Safe Zone Hope Spot

Usually when there's a Zombie Apocalypse, Alien Invasion, or some type of pandemic thanks to The Virus, or The Plague, there will eventually be rumors that start to spread amongst survivors, and refugees about a "safe zone", or a "outpost" or something to that effect. After hearing this news of a possible refuge the desperate protagonists go on an arduous and harrowing pilgrimage to said place where there's hopefully food, shelter, and uninfected (and sane) humans.

Of course the protagonists eventually reach said destination only for them to find out the hope and soul crushing truth. Truth being that the outpost/Safe Zone has been either overrun, abandoned and desolate (and probably has been for hours, days, weeks, or months), or maybe even a trap. Or worse, there never was a outpost or safe zone to begin with, likely due to misinformation (or false hope). Could result in a Shoot the Shaggy Dog moment, and or Downer Ending.

Compare Room Full of Zombies. Overlaps with Abandoned Area in some cases.

WARNING LIKELY SPOILERS BELOW

Examples of Safe Zone Hope Spot include:

Film

• In Resident Evil: Afterlife, the main character discovers that Arcadia, the so-called safe haven where survivors are supposed to have gathered, is in fact a trap laid by the Big Bad.
  • In Resident Evil 2, the RPD building. In one of the save rooms, opening the door results in a Room Full of Zombies.
• Sanctuary in Logan's Run
  • Only in the movie, in the book it's quite real.
• Zombieland has this trope into play. But the rumors contradict the other as far as location. Either way, said place doesn't exist.
• In the film Carriers the protagonists hear of a safe zone where supposedly there's a group of scientists whom found a vaccine. By the time the travelers get there, the oupost/safe zone is abandoned with body bags stuffed cartoonishly to capacity in a garbage truck. They eventually find ONE scientist doctor inside a plastic chamber with 2 kids. He does a Face Revealing Turn showing that he's infected. He tells how the vaccine was a failure, and how everything fell apart. He pours himself and the 2 kids something in red cups, which was indicated to be poisoned fruit punch.
• Happens in the movie Children of Men. Theo and company arrive at a refugee house only to discover that the people there are planning to kill Theo and kidnap Kee so that they can use her baby for their own political ends. They manage to escape, and the trope is lampshaded with this exchange.

Miriam: We need to find a safe house.
Theo: Yeah, 'cause the last one was really fucking safe.

• Happens twice in Centurion.
• The Birds fades out on the survivors leaving Bodega Bay for San Francisco, hoping to find help. Hitchcock's original plan was to have it fade back in to a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge covered in birds, but the studio felt that was too dark and made him leave it open.
• There are a couple in Romero's Of The Dead series;
  • In Land of the Dead Pittsburgh was one of the last remaining cities in the world (perhaps the last) to survive the zombie horde but the events of the movie soon changes that.
  • In the original Dawn of the Dead there are rumours that the infection isn't so bad in Canada and that was where the gang was originally heading before that entered the mall. *** In |the remake, this happens twice. First, the local army base, Ft. Pastor is overrun. Second, they attempt to head off to a island in Lake Michigan...which doesn't end so well either.
  • Survival of the Dead has an island that is meant to be free of zombies but it turns out that isn't 100% correct either.
  • With Day of the Dead you could say the bunker was one before the events of the movie but at the end the survivors don't seem to be having any problems on their tropical island, perhaps the happiest Romero ending.
• Played bleakly straight with World Of The Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2. A group of British soldiers was told to go to a military outpost where survivors would be evacuated by boats, cause the British military was gonna bomb Britain's cities. Whats left of the military unit finally arrives as the bombing sirens sound only to find that the base was over run during a firefight and that every one was dead presumably the zombie attackers as well. The group decides to hold up there anyway. Turns out this was a bad idea as there were SEVERAL dozen zombies hidden in the bunker. The unit attempts a Last Stand only to be overrun themselves. The final guy survives the Safe Zone Hope Spot just due to the fact he had a Heroic BSOD and decided to go to the beach and look for the boats anyway while the rest stayed behind in the outpost. He makes it to the beach only to realize that the boats left (or maybe they never arrived). Later on the beach he meets a couple who say they're coming from the area the survivor was trying to get to. Telling him they heard that it was safer where he was, because Britain was an island. The survivor just gives a subtle disturbed horrified glare to the oblivious couple, while the woman caressed her pregnant belly.
• Subverted in the post-nuclear film Damnation Alley. The protagonists receive a radio signal from Albany, New York, the only major American city to survive Doomsday. When they reach their destination, it appears that the people of Albany have been doing just fine.
• In 28 Days Later a broadcast on the radio claims that there is a safe zone north of London and a cure for the virus. When the protagonists arrive, it turns out that the point of the broadcast was to attract more people (specifically women) to the tiny group of soldiers holed up there, and the "cure" for the virus is waiting until the infected die off within a few more weeks.
• This happens in Pandorum. They find a survivor in a secure room who seems to be relatively sane and healthy, and are confused as to how he's getting enough to eat. Then he drugs them and and tries to eat them.

Literature

• The Road has boy and man heading south to get to warmer climate. Of course this place doesn't exist.
• In Stephen King's Cell, the rumors about an area protected from the cell phone Zombie Apocalypse turn out to have been manufactured to lure and turn the remaining humans. The protagonists aren't dumb enough to believe it though; they're just forced to go there regardless.
• Not strictly this trope but in the same vein -- Brotherhood of the Rose by David Morrell has safehouses kept by international agreement among the world's intelligence agencies where no-one is allowed to be harmed, including three luxurious 'retirement homes'. When the protagonists finally arrive at a retirement home it's revealed they've actually got a massive suicide rate, as their formally-ambitious residents can't cope with being cooped up in a Gilded Cage from which You Can Never Leave.
• World War Z was filled with stories and allusions to this trope.
• Watership Down in Cowslip's Warren

Live Action TV

• Utopia in the Doctor Who episode of the same name is revealed to have been this in the season finale "Last Of The Time Lords".
• In the Battlestar Galactica episode "Revelations," they finally find Earth! And it's a nuclear wasteland. Frak.
• The Walking Dead starts with Rick Grimes trying to reach Atlanta, only to find out that there's no one there.
  • And again with the CDC.

Video Games

• Left 4 Dead pulls this one over and over and over again. Most notable is Riverside in the first game.
  • However, while endgame safe zones are no longer safe, they're usually still a valid evacuation point (Mercy hospital, the corn farm military outpost).
  • It also seemingly averted with The Sacrifice, where it appears that the safe zone was real. At least one of them is anyway.
  • This was a running theme in the comic, too. Some of the Safe Zones are safe...for a while.
• Arguably every room in the game Shivers could be one. No matter where you go, there is the possibility of an Ixupi hiding somewhere nearby.
• Technically Fatal Frame always has this. Most gamers believe that an area with a save point will be safe. But if you stay in ANY room for too long....a ghost will find you. Pray that it's not the Wandering Monk.
• Your previously safe apartment in Silent Hill 4 becomes haunted by evil spirits in the game's second act.
• In the original Kingdom Hearts, the 100-Acre Woods is the only place truly untouched by the Heartless. Unfortunately, by the second game, even that place is starting to show signs of corruption.

Western Animation

• Parodied in the nuclear apocalypse episode of Family Guy: The Griffins' trek through the wastes brings them to an incongruous patch of fertile land, with plenty of food and clean water for everyone. Seems like paradise... except for Randy Newman. Just sits at his piano, 24 hours a day, singing about whatever he sees. They move on.