Horror movie clichés to avoid

- the car never works first time
- people always drop their keys as they try to use them.
- people look behind them constantly as they are being chased.
- people run slowly as they are being chased, presumably at the speed the dolly camera can move.
- people get stabbed or shot in all the same places. dead centre in the forehead/straight across the throat/in the chest. presumably because these are easy places to add prosthetics/blood effects. real wounds happen in all sorts of odd places.
- people scream and cry a lot instead of going into shock or going into full-on cold survival mode.
- people will always find a reason to go back into the house one more time.
- killers always have an over elaborate reason for why they are killing or, at least, an understandable reason for killing.
- spree killing and serial killing are often confused.

i'm sure there must be a moviecliches website and i'll expect a credit or a cut of the gross for my input. ta.

- A boyfriend and girlfriend have an argument and one walks out - one usually finds the other's body after coming back to "make up" and gets killed too.

- and the chase classic: the trip over nothing.

- if a character has a special talent or ability, it is often his/her downfall or proved useless.

- kinda mentioned earlier, but pothead(s) get high and face the killer, and then say something ignorant before they die

- all minorities die first

- also mentioned earlier, but people in distress always turning to look behind them instead of running like a bat out of hell

- the old doctor / hermit / vagabond that "knows the secret" to the killings

Snakes that always appear on a plane

People who approach the genre by eschewing cliches as if to make it this brand new thing instead of perhaps embracing them and end up making one big fuck you to the genre.

-Doctors doing an autoposy at night and alone being killed
-Military experiments that get out of hand depite the experiment make no logical or tacticl sense to create in the first place (The A-bomb is good but let's create a killer strain of Fish)
- When looking at a photograph of the main actor/actress ancestor, the look EXACTLY the same as the Actress
- That damn false scare we get when someone investagtes a sound only to find it was a window open etc (suspensefull music stopped, now we can breath)and then we know that the killer jump out in exactly 10 seconds
- Similar to the first one: Main character before the last 10 minutes of the movie assumes the killer is dead and breathes a sigh of relief onyl to have the killer/monster/whatever come out for one last scare
- The very racist/sexiest jock type that we all can't wait to be killed type

Person walking in one direction, while looking in an opposite direction for about 10 seconds screentime, when they finally turn their face in the direction they're walking, they're greeted with someone/something dangerous/not dangerous, purely to make the viewer jump in their seat. Why is this trick still used in this day and age? Its so cheap.

And of course all kinds of irrantional behaviour displayed by the majority of characters in horror films, examples above this post. If you want to go for real scares, then emulate real people and real reactions, when horror strikes, it will be more effective. So when a person does all the things you would do in a scarey situation and still suffers, then the viewer cant mock them, but be more sympathetic to the plight of the character.

I think so anyway.

this is a good one.

also, the hero or heroine making dramatic microfiche-based discovery at the local library.

I dunno, creating a strain of piranha to be bred into the Vietnam rivers seems a pretty good tactical plan to me, judging by how much those rivers are used.

Also, it's a B-movie, dude.

...

Love this thread. Here's some more:

- usually the girlfriend standing still and screaming her head off while the killer / monster takes about 15-20 seconds to kill / gut / maim the boyfriend. Then the killer looks at her and she finally decides to run.

- the "haunted" family heirloom that possesses someone, then the possessed person speaks in a low, devilish voice

- the damn pet that we are supposed to root for to stay alive

- the jock arguing with the level-headed guy (usually the boyfriend) about what to do. Then the jock storms off, heading towards his death.

I am not sure if this has been posted, but here is something I've always hated - and a perfect example of this is the movie "Urban Legends" (if I remember correctly)...if the villian wants to kill X, because X is the one that messed him/her up, whatever then why the hell doesn't the villian just kill X for crying out loud???

You see all these stupid elaborate murders of security guards, ex's, pals, everyone on the block, giving X the head's up that a killer is on the loose. Just KILL X!!!! Then kill others...I guess there wouldn't be much of a movie if that happened, but it would make more sense.

Another thing I hate is those goddamn cat shots as well. It's so damn lame. You see a horror film and you hear the music and you can predict it - oh ok, here comes the cat shot...and sure enough it comes. It's such a cheap stupid stunt.

But so much horror is all about cheap scares, if used correctly. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON uses a great cheap scare in the beginning, where David falls down. It's a cheap scare, the audience jumps then catches its breath and laughs about it, then before they can reclaim themselves they're hit with the proper scare.

And cats come out of nowhere all the time. I remember recently watching the ROTK documentaries on Shelob, and they were showing footage of spiders. I got a bit itchy as I do about spiders, then "something" jumped at me from the dark. It was my cat.

I think, Fett, that another thread is needed for the use of cliche in genre movies and what purpose they serve. because the cliches often become cliches because they WORK. it's only bad uses of them that bring them down.

I'll start it after dinner, unless you want to do the honours. which forum?

I guess horror is a good one, because it's where they mostly come into play.

You start it off, you're much better at that kind of thing that I am.

