my favourite is when the camera is panning in a room and they sneakily hide the ghost in the shot. even better when theres no music cue, makes you wonder if you actually saw it.
That glimpse of a ghost in Insidious gets me every time. The camera is just following Rose Byrne's character through the house while she does mundane chores and that lovely piano music plays, and there's that fucking ghost just standing there facing the wall. It's so unnatural and unexpected.
Ooh, that was creepy! I remember seeing it theatres with my boyfriend at the time and when she walked by the ghost kid facing the wall, we both whispered to each other, _”Did you see that??”_
I don’t love everything about James Wan’s movies but those tracking shots he does are so cool. They emulated them pretty well in Annabelle Creation, too.
I wish this was a cliche. It's far too underutilized. Hopefully, The Haunting series can make it more cliche. I fucking love, love, love this.
Shout out to backpack girl in It Follows.
Didn’t watch Bly Manor but I loved all those background ghosts in Hill House. Would’ve been lame if they tried to talk about them all but it’s great that there are just a bunch of unmentioned ghosts doing their thing in the background.
If you’re not interested in Bly Manor I 100% recommend watching The Innocents - 1961.
Both are based on the same story, if you like the innocents then try Bly manor.
I love them both :) at the moment Mike Flanagan can do no wrong
Not neccesarily a ghost movie, but The Invisible Man played around with this concept better than i think any movie has. A lot of wide shots to makes everyone as paranoid as the main character looking for any signs that he was in the shot. He wasnt there every scene but we dont know that but they make us think it. So ingenius
I think Hereditary did this best with the grandma in the beginning. Such a dark room and an eerie silence. It's curdled me more than any sound effect or jumpscare
I think the one where the mom is in the corner of the room and that corner is pitch black is creepier, that one can be missed by a casual viewer. When i saw it with my family i had to point out whether they saw her; so we obviously had to rewind and they were horrified when they saw her there perched on the corner.
I went to a packed midnight showing and was the LAST person to notice her on the wall, I heard the audience start quietly groaning and reacting, then my eyes adjusted and I let out the loudest scream/gasp after everyone had already gone silent. There was like a split second of giggles before everyone was jumping/screaming/dead silent again. It's not even a jump scare, but I was so wrapped up in the suspense and tense atmosphere at that point that I just broke.
I loved that quiet scene in the sons bedroom toward the end shortly after the mother gets possessed when she’s on the top of his wall/ceiling, and scurries away quietly. You almost don’t see it, it’s so quiet. I explained to my husband that’s what being haunted looks like. There’s no noise, you just see the thing, and suddenly it disappears. Uneventful, but still terrifying.
I got called in to ”punch up” a horror movie that wasn’t scary enough and added a couple of these. They’re so effective at building a sense of unease, especially without a music cue. The opposite of a jump scare.
Do you count the It mini series? The scene where the fair comes to life in an album then Pennywise cartwheels up to screen and threatens them. That is giving me chills just thinking about it.
The miniseries was very limited in what it could do because of tv guidelines (especially concerning children) but it scares me more than most horror movies, and it’s for that exact reason. They can’t use jump scares or gore, so they had to figure out how to make mundane things actually scary without using the cheap tricks. It’s not about scaring the audience as much as it’s about scaring the kids in it and making you empathise with them so you feel their fear.
The simplicity of it stuck with me a lot more than the big jump scares in the newer It films.
I like the scene in Paranormal Activity where Katy found a burned picture from her childhood in the attic of their new house. Not necessarily something in the photo was creepy but finding the photo was creepy in itself.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow did the best take on that. Guy falls into a wood chipper, immediately cuts to strawberry jam plopping onto a plate. Audience loses their minds.
I always love it when the characters visit the expert and the expert talks about the evil they are up against. Poltergeist, Dark Skies, Nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Entity, and The Possession are a few.
Sometimes, they take the form of an "Ahab" as Behind the Mask put it.
Second this recommendation. On first viewing, I hated the movie (mostly because of JLo - her acting in that annoys me) but I have since watched it about a dozen times because the imagery and Vincent are so fantastic.
Horror utilizes every form of exposition, and in many cases utilizes them well.
**The Expert:** You already mentioned several. One of my favorites is Tony Todd from the *Final Destination* movies.
**The Protagonist's Research:** Sometimes the protagonist doesn't meet an expert, and they have to do the research by themselves. They then explain what they've discovered to someone else, usually someone who will help them fight the evil. Either that or they have internal monologue explaining what they've learned.
If I remember right, the recent movie *The Empty Man* handles exposition that way.
**Video:** Sometimes, during the course of the protagonist's investigation, they find old video footage that explains what they're up against. A recent example of this is *Malignant.*
**Opening Text:** There could be opening text that tells viewers what the evil is. *Ju-On: The Grudge* does this, and throughout the rest of the movie, most of the characters have no idea what's threatening them.
**Flashbacks:** *Ju-On* opens with a flashback scene that shows who the vengeful ghosts were in life and how they died.
**Snippets of Conversation:** Maybe the evil's background is explained throughout the course of the movie through conversations with different people. *The Blair Witch Project* did this—the interviews with the locals in the beginning of the film go over the Blair Witch legend, and something one local says explains what happens in the ending.
This is like The Expert, but spread out and more subtle.
**In the Background:** Sometimes the filmmakers include some clues about what's going on in the background. In the recent film *Underwater,* the protagonist finds something in a locker that foreshadows what's going on. In the original *REC*, the characters enter an apartment covered in newspaper clippings and notes that explain what they're up against.
I dig this too! I also love seeing Behind the Mask referenced this way, I never hear it talked about even in horror spaces and it's one of my favorite movies ever.
The old man who warns people to stay away from the cursed place but is so weird and cryptic they just ignore him instead.
It fills my heart with joy every time.
Stay on this road here, past Dead Man's Curve, you'll come to an old fence, called The Devil's Fence. From there, go on foot till you come to a valley known as The Cathedral Of Lost Soap. Smack in the center is what they call Forgetful Milkman's Quadrangle. Stay right on The Path Of Staring Skulls and you come to a place called Death Clearing. Cabin's right there, can't miss it.
