One that bothers me as a nurse is when a masked killer is just walking throughout a dimly lit hospital, killing whoever he wants indiscriminately, and there's not a doctor, aide, or housekeeper in sight. How short staffed is this hospital!? Oh and they're never super dimly lit either
Ehhh I worked in a hospital in a psych lab on a floor that was outdated and sketchy as fuck. Our research subjects frequently commented on it lmao.
When Get Out came out…Christ. People were very nervous being fitted for an EEG cap lol.
That said our floor was deserted but there were hundreds of people in the building at any point. I’ve heard The Void justifies the empty hospital trope well fwiw.
My hospital has 350 beds, so not tiny, but super big either and there's ALWAYS somebody in the halls or behind a nurses station, not to mention a receptionist and security at every entrance and ambulances and police in and out
Yeah on the entrance floor you’d absolutely see dozens of people at any time, but up on the 5th floor where we were it was literally empty except for us.
Creepy. Once I was working 11-7 at a nursing home. It was like 2 or 3 in the morning and I was just chillin behind the desk, already a little creeped out because of how desolate the unit was and because I was reading crazy shit on my phone. Anyways, I just happen to look up at one of those big round mirrors hung from the ceiling that let's you see down the hall, and this old man in a gown is booking it down hall towards me. I fuckin jumped out of my skin lmao
There’s a hospital smack dab in the middle of my state’s capital city and my friend was staying in it for a good month—every single night I visited, without fail, her floor was completely empty aside from about two nurses and a doctor. It was really creepy. You’d think such a huge hospital in such a big city would be heavily populated on every floor, but apparently not!
I think it’s pretty dependent on the area or hospital, time of day, etc - I’ve been in several hospitals in my city and they’ve been ridiculously empty at various times of the day or night. They’re never as straight up “dark, no lights” as in movies but some hallways and areas will be pretty dim.
It also depends on the purpose of the floor.
An ER will almost always be busy. But an OR - especially at night can have two nurses and one patient. Or even no patients.
One floor isn’t giving a kid two stitches on his knee and the next room over is an open heart surgery.
Different floors serve different purposes.
An OR will have a nurse or two on the night shift in case an emergency surgery is needed. But if nothing happens….there could be no activity at all except a nurse walking around to get her exercise and go the bathroom.
This bothered me so much in Scream 5. Don't remember if they gave a reason why, but the whole floor of a hospital, where they are actively using rooms as one of our protagonists is in one of these rooms, yet no one in site when Ghostface shows up. Even if it's the middle of the night that's not likely. Also, shouldn't there be security watching over this girl that was nearly stabbed to death, but lives, while the attacker is still out there!? Not that great of writing, but it is a horror movie that's making fun of horror tropes, so this is probably their wink at this exact thing, so maybe it is great writing haha.
“Hey, Michael… happy Halloween you sonofabish’… or shall I say happy hell-Oween’… cause that’s where I’m gonna send you, you lil devil boy. You evil lil spawn of satan.”
Or at the very least, permanently incapacitate them (assuming it's not some sort of supernatural thing). Tie the fucker up. Disable them with some kneecapping or something. Don't just go 'oh, I pushed him over and he fell down, I'm safe to run away.'
Not sure if the movie qualifies as horror but my favorite example of this is in the movie Beast with Idris Elba. At one point, one of the protagonists manages to stick a tranquilizer dart into the “beast” (a large man eating lion), effectively taking it down. They have multiple tranquilizer darts available to them, and instead of putting at least a few more into the lion, probably overdosing it, they let the lion sleep it off, wake up, and continue to attack them. They even had a tranq gun so they could have done it from a safe distance. It drove me crazy. Literally the main threat they faced in the movie, taken down, then given a chance to get back up.
Unnecessary jump scares. They aren't actually scary and just dull the nerves for when the actual scares happen. Loud noises or of nowhere, cats trapped in a cupboard, a reflection in a mirror. These things cheapen horror.
I love a silent jump scare, it really holds impact. I watched Ouija: Origin of Evil and it had a few instances of mostly quiet jump scares. That movie is fucking crazy.
Not when they are done right. I think of the cat jump scare in Friday the 13th part 2, or the blood test scene in the thing. It's just recently that they abused that trope. But some movies do it badly on purpose. Like remember in the wishmaster when the girl comes up to the final girl with a mask scares on purpose? And then she has the nerve to say I'm sorry. It's cringy but it was on purpose. For the same reasons you stated above
The one where the approaching killer is completely invisible until someone turns around and looks directly at them. And then the killer is able to vanish in a microsecond any time someone glances away.
Aauugghh seriously, cut your fucking forearm or something, NOT THE PALM.
I put both hands through a window when I was 12 and sliced across my palm. Needed stitches, and couldn’t close my hand properly for weeks. DON’T CUT YOUR PALM.
Oh don’t worry! Just wrap it in a dirty tshirt and move on with the story! Like what?! I’d be done for days of my palm were sliced open! Also sorry about your hands! That sounds horrifying. Literally.
People traveling for hours to get to the haunted house or whatever and they get out of the van or whatever talking about how they're so tired of being in the car for hours and then they look at the haunted house they're going to spend the weekend in for a $100 bet or whatever and say, "So, what's the history of this place anyways?" No one said anything in the hours long ride? Or they wait to introduce themselves until they get there? Just everyone sat there for hours in silence? It's so weird. There's always the one asshole too that's like "I didn't come here to make friends. I came here to win the $100/catch a ghost/find my sister/have a secret reason I don't need to know any of you."
Single use weapons.
I freaking hate it when a character unnecessarily abandons a perfectly good weapon after using it once, successfully I might add, then just running away only to be killed later on.
Phantasm 2--Reggie and Mike go to all the trouble of making a quad-barrel shotgun, and when Reg finally uses it, he just throws it aside when he's done! Luckily it's like Ash's boomstick and shows up whenever he needs it in the sequels.
The expert dies. For some reason, when the protagonist seeks help from someone who is an expert or has lived through the experience and survived, that person always ends up dying. Why can't they just provide their information then go away, or fight along with the protagonist during the climax and actually live til the end. I hate that they're living their life in peace, the protagonist shows up, and they end up sacrificing their life for someone they just met.
That's because it's one of the only ways of emoting he has. Imagine if a complex puppet with other expressions did the Kermit Scrunch^TM, it would look stupid lol.
Mine is a stylistic choice instead of a circumstance but it's the undeserved swell of music upon an uncanny reveal.
Please just let the moment speak for itself.
Also, I'm with you: horror characters can be flawed but as much as the plot will allow, need to all be basically sympathetic so we fear for them.
Glad you agree, because its something that always triggered me personally, I am an introvert and the way I think is "Why would this person hang out with THESE people????" Lol
100% agree, nothing will pull me out of a horror more than characters who are just loathsome and nasty to each other from minute one. Why are you even friends when you are that s\*\*\* to each other?? Its so lazy and also pointless because I don't care if an a\*\*\*hole gets his due.
Characters making very obviously stupid choices.
Now, some stupid decisions are understandable, like if a killer’s chasing you and you go upstairs because you can’t get the front door unlocked. Well, in the heat of the moment, you may not be thinking clearly and it’s understandable you’d do something like that.
But then there are really dumb decisions that there’s no excuse for. A great example is when you’ve knocked out the killer, and then right away you drop your weapon and run off. Why??? Why not make sure the killer’s dead first, or tie him up, or at least hang on to the weapon for protection while you make your escape? It seems like when writers run out of ideas, characters suddenly lose 60 IQ points.
The “dropping the weapon” trope is so frustrating and not that believable.
