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What is your least favourite horror trope? (hexbear.net)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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One of the things I hate is (usually amateur stuff on YouTube) in which the person is getting overly scared even when it makes no sense.

Like they'll over act and start hyperventilating at a leaf and saying shit like "Oh my god what is that?!?!?! WHAT IS THAT?!?!" at like...a thud in the distance.

YouTube and Ghost Hunting shows seem to be the worst offender.

Another trope I hate is a horror game one but it's somewhat related; I hate it when the game tells you when to be scared by having a "sanity" effect or by the player character gasp or scream or whatever. Worst is if they have some kind of heartbeat sound effect that plays when you're supposed to be spooked.

But yeah, if a character starts saying shit like "WhAt ThE FuCk WaS ThAt?!" then I just get more annoyed than scared.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That sounds like 2 criteria: The monster isn't known, and the monster can't be defeated.

In Aliens, the monster is known, and can't be beaten except by means not easily available. Which would make it less of a horror than Jurassic Park, where the monsters are very known, but escape from the island is the only hope. Sime would consider neither of these horror, some might consider both of them horror.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think both of those movies are horror, but not because of the Dinos/Aliens. The Dinos/Aliens are the Terror. The Horror comes from the False Sense of Control slowly disintegrating as the plot moves forward driven by the Terror. Both Hammond and Burke try to salvage the situation as it spirals further out of control.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Does this qualify Beetlejuice?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yes, but Beetlejuice comes waltzing in wearing Comedy. I think the Horror comes as a kind of reverse haunted house, where the living haunt the dead with change. The False Sense of Control was their previous life, and its slowly disintegrating because of the Terror of the living intruding more into their lives. It hits that Existential Dread feeling of losing your (previous, living) identity. I think the Mother being an avant-garde modern artist helps drive the sense of unreality of the main characters experience.

EDIT: I bet you could recut the movie into a proper haunted house horror film by focusing on Lydia exclusively, and the ghosts are only shown fleetingly as she investigates the house.