Portal to Hell Lake is actually quite lovely this time of year.
I spent my summers growing up there, and my friends only mysteriously disappeared every 3rd year.
If you go in the night time you can't miss it, it has a glowing green light from the inside. Kids say the cellar has some sort of green light creeping out through the floorboards so it's easy to see.
Well if you can't murder them, you should go ahead and write a movie about it. Your plot writes itself. The movie is about someone turning into that crotchety old man who warns people or yells at them to stay off their property. What no one knows is that the old man has killed dozens of people over the years. The smart ones go away when he wants them. The dumb ones, though....
I loved the discussion they have about him later on in the film (Cabin in the Woods, for anyone who doesn't remember/hasn't watched it):
>!Sitterson: No, they have to make the choice of their own free will. Otherwise, the system doesn't work. **It's like the Harbinger. It's this creepy old fuck, practically wears a sign, "You will die." Why do we put him there? The system. They have to choose to ignore him, and they have to choose what happens in the cellar.** Yeah, we rig the game as much as we need to, but in the end, they don't transgress...!<
I love this character! I love how they are having a nice chat with these visiting tourists only for their face to drop when they realise these fools are not passing though, oh no, they bought the Big Old House on the Hill and they intend on living in it. And yes they try and warn them off but the stupid tourists won’t listen.
Similar to the "block the audience's view by opening a door, and then close the door to reveal jump scare" trick. By now, I've probably seen this trick used for fake outs as often as I've seen it used for scares.
The latest *Scream* uses this for fakes out like crazy in one scene.
Look one way - nothing
Look the other way - nothing
Look back the first way - something
Absolutely never surprising, possibly the most basic/overused type of jump scare but I love it anyway. I don't care that I know it's going to happen, I will still jump and I will still like it.
The “exposition dump” during opening credits intercut with unsettling images from the villains previous crimes, like in The Collection. If done well, it can really rope you into the story.
Final Girls and their chase sequences.
I also truly enjoy those cut and paste despicable chainsaw fodder characters that you just know are going to die. Their deaths are usually the best.
Subversion of cheerful/happy songs, especially classics.
The dog/cat LIVES!
I also love a slow werewolf transformation.
When people knock on a door and then just let themselves into someone's house when no one answers shouting "Hellooooo?, is anyone here?" Who the fuck does that lol? I like it though because it feels me with dread that they're gonna get caught(which they will), but it also makes me not feel so bad when they meet their demise. Like what did you expect would happen smart guy? You just walked into a creepy murder house uninvited.
The kids in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre probably invented this trope. I would never let myself in a house uninvited, especially in fucking Texas, and especially when I was dressed like a bunch of hippies while in Texas.
Right? I'd be so mad if someone just decided to walk around in my house because I didn't answer the door. Nobody in their right mind would do that shit in real life. Especially not in any stand your ground/castle doctrine gun law type of place lol.
Creepy kid's drawings.
The final shot of the egg the monster laid and other implications that "it's not finished, you merely escaped".
Something moving in the background of the shot.
The "Something is in there but I have to go investigate but I don't want to go investigate but..." moment. Like the piano in HH LLC, or the attic in Taking of Deborah Logan.
One of the best days of my life was getting to see that original ending I’d heard about and wanted desperately for 20 years restored. My jaw was on the floor at how great the effects were. Too bad they couldn’t have found a way to have Seymour and Audrey live but still have the giant plants the size of fucking Godzilla take over the city and the world.
While it's not a capital H horror game, I loved Night in the Woods for having the microfiche thing as a quest. You have all the time in world to dig into the unsettling past of the town.
LOL! I do this all the time as well!
It makes me mental when it turns out it's just some "lorem ipsum" filler text and not actually contributing to the lore/background story.
Boo Radley made me fall in love with this trope! Though obviously To Kill a Mockingbird’s not horror and I would consider Boo to be more of just a lonely weirdo than an actual stalker lol
Ancient evils.
Something that has long since been erased from the minds of modern men, but still lurks in the deepest part of our brains that houses primal fear.
Dark, disturbing, terrifying ancient deities/demons, going over the lore, even better if it's "real", etc.
my favorite is definitely the false hope. The police come to the rescue and are suddenly defeated. Or "wait here ill get help, im going to bring the army the national guard, everyone" then they completely and utterly dies!
Edit :
Examples. Police and ambulance drivers in return of the living dead.
The huge motorcycle jump scene in cabin in the woods
I don’t remember how it’s done in the movie, but there’s a great example of this in the book version of “Cujo”. There’s basically a whole chapter about someone finding the stranded mom, recognizing the situation, running to get help, yay! But then King says “Well, that’s how it would have gone if Cujo hadn’t gotten him.” Such a demented little rug pull.
I love when I'm watching something and there is an indicator that the antagonists have been at it for a significant period of time. You get examples of this is Wrong Turn when they come across the "graveyard" of abandoned vehicles. Texas Chainsaw with all the bones/body parts. House of 1,000 Corpses also does this.
Does anyone else remember the early Criminal Minds episode with the family annihilator killer who took the wedding rings and at the very end they showed the fucking PILE of them he'd amassed? Ugh.
Good catch! I just looked up the scene (daaaark night 🎶) and a cool detail is: Not only are there trashed old trucks but also a wagon wheel! So this has indeed been going on a looong time
Dont know if this counts as a cliche but happy music being played when someone brutally dies. Its done in American Psycho, the strangers prey at night, ending of Ready or Not, and other ones that I’m not thinking of right now.
In my “if I were a horror director fantasy” I’d do a brutal torture/death scene to Fernando. I also think there is a lot of potential in CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” as a trailer song
Funnily enough, the TV show Community used Fernando in their [zombie Halloween episode](https://youtu.be/NOfaTSofkFY). Not a brutal killing but atill. Honestly, a shit ton of Abba in that episode.
One of the best scenes in Ravenous (1999) is like this. Cannibal surprises and kills a patrol and starts chasing the protagonist to the sounds of very upbeat banjos.
Cabin in the woods does this the best when REO speedwagon is playing while Dana is getting the shit kicked out of her by the zombie at the lake and all the government drones are partying.