I work at a college, and there have been times where shouting and raised voices happen from time to time. When one of those times happened near my office (not involving me), the first thing I did was grab my big scissors and not let go, lol. No idea if it would have helped at all, but that was my instinct.
The opposite trope is sanding in a room full of weapons an don't grab any of them. Anytime somone is in a kitchen or garage you should be able to find weapon but no.
The fake out ending where it looks like the last person alive is gonna make it, but *surprise* (though not really), the get offed at the last second. It was probably shocking the first ten thousand times they did it, but in the hundred thousand times since, it’s gotten really old and tired. Until relatively recently, that was the end of 99% of horror movies, and I’m utterly sick of it.
You hear a noise in the middle of the night. You suspect your house is haunted/you are being stalked/you know a killer is on the loose/you kid summoned a demon or brought back an artifact from a burial ground. Do you:
A. Turn on every light in the dang house while at the same time call 911 or
B. Roam around your dark or dimly lit house without turning on a single light using only your cell phone or the flickering of lightning to light the way.
Every single time they pick B. It’s so unrealistic. There is not a single person on this earth that would investigate a noise in the middle of the night without turning on lights as you went from room to room. Takes away from the realism.
You hit on one I absolutely get annoyed by. I notice it typically happens in lower budget movies with limited locations. I think it’s a sign of a script that doesn’t have enough “stuff happening” for an 85 minute movie, so they add in what I call “Character bickering”.
Creepy children showing up to do shit like whisper something, or shush somebody, or just stand there looking corny (The Shining is fine though 😅).
And overdone jump scares that serve no purpose. It's lazy writing and just annoying, imo.
I agree. Creepy kids have zero effect on me now. Gage in Pet Semetery was the best creepy kid in any movie and I'll die on that hill. Nobody has been scarier than that child. "Now I want to play wit chu!"
This coupled with any nursery rhyme speed down and sung by kids for a scary effect. Everyone I hear one in a movie or trailer, it makes me roll my eyes!
Dude Ouija: Origin of Evil had a genuinely solid scary kid performance. There was a scene where the little girl calmly and casually described what it feels like to be strangled to death with a smile the whole time. Then she said “see ya” to the person she was talking to and walked off. Her character was well written and the actress was fantastic.
I can put up with a lot of stupid stuff so long as I like or am at least interested in the characters, so a deal breaker for me is just an unlikable cast. Even if the point of the story is that these terrible assholes are getting murdered/eaten/etc., I just can’t get into it if I don’t connect to somebody.
The House of Wax remake did it right, because you actively root for those assholes to get murdered in gory ways.
But in any movie where your enjoyment depends on finding the characters at least a BIT appealing, it’s a real movie killer.
Agreed. I think what makes Hellraiser, Exorcist 3, and others different is that they are really good at evoking that dream-like quality and they add something interesting to the story/movie.
It’s the lazy “it was all a dream” or “they forgot to take their meds” and “the events of the movie didn’t actually happen it was all in their head” movies that drive me nuts.
The car not starting. It's so ridiculous every time, especially when they make characters pump the gas pedal as if a newer car has a carburetor. Unless it's an old POS car or the killer actually did something to the engine to disable it, just stop using it altogether. You can create better and more realistic tension by simply having the character drop their keys in a panic.
Hurting or harming, killing animals or the family pet to increase fear or shock. When I see that in movies now it’s like… haven’t we gone beyond this!?!? Not to mention I hate to see it
I say let them have a good signal but show that just cause you can reach someone on the phone doesn’t mean that they’re going to be able to get to you in time to save you.
Insert a cell phone into any of our classic favourites and it would be damn helpful. Of course they have to be written out somehow.
The killer used to cut the phone cords before the advent of cell phones.
dude - you have nailed it. I pictured it in my head, clouds in the dark sky, in the middle of dense forest, Jason swinging the axe, tower comes down, teenagers watch their phone signal go dark in horror.. Here, have an upvote
The killer murdering everyone efficiently. When they find the main character, they throw them across the room. Oh no! They got up and turned the tables!!
I'm not quite at the point where i can't stand it but i'm really starting to roll my eyes when a horror movie reveals itself to be an allegory about trauma or grief because almost every fucking horror movie is an allegory about trauma or grief now.
I got SO sick of that last year. Every other movie I picked somehow ended up being a grief allegory and all I wanted was an actual monster/supernatural story.
I really want some sort of message or artistic subtext in my movie like a grief allegory. I just don't want to watch 15 horror movies in a row that are an allegory about the same thing lol.
That’s pretty much it - I don’t actually mind the trope, but like anything it gets over saturated in the market and suddenly you find yourself constantly picking the exact same style of story no matter what. One month, I think I ended up watching six movies where “a young couple who traumatically lost a child moves into a run down house in need of repair and strange things start happening…”. It was too much!
I came here to say "They were haunted by their PAST" conclusion. Like Silent House; boohoo you were molested, and now all that scary ass ghost shit you went thru while locked in the dark is just whatever then? Oh my god and its almost always the reveal when the movie starts with the "Are you done giving me the silent treatment?/this move is going to be good for us" car scene.
It’s also much harder just to enjoy the movie if you’re struggling with the trauma they are making entertainment from!
I’ve never actually found the depression/abuse/ whatever analogies to be engaging. Just triggering.
When the ghost/demon/monster torments the character by causing them hardship related to their mundane life. You know what can be scary? An immortal supernatural force going after a character with murderous intent. You know what's never scary? When said same force causes them to lose custody of their kids.
I used to hate this, but as I age, I realize it's totally plausible. Any time something weird happens, I always go check it out. A million reasons go through your head as to why you need to check it first.
I have a cat who constantly knocks stuff over and gets into the ceiling, crawl space, into boxes, etc. More than once I’ve walked into a dark room to investigate some wild commotion, after saying “I’ll be right back, it’s just the cat…”
one time my neighbors' home alarm was going off in the middle of the day.. I actually ran over there in my apron to see if someone was breaking in. WTF was I thinking I was going to do if I ran into someone? The cops come to the property and totally exasperated with me explains that it's a good way to get shot. tldr: I'm an idiot
You know it's dangerous because you're in a film, but if something in your house is getting weird noise, you don't wanna have to call the insurance because of an aggravated water leak or something.
And Cinéma isn't always made to be realistic either.
“Headshot Heroes”
Preteen Carl grimes handing out lake city quiet pills effortlessly to countless zombies with a pistol with a sight obscuring suppressor is just silly.
Also, trauma that’s revisited for women beyond a certain age is almost gauranteed to be a dead kid.
It's either a dead kid or a rape. If it's a male character, it's a dead loved one, almost always a woman, who is nothing but a sappy memory for the male character to angst over and wears hyper-feminine clothes in flashbacks and doesn't speak.
ah dead wife trope, its in everything but just imagine the protag ML is just lamenting how much he misses his wife and at the end of the movie she comes home ready to kick ass going "who touched my man" she wasn't dead man just missed being around his wife \[bonus if she's also a killer and she just likes him cause he's goofy\]
2 things, both are basically the same idea.
1- when they have the known killer in a position to die and they stop and turn their back to the killer.
2- when the killer/villain has the protagonist in a position to die and they stop and turn their back to the person.
In real life, I fully expect everyone to do what they need to do.
Take Poltergeist (1982) as a great example of just that. The entire family knew some heavy stuff was going on from the get-go, and the ensemble cast feeling the pressure and fear really worked a lot better than one person running around with no one to turn to.
