In literature and television, it's very common for the current chapter of a story to end on the most dramatic note possible, whereupon characters will react by screaming at the top of their lungs in fear or rage or pain... and then we cut to a commercial break!
Or, in novels, the next chapter.
As television series move away from traditional broadcasting and into streaming, the commercial break cut has gradually become less relevant, but the televised version of this trope still lingers on in episode introductions, the better to establish the story's atmosphere and cut directly into the opening credits.
A popular feature of the horror genre and its offshoots, it's very common for this to feature a minor character being murdered — or worse.
In lighter stories, don't be surprised if the next chapter of the story reveals that the situation wasn't as dire as expected and the character was screaming about nothing.
Compare Ending with a Scream, the counterpart of this trope reserved exclusively for the endings of entire stories or episodes.
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Examples:
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Fan Works
- Para Artificial Intelligence: "Thomas hates his new nemesis" ends with Thomas screaming in exasperation:
He gingerly put the phone back on his desk before hanging up.His head in his hands, Thomas screamed until his throat was raw.There's more of them!?
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: The chapter "A Meddler Appears" ends with a villain being sucked into the afterlife and angry about it:
"Cuuurse youuuu!" Morrigan howled, his voice dwindling in the distance as the distant, imploding dungeon heart sucked him in.
Films — Animation
- Kronk's New Groove: The movie starts in medias res with Kronk remembering all the events (shown in three different segments) that led to the disastrous meeting with his father at the diner and the accident with the cheese fondue. Once the last segment reaches the moment of said prologue, Papi shouts Kronk's name full of rage, before the camera zooms to his throat and fades to black.
Films — Live-Action
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Inverted near the end of the movie, when Ferris and Cameron notice that the vintage Ferrari they "borrowed" from Cameron's dad has a lot more miles on it than it should. The scene then cuts into Cameron's Big "NO!" scream rather than out from it. And then Played Straight immediately afterward when the scene cuts from the scream to Cameron riding in the car utterly catatonic as Ferris keeps driving.
Literature
- The Cuckoo Clock of Doom: Michael's unwanted journey backwards through time eventually results in him finding himself back in nursery school, where he ends up getting dared to climb a tree. Unfortunately, the four-year-old Michael isn't very good at it, and he has just enough time to remember that he broke his arm at this age before he loses his grip and falls, the chapter ending with Michael screaming "YEEEEOOOOOOWWWWW!"
- The Salvation War: once Satan learns that Abigor, instead of dying on his Suicide Mission, has defected to the humans, the narration says that his "scream of rage could be heard across four rings of hell". Then we cut to a laboratory on Earth.
- Shrinking Pains: In chapter five, Milo and Doug decide to use the fountain water to go trick-or-treating so they can charm neighbours out of extra candy. However, when it looks like their three hours of youth are running out, Milo tops up with an extra sip of fountain water... only to find out that doing so before the effects of his current dose wear off just results in his age being halved again, regressing him to three years of age this time. The chapter ends with Milo falling into his oversized costume and screaming a bunch of symbols in embarrassment.
- Sword of Truth:
- In Stone of Tears, after Queen Cyrilla is sentenced to death by a Kangaroo Court, she is thrown to a dungeon with a few murderers and rapists. The final line of the chapter is her screaming as the men start ripping her clothes off.
- In Blood of the Fold, when the Sisters of the Dark start taking their revenge on the crew of Lady Sefa, the chapter ends with the captain opening his mouth to scream and being magically gagged.
Live-Action TV
- American Horror Story: Asylum:
- "Welcome To Briarcliff" kicks off in the present day with two thrillseekers, Leo and Teresa, exploring the ruins of the eponymous Bedlam House. There, they investigate some strange activity in one of the cells and Leo decides to stick his hand inside... and gets his arm ripped off by something hiding inside. His girlfriend lets out a scream of terror, and then we cut to the opening credits.
- In “I Am Anne Frank part 1”, after introducing the eponymous character, we cut back to Shelley, who is still on Dr Arden’s operating table and looking worse for wear. Preparing a syringe, Arden ominously remarks that “after this” she’ll probably live forever, then prepares to inject it — right into Shelley's eye. Shelley lets out a scream of terror and pain, cut to opening credits.
- American Horror Story: Coven: The pilot episode, "Bitchcraft," opens with a flashback to the 19th century, where Madame Delphine LaLaurie brutally punishes a slave for being pressured into sex by her daughter: she has him chained up in the attic with the rest of her victims, tortures at length, and then forces him to wear a bull's head over his own, transforming him into a "minotaur." The hapless slave begins to scream under the bull's head... and then we cut to the opening titles.