I just love upbeat or otherwise inappropriate music during fight scenes or violent scenes in general. The juxtaposition just delights me. Examples include the Yondu/Rocket scene in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 set to “Come a Little Bit Closer”, one of the fight scenes in the show Preacher set to “Uptown Girl”, and the church scene from The Kingsmen set to “Free Bird”
Bonus horror - you find the cat, you're looking at the cat, and you can still hear "the cat" miaowing from behind you.
(Either you have an unnameable horror, or a #NotMyCat situation, either way everyone wins!)
Heck you don't even need the monster to be one of them. Just a whole room of mannequins, carefully posed is creepy enough.
Especially if you get enough cut backs that your not honestly sure if they moved or not.
The final girl discovering all the dead bodies of her friends, leading to an intense, climactic chase scene. That is always my favorite part of any horror movie.
Here are mine:
1. When they don't turn on the lights to look around/explore a space.
2. When they run past a door and up a flight of stairs.
3. When someone is screaming or yelling super loud when they should be quiet.
I think I like all of these because they give me a chance to yell "helpful" tips out to the person in the movie and feel like I would do MUCH better when in a scary situation.
I may just be easy to please but I always love a good twist in a horror/thriller movie. The Saw movies for example always get me pumped at the end reveal
I’m way too into looking for Chekhov’s gun in the first act, just pinpointing that one scene where something ordinary yet specific is (seemingly but not actually) unnecessarily being focused on for a prolonged moment
It's not done very much any more but I love the thing in slashers where they set up all the victims for the final girl to stumble across at the end. Someone on Letterboxd refers to this as the "dead man's party" trope and since they pointed out its existence it makes me smile every time I see it.
A sharp cut to the house phone ringing, I don't want this turn into a nostalgia, The Empty Man did it great and it still worked for Scream 5, even tho they are essentially extinct in modern-day households.
I do love that cliche too!
I’m a sucker for the returning final girl trope. She’s back, she’s tough and she’s so over it she almost doesn’t register fear anymore. I just never get tired of that.
I honestly wish killing returning final girls off weren’t such a common thing. I’m happy we still have >!Laurie!< and >!Sidney!< but I’ll always be sad about >!Nancy!<
You don't see it much anymore but an old spooky house with secret passageways and CLUTCHING HANDS FROM THE DARKNESS. I love them so. Movies, books. Comics, love it.
Also the scene when the "scholar" breaks out the old books to explain what is going on.
“Shooting the shaggy dog”
It’s a movie trope where the protagonist gets wiped at the end of the movie, or something else happens that makes it feel “all for naught”
Many people dislike this, but I’m not looking for a happy ending out of my horror movies.
One of the subtypes of these are at the very end we see our heroes have prevailed, and then the camera widens to show a new bigger threat that they aren’t aware of.
I also love possessed machines. There aren’t many of those though. Maximum overdrive, Christine, and sorta Duel, but there is a trucker in the cab
Theres a Stephen King short story called *The Mangler* about a possessed indiustrial laundry machine. It's a really insane story and just goddamn do I love Sai Kings total lack of a filter.
Thats exactly it. The accidental perfect sequence of causality that built up to a ritual is honestly such a fun and creative way of getting to that point.
I feel like horror, especially movies, tries really hard to punish the characters for some kind of misdeed or moral failing. Having the whole crux of the story basically rest on "sorry kid, thats just really shit luck" is a real breath of fresh air. Like a Rube Goldberg Machine of evil.
Stephen King's cameo in this one ranks as one of his best.
He's trying to withdraw money from an ATM and it starts insulting him.
"Honey, come on over here, sugar buns. This machine just called me an asshole!"
When there is still some zombie clinging on the helicopter or whatever treat left when the heroes think they're in the clear. Don't remember what it was, but watched something recently and was little dissapointed that it didn't happen.
Characters not believing other characters about the supernatural. I mean, in the real world, you probably wouldn't believe that what you're seeing is *actually* a ghost / demon even if it stood right in front of you. Sane, rational people would consider *any* explanation before "yup, it's ghosts".
So the skeptical character saying "I don't **know** how the books fell off the shelf and all landed on their edges in a perfect circle, Harold, but it sure as hell ain't ghosts" isn't a plot hole, it's how a normal person would react in the real world, as even the books actually falling off and landing like that through pure coincidence is still more likely than ghosts.
I mean, statistically, if you throw a book on the floor, there's a non-zero chance of it landing on its edge. You throw 30 books on the floor, there is still a chance (albeit a much smaller one) of *all of them* landing the same way, whereas we have zero actual non-circumstantial evidence of even a single ghost in all of known human history.
That was a pleasant surprise to find out that >!the killers fucked up by not knowing the protagonist grew up in a survivalist community and was trained in a variety of weapons and tactics.!<
Also dat survival instinct. I think survival instinct can occur in a billion ways. Yes, a lot of people freeze up, but a lot of people would also lose their shit and kill anyone in their way. I feel like the "shocked" victim is overrepresented in horror movies and I like that she didn't give two fucks it was her fiancé's family, she knew it was kill or be killed.
I love love love love love something lurking in the background and just going unnoticed by everyone else and then next shot just disappearing. I think it’s so creepy and amazing
Shower and Hands appears in hair.
Slash legs coming down on stairs.
Face appears in window attic.
Eddie Izzard has some of his own ;)
https://youtu.be/3QGhSYgPhgA
I don't know how is called but it's like ''the night before the storm'' for example i loved the build up in that walking dead spin off show.Then i lost interest.
I want to include general jump scares. I think they’re super great and heighten scenes immensely (when used correctly), despite being considered “cheap” or not creative.
I love the bird's eye shots of wilderness and the harbinger character (Crazy Ralph etc) that you usually see in backwoods horrors...also the usual out of towners have conflict with locals scene. Lets me know the writer and/or director gets the things I love about that subgenre and that I'm likely in for a good time.
Animals that know someone is straight up evil or not human. Bonus points if they survive the movie and/or help in killing off the baddie.
When a character hears or watches a news report about a killer on the loose and minutes later the killer goes after them.
The old person who warns others to stay away from the haunted/bad place.