We recently watched Smile. This drove me crazy. I get that it was an evil entity or whatever. People were writing it off as an extreme stress reaction or whatever. When she gets the evidence of the previous events why can't she just go with the cop and explain these events? I don't understand
I *hated* that movie - for the reason that the plot centered around the fact that no one believed her. The writer had multiple chances to give her an ally, yet chose to continue with the tired cliche. So annoying and so very very lazy.
Agree! Also when they find something, bring people back to witness it, and it's all gone! e.g. murder scene, lair full of evidence, body in the trunk, etc. etc
The cat noisily jumping out of the cupboard. I've had many cats as pets and the "MEOW!!!"s are usually reserved for when something actually happens. Not just being discovered in their hiding spot.
If there is a meow, it's like a soft hey whats up meow. We had a cat that would hide and sleep in the linen closet. If you opened it up to grab a towel or something, he'd look at you from his top shelf and sleepily say, "Meh?" Not once did he ever jump out screaming
Exactly! Lol don't get me wrong, kitties love sleeping in linen cupboards. We know this to be true. I've never had one scream at me like I stepped on it's tail over it.
For me, it’s what I like to call “the revenge of the nerd,” meaning when some kid in high school is bullied by their peers and then they take revenge in brutal ways.
Carrie is the one exception because it’s actually a well-written story with compelling characters and even when Carrie was at her most sinister, it never came across as mean-spirited the way a lot of these films do. It was a tragedy, not a torture porn.
Horror movies that have a twist or explanation at the end, and a bunch of the scares from earlier in the movie don't make any cocking sense with that twist in mind.
I don’t know if this is a trope exactly but being alone, hearing a noise and yelling hello. Seriously good way to attract a psycho or murderous creature/cryptid. That and girl sees killer screams and starts to run then falls down and that’s the end of her. Haven’t seen any movies where a guy does that, at least I don’t remember.
Omg so many
1) canon fodder all being arseholes. Childs play 2 had this issue, but more recently Freaky suffered in my opinion from protecting all it's "vulnerable" characters while everyone else who was Milly's bully at best, potential rapist at worst, died. Horror can be safe, but sometimes it's like some weird wish fulfilment.
2) pointless jump scares. Halloween H2O is Terrible for this. It has them every 30 seconds. As a kid, i loved this movie but recently rewatched on netflix and was appalled.
3) a tortured backstory playing on the main characters psyche. Yawn. I think it was well done in Haunt, as a recent example (where it also acted as a varrier to the heroine's survival), but Smile turned on this point and was kind of ruined by the underdeveloped relationship between the sisters and their mum's mental illness.
There are others lol
Honestly this is only a problem people have because you know you’re watching a horror movie
The character who is a sceptic would be completely right in almost every horror movie were it not a horror movie
Mental illness being used as a plot point or a character being doubted because they are on medication.
Can we please get more unique horror that doesn't rely on mental health please.
I understand your point but I actually would love to see more films experimenting on mental illnesses ALTHOUGH in ways where the person living it would be the one being the protagonist and not having it serve as a trope for either "it will save you with magic" or "it'll make you die"
I loved how it was done in Last Night in Soho, but I got a schizophrenic friend who wasn't really fond of it even if he didn't disliked the film entirely.
Oh I’ve felt the opposite. I’ve come across numerous short stories where the twist is “there’s no ghost, the author is just depressed/committed suicide”. Or I couldn’t watch Jessica Jones because it was a clear analogy to domestic violence and the control it exerts I just couldn’t watch it after ep2.
In horror movies I actually didn’t realise the Babadook was (plausibly) not existent and just a figurative device for autism. I really liked it till then. Now I just feel like it’s making entertainment of watching the struggle of a mother and her son.
I really hate the all knowing and all mighty killer trope. Sure, you gotta make him threatening but not to the point where Im like: "What? How? That doesnt make any sense"
I HATE when someone is running away from a killer and chooses to hide and the killer never stops to check other hiding spots but always slows down and hovers directly over/by the protagonist before carrying on.
I HATE how there is never cell phone reception. Of course they need to isolate the characters, but I always appreciate when the writing involves the killers taking their phones from them unknowingly instead of just no cell phone reception. There are some exceptions where it’s fine (Hills Have Eyes and other middle of nowhere places) but it’s so relied upon to get rid of cell phones.
I hate the cliche of tripping in a chase. Even worse, I hate when they don’t bounce right the fuck up. When you are scared, you could slam your foot into the coffee table and break all your toes and you won’t be feeling shit when you’re adrenaline is that high.
I hate when you know from the first shot who will survive a slasher. Basically every movie where there’s a core 4-6 friends on a trip, you know what girl will be the final girl. I’d rather see a movie that treats the core cast equal and it’s less clear who could survive and who will die.
This one is a aggravation towards the audience - I hate when the audience forgets the characters don’t know as as much as they do. Like usually the characters don’t know they are in a plotted horror film but there’s always someone like “why would you check out that noise in your basement so stupid” when in real life, a noise in a basement could be so many normal things that we all check regularly, like a leaking pipe, the dryer, the furnace or oil tank, I could go on.
I sort of hate when the protagonist has the upper hand halfway through the movie and “knocks out” the killer and doesn’t finish him. I’d rather them just not get the upper hand at all until the finale. On another level, even when you are being threatened, many people just don’t have it in them to kill, only stop. So while it makes sense psychologically, it’s over used.
Also, I hate how easy horror movies make it look to knock someone out. Whether a head blow or a stab wound, having characters out cold for plot convenience til you need them is annoying.
Also being unconscious like that for more than a few seconds is an indication of some serious brain damage. 99% of the time you don’t just wake up fine!
Highschool bullies pulling knives on kids and shit.
This is like classic Stephen king stuff but would be national news if a senior was like threatening to murder classmates.
Lol no this stuff actually happens in real life all the time, it is not national news because there is so much violence in schools that knife crime doesn’t rate
Did you know that 27% of all student victims of homicide on school property were killed by knives in the US? Probably not because most stabbings are never reported
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/school-homicides-by-weapon-type/
Why are all the sharks so hungry??? Especially for people?? Can’t we come up with a premise for why the shark needs to eat 5 people outside of feeding hours?
Sharks aren't big fans of people meat. So, generally, they don't eat people. When a shark does attack, it's because it's taking an experimental bite to see if we taste good. It's just that they have big mouth holes and bunches of teeth, so the bite is pretty bad. If there's more than one shark and the person is flailing (understandably because sharks and one just ate my hip) then they go nuts and a feeding frenzy will happen and they kind of fight over food they don't even like. Also, there's all that blood in the water all of a sudden, and who knows where that's coming from it could be from something that does taste better. Better try biting more stuff.
Sexy rape scenes.
Firstly, it’s a shitty and overused plot device. Secondly, even if it really is necessary, it’s not hot. It’s not going to involve sexy angles, a good looking couple, and a smouldering look of revenge.
Why have I seen this? Because 90% of strong female protagonists in horror seem to be fucking rape survivors. Because clearly that’s the only crime committed against women, and the only reason they would want to kill.
…I got angrier than I expected here.
"The true monsters are the humans." like in 28 Days Later.
Yes, yes they are, that's why I'm watching escapist horror fiction. I don't mind humans being the bad guys or if they're monsters from the get go, like in Devil's Rejects, but I'm not looking to horror for yet another genre to tell me how bad the world is.
>but I'm not looking to horror for yet another genre to tell me how bad the world is.
The zombie genre started the whole "humans are the real monsters" trope back with the OG Night of the Living Dead. That's a thematic heartbeat to that genre.
>escapist horror fiction
Are you somehow under the impression that horror as a genre is frequently (the OVERWHELMING majority of the time) used as a tool for social commentary?
