origins: Wolverine

Captain America Super Soldier

In Soul Eater, the Moon is a crescent and possesses a face.

In The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, the moon has a face as well.

In Kingdom Hearts, the titular Kingdom Hearts is depicted as a massive heart-shaped moon.

In Amphibia, the moon is perpetually red as well as mechanical and where the Core keeps its pet projects.

In Kamen Rider Zeztz, the moon in the dream world seems to have a massive chunk scooped out of it and when a Nightmare is active, becomes blood red.

Smiling Friends: In Squim Returns, Charlie eats takeout, and then suffers a series of food poisoning-induced hallucinations. At the end of the episode, it's revealed he contracted a parasite from his takeout. He then remarks, "Man, that's the last time I ever eat Parasite Kebab, ok? Let me just say that much."

Mater's Tall Tales: In Rescue Squad Mater, a firefighter Mater has to save people from a burning building, which is a gasoline and match factory.

I just think it's hilarious when this is implemented. Like, yeah. You wouldn't go to a haircut place called "We Are Terrible Hairdressers" but the fact that a character would go to such a place anyway just makes me giggle.

The Exogorth (AKA “This is no cave!”) - Star Wars

The original and probably the most iconic example: While fleeing from empire forces in an asteroid field, Luke and co. (Edit: Han actually, been a lil while since I saw this one) hide in one asteroid’s cave, but find its insides unusual and are attacked by weird creatures. As the cave seems to start collapsing they make their escape, realizing they were in the stomach of a colossal beast called an Exogorth which nearly catches them before they fly away.

The underground god/entity - The Borderlands

Basically an R-rated version of the Exogorth, this found footage horror film closes with the last two surviving main characters looking for one of their friends who has disappeared into the caverns beneath a supposedly haunted church they’ve been investigating throughout the movie. After having found evidence of pagan rituals and sacrifice in the region, it’s pretty easy to expect a demon jumpscare of some kind, but instead the suddenly damp and smelly cavern starts churning and grumbling, then closes around them as they realize only too late what’s actually going on and what’s about to happen to them. Cue the film ending as they scream and pray in agony whilst slowly being digested alive by some unseen eldritch being they were lured right into the belly of. I saw that ending just recently and I know it’s gonna stick with me for a while; it’s a very effective plot twist, but man is it gruesome and hard to watch.

The Graboid nest - Tremors 5: Bloodlines

For being one of the lesser films in the franchise and IMO the start of its decline, it does have a very effective opening scene: while two hunters are investigating unknown creature sightings in South Africa, one of them trips and falls into a massive cavern. As his friend tries to lower a rope down to him, he hears weird growling noises all around him and spots occasional flashes of movement. He then sees ancient artwork of creatures resembling Graboids eating people, and the reality dawns on him that he’s landed right in the middle of a nest. Before he can climb the rope and escape, he’s attacked and torn apart in the darkness by an Assblaster (yes, that’s its actual name) guarding the nest. The slow build leading up to the attack is very well done here, kind of a shame then the rest of the movie falls a little flat in comparison.

Ted The Caver - Creepypasta

Widely considered the very first creepypasta ever written, Ted The Caver tells the story of Ted and his friends investigating an unusual hole in the wall of a cave system they recently discovered. As they try to open the hole and explore the chamber within, the story’s entries get increasingly unsettling with mentions of bizarre sounds like scraping rock and apparently human screams emanating from within the hidden chamber. Once they finally enter it, they discover hieroglyphs implying another presence dwells within these caves, one that seems demonic in nature. Soon the cave’s paranormal activity, apparent encounters with the unseen entity and subsequent nightmares and hallucinations traumatize most of Ted’s friends out of exploring any further, but he remains undeterred. The final entry has him confidently proclaim “I will conquer this cave.” After that, the board on which the story is posted was never updated again, suggesting something horrible happened on Ted’s final journey into the mysterious cave.

God’s Mouth - Creepypasta

This one has a premise we’ve already covered so I’ll be brief: a boy and his girlfriend are exploring a cave forbidden from the public called “God’s mouth cave”, and while doing so they find themselves lost after noting the cave’s walls are unusually warm. The boy begins to panic and loses his GF in the darkness, eventually realizing the cave itself is closing around him. Just before the stalactites and stalagmites, now revealed to be teeth, start crushing him, he sees his girlfriend’s body and, quote: “screamed in agony as I watched God’s Mouth chew its latest meal.”