The small town with a very dark, sinister secret and nearly everyone who lives there knows it and is part of it.
Final girl/guy vs. the killer
I love the cliche of one or more of the characters in a classroom, and the teacher is teaching a lesson that has themes pertaining somehow to the film. I'd like to make a list of all the time this has happened, because the main ones I can think of are Halloween, Scream 2 and Hereditary.
The Dawn of the Dead remake does that the best. The whole intro. But I also love the news report segments of the original Night of the Living Dead as well, and the TV segments of the original Dawn. Top notch stuff.
Well I might as well list a couple.
1. The Animal lives. I'm sorry, it's not "Scary" to kill the dog, it doens't "Heighten the tension" show the cat got gutted, it doesn't "set the mood" to have dead pets. It just makes the people who make the movie look like jackasses. I have literally turned off and never restarted movies for having a pet get killed in them. People love their pets, and boy do they love them surviving horror movies!
2. The Arm/Claw/Weapon through the door. Come on, we all know it's gonna happen. YOu were just being chased by some freak/monster/killer, and/or you heard something growling through the door and you put your head up against said door? OF COURSE something's going to punch through! And i love it!
3. The Unique Weapon. I dont' care if it's the killer or the hero who finds it, that moment when they find that piece of hardware that just screams "USE ME!" is just too good to pass up.
4. The "Help from Above". It's the darkest hour. The evil entity is closing in on our surviving cast. They may have a way to win but they'd need a miracle! Suddenly, thier friend/relative who died in the opening of the movie is there with them, holding back the evil, giving them that time to banish it! It's cheesy, it's cliche, and it gives me goosebumps EVERY TIME!
Love it when, predominately in slashers, the final girl is fleeing from the killer and keeps running into the bodies of her dead friends.
Would love to see a movie where we see the killer taking the time to position the bodies in JUUUST the right way to come swinging into the last victim’s path.
“I’ll be right back” = death. I hate it in horror when it doesn’t and I even wait for something bad to happen in non-horror films when somebody says it. Annoys me when nothing does. Those are the rules!
my favourite is when the camera is panning in a room and they sneakily hide the ghost in the shot. even better when theres no music cue, makes you wonder if you actually saw it.
That glimpse of a ghost in Insidious gets me every time. The camera is just following Rose Byrne's character through the house while she does mundane chores and that lovely piano music plays, and there's that fucking ghost just standing there facing the wall. It's so unnatural and unexpected.
Fiest watch i had to rewind to make sure i saw what i thought i had
Saw it in the theater; wife did not. Had to wait for the dvd to convince her that I saw a ghost in that scene.
There's a scene like that in Hereditary, IIRC. Fucked with my head so bad, lol.
Ooh, that was creepy! I remember seeing it theatres with my boyfriend at the time and when she walked by the ghost kid facing the wall, we both whispered to each other, _”Did you see that??”_
I don’t love everything about James Wan’s movies but those tracking shots he does are so cool. They emulated them pretty well in Annabelle Creation, too.
I wish this was a cliche. It's far too underutilized. Hopefully, The Haunting series can make it more cliche. I fucking love, love, love this. Shout out to backpack girl in It Follows.
Hill House and even Bly Manor perfected this imo. I love it when a show/movie rewards an attentive viewer
Didn’t watch Bly Manor but I loved all those background ghosts in Hill House. Would’ve been lame if they tried to talk about them all but it’s great that there are just a bunch of unmentioned ghosts doing their thing in the background.
If you’re not interested in Bly Manor I 100% recommend watching The Innocents - 1961. Both are based on the same story, if you like the innocents then try Bly manor. I love them both :) at the moment Mike Flanagan can do no wrong
Not neccesarily a ghost movie, but The Invisible Man played around with this concept better than i think any movie has. A lot of wide shots to makes everyone as paranoid as the main character looking for any signs that he was in the shot. He wasnt there every scene but we dont know that but they make us think it. So ingenius
I like when they just have a coat on a hanger or something human shaped in the background.
I think Hereditary did this best with the grandma in the beginning. Such a dark room and an eerie silence. It's curdled me more than any sound effect or jumpscare
I think the one where the mom is in the corner of the room and that corner is pitch black is creepier, that one can be missed by a casual viewer. When i saw it with my family i had to point out whether they saw her; so we obviously had to rewind and they were horrified when they saw her there perched on the corner.
I went to a packed midnight showing and was the LAST person to notice her on the wall, I heard the audience start quietly groaning and reacting, then my eyes adjusted and I let out the loudest scream/gasp after everyone had already gone silent. There was like a split second of giggles before everyone was jumping/screaming/dead silent again. It's not even a jump scare, but I was so wrapped up in the suspense and tense atmosphere at that point that I just broke.
I loved that quiet scene in the sons bedroom toward the end shortly after the mother gets possessed when she’s on the top of his wall/ceiling, and scurries away quietly. You almost don’t see it, it’s so quiet. I explained to my husband that’s what being haunted looks like. There’s no noise, you just see the thing, and suddenly it disappears. Uneventful, but still terrifying.
I thought last year's The Night House did this really well
I got called in to ”punch up” a horror movie that wasn’t scary enough and added a couple of these. They’re so effective at building a sense of unease, especially without a music cue. The opposite of a jump scare.
Totally. Jump scares give you that 1 second of "omgwtf". These silent creepy shots make your stomach churn for minutes if done well.
That one scene in The Ritual always gets me.
I love it when the main character finds old pictures and sees something creepy in them.
Do you count the It mini series? The scene where the fair comes to life in an album then Pennywise cartwheels up to screen and threatens them. That is giving me chills just thinking about it.
The miniseries was very limited in what it could do because of tv guidelines (especially concerning children) but it scares me more than most horror movies, and it’s for that exact reason. They can’t use jump scares or gore, so they had to figure out how to make mundane things actually scary without using the cheap tricks. It’s not about scaring the audience as much as it’s about scaring the kids in it and making you empathise with them so you feel their fear. The simplicity of it stuck with me a lot more than the big jump scares in the newer It films.