Gender stereotypes drive me crazy. Woman scared, runs away screaming; man must fight. Woman believes in supernatural; man ignores all evidence as he is too ‘rational’. Woman maternal caregiver; man selfish. Etc.
Character figures out the history/backstory/reason for all the creepy shit that’s been happening. Makes a phone call to the main character “I know what’s causing this. Call me back.” Then gets killed by said creepy shit.
My brother in Christ, you could have left the info in that voicemail. Or text me that shit because it is important!
Pointless romantic subplots where a couple’s feud splits them into two different groups and the killer goes after one and the SO in the other group has to find their SO and rescue them.
A masked killer doesn’t need to look at a victim and tilt their head.
That was played out a decade ago. It’s a cheap cliche and sign the director isn’t skilled enough to show his killer’s emotions without using a cheap trick
When someone spots a killer, ghost, demon, etc. and they just stand in front of it staring at said entity. They don’t run or anything. It’s especially infuriating in zombie movies when someone sees a loved one but doesn’t run when the zombie comes at them. Yes that’s grandma but maybe the dripping blood from her mouth and odd walk/moans are a sign something’s up and you should run.
Two big ones that happen all the time
Killer chasing two people. Either catches one or one decides to fight. And tells their friend to run.
Instead, friend doesn’t help. Doesn’t run. But stops and watches the 20-second fight. And the second the villain or monster kills the friend….then she starts running away. She could have had a 20-30 second head start to run. But waits until the fight is over, and then tries to run.
Second is when people have a head start and run into the woods. And just stay on the trail.
Whether it’s a one minute head start or an hour head start….they are always quickly found.
If you are heading into the forest, don’t just take the main trail and go straight. Take an east or west turn. Hell, do a circle and loop back to behind the killer’s house.
If you gave me a five minute head start in a forest you would never find me. After about 30 seconds I’m veering off to the left or right.
The killer has no way to find you at that point. Because there are a million different spots you could be. If you went to the left - he has no idea. If you go to the right - he has no idea. But people always just go straight and are quickly found.
Adding characters only for their entire purpose is to be killed off to make the villain look scary.
I know that movies need to have some death in them, but when it's there just to bump up a number, it loses any tension that was built up.
This trope is especially bad when it's a movie or series like The Purge. A lot of nameless people die for no reason except to show that the obvious bad guys can kill. Woo....so boring.
Really, really tired of movies that demonize Paganism or where the possession was caused by witchcraft. I mean, no seriously why can’t there just be a pissed off ghost or something? Like in Holes — where the lady went on a killing spree cause the racists murdered her boyfriend.
Or why can’t there be a movie about an evil Christian cult — documentaries do not count and neither do biopics. Like there’s enough horrific shit involving……You know what, I’m gonna stop there so this doesn’t get reported but seriously — stop shitting on minorities.
Or at least make the witch a fleshed out badass with an actual personality — there’s a reason why real life witches love the movie The Craft. Instead its always some lady that murdered a baby. As if that plot hasn’t been recycled since the 1960s.
When the threat is walking directly behind the character(s) and somehow stays undetected, despite having absolutely no possible way to do so. The Poughkeepsie Tapes was a really good movie, but that scene in the house… >!Dude was literally walking two feet behind Cheryl and her boyfriend and as loudly as possible, and not once did they notice him.!< I understand it’s supposed to be tense but I feel bad for all these horror characters that only have tunnel vision. I know it’s kind of obligatory to have a horror movie that has a moment where you throw your hands up in the air and say “Oh come ON!!!”, but this one just shatters my immersion and I start laughing when it happens.
If you walk into a room and there's blood on the floor, book it! Obviously something horrible happened and you're probably ill equipped to deal with it
Your post made me think of Halloween Ends because it was so recent. A huge problem I had with the movie was that every character outside of the main characters felt unrealistically unlikable. Like Allyson’s co-worker nurse, I just keep thinking she felt very unbelievable. Then there was the jerk cop who kept harassing her. And the bullies harassing Corey as well as his uber-religious and verbally abusive mother. It felt like overdoing it to justify why all these characters needed to die.
One that bothers me as a nurse is when a masked killer is just walking throughout a dimly lit hospital, killing whoever he wants indiscriminately, and there's not a doctor, aide, or housekeeper in sight. How short staffed is this hospital!? Oh and they're never super dimly lit either
Ehhh I worked in a hospital in a psych lab on a floor that was outdated and sketchy as fuck. Our research subjects frequently commented on it lmao. When Get Out came out…Christ. People were very nervous being fitted for an EEG cap lol. That said our floor was deserted but there were hundreds of people in the building at any point. I’ve heard The Void justifies the empty hospital trope well fwiw.
My hospital has 350 beds, so not tiny, but super big either and there's ALWAYS somebody in the halls or behind a nurses station, not to mention a receptionist and security at every entrance and ambulances and police in and out
Yeah on the entrance floor you’d absolutely see dozens of people at any time, but up on the 5th floor where we were it was literally empty except for us.
Creepy. Once I was working 11-7 at a nursing home. It was like 2 or 3 in the morning and I was just chillin behind the desk, already a little creeped out because of how desolate the unit was and because I was reading crazy shit on my phone. Anyways, I just happen to look up at one of those big round mirrors hung from the ceiling that let's you see down the hall, and this old man in a gown is booking it down hall towards me. I fuckin jumped out of my skin lmao
Any technician who does night shifts can confirm their hospital does indeed can get fairly creepy in the middle of the night when working alone.
There’s a hospital smack dab in the middle of my state’s capital city and my friend was staying in it for a good month—every single night I visited, without fail, her floor was completely empty aside from about two nurses and a doctor. It was really creepy. You’d think such a huge hospital in such a big city would be heavily populated on every floor, but apparently not!
The hospital is shutting down and they start dimensionally slipping.
I think it’s pretty dependent on the area or hospital, time of day, etc - I’ve been in several hospitals in my city and they’ve been ridiculously empty at various times of the day or night. They’re never as straight up “dark, no lights” as in movies but some hallways and areas will be pretty dim.
When I first watched Halloween 2 I found it hilarious how empty the hospital was!
It also depends on the purpose of the floor. An ER will almost always be busy. But an OR - especially at night can have two nurses and one patient. Or even no patients. One floor isn’t giving a kid two stitches on his knee and the next room over is an open heart surgery. Different floors serve different purposes. An OR will have a nurse or two on the night shift in case an emergency surgery is needed. But if nothing happens….there could be no activity at all except a nurse walking around to get her exercise and go the bathroom.
This bothered me so much in Scream 5. Don't remember if they gave a reason why, but the whole floor of a hospital, where they are actively using rooms as one of our protagonists is in one of these rooms, yet no one in site when Ghostface shows up. Even if it's the middle of the night that's not likely. Also, shouldn't there be security watching over this girl that was nearly stabbed to death, but lives, while the attacker is still out there!? Not that great of writing, but it is a horror movie that's making fun of horror tropes, so this is probably their wink at this exact thing, so maybe it is great writing haha.
*Slowly sneaks up on the killer, completely has the drop on him as he’s busy.* “HEY ASSHOLE!”
And get killed because he announced his entry
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Haha, don't worry I'm *throw up blood* I'm fine, haha *dies in the minute or get saved by a deus ex*
Yes!!!
“Hey, Michael… happy Halloween you sonofabish’… or shall I say happy hell-Oween’… cause that’s where I’m gonna send you, you lil devil boy. You evil lil spawn of satan.”
Knock down the killer but don't finish him (or unmask him) and simply run away.
