Earlier in the week I was watching the Mothers Day remake and it had a particular scene which annoyed the crap out of me. Overall its a great film but when people run into a garage and pick up a standard nail gun and start using it as a 9 mm it gets under my skin.
Where I live these devices have pressure switches to make sure you cant do this and this blatant falsehood got me thinking of the most annoying horror movie clichés. I asked our readers what the most annoying horror movie cliches are and this list is a compilation of all the answers
- When someone is trapped in someway, for example tied up on a chair and the killer is about torture the victim they always plead: You don’t have to do this. or: Why are you doing this? ISN’T IT F*CKIN’ OBVIOUS!!? HE’S A PSYCHO! And I think he knows that he doesn’t have to do this, he just wants to.
- How whenever kids go into the woods it’s the silicon pumped stupid girls, the a**hole football guy, the black guy, the nerdy guy, and the guy & girl next door. Guess who survives? And also fall in love
- There can be literally zombies shambling all around you and nobody believes you that zombies are really attacking.
- Girls screaming while running away. I’m sorry but if someone/something is chasing me, I’m not going to be screaming. Also, have you ever tried screaming and running?
- When somebody is hiding from a killer they cant keep quiet they always have to whimper or cry just loud enough to be heard.
- Zombies that run when rigor mortis would clearly prevent a dead body from running or chasing anybody
- All scenes where a cat jumps and ‘scares’ people
- The last survivor is always a woman. Men are somehow not capable of surviving a horror movie
- Where the killer is behind them in the bathroom or suddenly appears in the mirror.
- Nail Guns being used as Machine Guns.
- People who run upstairs from the villain instead of out the front/back door
- People who shoot the villain once instead of emptying the clip into them like any normal sane person would do.
- Door knobs that suddenly stop working because you’re in a horror movie or people who suddenly cant figure out how to turn a door knob to open a door.
- People who trip and fall for no obvious reason and can’t get backup when running from the villain
- A victim running away for some reason always a hot woman, while the villain walks but can keep up
- Car doors that stop bullets
- Cars that explode when their gas tanks are shot
- People who have never fired a gun before yet somehow become experts in seconds knowing not only how to hold the gun but also how to cock it and turn off the safety.
- Yelling out ‘is anybody here’ in an empty room after you have just escaped from an axe wielding maniac
- Cars that wont start until the villain has the door handle in his hand.
- People who go to investigate a strange noise, because there is for some reason doubt that yep its still the killer
- When people are stabbed they always bleed from the mouth
- People who monologue for 20 minutes before ….. gasping….. and dramatically collapsing.
- In a society of guns there are never guns around when the killer is
- How easily people get their necks broken
- Victims who bang on a door screaming let me out, as if the villain will somehow have a change of heart and let them go
- Struggling single moms are always ridiculously hot and have perfect teeth and expensive hair
- Survivors who walk over the villains body and get their ankle grabbed
- Checking if a killer is dead after being terrorized by them for the entire film.
- The fact there is never cell reception when the sh*t hits the fan.
- Guns that hold 5o rounds and never ever need to be reloaded
- Guns that jam and stop working when the killer arrives
- People that throw away guns when they run out of ammo as though it’s somehow better to need to re-fund the gun and more ammo versus just finding more ammo.
- How nobody in a zombie movie has ever seen a zombie movie.
- No one ever goes to the bathroom
- How Busta rhymes can somehow beat Michael Myers in a fight where so many better men and women could not
- Cars with keys left under the visor, really who does that?
- Well trained killers can’t shoot for sh*t against the star of the movie no matter how well-trained the killers are.
- Blood in swimming pools stays red instead of turning green.
- Anything medical related.
- Survivor movies where people are clean and well-groomed. No hairy legs or arm pit hair on the ladies, perfect teeth and well-groomed hair. Yeah really roughing it.
- When movies end Ambulance always rush to bring the one miracle medical item survivors of horror need most…. blankets.
- Groups that split up in a movie because somehow its better to go one on one with a killer than fight as a group.
- Objects that fall from buildings and catch up with other things. Gravity is somehow not constant
- People who jump through plate-glass windows without any kind of injury
- Everything from cabin in the woods
- Loud explosions in space. Because in space nobody can hear you scream but they can hear you blow up somehow.