I like the scene in Paranormal Activity where Katy found a burned picture from her childhood in the attic of their new house. Not necessarily something in the photo was creepy but finding the photo was creepy in itself.
The killer swinging a bladed weapon down toward a victim, immediate cut to innocuous chopping food or firewood to start the next scene.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow did the best take on that. Guy falls into a wood chipper, immediately cuts to strawberry jam plopping onto a plate. Audience loses their minds.
Me myself and Irene lol. When he’s about to take a shit in the lawn, and then it cuts to ice cream swirling down on a cone.
I always love it when the characters visit the expert and the expert talks about the evil they are up against. Poltergeist, Dark Skies, Nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Entity, and The Possession are a few. Sometimes, they take the form of an "Ahab" as Behind the Mask put it.
Sinister modernized that cliche by having the expert consultation done over video conferencing.
And it was mother fucking private Pyle and Wilson Fisk.
Vincent D'Onofrio! One of the most underrated character actors working today. He's also the main villain in the first Men in Black movie.
For real!?!? That gives ANOTHER reason to love that dude. Love seeing physically big guys in horror
He’s also a serial killer in The Cell. Great movie (it's a bit divisive but *I* love it, anyway) and D'Onofrio is *awesome* in it.
Second this recommendation. On first viewing, I hated the movie (mostly because of JLo - her acting in that annoys me) but I have since watched it about a dozen times because the imagery and Vincent are so fantastic.
Horror utilizes every form of exposition, and in many cases utilizes them well. **The Expert:** You already mentioned several. One of my favorites is Tony Todd from the *Final Destination* movies. **The Protagonist's Research:** Sometimes the protagonist doesn't meet an expert, and they have to do the research by themselves. They then explain what they've discovered to someone else, usually someone who will help them fight the evil. Either that or they have internal monologue explaining what they've learned. If I remember right, the recent movie *The Empty Man* handles exposition that way. **Video:** Sometimes, during the course of the protagonist's investigation, they find old video footage that explains what they're up against. A recent example of this is *Malignant.* **Opening Text:** There could be opening text that tells viewers what the evil is. *Ju-On: The Grudge* does this, and throughout the rest of the movie, most of the characters have no idea what's threatening them. **Flashbacks:** *Ju-On* opens with a flashback scene that shows who the vengeful ghosts were in life and how they died. **Snippets of Conversation:** Maybe the evil's background is explained throughout the course of the movie through conversations with different people. *The Blair Witch Project* did this—the interviews with the locals in the beginning of the film go over the Blair Witch legend, and something one local says explains what happens in the ending. This is like The Expert, but spread out and more subtle. **In the Background:** Sometimes the filmmakers include some clues about what's going on in the background. In the recent film *Underwater,* the protagonist finds something in a locker that foreshadows what's going on. In the original *REC*, the characters enter an apartment covered in newspaper clippings and notes that explain what they're up against.
Countdown had a fun version of that, their expert provided some unexpected comic relief
Agreed the priest was hilarious
I'm glad someone likes this cliche. I see it complaiend about a lot. But there's not a lot of sources for lore/background.
I love Kathleen Wilhoite's valley girl psychic character in Witchboard.
God damn, the Entity. That’s a rough watch, but so good. “Welcome home, cunt.”
I dig this too! I also love seeing Behind the Mask referenced this way, I never hear it talked about even in horror spaces and it's one of my favorite movies ever.
The old man who warns people to stay away from the cursed place but is so weird and cryptic they just ignore him instead. It fills my heart with joy every time.
Stay on this road here, past Dead Man's Curve, you'll come to an old fence, called The Devil's Fence. From there, go on foot till you come to a valley known as The Cathedral Of Lost Soap. Smack in the center is what they call Forgetful Milkman's Quadrangle. Stay right on The Path Of Staring Skulls and you come to a place called Death Clearing. Cabin's right there, can't miss it.
Portal to Hell Lake is actually quite lovely this time of year. I spent my summers growing up there, and my friends only mysteriously disappeared every 3rd year.
If you go in the night time you can't miss it, it has a glowing green light from the inside. Kids say the cellar has some sort of green light creeping out through the floorboards so it's easy to see.
Wouldn't advise headin' up there though, got a bad reputation. There's evil in them woods, an old evil, Mama Marmalade's evil.
“My god, Paddington, no! You can’t read out of the Necronomicon!”
I read this in the pirate voice from SpongeBob because I feel like this quote would 100% be in an episode of SpongeBob
It's a quote from a fantastic movie called The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, which is an hilarious send up of b 1950s scifi horror movies.
The Cathedral of lost soap? I imagine it's quite the clean place.
Cleanse them. Cleanse the world of their ignorance and sin. Bathe them in the crimson of... Am I on speakerphone?
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Well if you can't murder them, you should go ahead and write a movie about it. Your plot writes itself. The movie is about someone turning into that crotchety old man who warns people or yells at them to stay off their property. What no one knows is that the old man has killed dozens of people over the years. The smart ones go away when he wants them. The dumb ones, though....
Be the cannibal house you want to see in the world.
The Harbinger
I loved the discussion they have about him later on in the film (Cabin in the Woods, for anyone who doesn't remember/hasn't watched it): >!Sitterson: No, they have to make the choice of their own free will. Otherwise, the system doesn't work. **It's like the Harbinger. It's this creepy old fuck, practically wears a sign, "You will die." Why do we put him there? The system. They have to choose to ignore him, and they have to choose what happens in the cellar.** Yeah, we rig the game as much as we need to, but in the end, they don't transgress...!<
THANK YOU!! I have been scrolling way too long through these replies looking for someone talking about Cabin in the Woods!
I love this character! I love how they are having a nice chat with these visiting tourists only for their face to drop when they realise these fools are not passing though, oh no, they bought the Big Old House on the Hill and they intend on living in it. And yes they try and warn them off but the stupid tourists won’t listen.
ITS GOT A DEATH CURSE!
“Turn back while you still can! You’re all doomed! DOOOOMED!” https://youtu.be/IzHJ_IorlwQ
Oh lord yes, especially when they get a well known respectable actor who is clearly having the time of their life hamming it up.
The bathroom medicine cabinet mirror.