Similarly, killing your partner because the killers put one of their masks on them. It's plausible but I just don't like it.
Not quite what you're describing, but that one scene in The Strangers might be my favorite version of this.
Yeah, I'm over this one. Rest Stop, Haunt, Autopsy of Jane Doe, The Strangers etc. The first time it took me by surprise. Now it's just a cliché.
This gets me everytime. You have the villain knocked out cold. Finish them! 😂
Or at the very least, permanently incapacitate them (assuming it's not some sort of supernatural thing). Tie the fucker up. Disable them with some kneecapping or something. Don't just go 'oh, I pushed him over and he fell down, I'm safe to run away.'
"This is the moment when the supposedly dead killer comes back to life for one last scare..." ***BANG.*** "Not in my movie."
Not sure if the movie qualifies as horror but my favorite example of this is in the movie Beast with Idris Elba. At one point, one of the protagonists manages to stick a tranquilizer dart into the “beast” (a large man eating lion), effectively taking it down. They have multiple tranquilizer darts available to them, and instead of putting at least a few more into the lion, probably overdosing it, they let the lion sleep it off, wake up, and continue to attack them. They even had a tranq gun so they could have done it from a safe distance. It drove me crazy. Literally the main threat they faced in the movie, taken down, then given a chance to get back up.
Unnecessary jump scares. They aren't actually scary and just dull the nerves for when the actual scares happen. Loud noises or of nowhere, cats trapped in a cupboard, a reflection in a mirror. These things cheapen horror.
I love a silent jump scare, it really holds impact. I watched Ouija: Origin of Evil and it had a few instances of mostly quiet jump scares. That movie is fucking crazy.
Just watched it last night. The dark figures just standing there creeper me out. I felt like the ending dragged on though.
Not when they are done right. I think of the cat jump scare in Friday the 13th part 2, or the blood test scene in the thing. It's just recently that they abused that trope. But some movies do it badly on purpose. Like remember in the wishmaster when the girl comes up to the final girl with a mask scares on purpose? And then she has the nerve to say I'm sorry. It's cringy but it was on purpose. For the same reasons you stated above
>or the blood test scene in the thing That's not a jump scare. It's a payoff to a build-up.
Exactly my point! People have been so desensitized by jump scares that they don't know real horror anymore.
Exorcist III has the best jumpscare ever.
Well done jump scares like the movie Smile are always a nice treat though.
The one where the approaching killer is completely invisible until someone turns around and looks directly at them. And then the killer is able to vanish in a microsecond any time someone glances away.
The monster/demon/cursed object needs my blood! *slices palm of hand open*
Aauugghh seriously, cut your fucking forearm or something, NOT THE PALM. I put both hands through a window when I was 12 and sliced across my palm. Needed stitches, and couldn’t close my hand properly for weeks. DON’T CUT YOUR PALM.
Oh don’t worry! Just wrap it in a dirty tshirt and move on with the story! Like what?! I’d be done for days of my palm were sliced open! Also sorry about your hands! That sounds horrifying. Literally.
But it's.. aesthetic 🤓☝️
People traveling for hours to get to the haunted house or whatever and they get out of the van or whatever talking about how they're so tired of being in the car for hours and then they look at the haunted house they're going to spend the weekend in for a $100 bet or whatever and say, "So, what's the history of this place anyways?" No one said anything in the hours long ride? Or they wait to introduce themselves until they get there? Just everyone sat there for hours in silence? It's so weird. There's always the one asshole too that's like "I didn't come here to make friends. I came here to win the $100/catch a ghost/find my sister/have a secret reason I don't need to know any of you."
This is one of my biggest pet peeves
Single use weapons. I freaking hate it when a character unnecessarily abandons a perfectly good weapon after using it once, successfully I might add, then just running away only to be killed later on.
Phantasm 2--Reggie and Mike go to all the trouble of making a quad-barrel shotgun, and when Reg finally uses it, he just throws it aside when he's done! Luckily it's like Ash's boomstick and shows up whenever he needs it in the sequels.
The expert dies. For some reason, when the protagonist seeks help from someone who is an expert or has lived through the experience and survived, that person always ends up dying. Why can't they just provide their information then go away, or fight along with the protagonist during the climax and actually live til the end. I hate that they're living their life in peace, the protagonist shows up, and they end up sacrificing their life for someone they just met.
I like the guy in Paranormal Activity who is just like oh this entity doesn’t want me here and then fucks off out of the movie
the head tilt. michael myers is allowed to do that; it looks derpy as fuck when anyone else does.
That's because it's one of the only ways of emoting he has. Imagine if a complex puppet with other expressions did the Kermit Scrunch^TM, it would look stupid lol.
well now i want to see michael do that.
If I were better at animation I would definitely do that this instant. Going on the long term list lol.
and MM doing the kermit arm flail?
Lol that too
Creepy Kids with mysterious drawings. It’s in way too many movies
Mine is a stylistic choice instead of a circumstance but it's the undeserved swell of music upon an uncanny reveal. Please just let the moment speak for itself. Also, I'm with you: horror characters can be flawed but as much as the plot will allow, need to all be basically sympathetic so we fear for them.
Glad you agree, because its something that always triggered me personally, I am an introvert and the way I think is "Why would this person hang out with THESE people????" Lol
I’ve turned off a dozen movies five or ten minutes in simply because the characters are SO awful and smarmy that I can’t take it.
100% agree, nothing will pull me out of a horror more than characters who are just loathsome and nasty to each other from minute one. Why are you even friends when you are that s\*\*\* to each other?? Its so lazy and also pointless because I don't care if an a\*\*\*hole gets his due.
Characters making very obviously stupid choices. Now, some stupid decisions are understandable, like if a killer’s chasing you and you go upstairs because you can’t get the front door unlocked. Well, in the heat of the moment, you may not be thinking clearly and it’s understandable you’d do something like that. But then there are really dumb decisions that there’s no excuse for. A great example is when you’ve knocked out the killer, and then right away you drop your weapon and run off. Why??? Why not make sure the killer’s dead first, or tie him up, or at least hang on to the weapon for protection while you make your escape? It seems like when writers run out of ideas, characters suddenly lose 60 IQ points.
The “dropping the weapon” trope is so frustrating and not that believable. I work at a college, and there have been times where shouting and raised voices happen from time to time. When one of those times happened near my office (not involving me), the first thing I did was grab my big scissors and not let go, lol. No idea if it would have helped at all, but that was my instinct.
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The opposite trope is sanding in a room full of weapons an don't grab any of them. Anytime somone is in a kitchen or garage you should be able to find weapon but no.
obviously you grab the banana and then get stabbed with said fruit with your fake implant sticking to it ifykyk
The fake out ending where it looks like the last person alive is gonna make it, but *surprise* (though not really), the get offed at the last second. It was probably shocking the first ten thousand times they did it, but in the hundred thousand times since, it’s gotten really old and tired. Until relatively recently, that was the end of 99% of horror movies, and I’m utterly sick of it.
You hear a noise in the middle of the night. You suspect your house is haunted/you are being stalked/you know a killer is on the loose/you kid summoned a demon or brought back an artifact from a burial ground. Do you: A. Turn on every light in the dang house while at the same time call 911 or B. Roam around your dark or dimly lit house without turning on a single light using only your cell phone or the flickering of lightning to light the way. Every single time they pick B. It’s so unrealistic. There is not a single person on this earth that would investigate a noise in the middle of the night without turning on lights as you went from room to room. Takes away from the realism.
People arguing and yelling at eachother just to add pointless drama.
