How Cliché

1. The walking killer always catches the running victim.

Victim could have a twenty minute head start and somehow the killer would still manage to catch them. What’s going on behind the scenes? Has the killer somehow learned to teleport places? Because that’s sure as hell how it seems in some instances.

2. “Be right back” = “Be back never”

These three little words are essentially a death sentence. Once uttered, there’s no turning back. You’re dead. That’s it. Better to just leave without saying anything than to say these three words.

3. “Let’s have sex in this abandoned insane asylum, nothing bad could possibly happen!”

Yeah…sex in a horror movie is basically a death sentence. Going to an abandoned place? DON’T HAVE SEX. Going to a cabin in the woods with friends? DON’T HAVE SEX. You will be the couple that dies. Just keep your hormones in check and wait until you’re NOT in a horror movie-esque predicament.

4. “Hello?” “Hold on, just putting my hockey mask back on, be right there.”

If you go into some random place (abandoned or otherwise) or if you hear what sounds like someone breaking into your home, DON’T YELL ‘HELLO.’ The burglar/killer is, more than likely, NOT going to reply. And if you’re stupid enough to think they will, it’s no wonder you were killed.

5. The girl who can do nothing more than scream while her friend fights off the killer…and ends up dead.

It’s always in the last moment that the girl finally shuts up and does something helpful. By then, IT’S TOO LATE. The friend is dead. Because all the girl could do was scream instead of trying to help. Had she stepped in a moment sooner, perhaps both could’ve survived. In some cases, both do, but the friend is usually pretty badly injured because of how unhelpful the screaming girl was.

6. Gets friends killed by making stupid decisions…Ends up being the one who lives.

Typical. The person who makes the worst decisions is the one who survives to the end. Not in all instances, but there’s a good majority. Why couldn’t the person who’d been sensible throughout survive? Oh, right, because the one who’d been stupid made a decision that got them killed.

7. “Let’s split up because being by yourself when there’s a lunatic around is definitely better than staying in a group!”

Makes total sense. Because one-on-one is DEFINITELY better than five-on-one, right? Apparently.

8. Victim has opportunity to run outside…instead runs upstairs.

Good choice. Front door is right there, killer hasn’t spotted you yet and you choose to run UPSTAIRS instead of OUTSIDE to safety. You deserve a round of applause.

While not all horror movies have these clichés (and there’s certainly more out there), a good portion of them do and it’s frustrating. I want more horror movies where the characters make all the right decisions and still end up dead.