- American Horror Story: Hotel:
- The pilot begins with two Swedish tourists getting a room at the Hotel Cortez, only to find that there’s something wrong with the bed. After investigating, the two are left screaming in horror when they discover that a man has been sewn into the mattress and left there to die; tearing himself free, the emaciated man crawls out, gasping for breath, and lets out a tortured scream. Cut to the opening credits.
- At the start of "Flicker," two builders investigate a concealed hallway that's been sealed off from the rest of the Cortez for several decades. One of them notes the smell of death about the place... and then they're jumped by two withered-looking borderline-Feral Vampires, who rip the unfortunate workers' throats out as they scream in terror.
- Cheers: When Carla has a few too many of her own Gargle Blaster drinks, she goes home with one of the regulars, but can't remember which. After finding out it was Paul, she screams as the show cuts to commercial, and is still screaming when the episode resumes.
- Doctor Who: The new series has rather a habit of the killing off a Teaser-Only Character at the end of the Cold Open, generally with their scream the last thing heard before the opening credits roll.
- "The Unquiet Dead" begins with Mr Redpath mourning over his late grandmother in a funeral pyre, only for the dead woman to abruptly spring back to life, murder him, knock out the undertaker, and then leave. This opening concludes with the zombified Mrs Peace shambling towards the camera, letting out a bloodcurdling Ghostly Wail before we cut to the opening credits.
- "Tooth And Claw" kicks off with Father Angelo's warrior monks taking over the Torchwood Estate and dragging the captive residents downstairs to the cellar, where the monks have brought in a large cage under canvas. Father Angelo removes the cover so that the prisoners can get a good look at the contents, and the lady of the house screams in terror.
- "School Reunion" opens at Deffry Vale High School with a sick student waiting outside the headmaster's office. The headmaster, Mr Finch, talks with her for a while, realizing that the girl lives in a children's home and doesn't have any parents to pick her up... and therefore won't be missed. Smiling, Finch invites her into the office for lunch. From inside, the sound of fluttering wings can be heard, followed by the student screaming in terror.
- "The Beast Below" kicks off with Timmy getting a bad grade at school, whereupon the elevator floor opens to feed a screaming Timmy to the titular beast. However, in a subversion of usual fare, Timmy survives.
- Subverted in "The Vampires of Venice", where the Cold Open cuts from Isabella's scream to ... Rory's bachelor party, and the credits don't roll until The Doctor jumps out of the cake.
- Farscape:
- "The Hidden Memory" kicks off with Crichton still captive at the Gammak base, still in the Aurora Chair, still being tortured by Scorpius. And as Crichton lets out another howl of agony, we cut to the opening credits.
- In "Eat Me," following an ambush in which Crichton gets knocked out, Chiana finds herself cornered by Kaarvok, who zaps her with his gauntlet device. She's immediately enveloped in what looks like a glowing egg-sac, which splits apart and disgorges Chiana... accompanied by a brand-new clone of her. The two Chianas take one look at each other and immediately begin to scream. Then we cut to a commercial break.
- During "Natural Election," the crew of Moya find out the hard way that the Botanical Abomination infesting the ship has spread a lot further than expected when Aeryn finds Pilot unconscious, tangled up in roots and creepers, with some even spilling out of his mouth. Then he suddenly snaps awake and begins screaming — before we cut to commercials
- 'Salem's Lot: The scene of Barlow visiting Ned Tebbets during the night in his cell, ending with Barlow's form eclipsing Ned as he let's out a massive growl before abruptly cutting to the next scene.
- Scorpion: "Toby or not Toby" sees Toby abducted by Mark Collins, who threatens to subject him to Electric Torture if his demands for Walter's recent research aren't met. The team decide the research is too dangerous for someone as unstable as Collins to have and give him the runaround, Collins appears to go through with his threats and the episode cuts to the break on the team's reactions to hearing Toby's screams through the radio. However, when the episode resumes, it's revealed that Collins faked the screams and that Toby is Bound and Gagged but unharmed.
- Torchwood: "Countrycide" opens with a young woman named Ellie driving in the Brecon Beacons, only to stumble upon what seems to be a body on the road. Leaving her car to investigate, she finds that the body is just a dummy with a football for a head, and that someone has popped her tires and taken her keys. Out of fear, she tries to call for help, only for several assailants — a few of the cannibals from a nearby village — to attack her. The last thing heard before the opening titles is her screaming as the assailants kill her.