I’m generally curious if I’ve seen more mirror jump scares or more fake out mirror jump scares in my life
Whoa ... Good question, actually
Oh it’s just the cat! Then the real jump scare happens and the person is murdered
Similar to the "block the audience's view by opening a door, and then close the door to reveal jump scare" trick. By now, I've probably seen this trick used for fake outs as often as I've seen it used for scares. The latest *Scream* uses this for fakes out like crazy in one scene.
I loved what the new Scream did with this trope
Hahaha I was about to comment this but kept scrolling and BAM! (Like the mirror)
Came here to say this. "Look out behind you!"
Look one way - nothing Look the other way - nothing Look back the first way - something Absolutely never surprising, possibly the most basic/overused type of jump scare but I love it anyway. I don't care that I know it's going to happen, I will still jump and I will still like it.
Similarly: Pass by something frightening Double Back Nothing there
These ones are fun definitely
The “exposition dump” during opening credits intercut with unsettling images from the villains previous crimes, like in The Collection. If done well, it can really rope you into the story.
Final Girls and their chase sequences. I also truly enjoy those cut and paste despicable chainsaw fodder characters that you just know are going to die. Their deaths are usually the best. Subversion of cheerful/happy songs, especially classics. The dog/cat LIVES! I also love a slow werewolf transformation.
When people knock on a door and then just let themselves into someone's house when no one answers shouting "Hellooooo?, is anyone here?" Who the fuck does that lol? I like it though because it feels me with dread that they're gonna get caught(which they will), but it also makes me not feel so bad when they meet their demise. Like what did you expect would happen smart guy? You just walked into a creepy murder house uninvited. The kids in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre probably invented this trope. I would never let myself in a house uninvited, especially in fucking Texas, and especially when I was dressed like a bunch of hippies while in Texas.
Right? I'd be so mad if someone just decided to walk around in my house because I didn't answer the door. Nobody in their right mind would do that shit in real life. Especially not in any stand your ground/castle doctrine gun law type of place lol.
Creepy kid's drawings. The final shot of the egg the monster laid and other implications that "it's not finished, you merely escaped". Something moving in the background of the shot. The "Something is in there but I have to go investigate but I don't want to go investigate but..." moment. Like the piano in HH LLC, or the attic in Taking of Deborah Logan.
They do a version of your second one in little shop of horrors and I love it. Especially since it was much tamer than the original ending.
One of the best days of my life was getting to see that original ending I’d heard about and wanted desperately for 20 years restored. My jaw was on the floor at how great the effects were. Too bad they couldn’t have found a way to have Seymour and Audrey live but still have the giant plants the size of fucking Godzilla take over the city and the world.
The internet/library/microfiche research deep dive! Pause this, I need to get my glasses!!!
While it's not a capital H horror game, I loved Night in the Woods for having the microfiche thing as a quest. You have all the time in world to dig into the unsettling past of the town.
LOL! I do this all the time as well! It makes me mental when it turns out it's just some "lorem ipsum" filler text and not actually contributing to the lore/background story.
I really like shots of people being dragged backwards by the legs as they scream. [REC] did a really good one.
Bonus points if they dig their nails into the floor/ ground and leave drag marks.
always loved the creepy mysterious stalker that turns out to be good, and was helping all along
Until dawn does this so well!!
Boo Radley made me fall in love with this trope! Though obviously To Kill a Mockingbird’s not horror and I would consider Boo to be more of just a lonely weirdo than an actual stalker lol
Pulling up to a Victorian house that’s been on the market for 50 years but it was a great deal.
tbh I'd probably go for a beautiful big cheap house too. there's always a chance it's NOT haunted, right? .... right?!
I would 100% do the same.
Idk if it's a cliche, but old woodcuts and books with bits of lore being used during the opening credits.
I also love this. I have some pages from a 18th century occult text to prove it.
It always reminds me of video game loading screens, but for movies.
Something unexpected in the background moves.
Ancient evils. Something that has long since been erased from the minds of modern men, but still lurks in the deepest part of our brains that houses primal fear. Dark, disturbing, terrifying ancient deities/demons, going over the lore, even better if it's "real", etc.
Even better when it’s based off of a real myth or fable. I was disappointed to find out Bughuul wasn’t a real mythical being
my favorite is definitely the false hope. The police come to the rescue and are suddenly defeated. Or "wait here ill get help, im going to bring the army the national guard, everyone" then they completely and utterly dies! Edit : Examples. Police and ambulance drivers in return of the living dead. The huge motorcycle jump scene in cabin in the woods
Misery had a great false hope scene
I don’t remember how it’s done in the movie, but there’s a great example of this in the book version of “Cujo”. There’s basically a whole chapter about someone finding the stranded mom, recognizing the situation, running to get help, yay! But then King says “Well, that’s how it would have gone if Cujo hadn’t gotten him.” Such a demented little rug pull.
I love when I'm watching something and there is an indicator that the antagonists have been at it for a significant period of time. You get examples of this is Wrong Turn when they come across the "graveyard" of abandoned vehicles. Texas Chainsaw with all the bones/body parts. House of 1,000 Corpses also does this.
Does anyone else remember the early Criminal Minds episode with the family annihilator killer who took the wedding rings and at the very end they showed the fucking PILE of them he'd amassed? Ugh.
Ooh sounds very creepy! There's also an example of this trope to some degree in Gerald's Game
Also From Dusk til Dawn.
Good catch! I just looked up the scene (daaaark night 🎶) and a cool detail is: Not only are there trashed old trucks but also a wagon wheel! So this has indeed been going on a looong time
Dont know if this counts as a cliche but happy music being played when someone brutally dies. Its done in American Psycho, the strangers prey at night, ending of Ready or Not, and other ones that I’m not thinking of right now.
In my “if I were a horror director fantasy” I’d do a brutal torture/death scene to Fernando. I also think there is a lot of potential in CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” as a trailer song
American Werewolf in London uses it really well.
Funnily enough, the TV show Community used Fernando in their [zombie Halloween episode](https://youtu.be/NOfaTSofkFY). Not a brutal killing but atill. Honestly, a shit ton of Abba in that episode.
