Tropes you wish didn't exist

SpoilerDiscussion

What are some horror movie tropes you wished would go extinct? Mines is characters hitting the monster/ killer once then dropping the weapon n letting the killer recover.

Example - in a violent nature- guy literally shoots the killer once n knows he's still alive yet walks right up to him so close that the killers able to grab the gun away from him. What makes this scene terrible is the fact he knew he was still alive n didn't shoot him in the head.

And you can pretty much apply this to every Halloween movie. N the movies literally show Michaels body is vulnerable to flesh wounds so he's not a Superman but characters will shoot him once then drop the weapons and run or walk up to them so close n get themselves killed cause the plot requires it

in horrorby Able_Ad_5318

49%

Big-Preparation-9641

Doorbell rings. Opens door. No one is there. Steps out to investigate AND LEAVES THE DOOR OPEN BEHIND THEM.

JustConversating

Protagonist attempting to disable the villain through one solo action / not making sure they’re actually incapacitated. For example, shooting or hitting the villain once and then running away

MelodiousPun

Spooky drawings or cryptic, scrawled notes.

For some reason, people in horror movies feel compelled to make dozens and dozens of drawings of the Scary Things - perhaps on walls!

Or write significant words over and over and over.

See also: the children make tons of drawings of the Scary Thing.

just4browse

I love creepy kids drawings. But they are overdone. And when things are overdone, they have to be done extremely well to stand out. And I just can’t think of any examples where the creepy kids drawings tripe is executed well enough to do that.

MaintenanceBudget889

I think notes are actually a great storytelling device in horror when it resembles something somebody would actually write.

MelodiousPun

But it’s always like, “oh, look. Mike wrote ‘Slender Man’ hundreds of times on this page. I wonder what it could mean?”

MaintenanceBudget889

Yeah it's lame. Writers seem to think the slightest shock makes people start doing CrAZy writing.

justafanboy1010

Lowkey. That shit used to be scary but it’s been done wayyyy too much for my liking.

ConsistentlyPeter

I'M RUNNING THIS MONKEY FARM NOW, FRANKENSTEIN!

Character finds a mysterious cassette tape, which has been rewound to the exact spot of exposition needed.

potatoesboom

So you'd prefer every movie to have some extra seconds of the characters rewinding the tape?😂

ConsistentlyPeter

I'M RUNNING THIS MONKEY FARM NOW, FRANKENSTEIN!

Damn right I would!

Why would the unfortunate researcher, hiding in a cellar from an approaching demon/zombie/werewolf, record their final thoughts, then take the time to carefully rewind it a bit so that the next person who comes along can just press play and it's ready to go?

It irks!

potatoesboom

-2

The new realism fetish really has made movies worse.

Able_Ad_5318

Characters find a book/ box that says Do not open, opens it, do not read, reads n suddenly one character knows latin- every evil dead movie

UselessGenericon

When the book is Latin or isn't made of paper.

Or when the reader decides to read it out loud, or opts to not sound it out in their head.

Economy_Diamond_924

The creepy menacing ghost at the beginning of the movie, turns out to just be a tortured soul needing closure in order to move on.

Kuropuppy13

One that I've come to notice...how so many movies begin with the main character losing their entire family, usually in a car accident. It's almost always where the driver is distracted, they're arguing, poor visibility, or whatever. Then you either see a view from the back seat where suddenly they're rear ending a truck loaded with metal pipes, or a truck coming at them head on...or from the side as suddenly a truck t-bones them as they run a red light. Then you cut to some time later where everyone has to convince the survivor to come out and live their life to get past the tragedy, and this typically involves something potentially dangerous they enjoyed before the accident, except the friend organizing the event lied about just how unsafe it was. It's not always exactly like this, but really...a lot of films create an instant tragic character by offing their family in a way that makes the survivor blame themselves or whatever.

TheEmpireOfSun

Every trope is fine if it's done well.

MelodiousPun

Convenient inconveniences - the flashlight dies right at that moment, the car is out of gas, etc.