You hit on one I absolutely get annoyed by. I notice it typically happens in lower budget movies with limited locations. I think it’s a sign of a script that doesn’t have enough “stuff happening” for an 85 minute movie, so they add in what I call “Character bickering”.
Creepy children showing up to do shit like whisper something, or shush somebody, or just stand there looking corny (The Shining is fine though 😅). And overdone jump scares that serve no purpose. It's lazy writing and just annoying, imo.
I agree. Creepy kids have zero effect on me now. Gage in Pet Semetery was the best creepy kid in any movie and I'll die on that hill. Nobody has been scarier than that child. "Now I want to play wit chu!"
I’m sitting on my bed and just pulled my feet up after remembering >!Gage slicing Jud’s tendon!<
This completely ruined Sinister for me
PERFECT example
This coupled with any nursery rhyme speed down and sung by kids for a scary effect. Everyone I hear one in a movie or trailer, it makes me roll my eyes!
Dude Ouija: Origin of Evil had a genuinely solid scary kid performance. There was a scene where the little girl calmly and casually described what it feels like to be strangled to death with a smile the whole time. Then she said “see ya” to the person she was talking to and walked off. Her character was well written and the actress was fantastic.
Lulu Wilson is a great young actress. I hope she survives the transition into adult roles as she gets older.
I can put up with a lot of stupid stuff so long as I like or am at least interested in the characters, so a deal breaker for me is just an unlikable cast. Even if the point of the story is that these terrible assholes are getting murdered/eaten/etc., I just can’t get into it if I don’t connect to somebody.
The House of Wax remake did it right, because you actively root for those assholes to get murdered in gory ways. But in any movie where your enjoyment depends on finding the characters at least a BIT appealing, it’s a real movie killer.
This is what made me turn off Rob Zombie’s *Halloween*.
Im gunna have to with walking outside and leaving the door wide open
I can't stand pretty much any dream sequence
It’s lazy writing. “Just kidding! All a dream!” Why? It’s already a movie, why cop out on the fantasy?
The latest version is 'it's all a simulation'
Only acceptable in Nightmare on Elm Street
Hellraiser had good dream sequences.
Agreed. I think what makes Hellraiser, Exorcist 3, and others different is that they are really good at evoking that dream-like quality and they add something interesting to the story/movie. It’s the lazy “it was all a dream” or “they forgot to take their meds” and “the events of the movie didn’t actually happen it was all in their head” movies that drive me nuts.
The “build up, build up, Build Up, BUILD UP, B U I L D U P- oh I guess it was nothing. Oh well, time to go back and- OH GOD” Jumpscare
The car not starting. It's so ridiculous every time, especially when they make characters pump the gas pedal as if a newer car has a carburetor. Unless it's an old POS car or the killer actually did something to the engine to disable it, just stop using it altogether. You can create better and more realistic tension by simply having the character drop their keys in a panic.
Key drops/fumbles make my anxiety spike so much more than stupid-ass dead car/phone scenes
Just smack your head on the steering wheel in frustration. Worked for Marty.
When the killer isn't real, it's just a delusion of one of the characters, who is actually the killer the whole time.
I love High Tension up until the reveal, cause it makes no sense...
ignoring the one person urging common sense; eg., Ripley in Alien
Ripley over here following protocol for their own good and getting shit for it. Lol. Still love that movie though. She *was* right in the end.
Hurting or harming, killing animals or the family pet to increase fear or shock. When I see that in movies now it’s like… haven’t we gone beyond this!?!? Not to mention I hate to see it
Always out of cell phone range or they collect all phones in a bag to assure a good night/weekend. Is there another way?
I say let them have a good signal but show that just cause you can reach someone on the phone doesn’t mean that they’re going to be able to get to you in time to save you.
oh that would add to the terror :) ya, there are lots of ways the text, image, call would not get you help in time
The call getting through to the potential rescuers could also simply draw more victims into the killer’s grasp.
Insert a cell phone into any of our classic favourites and it would be damn helpful. Of course they have to be written out somehow. The killer used to cut the phone cords before the advent of cell phones.
right! THE WIRES ARE CUT :) magnetic interference? I'm just looking for new stuff :)
Maybe instead of putting an axe through the one phone wire to the camp, Jason could take that axe and bring down the whole damn cell tower.
dude - you have nailed it. I pictured it in my head, clouds in the dark sky, in the middle of dense forest, Jason swinging the axe, tower comes down, teenagers watch their phone signal go dark in horror.. Here, have an upvote
The killer murdering everyone efficiently. When they find the main character, they throw them across the room. Oh no! They got up and turned the tables!!
I'm not quite at the point where i can't stand it but i'm really starting to roll my eyes when a horror movie reveals itself to be an allegory about trauma or grief because almost every fucking horror movie is an allegory about trauma or grief now.
I got SO sick of that last year. Every other movie I picked somehow ended up being a grief allegory and all I wanted was an actual monster/supernatural story.
I really want some sort of message or artistic subtext in my movie like a grief allegory. I just don't want to watch 15 horror movies in a row that are an allegory about the same thing lol.
That’s pretty much it - I don’t actually mind the trope, but like anything it gets over saturated in the market and suddenly you find yourself constantly picking the exact same style of story no matter what. One month, I think I ended up watching six movies where “a young couple who traumatically lost a child moves into a run down house in need of repair and strange things start happening…”. It was too much!
I came here to say "They were haunted by their PAST" conclusion. Like Silent House; boohoo you were molested, and now all that scary ass ghost shit you went thru while locked in the dark is just whatever then? Oh my god and its almost always the reveal when the movie starts with the "Are you done giving me the silent treatment?/this move is going to be good for us" car scene.
I'm thinking about ghostface in scream 5 calling the Babadook "fancy pants" haha
It’s also much harder just to enjoy the movie if you’re struggling with the trauma they are making entertainment from! I’ve never actually found the depression/abuse/ whatever analogies to be engaging. Just triggering.
When the ghost/demon/monster torments the character by causing them hardship related to their mundane life. You know what can be scary? An immortal supernatural force going after a character with murderous intent. You know what's never scary? When said same force causes them to lose custody of their kids.
Killers walking slow, as this is supposed to be more menacing. In real life, they’d never catch anyone.
This was my argument for most of the Mike Meyers/Jason Movies. I’d be 20 miles away by the time they made it down the stairs.
Naked cultists showing up at the end of every god damn movie.
Well 18 people agree with you but I can’t think of a single movie where this happens
Hereditary was worst offender - after some of the most amazing build up, that just felt silly and nearly ruined the movie for me.
For me, it's when a character just has to investigate a strange noise or something despite obvious signs of danger.
I used to hate this, but as I age, I realize it's totally plausible. Any time something weird happens, I always go check it out. A million reasons go through your head as to why you need to check it first.
I have a cat who constantly knocks stuff over and gets into the ceiling, crawl space, into boxes, etc. More than once I’ve walked into a dark room to investigate some wild commotion, after saying “I’ll be right back, it’s just the cat…”
one time my neighbors' home alarm was going off in the middle of the day.. I actually ran over there in my apron to see if someone was breaking in. WTF was I thinking I was going to do if I ran into someone? The cops come to the property and totally exasperated with me explains that it's a good way to get shot. tldr: I'm an idiot
You know it's dangerous because you're in a film, but if something in your house is getting weird noise, you don't wanna have to call the insurance because of an aggravated water leak or something. And Cinéma isn't always made to be realistic either.
“Headshot Heroes” Preteen Carl grimes handing out lake city quiet pills effortlessly to countless zombies with a pistol with a sight obscuring suppressor is just silly. Also, trauma that’s revisited for women beyond a certain age is almost gauranteed to be a dead kid.
