Thursday, April 09, 2009

Horror Movie Cliches That I Simply Will Not Take Anymore

Next time you're watching a horror movie -- particularly one from the last ten years -- consider this a "cliche checklist" that will spoil your fun.
  1. The pre-teen in peril, the anguished parent.
  2. The spooky pre-teen, the frightened but loving parent.
  3. Flickery things -- usually heads -- that shake around in an unnaturally fast way (thanks, Jacob's Ladder).
  4. Montages of disturbing images and sounds with transitional cuts that look rusty, accidental, and degraded (thanks, The Ring).
  5. Heavily desaturated visuals, usually blue-grey or slightly yellowish (Jacob's Ladder again?)
  6. Death by ubiquitous technology (The Ring, ringing).
  7. Impending death which can only be averted by unravelling mysterious backstory (The Ring, The Ring, The Ring).
  8. Nonsensical, poorly-written script which exists solely to display a handful of visually-striking set-pieces (thanks, Dario Argento).
  9. Nonsensical, poorly-written script which exists solely to display people getting tortured (thanks, Saw).
  10. The collection of strangers who must kill each other in order to escape (Saw again).
  11. Sudden shocks accompanied by audio sting (since movies began, probably).

3 comments:

R.M. Lupo said...

Want spooky and subtitled? Go for 'The Orphange', directed by Del Toro. And spooky-ish, AND coming of age - 'Let the Right One In' - this one requires you to be judicious, the non-dumbed down subtitles are the 'theatrical release' subtitles. The other ones, evidently, rob the movie of a great deal.

Adam Thornton said...

The Orphanage was great! And almost bereft of those cliches as well. Like, the pre-teens WERE in trouble, but there were no adults around to get in a lather about it.

As for "Let the Right One In," I admit that I dislike the "romantic vampire" genre. But maybe with a Swedish twist...

R.M. Lupo said...

I will give you a dollar if you don't like it. I promise.