People tend not to be scared because people are far too-eager to throw out high-concept new ideas and gimmicks without researching what made all the great horror movies scary - everything from FRANKENSTEIN to THE EXORCIST. Yes, we see the same stuff over and over, but it's the same stuff leading from SCREAM and the likes and the 80s influx of get-rich-quick slashers. There is a ton of horror material which has been eschewed in favour of slick but average-at-best flicks like TCM '2003. 28 DAYS LATER is a great example of a new horror movie that takes elements from older sources (DAY OF THE DEAD, I AM LEGEND etc) and mixes them with new approaches and techniques. It didn't say 'ok, we're going to throw everything out and start from scratch,' it said 'ok, let's look at how we can apply techniques and elements that work in a new way.'

Remember kids: old black women and old native american men are usually psychic.

thanks to all of you, im going to create the most stereotypical horror movie EVER! *evil laugh*

another is

-when someone is being chassed and they run into a house or some place, "they leave the fucking door open for the killer to enter"

the one that i trult can't stand when when something "scarry" happenes and they pump the volume of that sound effect so loud that it hurts your ears, that is the lamest move. the ring 2 was jammed packed with momnets like that.
alot of people did not like jeepers creepers the first one (spoiler ahead) but i did just for the simple fact that they were able to figaure why the monster is but they were unable to stop him and he still got to kill one guy in the end (spoiler end) but it nice for a chge that they did not pump him full of bullet known to man and he was still able to get up and walk away.

Scary stuff always happens at night.
People always do PRECISELY what everyone tells them not too. Pet Semetary Syndrome we call it:
"Dont bury you kid up there he'll come back all fucked out and physco"
"Oh ok...cool"
Flashlights are always a bad idea.

There is always a survivor. Unless it's Ash with his boomstick and chainsaw or someone similar, you shouldn't win. Not unless you leave town right from the get go.

Heres a nice big cliche to avoid..... QUIT FUCKING REMAKING EVERYTHING. Classics are classics for a reason damnit. Geeshhhhhh (only a few of these remakes have been worth a shit. The rest need to dissapear).

The golf cart scene in Club Dread was a perfect parody of these cliches.

Wasn't this originally what Scream was supposed to be, until the sequels turned into the movies the first was parodying?

Actually I think SCREAM became what it was parodying about twenty minutes in. That's what I mean by trying to reinvent the genre and laying out everything that came before it.

Here's another cliche

Catholic priests randomly showing up in a movie.... usually to give a 2 minute speach to explain to the aundience the motive of why the monster kills and then ends the speech on how to kill it.

If a priest is not availble for the movie a crazy scientest will do. Especially if the scientest looks up from a microscope and says something like "Thats impossible cells dont regenerate like this in NATURE!" or "nothing on earth can do that".

After priest or scientest gives their 2 minute explanation don't get attached to them because in the next 15 minutes they will die a dramatic death.

Also: monsters pissing on Catholic priests and subsequently being destroyed by a clay vagina.

Fett has already tackled many of these but you do understand that there are very good reasons why so many things are a staple of the genre, right? What use would a horror film be if the first victim simply made a phone call to a quick and efficient police force? Police and phones are actually the bane of horror writers the world over which is why phones often can't work in these stories and why police have to be idiots.

You would have a greater understanding of what you were doing if you study the genre with a more positive attitude and ask yourself why many of these elements are so often repeated.

Also, in every say...eigth Horror film there is a fucking occult bookstore that just happens to have every fucking thing you ever wanted to know about that particular menance that so happens to be causing problems for the nubile teens the story focues on.

Best horror movie ever, and it's only about 30 seconds long:

Click Here!

Then click download and enjoy.

Awesome, Frank. I had never seen that commercial before today.

How about when the future victims are wandering around saying shit like: C'mon guys, this isn't funny anymore. I mean it. OR Paul, is that you? Cause even if it isn't the killer, it's never Paul.

And there is always what we call the Gremlins moment. That is when in the stretch of downtime between attacks, they inevitably start talking about bad stuff that happened when they were kids.
i.e.

I hate Christmas because my dad was playing Santa and got stuck in the chimney and died.

Cliche moments are useful in horror movies, assuming they are well done and the movie isn't too overwhelmed with one after another from start to finish. Still, some get old quick, like a lot of the ones posted already, like dead phones and why does there have to be an eloborate reason why a guy is a lunatic- some people just are. Some others;

-Being able to pick out the guy and girl from the original group who will hook up and be the lone survivors, live happily ever after.
-Since when are all the top women scientists hot and gorgeous behind those glasses. Well, it never hurts to have something to look at in a bad movie, so work this one in.
-Another cliche worth keeping; If you're gonna have sex, expect a bizarre double murder at a climactic moment.
-tough, arrogant selfish guy ends up getting killed cause his first good deed since his troubled youth happens to coincide with the moment the killer/monster is about to whack some other character who tripped or stalled the car or in some other cliche'd fashion can't get the hell out of there.
- for a serial killer movie; the constant adoration by the cops and everyone else for how smart the genious killer is, outsmarting everyone and always staying a step ahead. The guys a lunatic, not a genious. I'd like to hear one cop say "he's really an ignorant bastard, but we went and hired the idiot cop force to stick with horror movie protocol and can't catch nuthin"
-soothsayers warning of impending doom, looking like creepy old winos that nobody listens to.

Actually there are some good points here on why cliche's are used so often.

I have only one minor thing to add.

Chris, good luck with your film. But, if you film a scene with a coroner doing an autopsy, or a grizzled cop investigating a bloody murder scene, and they are both eating a sandwich......I will find you and hurt you.