Horror Movie Cliches

Movie clichés are somewhat inevitable especially in an industry where ideas are endlessly recycled in the hope of raking in more cash. Perhaps the greatest offender is the horror genre. Most clichés can be traced back to an original film which featured an excellent scene that later film makers felt compelled to copy, for example we have Psycho to thank for endless shower scene murders. Let´s take a closer look at some classic horror movie clichés.

Goodies

The main culprit in this category is slasher films, they virtually always feature a cast of mostly unsympathetic teen fodder and generally include a range of characters who probably wouldn't hang out together in real life. There´s the angry dumb jock, the stoner, the cheerleader, the slut, the token minority guy, the fat guy or geek and of course the virginal heroine. Groups will always find a reason to split up so they can be picked off one by one and the bad guy in the group will usually redeem himself with an act of self-sacrifice. Funnily enough seeing your friends brutally butchered is often a big turn on for teens and they love to stop at inopportune moments for a quickie which inevitably gets them killed. Cops are always inept, they never believe the victims and they always turn up too late to help or just in time to get knifed in the back.

For supernatural horrors the set-up usually involves someone returning to their home town after an absence of years. This often ties in with the main guy and girl, usually a cop and a doctor, having had a previous relationship and they are now forced to work together, of course you know they will be in love again by the end of the film. Children, animals and old people can always sense an evil spirit but no one pays them any attention. If there´s a priest character then he will always have a crisis of faith.

In monster movies the hero is often a cop, reporter or scientist. If there´s a mad scientist or evil government character he will always want to capture the monster so he can study it or use it but his plan will always backfire and usually after he double crosses the rest of the group by locking them in somewhere he´ll immediately run into the monster and get eaten.

If the main character gets murdered early on in any type of horror expect a cut to them waking up from a nightmare.

Baddies

The killers have their own set of rules. In slasher films they can take ludicrous amounts of damage without showing pain, they often have a mother complex and they aren´t allowed to run. I´m always reminded of the old Pepe Le Pew cartoons where no matter how fast the cat runs away the skunk just skips along slowly and catches up with ease. Killers also seem to spend a large amount of time moving bodies around and displaying them to scare their remaining victims. Don´t stand under a tree or the inevitable drip of blood will draw your view upwards to the body perfectly poised to fall on top of you.

One of the most over used scenes features the killer or monster appearing to be dead and then returning to life unexpectedly. This is made all the more annoying by the fact that the hero or heroine will often shoot or batter the baddie and then as soon as the baddie goes down they drop their weapon and run instead of mashing it up.

Another common trick, especially in supernatural movies is the glimpse of the ghost, in a mirror, over the shoulder of the hero, running past in the background and of course being suddenly illuminated when someone turns their torch on. Ghosts who are trying to convey a message will always do it by terrifying the person they are trying to talk to.

Fake Scares

Fake scares are annoyingly predictable and irritating. For example why do cats in horror films hide in cupboards and jump on people who open them? Sound effects suddenly booming are a great way to get the audience to jump without actually having anything scary happen on screen. Sometimes the fake scare is used like the boy who cried wolf, so an annoying male character will scare a girl and then later when it´s the killer for real she´ll still think it´s the joker of the group.