Shaaaaarky

Misses 22 consecutive shots, only one chance left. Bullseye. Wow, how lucky…

MutantCreature

Random predatory/rapey stuff just for shock value, I'm not against it entirely as it can totally add to the horror (see: Rosemary's Baby) especially when it's more allegorical (see: Alien), but it feels cheap and aimlessly disrespectful in 90% of instances. AHS is probably the single worst offender of this trope as it happens every season and got progressively worse each time. It was one of the main (of several) reasons I gave up on the show as it wasn't even surprising, even if cheaply, after the third or fourth instance.

UselessGenericon

Amen. Victimizing your protagonists via S/A when you already plan to have them face a killer/monster/deadly conflict is weird if the two instances aren't thematically linked in some plot relevant way.

And it cheapens the threat. How can a protagonist that's as preyed upon as much as Horror depicts ever be caught off guard? It paints the picture that it happens often enough that protagonists could say to the monster or serial killer, "You just want to kill me? And not because I look vulnerable? You're killing indiscriminately? That's the nicest thing I've heard all day".

noamartz

Malapropism is pretty hacky usually

Shmoo_the_Parader

"We need to get out of here!"

Then proceeding up the stairs.

RevealStatus8912

Can confirm that people in real life are in fact stupid enough to do this though. There was a fire in my house’s kitchen when i was a kid, and we had people over. You’d be shocked how many people ran UPSTAIRS. When the door out didn’t even come close to the kitchen. Like how is that gonna help you

Able_Ad_5318

Newest scream movie - lady gets slashed by knife... Runs deeper into alley way when there's literally hundreds of people in the street n she could easily run towards the crowd. Every Halloween movie esp stupid since the doors not even blocked

MovieDogg

Sex=death, it’s really annoying that this is a common trope. It’s not every slasher movie, but it happens way too often.

MutantCreature

I generally like this one because I see 95% of slashers as moreso hyperviolent surreal comedies than horror in a scary sense and it adds to the absurdist logic required to get to the premise in the first place. It's like the dad from Freaks and Geeks, "I had a friend who had premarital sex once, you know what happened to him? A reanimated corpse grabbed him through a door a squeezed his head so hard his eyes came flying out towards the camera!"

MovieDogg

If only they were actually funny, then maybe I would be fine with it, like Jason Lives. Although that quote is literally a mix between a kill in Friday the 13th part 3 and 4.

MutantCreature

Different strokes for different folks, and yeah I realized that after I made the comment, the scene is from 3 but he wasn't reanimated until 4 right? I remember 3 also had that great/terrible arrow shot too lol.

MovieDogg

Crushing his head so the eyeball pops out is 3D and the crashing through windows to grab someone is 4. He wasn’t reanimated until part 6, unless you consider him a revenant in Part 2.

And yeah I don’t particularly like goofier slasher films. I like the more serious stuff like the 1980/1981 slashers or stuff like House on Sorority Row and F13 4. Unless they are made by a person who understands comedy like Tom McLaughlin or Sam Raimi.

Usual_Bird_3754

We need a slasher where the those individuals not having sex are killed. Perhaps vampire slasher movie where the scent of recent sex on characters disgusts the vampire too much to eat them. It just doesn't taste right.

babealien51

You might want to check our Cherry Falls (1999), amazing post Scream slasher that subverts this idea

jomama-666

DEATH TO THE VIRGINS!

Usual_Bird_3754

Except one virgin ends up safe because they won't stop masturbating. Vampires are just too grossed out to eat them.

Phantom-of-the-Mall

Cherry Falls starring Brittany Murphy

Usual_Bird_3754

Watching now. Thank ypu

Kuropuppy13

There's always the old comedy/horror "Once Bitten."

vietnamcharitywalk

Fucking spoilers dude, learn to use the hide text option

Able_Ad_5318

-11

Oh you poor soul, may thou Lord protect you as if thou was a sheep in his flock. I swear upon thy reddit Mods that.... Boo hoo cry some more 🤣. Literally says spoilers, you choose to read so keep crying

babealien51

You’re an ah, the film is not out everywhere yet, to use the spoiler tag is common courtesy

MaintenanceBudget889

Boo hoo cry some more

Literally nobody with a life says this.

ersatzbaronness

who would want to haunt me?