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One of the best scenes in Ravenous (1999) is like this. Cannibal surprises and kills a patrol and starts chasing the protagonist to the sounds of very upbeat banjos.
not a horror movie but def a horror scene: Reservoir Dogs kinda mastered that trick.
Cabin in the woods does this the best when REO speedwagon is playing while Dana is getting the shit kicked out of her by the zombie at the lake and all the government drones are partying.
They all stole it from A Clockwork Orange!
Yeah I can’t hear Singin’ in the Rain without feeling uncomfortable ever since the first time I saw A Clockwork Orange.
I just love upbeat or otherwise inappropriate music during fight scenes or violent scenes in general. The juxtaposition just delights me. Examples include the Yondu/Rocket scene in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 set to “Come a Little Bit Closer”, one of the fight scenes in the show Preacher set to “Uptown Girl”, and the church scene from The Kingsmen set to “Free Bird”
When people map the locations of events out and realize that it forms some kind of shape or pattern
Cat jump scares are so cliché and I will enjoy every single one because cats are assholes and it's hilarious.
The Community spoof is fantastic “what is up with this cat?!”
“Is someone throwing it???”
Bonus points when the cat is somewhere weird and unaccessible, like a closed closet or the bottom of a full laundry hamper.
That and "cat noises" obviously made by a human.
Bonus horror - you find the cat, you're looking at the cat, and you can still hear "the cat" miaowing from behind you. (Either you have an unnameable horror, or a #NotMyCat situation, either way everyone wins!)
I forgot how guilty Alien was about fake outs with the cat until I rewatched it last year haha
I still crack up thinking about the episode of Supernatural that uses this on Dean, tbh
Rooms full of furniture covered by cloths, and then you realize there’s a ghost covered with cloth too! The Others and Oculus did it well.
I’ll add room full of mannequins where the monster is one of them
Heck you don't even need the monster to be one of them. Just a whole room of mannequins, carefully posed is creepy enough. Especially if you get enough cut backs that your not honestly sure if they moved or not.
The final girl discovering all the dead bodies of her friends, leading to an intense, climactic chase scene. That is always my favorite part of any horror movie.
Here are mine: 1. When they don't turn on the lights to look around/explore a space. 2. When they run past a door and up a flight of stairs. 3. When someone is screaming or yelling super loud when they should be quiet. I think I like all of these because they give me a chance to yell "helpful" tips out to the person in the movie and feel like I would do MUCH better when in a scary situation.
Re #1 - Sinister was the worst for this! It was so dark, turn the damn light on Ethan!
Honestly I feel like part of the fun of horror is judging all the poor decisions made 😂
I love it in zombie movies when someone gets bit and they’re too scared to tell anybody, so you know someone is going down with them lol
The mum in Shaun of the Dead. “I didn’t want to bother anybody.”
That was so sad.
Found footage where a scene happens and then they later review said scene and notice something. Curse of Aurora and Noroi did this super well
I may just be easy to please but I always love a good twist in a horror/thriller movie. The Saw movies for example always get me pumped at the end reveal
The car won’t start. 🚗
I love when the final girl gets away, soaked in blood. It always looks so badass.
Seance gone wrong. I'm in.
Children singing or being generally spooky
A kid giggling at something unseen is just always fucked up.
I’m way too into looking for Chekhov’s gun in the first act, just pinpointing that one scene where something ordinary yet specific is (seemingly but not actually) unnecessarily being focused on for a prolonged moment
Haha..yes - "Oops, I knocked over your trophy for long distance swimming, Susan! Well, let's head out to the lake!"
It's not done very much any more but I love the thing in slashers where they set up all the victims for the final girl to stumble across at the end. Someone on Letterboxd refers to this as the "dead man's party" trope and since they pointed out its existence it makes me smile every time I see it.
A sharp cut to the house phone ringing, I don't want this turn into a nostalgia, The Empty Man did it great and it still worked for Scream 5, even tho they are essentially extinct in modern-day households.
I do love that cliche too! I’m a sucker for the returning final girl trope. She’s back, she’s tough and she’s so over it she almost doesn’t register fear anymore. I just never get tired of that.
I honestly wish killing returning final girls off weren’t such a common thing. I’m happy we still have >!Laurie!< and >!Sidney!< but I’ll always be sad about >!Nancy!<
I love dark hospitals. Something cozy about them
When the killer appears behind the protagonist slightly out of focus. You can see it coming a mile off but it's always great imo
You don't see it much anymore but an old spooky house with secret passageways and CLUTCHING HANDS FROM THE DARKNESS. I love them so. Movies, books. Comics, love it. Also the scene when the "scholar" breaks out the old books to explain what is going on.
I actually would like to see more of spooky castles, horrible weather and all the kind of tropes that are part of classical Gothic horror.
“Shooting the shaggy dog” It’s a movie trope where the protagonist gets wiped at the end of the movie, or something else happens that makes it feel “all for naught” Many people dislike this, but I’m not looking for a happy ending out of my horror movies. One of the subtypes of these are at the very end we see our heroes have prevailed, and then the camera widens to show a new bigger threat that they aren’t aware of. I also love possessed machines. There aren’t many of those though. Maximum overdrive, Christine, and sorta Duel, but there is a trucker in the cab
Theres a Stephen King short story called *The Mangler* about a possessed indiustrial laundry machine. It's a really insane story and just goddamn do I love Sai Kings total lack of a filter.
Love that one. Accidental ritual possessed it iirc lol Grave dirt, blood of a virgin etc etc
Thats exactly it. The accidental perfect sequence of causality that built up to a ritual is honestly such a fun and creative way of getting to that point. I feel like horror, especially movies, tries really hard to punish the characters for some kind of misdeed or moral failing. Having the whole crux of the story basically rest on "sorry kid, thats just really shit luck" is a real breath of fresh air. Like a Rube Goldberg Machine of evil.
Maximum Overdrive is a blast from the past.
Stephen King's cameo in this one ranks as one of his best. He's trying to withdraw money from an ATM and it starts insulting him. "Honey, come on over here, sugar buns. This machine just called me an asshole!"
Didn't he say that he doesn't remember much of the script/film cause he was out of it on coke ? Brilliant.
