There is a "rule of suspense" that never gets broken: In any shot where we see a character in the foreground hiding behind a corner or door and another character approaching from the back, both parties will come close but not meet. The approaching character will always stop or be distracted and retreat before reaching the corner.
A Sub-Trope of Failed a Spot Check. Compare Blind Alley, where chasers won't see the chasee in their peripheral vision after the chasee takes a hard left or right into an alley. See Gave Up Too Soon when a character is looking for someone and stops just short of actually looking around the corner. Contrast Behind the Black, which assumes that if the audience can't see something, neither can the characters.
Examples:
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Films — Animated
- In the opening scene of How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup gets chased by a dragon. He dodges behind a large post Just in Time to use it as (barely adequate) cover from the dragon's fire breath. The dragon starts to move into position to peer around the post and see if it got Hiccup, but another Viking attacks and interrupts the dragon.
- In Zootopia (2016), Nick hides from a guard behind the guard's house. The guard picks up Nick's scent and sniffingly approaches the corner behind which Nick is positioned, but Just in Time before he can spot Nick, Judy starts howling, distracting the guard so that Nick can get away scot-free.
Films — Live-Action
- In Cape Fear, the villain shouts Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are and walks towards the dumpster behind which the protagonist is hiding. Then he stops in his tracks, curses, and walks away.
- In Die Hard, John McClane calls the police to let them know terrorists have taken over Nakatomi Plaza, but it's assumed to be a hoax. Nevertheless, Sergeant Al Powell is sent to investigate. One of the terrorists pretends to be a security guard to allay his suspicions, pretending that everything's fine and he's free to check out the rest of the building. Powel walks down the hallway but stops before reaching the corner behind which one of the terrorists is hiding, deciding "Oh to hell with this!" and leaving. Until McClane drops a dead body on his car.
- Double Indemnity. Insurance salesman Walter Neff has helped Phyllis Dietrichson murder her husband for the insurance money. It's important that no one see them together, so Phyllis rings Walter to check it's OK to come up to his apartment. Right after giving the OK, he opens the door to find...dogged insurance investigator Barton Keyes, who's come to voice his suspicions about the case. Fortunately Phyllis hears them talking and hides behind the door when it's opened, surreptitiously letting Walter know she's there so he doesn't close it while he's talking to Keyes in the hallway.
- Subverted in The Jungle Book (2016). King Louie is looking for Mowgli among the ruins while Mowgli is hiding behind a pillar. Louie looks around and seems to pass on. Mowgli peaks around one side to see that he's safe, until he looks around the other side.
Louie: Gotcha!
- In the famous kitchen hide & seek scene from Jurassic Park (1993), the raptors fail to notice the kids repeatedly because they don't care to move their heads around the corners behind which the kids are hiding.
- The Northman has a scene where Amleth takes cover from patrolling guards behind a house wall. An Angry Guard Dog starts to alert the men to the hero's presence but then Amleth pulls an angry face on the dog which scares the dog into silence. One of the guards approaches the corner where Amleth is hiding but conveniently decides to turn around before reaching it.
- When Joel and Boy from Love and Monsters are hunted by the Sand-Gobbler Queen, they hide inside a hollow tree trunk. The Sand-Gobbler approaches but stops just short of the trunk. After a tense moment, it retreats, allowing them to escape.
- In Train to Busan, a zombie on the train comes close to the heroes hiding behind a set of seats but stops right before making visual contact and retreats.
- In Triangle, Jess is looking for Sally who hides behind a corner, but Jess stops in her tracks and turns around before reaching said corner.
Literature
- The Famous Five: It is often described how somebody hides around a corner, while their pursuer moves very close to them. In Five Run Away Together, the Five have to decide how to hide their boat on Kirrin Island. They haul it around a big rock, while lampshading that if somebody actually walked around the rock, they would see it at once. Later, Edgar walks very near this spot, but does not notice any traces of the boat.
Live-Action TV
- The Borrowers: There are many moments when the Borrowers are hiding in a corner, while a human "bean" passes very close to them. It is often combined with a Bait-and-Switch moment, when the human suddenly reacts, but has then seen something else.
- Doctor Who:
- Too many instances to count; although similar to Blind Alley, when a character is hiding behind a wall immediately next to a door, the individual who is associated with the antagonist never turns around to close the door and/or lock it (instead pulling it closed behind them as they walk out), and happen to see the character associated with the Doctor.
- Subverted, in a way, in "The Horns of Nimon", but notable in that it comes at the expense of suspension of disbelief: The Doctor and Romana are indeed hiding behind a wall, away from the eponymous Nimons, but the wall they are hiding behind happens to have the opacity of a fluorescent tube light diffuser (and may even be one), yet the Nimons do not spot them.
- This sometimes happens in Grange Hill, when pupils are hiding from teachers, or the caretaker. Played straight in the second series, when Singer hides in a changing room. Mr Baxter enters the room in the background, while Singer is hidden around the corner; Mr Baxter then leaves again.
- House of Anubis: The Sibuna gang manages to pull this off a few times. The most notable examples are:
- Nina managed to hide from Victor, while they were both in his tiny office, just by hiding on the other side of the desk.
- When watching the teachers hold their ceremony in the cellar, the students were somehow unseen...despite peeking around a corner and staring directly at the teachers, who would've seen them easily in real-life. When Victor came to check, they hurriedly hid behind the corner...and he stopped just before seeing them, because he decided the noise came from a rat instead.
- In The Leftovers episode "Off Ramp", Laurie sneaks into the house of her landlord in order to retrieve her laptop, but then the owner's wife returns. Laurie hides behind a wall that separates the kitchen from the stairway. The landlord's wife moves across the kitchen towards that spot but stops and leans on the wall talking on the phone. She doesn't move any closer to notice Laurie.
- In The Umbrella Academy (2019) episode "Extra Ordinary", Vanya is hiding from the baddies behind a column of an arcade. One of the henchmen enters the arcade and turns towards Vanya's hiding spot but then changes his mind and walks back.
Video Games
- ANNO: Mutationem: At The Walter Raleigh, Ann comes across the warden setting one of his lackeys on fire with flame-spewing traps while she hides behind the corner of a wall to avoid detection.
- Protagonist Edward Pierce from Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game crouches behind a piece of furniture to hide from the Shambler during their first encounter. The monster even crawls up to look over the furniture but fails to look down slightly to see him.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Paper Mario 64: In Chapter 3, upon hearing Tubba Blubba approaching, Mario hides behind the former's large bed to avoid being caught.
- Princess Peach: Showtime!: In the second Detective level, Peach tails a mook while hiding behind the corners of various objects to find his hideout.
Western Animation
- In Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, the campers frequently try to hide from dinosaurs by hiding behind corners, with varying degrees of success. It also happens when Dr. Wu and his mercenary team arrive on the island, and the kids are attempting to recover Wu's laptop before he can.
- Samurai Jack: Subverted in "Jack and the Creature". When the Roadster Robots provoke the Creature after assaulting Jack, it transforms into a colossal beast that tears them asunder, with the last one terrifyingly hiding behind a rock until the Creature discovers and rips it apart.