Dark clawed hands reaching around doors/out from under a bed/closet. It was once genuinely frightening, but it's been done and done and done and over done.

Hayden207

People splitting off then dying. It was cool the first couple times, but now every single movie uses it and it makes it even worse when they don’t try to fight back or nothing. Anytime I see a side character split off I know they’re about to bite it, and I’m right every single time.

trevno

Creepy kids

MightyShamus

I'm gonna need about a decade before another movie where the antagonist is just an allegory for trauma or mental disorders.

UselessGenericon

I'd like to see a movie where it makes you think that the antagonist is some physical manifestation of trauma, the protagonist comes to terms with/accepts some truth about said trauma/find the willpower, only for the antagonist to be like "What are you doing? I'm still here and very real."

k4kkul4pio

People investigating noises in pitch black instead of, you know, turning on some damn lights.

I know it's done for atmosphere but it's still incredibly stupid to watch.

No-Sympathy6035

I really don’t like when horror movies incorporate dementia or Alzheimers as a device plot. Yeah it’s scary but when you deal with it in real life it comes off as exploitative when you see it in film.

MitchellSFold

Opening the bathroom cabinet mirror, only to close it again to see the ghost/killer/vengeful tennis partner staring back at them🥱

DrStuffy

I’ve noticed some movies starting to play on it, where they close the mirror and nothing’s there. Kudos I guess, but I automatically press mute when I see this trope setting up.

SleefJWellington

Killing the fucking dog.

redd0130

Tripping over nothing😂 especially in the woods. Wasting time kissing like in the new scream. A killer is chasing us oh what a perfect time to kiss.

MaintenanceBudget889

I dunno even on actual trails there's a lot of hard-to-see shit to trip on in the woods.

ersatzbaronness

who would want to haunt me?

I am very clumsy and can trip over a shadow. This doesn't bother me.

Able_Ad_5318

-2

Know what's even worse? When they don't even trip n get down on their butts n start crawling backwards cause fEaR. All conjuring n insidious movies. Could easily survive if they just stood up n walk but plot requires them to crawl

In-lieu-of-Nosferatu

You'd think this trope would have died after Scream lampshaded it.

One I saw the other night that made me roll my eyes, was the trope of off-screen survival. In the movie Boar, the protagonists are a family, and towards the end, . It wasn't a great movie overall, but that terrible ending really was the cherry on top.

In-lieu-of-Nosferatu

I think the director of Boar just downvoted me haha

Able_Ad_5318

Only thing worse is a Main character dying off screen. Hostel 2 kills the main character off screen just for the sake of subversion

Ashliet

It kills the secondary MC not the main one

MaintenanceBudget889

The Jekyll/Hyde situation when it's supposed to just be an actual person with an identity disorder is just a little bit extremely offensive and has overstayed its welcome.

Mediocre-Lobster5288

-3

Yes we need more politically correct horror.

MaintenanceBudget889

It doesn't even need to be politically correct just...not further enforcing a stereotype that endangers mentally ill people.

Paladinfinitum

I have a weird one: "the Van Helsing" or a character who just happens to know everything about this monster that no one in the movie's world has ever heard of. I'm not talking about people who know about vampires in a world where all of us have seen Dracula and Blade and all - I'm talking about how there's a character, often foreign, portrayed as incredibly wise, who just happens to know how to beat the whatever-it-is, like Van Helsing knowing exactly how to beat Dracula while no one else does. Usually I just end up thinking that if this were an actual thing, it would be a thing known to more people. I think the Omen comes to mind, with people KNOWING the exact biblical prophecy that's occurring.

Bindlestiff34

The fuckin guy in Devil whose grandma told him the entire plot.

Prior-Assumption-245

Hot girlfriend cheating with the hot bestffriend

ersatzbaronness

who would want to haunt me?

I am so tired of infidelity as character establishment.