- Clawing at hands with a bag on your head instead of poking a hole in the bag
- Happy endings
- Really bad and completely random twist endings that serve no other purpose then to setup a sequel. Even more annoying then the must have happy ending.
- The fact that in most horror movies women are either super sluts or nuns.
- If you have sex or get naked you are going to die.
- The virgin always lives
What did we miss? This list is generated off the comments of our readers. Leave your own and we will just keep growing this list of bad horror movie clichés.
Here’s what you missed….cars that magically squeal tires on DIRT, vehicles that don’t sound like they should and have other vehicle sounds dubbed in, when some idiot pumps the gas pedal on a fuel injected vehicle to help it start-no way in hell, it would flood the injectors and then it would NEVER start. When a vehicle smashes into another vehicle and jumps over it…instead of smashing into it, when someone throws a knife and it imbeds itself 4 inches into the skin then the person dies, when someone hits the killer only once then runs instead of bashing their skull in.
I also hate how people have perfect teeth in all movies.
The only way that stuck out on the list is this one “People who shoot the villain once instead of emptying the clip into them like any normal sane person would do.” It would depend what the villain is. If it’s a human, a normal sane person would just shoot them once unless the villain was somebody that they knew
What about the “cat jump scare”? that always makes me mad…
good call!
The Cabin in the Woods was a meta satire on Horror movies. All those irritating cliches anybody thinks they were clever for spotting, were actually comments on the tropes of the industry.
Brian we know that it is what made Cabin in the Woods great.
When the killer kills people he/she has no reason to?
The fact that the killer can be at so many different places at once so quickly as if they have a TARDIS.
hahahaha!! IRk .. n happy 2 see a WHOVIAN here ^^
every possible mirror scare scenes.. especially the ones in the bathroom; where the protagonist closes the cabinet and somehow, there is always someone/something standing behind him/her (mostly her).
good one! Will add it to the list those are REALLY annoying scares.
I hate it when women are always gonna be the last survivor, in every horror movie. Whats up with that? They are always the last person to survive, like men are incapable of surviving a horror movie.
haha good one.
it’s called misandry…there’s a socially enforced expectation that somehow a male who saves himself but fails to procure at least one female survivor is an utter failure at his gender and a weak, terrible man….whereas a female who saves herself from a situation, with or without aiding others, is a strong woman.
The illusion that if a female dies and a male survives at the end of a film it is somehow misogynist (woman hating) is only a convenient cover for allowing misandrist (man hating) scripts in their stead… scripts that further enforce our chosen and enforced gender roles in society.
I feel 10 iq points smarter just from reading your comment. Why dont you write for our site? Think of all the smurts you could share
that is a really good explanation and I am starting to think that the horror film genre is sexist. Men can save themselves without women and not be misogynist in fact the only male to survive a horror film was Ash in Evil Dead, the rest are all female. It is a sexist cliche.
The “final” person in the burning was also male, nightmare on elm street 2 Jesse was the main character and survivor ok it’s believed and vaguely confirmed Jesse was gay but a memorable male survivor We actually have got an article, I believe written by our creator here, Meh about women in the genre. It’s an interesting read. Maybe someone can link you if you haven’t already see it. T Faunos has given you the best explanation though.
Women are constantly being objectified and the one that survives is a virgin which implies that having sex is a wrong thing and you should be punished for that. And I feel like the fact that a woman that also happens to be a virgin survives, besides implying that having sex is wrong for women, it’s only done that way because there’s a notion that women are weaker than men and getting to beat someone or something that has already proven to be stronger than a whole group of people makes it somehow more interesting.
The whole strong woman thing is also sexist, because you will never describe Ash from The Evil Dead as a strong man. In fact you won’t say that about any other male character.
Anyway, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon and The Cabin in the Woods are good ways to realize this problems and hey they both have males that make it to the end of the movie.
There is one horror movie I know of that breaks most of the rules; Deep Blue Sea. Without spoiling too much… The highest paid actor dies quickly. The one person you expect to die survives. And it has killer sharks that aren’t fucking Great Whites. Awesome movie.