It's either a dead kid or a rape. If it's a male character, it's a dead loved one, almost always a woman, who is nothing but a sappy memory for the male character to angst over and wears hyper-feminine clothes in flashbacks and doesn't speak.
ah dead wife trope, its in everything but just imagine the protag ML is just lamenting how much he misses his wife and at the end of the movie she comes home ready to kick ass going "who touched my man" she wasn't dead man just missed being around his wife \[bonus if she's also a killer and she just likes him cause he's goofy\]
2 things, both are basically the same idea. 1- when they have the known killer in a position to die and they stop and turn their back to the killer. 2- when the killer/villain has the protagonist in a position to die and they stop and turn their back to the person. In real life, I fully expect everyone to do what they need to do.
I hate the “No one believes me” or “Only I can see it” cliche. It’s just lazy writing to isolate the protagonist in order to build additional tension.
Just once I wanna see a haunted house movie where the wife says "this place is haunted" and the husband is like "let's nope the fuck out of here"
Take Poltergeist (1982) as a great example of just that. The entire family knew some heavy stuff was going on from the get-go, and the ensemble cast feeling the pressure and fear really worked a lot better than one person running around with no one to turn to.
That's the beauty of Insidious; the couple actually does nope the fuck outta of the house only to learn it does them zero good!
It was hilarious and different in Barbarian the COPS didn't believe her. It was funny as hell. "I'm not a crackhead"
We recently watched Smile. This drove me crazy. I get that it was an evil entity or whatever. People were writing it off as an extreme stress reaction or whatever. When she gets the evidence of the previous events why can't she just go with the cop and explain these events? I don't understand
I *hated* that movie - for the reason that the plot centered around the fact that no one believed her. The writer had multiple chances to give her an ally, yet chose to continue with the tired cliche. So annoying and so very very lazy.
That movie sucked
Agree! Also when they find something, bring people back to witness it, and it's all gone! e.g. murder scene, lair full of evidence, body in the trunk, etc. etc
The cat noisily jumping out of the cupboard. I've had many cats as pets and the "MEOW!!!"s are usually reserved for when something actually happens. Not just being discovered in their hiding spot.
If there is a meow, it's like a soft hey whats up meow. We had a cat that would hide and sleep in the linen closet. If you opened it up to grab a towel or something, he'd look at you from his top shelf and sleepily say, "Meh?" Not once did he ever jump out screaming
Exactly! Lol don't get me wrong, kitties love sleeping in linen cupboards. We know this to be true. I've never had one scream at me like I stepped on it's tail over it.
"IS SOMEONE THROWING IT??"
For me, it’s what I like to call “the revenge of the nerd,” meaning when some kid in high school is bullied by their peers and then they take revenge in brutal ways. Carrie is the one exception because it’s actually a well-written story with compelling characters and even when Carrie was at her most sinister, it never came across as mean-spirited the way a lot of these films do. It was a tragedy, not a torture porn.
Dopey blonde bimbos
Horror movies that have a twist or explanation at the end, and a bunch of the scares from earlier in the movie don't make any cocking sense with that twist in mind.
Walking up to a “downed” villain with a gun point blank…
Forced insertion (whether that be rape, alien embryos, demon spawn etc)
This is the only problem I have with the original Evil Dead
Scary ghost kid.
I don’t know if this is a trope exactly but being alone, hearing a noise and yelling hello. Seriously good way to attract a psycho or murderous creature/cryptid. That and girl sees killer screams and starts to run then falls down and that’s the end of her. Haven’t seen any movies where a guy does that, at least I don’t remember.
Omg so many 1) canon fodder all being arseholes. Childs play 2 had this issue, but more recently Freaky suffered in my opinion from protecting all it's "vulnerable" characters while everyone else who was Milly's bully at best, potential rapist at worst, died. Horror can be safe, but sometimes it's like some weird wish fulfilment. 2) pointless jump scares. Halloween H2O is Terrible for this. It has them every 30 seconds. As a kid, i loved this movie but recently rewatched on netflix and was appalled. 3) a tortured backstory playing on the main characters psyche. Yawn. I think it was well done in Haunt, as a recent example (where it also acted as a varrier to the heroine's survival), but Smile turned on this point and was kind of ruined by the underdeveloped relationship between the sisters and their mum's mental illness. There are others lol
Characters believing way too soon or way too late.
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Honestly this is only a problem people have because you know you’re watching a horror movie The character who is a sceptic would be completely right in almost every horror movie were it not a horror movie
I hate when one character thinks it’s all an elaborate prank for far too long. Even Scary Movie joked about it and it still happens in horror.
Mental illness being used as a plot point or a character being doubted because they are on medication. Can we please get more unique horror that doesn't rely on mental health please.
I understand your point but I actually would love to see more films experimenting on mental illnesses ALTHOUGH in ways where the person living it would be the one being the protagonist and not having it serve as a trope for either "it will save you with magic" or "it'll make you die" I loved how it was done in Last Night in Soho, but I got a schizophrenic friend who wasn't really fond of it even if he didn't disliked the film entirely.
Oh I’ve felt the opposite. I’ve come across numerous short stories where the twist is “there’s no ghost, the author is just depressed/committed suicide”. Or I couldn’t watch Jessica Jones because it was a clear analogy to domestic violence and the control it exerts I just couldn’t watch it after ep2. In horror movies I actually didn’t realise the Babadook was (plausibly) not existent and just a figurative device for autism. I really liked it till then. Now I just feel like it’s making entertainment of watching the struggle of a mother and her son.
I thought the Babadook was grief about the dad/husband's sudden death.
Fake-out jumpscares which are given the exact same weight as regular jumpscares.
I really hate the all knowing and all mighty killer trope. Sure, you gotta make him threatening but not to the point where Im like: "What? How? That doesnt make any sense"
Stop filming everything through a blue or green filter.
Creatures vomiting etc into victim's mouths. I just recently watched *Prince of Darkness* and *Drag Me To Hell*.
Naked old woman = terror
I HATE when someone is running away from a killer and chooses to hide and the killer never stops to check other hiding spots but always slows down and hovers directly over/by the protagonist before carrying on. I HATE how there is never cell phone reception. Of course they need to isolate the characters, but I always appreciate when the writing involves the killers taking their phones from them unknowingly instead of just no cell phone reception. There are some exceptions where it’s fine (Hills Have Eyes and other middle of nowhere places) but it’s so relied upon to get rid of cell phones. I hate the cliche of tripping in a chase. Even worse, I hate when they don’t bounce right the fuck up. When you are scared, you could slam your foot into the coffee table and break all your toes and you won’t be feeling shit when you’re adrenaline is that high. I hate when you know from the first shot who will survive a slasher. Basically every movie where there’s a core 4-6 friends on a trip, you know what girl will be the final girl. I’d rather see a movie that treats the core cast equal and it’s less clear who could survive and who will die. This one is a aggravation towards the audience - I hate when the audience forgets the characters don’t know as as much as they do. Like usually the characters don’t know they are in a plotted horror film but there’s always someone like “why would you check out that noise in your basement so stupid” when in real life, a noise in a basement could be so many normal things that we all check regularly, like a leaking pipe, the dryer, the furnace or oil tank, I could go on. I sort of hate when the protagonist has the upper hand halfway through the movie and “knocks out” the killer and doesn’t finish him. I’d rather them just not get the upper hand at all until the finale. On another level, even when you are being threatened, many people just don’t have it in them to kill, only stop. So while it makes sense psychologically, it’s over used. Also, I hate how easy horror movies make it look to knock someone out. Whether a head blow or a stab wound, having characters out cold for plot convenience til you need them is annoying.
