Cliches in "Horror" (ahem) films I'm sick of seeing...

[JDFP]

I watched a piece of shit remake earlier ("Sorority Row") and it just got me thinking of some tired, tired, tired cliches that I'm really sick of seeing in horror films. This is predominantly towards slasher flicks, but it works for most horror in general...

1.) "Hello?" "Is anyone there?" -- I'll give "DAY" a pass on this one, because it's in a different context. But, seriously, is it realistic to assume that if alone somewhere and you hear some noise you're going to yell out: "HELLO?" followed 5 seconds later by: "IS ANYONE THERE?" -- I mean, seriously? Do you expect someone to yell back: "Yeah, here I am!". Just once I'd love a serial-killer, etc., to yell back: "Yeah?" to someone saying "Hello?". But God, is this not over-used in just about every pseudo-horror flick?

2.) "Stay here and lock the door behind you!" -- Yes, because this ALWAYS ends very well. Why even bother? What's going to happen? The exact opposite, and 99.9% of the time the person that says this to someone will not be back -- ever.

3.) The pretty but reserved virginal girl always being the one person who always survives. Just once it would be nice to see the gal who screws every guy in the 'group' surviving, or someone saying: "Screw this all, I'm leaving" -- and just walk off and end up surviving while everyone else dies. I'd be the guy grabbing the twelve pack and saying: "Yeah, you have fun going into that creepy house, my ass will be about three miles down the road before I can hear any of you scream!".

4.) The killer is usually down after someone whacks him/her with something and no one ever (EVER) bothers to check if he/she is really dead or not. Oh hell no. If it's me and I have the killer down, the police would be dragging my ass away chopping the final bits of said killer up the next morning (or standing there with an empty gun still 'clicking' at the killer with a morbid grin on my face). This just isn't realistic.

5.) The killer is always destroyed/killed/'caught' (at least until the sequel) until the next flick. Why? How nice it would be for a change to see a good horror (well "good" is probably asking too much) flick where the killer actually succeeds in killing everyone off (except the guy who said screw it and left earlier because he was the only intelligent person) and goes on with his/her day as normal.

Anyway, these are just some of my many, many 'cliche' pet-peeves that I have with most horror films...

j.p.

[krakenslayer]

5.) The killer is always destroyed/killed/'caught' (at least until the sequel) until the next flick. Why? How nice it would be for a change to see a good horror (well "good" is probably asking too much) flick where the killer actually succeeds in killing everyone off (except the guy who said screw it and left earlier because he was the only intelligent person) and goes on with his/her day as normal.


It would be awesome if some left at the start, as soon as things got dangerous, then we forget about him as the film progresses, and everyone is killed of, one by one. At last the "final girl" is shockingly killed off by the killer/demon/giant crocodile, and we think "shit, everyone's dead, how depressing" - then suddenly we cut to the smart guy jitterbugging the night away at the nightclub three miles up the road.

Mortal of the story: run away at the first sign of trouble. :)

[fulci fan]

Just watch a Freddy or Jason film. You will never be disappointed again. :)

[SymphonicX]

4.) The killer is usually down after someone whacks him/her with something and no one ever (EVER) bothers to check if he/she is really dead or not. Oh hell no. If it's me and I have the killer down, the police would be dragging my ass away chopping the final bits of said killer up the next morning (or standing there with an empty gun still 'clicking' at the killer with a morbid grin on my face). This just isn't realistic.j.p.


Did you ever see Severance? Great scene near the end where this kinda thing is set up, and the chick shoots the killer point blank with a shotgun and says "well, I wouldn't wanna be accused of not killing him when I had the chance!"

Of course she goes outside only to be met with 5 more killers waiting for them...still awesome moment though....

[Legion2213]

"I think I'll just wander off into the darkest and most remote part of the woods/abattoir/factory all on my own for bit..."

[SRP76]

3.) The pretty but reserved virginal girl

Forget the rest of the description. They need to stop this, period. Pretty virgins in their 20s are like unicorns and leprechauns; they do not exist. Stop putting them in movies.

[MikePizzoff]

Did you ever see Severance? Great scene near the end where this kinda thing is set up, and the chick shoots the killer point blank with a shotgun and says "well, I wouldn't wanna be accused of not killing him when I had the chance!"

Of course she goes outside only to be met with 5 more killers waiting for them...still awesome moment though....

One of my favorite horror movies ever!

[Andy]

5.) The killer is always destroyed/killed/'caught' (at least until the sequel) until the next flick. Why? How nice it would be for a change to see a good horror (well "good" is probably asking too much) flick where the killer actually succeeds in killing everyone off (except the guy who said screw it and left earlier because he was the only intelligent person) and goes on with his/her day as normal.

That just gave me a vision of jason voorhees walking off into the sunset at the end of friday the 13th, alternate ending :lol:

[SymphonicX]

The worst cliche for me is the fake scares...you know when the atmospheric tones (I won't say music) build up and up and up only to have a cat jump into an alleyway at the wrong moment. This is always permeated by a much diluted real scare afterwards, usually its at this point that we're completely desensitised to jumping that when the monster finally shows up we're just met with "meh".

[shootemindehead]

Yeh, hate that. But it has to go hand in hand with the "Bad Guy Teleport (TM)". You know the one, where the monster/killer has managed to sneak up on the dumb teen WITHOUT MAKING A SINGLE SOUND!

Drives me nuts. :annoyed:

The remake of 'Friday the 13th' did this several times IIRC.

[SymphonicX]

Certain bad guys can get away with that tho, like Freddy Krueger, but definitely not Jason...I agree the bad guy teleport is well frustrating and a completely cheap trick...most of this cliched stuff actually was original once, then became a get out clause and is now in the realms of being woefully obvious...

This is a cliche in a lot of films, but also particularly horror movies:

Bad guy has gun or knife or whatever, close up of weapon being raised or cocked, pointing at the protagonist's head, our hero is about to die!

Gun goes off or knife comes down only to reveal the "we thought he was dead" character magically appearing, looking quite wounded but OK.."oh it was him who had the knife/gun/frozen vegetable"..from there you get the choice of slotting in the scenes where they walk off arm in arm and it ends or bringing the bad guy back for another "oh we thought it was over" moment. It's like lego.