MovieDogg

Kind of reverse, but Friday the 13th remake makes the sex scene shit to watch because I don’t want to see that bitch’s breast, she’s a bad friend.

I-Steal-Toasters

I have a few:

"guys you need to come see this" (plus all variations)

"we have GOT to get out of here" * doesn't go back the way they came *

monster has an easily visible weakness * "omgosh how do we kill it?????"

On the flip side, seeing the killer/monster kill/scare a person or two before changing to the title card is peak intro

DrStuffy

Not exclusive to horror by any stretch (Law & Order does this almost every episode), but the minor side character with one line of dialogue in one scene early on ends up being the main villain.

alwaysawhitebelt

checks phone no reception

David_Moon21

Couple going through breakup and the killer plays as their therapist.

matchajaws

14h

I’m tired of fridging, supernatural entities that make people kill themselves, and half-ass attempts at making a “deep” horror film. In this day-and-age of storytelling, fridging just feels like lazy writing. (On a related note, if Art the Clown has no haters it’s because I’m dead.)

Entities forcing people to off themselves in graphic ways feels overdone nowadays. The movie Smile was the breaking point for me with this trope. Again, it just feels kind of lazy at this point.

And while I deeply respect the origins of horror as a means to understand the taboos of society, I think it’s ok for films to be just scary. A half-ass attempt at some deeper meaning/analogy in a movie just really turns me off. (If Smile has no haters, once again, assume I have perished.)

Ancient-Window-8892

Opening shot: car driving through some woods, and we probably get a prolonged camera shot from above like a drone is following them. And then the car hits an animal or a person.

The Shining, Get Out, Incident in a Ghostland, The Queen of Black Magic, The Conference, Shutter (2004), Funny Games (1997), Yummy

Impossible_Detail35

Trans people being serial killers :/

Able_Ad_5318

Trope means it's super common. Could you name 3 mainstream horror movies where the killer is trans? Cause I'd say all killers are usually either monsters or just white men

Impossible_Detail35

I can actually! :)

Admittedly, a few of them can be explained as just "crossdressing" or some other explanation, but I feel like a lot of people don't understand how often people conflate trans women and "men in dresses", especially in the 70s/80s. There's a really good essay that explains the problem with presenting these characters as simply crossdressers much better than I can, but the basic gist of it is that it portrays crossdressing as scary and as deceiving, which is a very real thing people say about trans people.

Silence of the Lambs

Sleepaway Camp

Dressed to Kill

Psycho

Texas Chainsaw 3

I can also name some more niche, but still pretty recognizable ones, too!

Black Butler (an anime, but still falls into the horror genre, a lot more gothic than the other ones I named. They actually made Jack the Ripper a trans woman who murders prostitutes and takes their uteruses because she's jealous that she doesn't have any herself.)

Not horror, but it also happens in three different episodes of Criminal Minds.

Homicidal (Not his most famous work, but directed by William Castle, who most people would probably recognize as the guy who directed the original House on Haunted Hill with Vincent Price. This one is also a rare case of the character in question presenting as male instead of female!)

EDIT: There's also a Junji Ito short story with an evil "crossdresser" character in Fragments of Horror.

We could also talk about the end of Frankenhooker, where>! a man gets his head attached to a female body. This isn't necessarily the same trope, but you're supposed to laugh at it, which isn't great !<

And I do want to clarify that I do actually enjoy most of these movies! And I own almost every book Junji Ito has ever had translated to english. Some I do not enjoy because of the trope and some I don't enjoy because they're just not that great outside of the trope.

Ashliet

I don't know if Sleepaway camp or physcho is fair. The boy was forced into being a girl by a abusive family member. Pyscho Norman Bates doesnt count imo since it's his split personality taking the form of his mother not he himself. Can't fault you on the others though.