My worst cliche in horror movies is when the victim, when being chased by the knife-wielding maniac, always makes for the car, thereby wasting precious time fumbling frantically for the ignition as the maniac gets closer and closer. In real life, your nerves would just go, and you would run and run and run, instead of making for a car. Pathetic!
it’s ridiculous zombies can run after being dead for so long.. rigor mortis would have set in, hence the reason I hate a lot of the films with running zombies, and apparently nobody understands my argument.
your argument is sound in my books and I am adding it. Although I do like running zombies
I think that when its a ‘Virus Zombie’ running is okay, but when the film clearly specifies that it’s a ‘dead come back to life’ scenario, it’s not okay. I did a dialectical along these lines in high school
You do realize that Rigor Mortis only lasts for 48-60 hours, post-expiration, right?
When someone is trying to hide from the killer and is crying/whimpering/breathing heavily enough to be heard, always irritates me.
excellent choice. I am going to add that one!
i always have to yell at the screen “shut the hell up!” haha
People always talk about how they hate happy endings… but I’m starting to get sick of the “twist” bad ending. I assume at this point all horror movies have a “bad” ending… i guess mostly for sequel purposes, but it’d be nice to see just a neutral ending.
Ever notice how women in horror movies are either super sluts or nun-like in their innocence? That’s just not realistic….
Well, I can agree with most of them, but the bleeding from the mouth one? Not really a cliche… I mean, it’s what happens isn’t it, there isn’t a reason to hate it, if anything it makes the movie more realistic.
I am not a doctor so I have no idea honestly if when i get stabbed i will bleed from my mouth. To me though it doesnt seem very logical.
Just one more thing, the gravity not being constant? If your dropping a feather from a window, then a microwave, of course the microwave will catch up with the feather, gravity is constant, but weight isn’t!
Closing a curtain so the killer will never see you. Idiots its fabric
Closing a curtain so the killer will never see you. Idiots it is only fabric
Lots of people go to the bathroom in horror movies. In the FRIDAY THE 13TH series alone, we’ve seen numerous people squat in the woods or retire to the outhouse. Indeed, horror is probably the film genre which most accurately represents the human need to use the facilities… if for no other reason than it provides an excellent excuse for a character to wander off alone.
What about the most annoying line in any horror movie, when someone is trapped in someway, for example tied up on a chair and the killer is gonna torture the victim or whatever, they ALWAYS say: You don’t have to do this. or: Why are you doing this? ISN’T IT FUCKIN’ OBVIOUS!!? HE’S A PSYCHO! And I think he knows that he doesn’t have to do this, he just wants to. I watched so many horror movies like this so if I one day would be obducted myself I would be like, alright man, just get it overwith, I understand you, bring out the chainsaw, yiihaa! And that’s probably gonna be my get out of jail card;) LOL
And another thing, I think it’s quite weird that they never mention in a zombie flick how the zombies stink, because they really should, shouldn’t they?
And I can’t miss the classic story line, a gang of teens go out in the woods somehow, it’s the siliconpumped stupid girls, the asshole football guy, the black guy, the nerdy guy, and the guy & girl next door. Guess who survives? And also fall in love.
Deep Blue Sea has two male survivors, after the female protagonist is eaten by the shark last minute leaving no women. Brilliant change!
Some of these are good, but I think there are too many cooks in the…list kitchen. You’ve got one bullet complaining about how people are too good with guns, then another complaining that no one ever has a gun. And you have separate points for happy endings and bad endings. So…which is it? Personally, I don’t recall seeing many “happy” endings recently in horror. Certainly not enough to be bothered. It’s more the other way around. The new thing is to be joyless, ugly, and cynical. Contrary to popular belief, the whole cast doesn’t have to die just to make it a horror movie. Lots of the best horror films and series of yore actually had, gasp, heroes! If you threw Ash (Evil Dead), or Reggie (Phantasm) into a modern horror movie they would fuck. shit. up. Nowadays all we get is useless screaming welps who are inevitably tortured and killed by the end. Where’s the suspense?