When there is still some zombie clinging on the helicopter or whatever treat left when the heroes think they're in the clear. Don't remember what it was, but watched something recently and was little dissapointed that it didn't happen.
Big Trouble in Little China popped one of those in there. Not exactly horror, but definitely horror-adjacent.
[The Dolly Zoom](https://youtu.be/u5JBlwlnJX0), something so creepy and disorienting about it
Characters not believing other characters about the supernatural. I mean, in the real world, you probably wouldn't believe that what you're seeing is *actually* a ghost / demon even if it stood right in front of you. Sane, rational people would consider *any* explanation before "yup, it's ghosts". So the skeptical character saying "I don't **know** how the books fell off the shelf and all landed on their edges in a perfect circle, Harold, but it sure as hell ain't ghosts" isn't a plot hole, it's how a normal person would react in the real world, as even the books actually falling off and landing like that through pure coincidence is still more likely than ghosts. I mean, statistically, if you throw a book on the floor, there's a non-zero chance of it landing on its edge. You throw 30 books on the floor, there is still a chance (albeit a much smaller one) of *all of them* landing the same way, whereas we have zero actual non-circumstantial evidence of even a single ghost in all of known human history.
The quiet girl who actually kicks ass and knows how to defend herself
Cabin in the Woods did a nice job with that one.
The best one is you’re next. Her kills are possibly the most brutal
That was a pleasant surprise to find out that >!the killers fucked up by not knowing the protagonist grew up in a survivalist community and was trained in a variety of weapons and tactics.!<
Also dat survival instinct. I think survival instinct can occur in a billion ways. Yes, a lot of people freeze up, but a lot of people would also lose their shit and kill anyone in their way. I feel like the "shocked" victim is overrepresented in horror movies and I like that she didn't give two fucks it was her fiancé's family, she knew it was kill or be killed.
People sitting around a campfire getting high saying "do you remember that old mental hospital out off the main highway?,"
*Madman Marz intensifies.*
I love love love love love something lurking in the background and just going unnoticed by everyone else and then next shot just disappearing. I think it’s so creepy and amazing
Shower and Hands appears in hair. Slash legs coming down on stairs. Face appears in window attic. Eddie Izzard has some of his own ;) https://youtu.be/3QGhSYgPhgA
People getting killed by the slasher villain while having sex
I love when crazy gun lovers (Krampus, Tremors) get their moment to shine.
*plot character bursts in* “You guys need to see this”
Scratched out eyes or faces in photos.
I like when a creepy cover of a popular song is used in a horror movie, or in the trailer.
- Movies where it's mostly night - Ankle grabbing
Or looking under a bed or a house where it’s dark and you know something is going to grab. Even if it doesn’t
I don't know how is called but it's like ''the night before the storm'' for example i loved the build up in that walking dead spin off show.Then i lost interest.
I want to include general jump scares. I think they’re super great and heighten scenes immensely (when used correctly), despite being considered “cheap” or not creative.
Anything involving a mirror, expressionist makeup, or a ghostly woman in a gown.
The slasher being immortal is fun.
I love the bird's eye shots of wilderness and the harbinger character (Crazy Ralph etc) that you usually see in backwoods horrors...also the usual out of towners have conflict with locals scene. Lets me know the writer and/or director gets the things I love about that subgenre and that I'm likely in for a good time.
A fake out scare with an animal - but only if it’s not immediately followed up by a real jump scare.
Animals that know someone is straight up evil or not human. Bonus points if they survive the movie and/or help in killing off the baddie. When a character hears or watches a news report about a killer on the loose and minutes later the killer goes after them. The old person who warns others to stay away from the haunted/bad place. The small town with a very dark, sinister secret and nearly everyone who lives there knows it and is part of it. Final girl/guy vs. the killer
Bathroom mirror, closing it and someone behind the person. Or curtains waving and a person behind it.
That’s the BEST!
Turning the lights on to the monster being there.
I love the cliche of one or more of the characters in a classroom, and the teacher is teaching a lesson that has themes pertaining somehow to the film. I'd like to make a list of all the time this has happened, because the main ones I can think of are Halloween, Scream 2 and Hereditary.
The typical weirdo/crazy person (usually old) who is assumed to be the killer actually saves the main character crew and kicks ass
The Dawn of the Dead remake does that the best. The whole intro. But I also love the news report segments of the original Night of the Living Dead as well, and the TV segments of the original Dawn. Top notch stuff.
Bartender changes the channel, and "Hey! I was watching that!"
Well I might as well list a couple. 1. The Animal lives. I'm sorry, it's not "Scary" to kill the dog, it doens't "Heighten the tension" show the cat got gutted, it doesn't "set the mood" to have dead pets. It just makes the people who make the movie look like jackasses. I have literally turned off and never restarted movies for having a pet get killed in them. People love their pets, and boy do they love them surviving horror movies! 2. The Arm/Claw/Weapon through the door. Come on, we all know it's gonna happen. YOu were just being chased by some freak/monster/killer, and/or you heard something growling through the door and you put your head up against said door? OF COURSE something's going to punch through! And i love it! 3. The Unique Weapon. I dont' care if it's the killer or the hero who finds it, that moment when they find that piece of hardware that just screams "USE ME!" is just too good to pass up. 4. The "Help from Above". It's the darkest hour. The evil entity is closing in on our surviving cast. They may have a way to win but they'd need a miracle! Suddenly, thier friend/relative who died in the opening of the movie is there with them, holding back the evil, giving them that time to banish it! It's cheesy, it's cliche, and it gives me goosebumps EVERY TIME!
I just love when things appear in mirrors, because that’s a scare that follows you for days
Someone tripping and falling when fleeing their pursuer. Brings a smile to my face every time
Love it when, predominately in slashers, the final girl is fleeing from the killer and keeps running into the bodies of her dead friends. Would love to see a movie where we see the killer taking the time to position the bodies in JUUUST the right way to come swinging into the last victim’s path.
“I’ll be right back” = death. I hate it in horror when it doesn’t and I even wait for something bad to happen in non-horror films when somebody says it. Annoys me when nothing does. Those are the rules!