Imagine this, if you will. The young babysitter hears a noise in the basement. Frightened, she goes downstairs to check…but doesn’t turn on the lights! Aaaahhh!! Or, the house the family moved into has blood dripping down the walls…but they still stay!
These are just two examples of horror movie tropes. Nah, ridiculously silly horror movie tropes. You see, a good horror movie manages to keep the viewer engaged enough that the absurdity of the actions taken by the characters goes unnoticed. A bad horror movie? Eye rolls and laughter. Good, bad, whatever: Horror movie tropes exist because, God forbid, if the characters actually did what made sense, there wouldn’t be a movie. Fighting spirit would be finished in ten minutes, just like The Amityville Horror. Maybe you could do the first Friday 13, but after ? But just because they’re necessary doesn’t mean they’re any less absurd.
As if we were really not going to enter this room…
Take Annabelle: Creation. Twelve years after the death of their daughter, the Mullins took in Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) and six orphan girls. There is one big stipulation: do not enter Annabelle’s locked room. That’s it. Seriously? If you tell a child – or anyone – not to enter a room, what does he instinctively want to do? That’s right, go to this room. How about a small exhibition? “Hey, that room right there? Don’t go there. There’s a creepy demonic presence that’s inhabited a doll in there. Oh okay – don’t go in there because otherwise my soul will be torn apart. Got it, got it Cue the end credits.
“Poltergeist” commits a number of horror sins
First: young Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) maintains a conversation with the “television people”, hidden behind a screen full of parasites. Pretty weird, but then the house shakes, and she turns around to say, “there they are,” all Village of the Damned-As. Now, if you’ve been lucky enough to have kids, then you know they can gossip over and over about the most insane things, like how their Roblox character is a sentient watermelon. But in horror movies, when they say there’s something in their room or in their closet, or they dream that you die the next day when errant microwave radiation melts your face , they’re usually onto something, so maybe add a touch more urgency to what they’re saying. ” Who is here ? They are there ? We don’t. Do.
But of course the Freeling family remains. Good. Only then will chairs somehow pile up, glasses break, and there’s a section in the house that will pull objects, including people, across the floor. When Steve Freeling (Craig T Nelson) come home, mom Diane (JoBeth Williams) calls her into the kitchen. “Check that out, honey buns,” Diane said (totally paraphrased, if you couldn’t tell), “that chair can move on its own on the floor! Our precious little girl too!” Yah, that’s not normal, and it’s always a precursor to something worse. Still. Movie ghosts never just move objects. So now the Freelings have viewers in their home, and don’t have to pass the salt and pepper as they cross paths. And they stay. Why? Because the movie potentially ends in not one, but two different places in the first 20 minutes, if they were normal distance people.
Here’s another… Ouija Boards
As seen in Ouija and Ouija board: the origin of evil, never serve anything more than a nefarious purpose, either bringing an unwanted spirit into the room or possessing someone in the room. And people still want to talk to their deceased loved ones, like Doris (Lulu Wilson) wants to talk to his deceased father in Ouija board: the origin of evil. Ooh, that must be your father because the spirit knows his favorite number is seven. It’s never the loved one. Since when is it the loved one? Perhaps ask the mind for the winning numbers of the 10 million dollar lottery first. If he delivers, you’re at the top of a cool ten-year-old mill. Otherwise, close it.
Basements in general are overused, as seen in “The Conjuring”
Basements, at this point, are such an overused trope that it borders on parody, even when done well, as in Conspiracy. Seriously. You hear a loud, inexplicable noise downstairs, so your first instinct is to go down alone, without turning on the lights, and without some sort of object in your hand to use as a weapon if necessary? Who do this ? It’s never someone with the $10 million you made from the Ouija board. In fact, it’s probably a clown. When was the last time you saw a clown in a movie who loved to have fun and spread joy? Even McDonald’s gave up on Ronald. If I heard noise in the basement, turned on the lights, baseball bat in hand, and saw a scary red-nosed monster say “we’re all floating here,” I’m leaving. People in horror movies? Maybe run upstairs, maybe even lock the doors, but leave? Not even on their radar.
Find the logic in that, if you can. You are in a summer camp, when suddenly a maniac armed with a knife appears, as in all Friday 13 movie ever. Do you: A) run through the forest, where you continually get tripped over, or B) run down the nearby road, with less chance of falling on your butt and being stabbed to death? Likewise, you are standing in the middle of a road when a killer in a car (or a killer car, at the Christina) is chasing you. Do you: A) run in the middle of the road in a desperate attempt to outrun the car, or B) run through the forest where the car can’t reach you? If you answered A to both questions, congratulations! You are a completely stupid horror movie victim, you sacrifice yourself to increase the duration of your movie!
‘Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood’ offers a Slip Up split-up
Speaking of Friday 13let’s take a closer look at one in particular, the one from 1988 Friday the 13th Part VII: New Blood. The Friday the films have a solid foundation built on horror movie tropes, but in this film we have two examples of absurdity. The first is the tried-and-tested depiction of social groups: Slut, Jock, Nerd and Virgin, with Stoner and Telekinetic Teen for good measure. They’re all near good old Crystal Lake, celebrating Michael (William Butler) birthday. Given Crystal Lake’s rather dubious history, a normal person might look at who else is invited. If the other guests include three of the four standard groups, you you’re the fourth, and unless you’re the virgin of the group, stay home.
Of course, no one does, which leads to the second trope, separation. Two figures run away to go swimming, two down. A character goes in search of another character, finds Jason’s (Kane Hoder) manual labor, and becomes number three, and so on, leaving only Telekinetic Teen Tina Shepard (Lar Park Lincoln) and the good guy Nick (Kevin Blair). Here is an idea. How about if everyone sticks together, and when Jason shows up, one party member might be a victim, but the others have a chance to attack and probably stop the madness, or at least escape . But no, why would you do something so clever?
The dead killer is not dead
Then there’s the trope that doesn’t end the movie prematurely if the characters in the movie had seen a never-before-made horror movie, but stops the sequel in its tracks: the dead killer isn’t dead. Let’s look at 2018 Halloween. Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney) gunned down dozens of your neighbors, you captured the killer in your basement, fatally stabbed him, and set the house on fire, sending him to hell. Mission accomplished, right? As if. The guy comes back. When don’t they? Here’s a crazy idea. Myers is down, supposedly dead. What if we cut it? There’s a good chance there’s a machete or chainsaw nearby, so cut it up, separate the pieces, and be done with it. If he still comes back, praise him for a job well done and give up, because it got real. In this case? Nope halloween kills Where Halloween endswhich, given the critical response to each, might have been warmly welcomed.
Without the existence of the horror movie trope, these movies and more simply wouldn’t exist, or might have to become something original instead, like get out. If the characters in these movies had ever seen horror movies, they would know that they fall into a trope, which Scream satirizes so brilliantly. But most horror movie characters live in a world where there are seemingly no horror movies to see, and as long as they do, the painfully obvious course of action will always elude them – little no matter how ridiculous and absurd these actions can be.