The Alaskan Bull Worm - SpongeBob SquarePants

We’ve covered it three times now and you’ve definitely watched this episode, so I’ll just sum it up with a quote from the scene itself:

“Ooooh…this is the tongue, and the…whole…thing is the…worm……….RUN FOR YOUR LIIIIIIIIFE!!!!”

What makes this one differ is that it’s played for laughs rather than for horror, and is done so quite effectively.

Sidenote: Honestly at this point I could’ve made a whole separate post about the “cave is alive” trope.

The railway - Coyote vs ACME

This is another more lighthearted take on the trope like SpongeBob’s, but is still done so in a way that makes it actually kinda scary, at least maybe to kids: as Kevin Avery and Paige investigate the painted tunnel Dr. Lorre hid his warning about ACME in, Wile E. continues filling out the tunnel after feeling distant rumbling and realizes with visible terror it’s none other than a railway, complete with a monstrous cartoon train that tries to chase down and crush the protagonists with metallic teeth. I appreciate this scene for taking cartoon physics usually meant just for comedy and utilizing them in a way that makes for an actually dramatic and frightening reveal, and the stakes are raised because you know the human protagonists won’t be able to just walk it off like Wile E. if they get run over.

Basically i always get taken out of my immersion in a movie when they use a biotop or animal in completly the wrong place.

1) Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer. the scene is supposed to be in Germany, so why are we in a Northwest American Forest, and more importanly, Where in Hell did the bear come from?

2) The "Hollywood Eagle" at som point in time a hollywood executive decided that eagle screams arent cool enough, so almost anytime you hear that famous shriek, its actually a red-tailed hawk.

3) Alien Planet is just somewhere in bumfuck-nowhere North America. The least offender in this line up, represented here by the alien Planet of "British Columbia" (?) from Sargate SG1

Probably felt contrived for some, but I personally love this gag in media lol.

Examples:

The Emperor's New Groove - Kronk drops a chandelier on Yzma, but there's a hole in the middle of it, so Yzma barely avoids getting crushed.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception - While trying to escape a sinking pirate cruise liner, Nate ends up falling through a large chandelier. He falls to the ground as a circular piece of the chandelier falls down with him, and he barely avoids getting crushed due to a hole in its center. Even Nate can't believe his own luck.

Godzilla (1998) - Victor the Cameraman barely avoids getting crushed by Godzilla's massive foot because he happens to be standing juuuust between its massive toes.

- SCP 7179 (SCP Foundation ) : An afterlife consisting of a paradise island filled with infinite food, fruit, alcohol, and drugs. There are also 3 human beings matching the resident's sexual preferences who are basically slaves to the person who enter the dimension.

The thing is you are completly immortal in this place and there no way to escape, you litterally have to experiment eternity

- The palace of pleasure of Slaanesh ( Warhammer 40k ) : The realm of the god of excess Slaanesh, formed around one of the six deadly seductions: Avidity, Gluttony, Carnality, Paramountcy, Vainglory and Indolency.

All those places are made to make those who enter succumb to the temptations presented, if they give in to the pleasures on offer, they end up becoming slaves to Slaanesh.

1. Despicable Me - In a neighborhood of all the same houses, Gru's is bigger, completely black and his lawn is yellow.

2. Malcolm In The Middle - Couldn't find a better photo of other houses around them, but their lawn is the only one that's yellow and has weeds.

3. Cinderella Story - In a drought season, they are the only ones using sprinklers so their lawn is the only one that has green grass.

The Moon in Assassination Classroom was destroyed by (allegedly) the teacher of the titular class, Korosensei (I have not yet finished the series)

In Soul Eater, both the Sun and the Moon have faces. Later in the story, characters actually fly to the Moon, and it does have a mouth and a nose, and it is very close to the Earth, actually

Spoilers for Fire Force: at the end of Fire Force, during the Cataclysm, where imagination and reality get closer together, the Moon turns into a cartoony version of itself, like children would draw it. At the end of the series, Shinra, in the form of Shinra Banshoman turns the world into a more silly, and more fun version of itself, keeping the Moon the way it will be during Soul Eater.

A building/structure is built in such a way that it seems like it was purposefully designed with the intention of getting people killed.

1. Aunt Josephines house - Lemony Snicket's: A Series of Unfortunate Events

I mean just look at it, do I really have to explain this one?

1. Dracula's throne room - Castlevania

You see that floating room that's like 50 floors up and supported by nothing but a staircase? Yeah that's where Dracula is.

1. The Death Star - Star Wars

Has an exhaust port exposed to the outside leading directly to the main reactor. Meaning you could literally destroy this entire moon sized space station with just one shot. (I know Rogue One retconed this to be intentional, but still this was not the case for over 30 years.)