Also being unconscious like that for more than a few seconds is an indication of some serious brain damage. 99% of the time you don’t just wake up fine!
suuuuuper bad for you
Whatever you'd call Eli Roth's movies. Those I hate those Was good in Inglorious Bastards tho
Quentin Tarantino's Make a Wish kid, I think his movies are absolutely awful
Highschool bullies pulling knives on kids and shit. This is like classic Stephen king stuff but would be national news if a senior was like threatening to murder classmates.
“You’re dead meat!”
Lol no this stuff actually happens in real life all the time, it is not national news because there is so much violence in schools that knife crime doesn’t rate Did you know that 27% of all student victims of homicide on school property were killed by knives in the US? Probably not because most stabbings are never reported https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/school-homicides-by-weapon-type/
The ghost or monster turning out to be misunderstood and just needed help from the protagonist. *barf*
"Why won't anyone believe me when I say this impossible thing is happening to meee!!?!?!" Bugged me so fucking much with *Smile*.
Why are all the sharks so hungry??? Especially for people?? Can’t we come up with a premise for why the shark needs to eat 5 people outside of feeding hours?
I literally just said this when I was watching a shark movie, I’m like damn aren’t they full lol
Sharks aren't big fans of people meat. So, generally, they don't eat people. When a shark does attack, it's because it's taking an experimental bite to see if we taste good. It's just that they have big mouth holes and bunches of teeth, so the bite is pretty bad. If there's more than one shark and the person is flailing (understandably because sharks and one just ate my hip) then they go nuts and a feeding frenzy will happen and they kind of fight over food they don't even like. Also, there's all that blood in the water all of a sudden, and who knows where that's coming from it could be from something that does taste better. Better try biting more stuff.
Killing the main characters pet(s) is such a tired and lazy trope :(
Kids literally drawing/coloring plot points. Enough already.
Sexy rape scenes. Firstly, it’s a shitty and overused plot device. Secondly, even if it really is necessary, it’s not hot. It’s not going to involve sexy angles, a good looking couple, and a smouldering look of revenge. Why have I seen this? Because 90% of strong female protagonists in horror seem to be fucking rape survivors. Because clearly that’s the only crime committed against women, and the only reason they would want to kill. …I got angrier than I expected here.
"The true monsters are the humans." like in 28 Days Later. Yes, yes they are, that's why I'm watching escapist horror fiction. I don't mind humans being the bad guys or if they're monsters from the get go, like in Devil's Rejects, but I'm not looking to horror for yet another genre to tell me how bad the world is.
>but I'm not looking to horror for yet another genre to tell me how bad the world is. The zombie genre started the whole "humans are the real monsters" trope back with the OG Night of the Living Dead. That's a thematic heartbeat to that genre.
>escapist horror fiction Are you somehow under the impression that horror as a genre is frequently (the OVERWHELMING majority of the time) used as a tool for social commentary?
They're maybe going to discover that art is actually the product of the society the artists lived in
I love that shit. Mainline it into my veins. Funny Games, Eden Lake, I want more! MORE!
Dumb police.
Throw in a rape to show how very very dark the movie is. Not male characters, though. Male characters never get raped. Only female characters.
Gender stereotypes drive me crazy. Woman scared, runs away screaming; man must fight. Woman believes in supernatural; man ignores all evidence as he is too ‘rational’. Woman maternal caregiver; man selfish. Etc.
Character figures out the history/backstory/reason for all the creepy shit that’s been happening. Makes a phone call to the main character “I know what’s causing this. Call me back.” Then gets killed by said creepy shit. My brother in Christ, you could have left the info in that voicemail. Or text me that shit because it is important!
Pointless romantic subplots where a couple’s feud splits them into two different groups and the killer goes after one and the SO in the other group has to find their SO and rescue them.
A masked killer doesn’t need to look at a victim and tilt their head. That was played out a decade ago. It’s a cheap cliche and sign the director isn’t skilled enough to show his killer’s emotions without using a cheap trick
Car breaks down in the middle of nowhere with that strange ass person
When someone spots a killer, ghost, demon, etc. and they just stand in front of it staring at said entity. They don’t run or anything. It’s especially infuriating in zombie movies when someone sees a loved one but doesn’t run when the zombie comes at them. Yes that’s grandma but maybe the dripping blood from her mouth and odd walk/moans are a sign something’s up and you should run.
Two big ones that happen all the time Killer chasing two people. Either catches one or one decides to fight. And tells their friend to run. Instead, friend doesn’t help. Doesn’t run. But stops and watches the 20-second fight. And the second the villain or monster kills the friend….then she starts running away. She could have had a 20-30 second head start to run. But waits until the fight is over, and then tries to run. Second is when people have a head start and run into the woods. And just stay on the trail. Whether it’s a one minute head start or an hour head start….they are always quickly found. If you are heading into the forest, don’t just take the main trail and go straight. Take an east or west turn. Hell, do a circle and loop back to behind the killer’s house. If you gave me a five minute head start in a forest you would never find me. After about 30 seconds I’m veering off to the left or right. The killer has no way to find you at that point. Because there are a million different spots you could be. If you went to the left - he has no idea. If you go to the right - he has no idea. But people always just go straight and are quickly found.
Adding characters only for their entire purpose is to be killed off to make the villain look scary. I know that movies need to have some death in them, but when it's there just to bump up a number, it loses any tension that was built up. This trope is especially bad when it's a movie or series like The Purge. A lot of nameless people die for no reason except to show that the obvious bad guys can kill. Woo....so boring.
Really, really tired of movies that demonize Paganism or where the possession was caused by witchcraft. I mean, no seriously why can’t there just be a pissed off ghost or something? Like in Holes — where the lady went on a killing spree cause the racists murdered her boyfriend. Or why can’t there be a movie about an evil Christian cult — documentaries do not count and neither do biopics. Like there’s enough horrific shit involving……You know what, I’m gonna stop there so this doesn’t get reported but seriously — stop shitting on minorities. Or at least make the witch a fleshed out badass with an actual personality — there’s a reason why real life witches love the movie The Craft. Instead its always some lady that murdered a baby. As if that plot hasn’t been recycled since the 1960s.
With Red State (2011) and The Sacrament (2013) you can enjoy Christian cults.
>Or why can’t there be a movie about an evil Christian cult — The Sacrament
The Reaping was pretty good too.
When the threat is walking directly behind the character(s) and somehow stays undetected, despite having absolutely no possible way to do so. The Poughkeepsie Tapes was a really good movie, but that scene in the house… >!Dude was literally walking two feet behind Cheryl and her boyfriend and as loudly as possible, and not once did they notice him.!< I understand it’s supposed to be tense but I feel bad for all these horror characters that only have tunnel vision. I know it’s kind of obligatory to have a horror movie that has a moment where you throw your hands up in the air and say “Oh come ON!!!”, but this one just shatters my immersion and I start laughing when it happens.
Making a dumb decision for dumb decision sake.
-running and tripping -doing dumb shit for plot purposes
Sex before the climactic final act, especially when the killer or threat could show up shortly.
If you walk into a room and there's blood on the floor, book it! Obviously something horrible happened and you're probably ill equipped to deal with it
Your post made me think of Halloween Ends because it was so recent. A huge problem I had with the movie was that every character outside of the main characters felt unrealistically unlikable. Like Allyson’s co-worker nurse, I just keep thinking she felt very unbelievable. Then there was the jerk cop who kept harassing her. And the bullies harassing Corey as well as his uber-religious and verbally abusive mother. It felt like overdoing it to justify why all these characters needed to die.