Radio
- GTA Radio: "Entertaining America With Billy Dexter" ends with Jack Howitzer accidentally shooting Dexter in the head, panicking, and shooting up the rest of the studio with a berserker scream of "WELCOME TO THE LAND OF FREEDOM, BITCHES!" before we cut back to commercials.
Video Games
- Danganronpa: Daily Life segments of the series' chapters end with the Deadly Game's Victim of the Week being discovered, accompanied by a cutscene showing the murder scene with a One-Woman Wail being heard on the final shot, before the game cuts to a new title card for the chapter's Deadly Life section.
- MediEvil: The level "The Haunted Castle" ends with Sir Dan opening the lava floodgates and destroying the bulk of Zarok's army, then taking the only exit possible — namely using a catapult to vault over the castle walls to safety, screaming as he goes flying off. For good measure, the cinematic to the next level begins with Sir Dan still in mid-fall, still screaming.
- The Outlast Trials: The game kicks off with the player character being dragged into a laboratory and brutally prepped for experimentation by two extremely apathetic doctors, with the final stage of the prep involving a first-person POV shot of you having a pair of night vision goggles permanently attached to your head with a drill. You scream in agony as the drill burrows into your skull, blood pours into your eyes, and everything goes black... and then the title card appears.
- Second Sight:
- The present-day levels frequently end with John Vattic psychically slipping backwards in time, and because John finds it extremely painful and doesn't have much control over it, the levels "Experimentation" and "Streetlife" feature him screaming in pain — before the chapter ends.
- "Confrontation" ends with John finding himself pitted against Director Hansen and ending up in a no-win scenario: Hansen has killed the Zener Children for tissue samples, successfully framed John and WinterICE as mass murderers, used the harvested tissue to engineer hundreds of psychic super soldier units all over the United States, used John's escape a test of his potential for tissue harvesting, and killing Hansen won't change anything. For good measure, one of his shock troops is holding Jayne Wilde at gunpoint. With his back to the wall, John begins to scream in pain as he forces himself backwards through time — and then we cut to a shot of the NSE emblem on the floor as a gunshot rings out, followed by a horrified scream from Jayne. Cut to black. Cue the title card for the final level...
Web Comics
- The Order of the Stick: One chapter ends with the team flying off into the sunset while the Dangerously Genre-Savvy (yet increasingly Wrong Genre Savvy) villain Tarquin is left screaming impotently at them to come back and give the story a proper ending, completely unable to see they're doing just that.
Western Animation
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: In "The Tomorrow Boys", upon discovering that he's married to Cindy in the Bad Future, Jimmy lets out a Big "NO!", which immediately goes to an Iris Out as it cuts to commercial. When the show resumes, Jimmy is still screaming until he passes out. Carl lampshades the scream, saying he screamed for four minutes, impressing and disturbing Sheen in the process.
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: In "The Mystery of the Missing Hi-Tops", Sonic stays at a hotel during a festival being held in his honor. When he discovers that someone stole his red sneakers, which prevent him from being able to run fast without his feet burning up, he screams in horror before the commercial break begins.
- Big City Greens: In the episode "Green Christmas", Cricket begs a mall Santa to put him on the nice list, but after unintentionally pantsing him, he tells Cricket that he's most definitely on the naughty list. Cricket then gives a Big "NO!" right before a commercial break.
- Captain Flamingo:
- In "Pop Goes the Milo", Milo and Lizbeth find themselves aboard a pirate ship during a hurricane in one part of Max's pop-up book about storms, where they encounter a directionless pirate, who proceeds to force them to walk the plank, and they see shark fins start circling underwater, causing them to both scream for help before we cut to commercial.
- In "Monster Headache", Lizbeth starts a fundraiser in order to raise enough money to get a new costume and gear for the Captain after becoming really worn. Due to his reputation being trashed, Lizbeth's idea is to disguise her stuffed elephant Chester with a fake monster mask, so when they start to get scared while watching a horror movie, she'll send the fake monster so the Captain can save them. However, once a real monster crashes at the fundraiser just when it was about to happen, all of the children scream in horror (including the show's own narrator) and we cut to commercial.
- In "Saint Nick O'Time", Milo desperately needs to send his Christmas letter to the mall on time just before Christmas. After going through a lot throughout the episode as he was helping that many kids in trouble in the same day, he finally arrives at the mall, only to realize that it has just closed, leading Milo to do a Skyward Scream right before a commercial break.