Impossible_Detail35

I understand what you mean, but that is literally EXACTLY what conservatives are saying happens to kids. That their parents or teachers etc. force them into being transgender

Ashliet

I mean physcologically forcing someone for (Sleepaway camp) a boy to be a girl with tons of abuse would cause some massively bad issues but becoming a murderer is a bit of a stretch

I mean this is not the reddit for it and I can seemingly tell how you lean easily but being forced into transgenderism is a issue but even so I don't believe it would lead them to murder. Norman Bates and if you wanna count the t.v. show as canon was shown to just be kind of slipping into personality disorder andand phycosis from the start. but you gotta also most of these movies were made in the from thes 80s and back.

Other than that don't worry about what conversavtives or progressives say, I wouldn't trust either really, also I love Sleepaway Camp and Frankenhooker I thought the ending was great. I don't know if laugh at it is what you're suppose to take from Frankenhooker when I watched it with some friends laughing wasn't our first response to the ending. That movie is crazy.

The end to sleepaway camp still haunts me.

Moderator removed comment

MaintenanceBudget889

The way you keep saying "trans" like its this force in of itself instead of "transgender people" is so stupid lmao.

Impossible_Detail35

Damn, I just had surgery and you're telling me trans is fake? Do you think I can get my money back if I tell the insurance Reddit user Able_Ad_5318 said trans is fake?

Bookssmellneat

You were thinking about it 3 days ago and now you are post-surgery, posting in Reddit?

Impossible_Detail35

I'm very touched that you would go through my account to check to make sure I am an honest to god transsexual, but in that same post i mentioned that I got top surgery about a month ago

MaintenanceBudget889

...Are you suggesting being white and trans are somehow contradictory?

Moderator removed comment

MaintenanceBudget889

I'm...not "obsessed with trans" I just don't really understand your comment.

Impossible_Detail35

"Why are you so obsessed with trans?" -guy who keeps coming back to make more comments about trans people

MaintenanceBudget889

I take for granted how thick of skin you people must have to put up with this kind of shit.

Impossible_Detail35

I had a guy come into my job one day with a figure of Greta Gremlin and just walked up to the register and tell me that it was me. I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt because I had dyed my hair green at the time, but he specifically came into my store to do this.

Trust me, it gets easier to deal with over time. And it's also way easier to deal with when it's one guy making a fool of himself on the internet lmao

Impossible_Detail35

Well, the good news is that recently, there have been a lot more positive portrayals of trans people in horror movies!

Pinhead was played by a trans woman in the 2022 reboot.

Hunter Schafer is starring in a new movie based on a book by Gretchen Felker-Martin.

Glen/Glenda made a return in the Chucky TV series.

We're All Going To The World's Fair isn't necessarily about a trans character, but the writer/director said it very much feels like it's about their experience transitioning in retrospect.

I Saw the TV Glow came out recently. Haven't seen it yet, but I'm dying to.

Bit was kind of mediocre in my opinion, but I do love my dolls and I love to see them on screen.

And who could forget TItane? Love that girl.

And I HAVE to mention my favourite sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania! That's an older one, but Frank-N-Furter is definitely a celebration of queerness, not a demonization! As controversial as the 2017 version may be, I think Laverne Cox also did a great job as Frank-N-Furter.

There's also been a lot more books by trans authors coming out, as well! In the next few weeks, Chuck Tingle and Gretchen Felker-Martin are putting out new books! Andrew Joseph White has his third book coming out and he announced his first non-YA book will be coming out next year. Be Kind, My Neighbor actually came out in 2022, but I think it deserves a mention here! Don't see enough love for it!

horrorfan555

-1

They mostly come at night. Mostly

Children getting killed for shock value

Bywater7780

Ouija boards. Shouldn't we all know by now? Don't open doors you can't close.

UselessGenericon

No flashlight ever seems to last, and then they hit it a couple times.

Splitting up. Especially against a threat that could have been defeated if you worked together.

X who gets rejected by Y ends up with Y after the horrific event. Trauma Bonding.

Thunderstorm happens just because it's a horror movie.

The annoying upper class elderly woman with the annoying dog.

Protagonists with no respect for the dead.

During possession or ghost movies, the expert or spiritual ally perfectly lays out the rules on how to beat the big bad, only for the protagonist to immediately break said rules. Like, no practice at all.

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