Anyways, for me, the worst cliche is the boring invincible villain. Some of them have reasons (ghost killer, undead zombie guy, etc) but most of them don’t. And not just physical invincibility, I’m tired of every horror movie being predicated on an impossible confluence of events. Everything always goes perfectly for the villain, and even if he’s a 90 year old retired doctor he can still survive being beaten, shot, and set on fire while pulling grown human beings around like ragdolls and ALWAYS having access to every possible resource (money, drugs, costumes, impossible skills). For example, if I had a nickel for every time some villain in a horror movie threw an axe or a knife so perfectly, quickly, powerfully and accurately that it defies physics. It’s lame and horrible. If the audience rolls their eyes at a kill, it’s kind of a bad sign.
Second worst cliche: Accidentally killing your friend. This scene is always SO OBVIOUS, AND SO STUPID. The Strangers, Inside, Spiderhole, etc. The worst part is that this scene is almost always followed by a later scene in which the protagonist has the perfect opportunity to finish the villain but RUNS AWAY INSTEAD. So, you were totally fine with murdering your friend, mother, or whoever else, but now that it’s the killer you’re going to bolt? And what, hope the villain forgives and forgets? Takes a lesson from you in mercy?
Horror isn’t dying, it’s being murdered by hack screenwriters, directors with no vision, and studio execs who don’t (and never did) understand the genre.
Thanks for your well thought out comments. And yes when you ask readers to submit them you get alot of varied answers.
girls screaming.
I’m sorry but if someone/something is chasing me, I’m not going to be screaming. Also, have you ever tried screaming and running? Try singing and running. It’s hard because you run out of breath quickly, so you probably wouldn’t be doing anything but panting.
also; girls wearing high-heels in outdoors-y kinds of movies
i don’t really care how “stupid” they are, heels are a pain to wear, and no other girls I know, no matter how girly, wears them when they are going hiking/camping/whatever outdoors activity.
Thanks Lex great idea and its been added
Heloo….number one should be how no one ever believes you….I mean how seriously do you have to be for someone to believe you…please directors and writers make a change…..these cliches are too much too constant…..I ALSO HATE HOW NO ONE EVER REFERENCES A MOVIE…LIKE ” O SHIT THIS IS JUST LIKE DAWN OF THE DEAD” …TRUTHFULLY I DONT UNDERSTAND IT…..LIKE THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE …..COME ON….REALLY TWO CHICKS WANDERING OFF IN THE WOODS…..FIRST OF ALL WITH NO WEAPONS….SECOND THEY ACTUALLY WENT IN THE HOUSE….THEY DRANK THE F#$$$$ WATER……ITS SERIOUSLY GETTING TO THE POINT WHERE I WANNA BECOME A WRITER….AND MAKE SOMETHING REALISTIC AS FUCK….
helooo thanks for the comment. lol
You always know when the prey gains the advantage. Everyone who watches horror knows when the movie perspective changes from the prey to the killers that they are now at the disadvantage. Now the prey gains all the surprise and killer instincts.
I really hate it when we are watching someone do battle with a psychopath of some description only to win momentarily with either a single gun shot or a stab to the chest. Then, the hero turns away from the body to call police, reload..etc… only to turn round and find that the body has gone. Surely it would be worth pumping a few extra rounds into that sucker or a slab to the head just to confirm the kill. At least keep an eye on the body when making a phone call just in case? It’s at this point I route for the psycho
because the human is a total numpty 
Okay so basically…you don’t like anything about a horror movie…Understood
Alexis this list was generated from USERS so I am not sure what you mean by directing the comments at me not liking horror.
Late to the party, but here’s one no one mentioned: when someone gets stabbed or otherwise impaled they immediately go quiet or gasp a little bit instead of screaming in pain. Cause isn’t that actually what would happen?
Also, one hit kills. While I love the Friday the 13th movies the whole series is one of the biggest offenders in this regard. When you stab someone once, anywhere in the torso doesn’t matter, it actually takes a long time for that person to die if there’s no one to help. The heart is a little quicker, but still.
How quickly people die off in movies. If 6 people go into the woods, 3 of them are killed off 10 -15 minutes into the film. Or take Wrong Turn 5 for example. (which doesn’t take place in the woods but still follows)