Milo: CURSE YOU, HOLIDAY HOURS!!
- Gravity Falls:
- Parodied in "Carpet Diem". After Dipper and Mabel, plus Soos and Waddles, have had a "Freaky Friday" Flip, Dipper, Mabel, and Soos each have a Big "NO!" moment right before the commercial break. For Mabel, her attempts to sabotage Dipper's chances of getting the spare room have failed. For Dipper, he is stuck in a sleepover with his sister's friends, listening to them read girly romance books. For Soos, currently in the body of a pig...
McGucket: [hungrily, holding a fork and knife] I'm gonna make you into bacon...Soos: Hey, that sounds pretty good! [Beat] Wait, I mean, NOOOOOOOOOOO!
- In "Into The Bunker", Dipper and Wendy unexpectedly run into the Author, return the Journal to him, and everyone seem happy... only for Wendy to realize too late that this isn't the Author. A moment later, the Shapeshifter gleefully unmasks himself by revolving his head a full 180 degrees, crawling up the wall, sprouting spider legs, and letting out a hideously distorted roar. Dipper and Wendy scream in terror and then we cut to commercial.
- Parodied in "Carpet Diem". After Dipper and Mabel, plus Soos and Waddles, have had a "Freaky Friday" Flip, Dipper, Mabel, and Soos each have a Big "NO!" moment right before the commercial break. For Mabel, her attempts to sabotage Dipper's chances of getting the spare room have failed. For Dipper, he is stuck in a sleepover with his sister's friends, listening to them read girly romance books. For Soos, currently in the body of a pig...
- The Magic School Bus:
- In "Gets Lost in Space", the bus gets hit by an asteroid, separating the class from Ms. Frizzle and breaking the map readout, prompting the entire class to scream that they're lost in space. The episode then fades to black for a commercial break.
- In "Gets Ready, Set, Dough!", the class cries for help while they're slowly getting baked into Ms. Frizzle's cake before we cut away for a commercial break.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- In "It Isn't the Mane Thing About You", Rarity gets covered in silly string and Zecora whips up both a bottle of super-shampoo and a removal potion to clean Rarity and the silly string in the café respectively. Rarity accidentally obtains the removal potion which she unknowingly uses in her mane, causing her to be left bald with strands. Once she gets a good look at the results, the camera cuts to outside Carousel Boutique as Rarity screams, and we go to commercial break.
- In "Bats", Fluttershy get unknowingly affected by Twilght's spell in trying to stop fruit bats from tearing up Applejack's orchard. When several more apple attacks are found, the girls stay overnight to see who the culprit is. Fluttershy goes off on her own and the transformation kicks in after she gets a good whiff of apples. When the girls eventually find her, she's now partially a bat herself. Pinkie hangs from tree by her and shines a flashlight at her causing Fluttershy to unfurl her, now batlike, wings, reveal she now has red eyes and fangs and hiss at her before the show cuts to commercial.
- The Owl House: In "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", Luz and Lilith go back in time to help adventurer Phillip Wittebane find the Collector. When they travel to the Titan's skull and Lilith manages to open a door with a special mechanism, Phillip reveals his true colors to them by sacrificing Lilith to a Stonesleeper as a distraction so he can get to the Collector. The episode Smash Cuts to black for commercials after Lilith screams while getting dragged away by the Stonesleeper.
- Most episodes of Phantom Investigators go to commercial immediately after one or more characters start screaming.
- The Simpsons:
- In "The Great Louse Detective", the Simpson family turn to Sideshow Bob to find Homer's assassin who nearly kills him at the spa. When Bart and Lisa see Bob, they yell "AHH! Sideshow Bob!" He replies "We've known each other for so long now. Just call me Bob," so the kids yell "AHH! Bob!" before the commercial break begins.
- In "Homer's Phobia", Homer is unable to take the hint that their new friend is John gay, despite his extreme Camp Gay attitude. Marge has to spell it out for him.
Marge: Homer, listen carefully. John is a ho...mo—
Homer: Right.
Marge: —sexual.
(Beat)
Homer: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—
- Star Trek: Lower Decks: In the Cold Opening to "No Small Parts", Boimler is teasing Mariner after finding out Captain Freeman is her mother when the two are transported from the planet they were on back to the Cerritos. Boimler is still teasing Mariner until he sees Freeman and starts screaming in a panic before it switches to the opening credits.
