Anyone who’s ever watched the show 24 remembers the formula. Each season consisted of 24 episodes covering one extremely bad day in the life of Jack Bauer in real time.
And my boy Jack spent most of those 24 hours fighting everybody: the terrorists. The unexpected moles. The government. His bosses. His coworkers. Seemingly every person in Los Angeles who refused to listen to him.
The funny thing was, Jack was almost always right.
And fans used to joke that if everybody would just listen to Jack Bauer in the first place, the show wouldn’t have been called 24.
It would’ve been called 2, because Jack would’ve figured everything out, shot the appropriate people, saved the country and been home in time for lunch and a much-needed nap.
But that’s television. Sometimes characters have to make questionable decisions because otherwise there isn’t much of a show.
Movies do it too.
And nowhere is this phenomenon more ridiculous than in horror movies, where questionable decisions don’t just keep the story going—they sometimes are the reason there’s still a story to tell.
Because if horror-movie characters consistently behaved like rational human beings, some of our favorite two-hour movies would be about fourteen minutes long.
So, while everyone else ignores the perfectly good exit and runs upstairs, let’s take a look at some of the ridiculous decisions that keep horror movies going.
Horror Movie Tropes: 15 Idiotic Decisions That Make Movies Longer Than They Should Be
1. Running upstairs instead of out the front door.
Let’s start off where I left off. The killer enters the house. The victim has a perfectly usable exit ten feet away and thinks, You know where I’ll be safe? The second floor.
Girl, ain’t nothin’ upstairs except the window you’ll eventually be jumping out of. Right back down to where you started—the ground floor!
2. “Let’s split up!”
There is a murderer/monster/demon loose, so naturally the safest strategy is to reduce the group from six potential defenders to six individual victims. And why am I coupled with the fat guy who’s gonna slow us down? Oh wait. I AM the fat guy. I’m also the old guy now.
Anyway, if I have to reduce my protection to one partner, at least give me the strongest fighter who’s willing to sacrifice himself while I huff and puff my way to safety. Or at least give me the good-looking girl…who’s into older, fatter men.
3. The car that suddenly won’t start.
Your car has started flawlessly for three years. Jason Voorhees appears and all of a sudden: rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr. The only other time your car won’t start is the day after you finish paying it off.
Bonus points if it starts exactly one second before the killer reaches the window.
4. The dropped keys.
Nobody in everyday life drops their keys this frequently. Okay, I get it. You’re terrified, sometimes even paralyzed by fear. If anything, your grip should be tighter. And what in the world are you doing with a car that needs keys anyway? Get yourself a car with remote start! Press that fob on your way out of the second-floor window and get that engine and heat running in advance!
5. Tripping while running away / twisting your ankle.
Usually on absolutely nothing. And instead of immediately getting back up, they spend five seconds looking backward from the ground.
“Git’cho lazy ass up and run! On second thought, stay down there. I need a head start anyway.”
#FatPeopleProblems
6. Knocking the killer down/out and then dropping the weapon.
You finally whack the psychopath with a fireplace poker. He’s unconscious. Naturally, you put the poker beside him and wander away. HIT HIM AGAIN, DAMMIT!
Same thing goes for guns. You shot him. He’s down. Forget checking his pulse or trying to unmask him like this is an episode of Scooby-Doo! I couldn’t care less if the killer turns out to be the hotel gift shop cashier. More bullets? EMPTY that sucker out, idiot!
7. The possessed person who gets tied to a bed instead of taken somewhere useful.
Then everybody stands within biting distance. Why do you think fight cards list a boxer’s reach? So you know what radius to stay OUT of!
That’s why I loved Stephen King’s 1408. The maintenance attendant didn’t even come into the evil room. He gave instructions on how to fix the thermostat from outside the door. Then he was gone before the victim could even turn to THANK him.
What? Regan is possessed? Drop that nasty, drooling mongrel off at Mt. Sinai 3rd Church from the Sun Baptist Church and leave her in the baptismal pool!
Johnny was bitten by a zombie? Knock his teeth out, clip his fingernails, and tie him to the radiator across the street! Or better yet, SHOOT HIM TOO, since you didn’t empty your clip in Point #6.
8. The flashlight with a 14-second battery life.
Life Hack Rule #121: If the batteries have 1970s cartoon characters on them, leave them in the store. In fact, if you’ve never seen the company that makes those batteries in a television commercial, don’t buy those batteries! And when was the last time you checked them? At Radio Shack??? Man, use your phone’s flashlight.
9. No cell-phone signal.
I told you your wireless plan sucked.
I’ll call to check on you later to see if you made it.
Wait…I can’t.
At least your flashlight works. And stop shining it on temporarily unconscious monsters.
10. “Hello? Is somebody there?”
“Yes, it’s me. I’m in your basement. What do you mean it’s too dark for you to see me?
…I’m not even gonna go there with you.”
11. The gas station attendant who knows EVERYTHING but explains nothing.
Who here remembers American travelers David and Jack being made to feel unwelcome in the pub in England, then allowed to go off on their own when the patrons knew damn well what was out there in 1981’s An American Werewolf in London?
Mess around and let me find my way back after I’ve been bitten. Tying me up across the street ain’t gonna save you either…
12. Moving into the house despite approximately 900 warnings.
Okay, I’m gonna switch gears here. You’ve been living here for 150 years, and this place is still full of cobwebs and rats? Git’cho lazy ass up and clean this house before I give you a real reason to moan!
And you’re paying for all the glass that breaks around here, too!
13. The child with an imaginary friend.
Boy, if you don’t send this kid home to his paranormal parents…
Wait, is HE the one who’s been breaking all of this glass?
Git’cho la— You know what? Never mind. Get my BELT!
14. The killer who walks at 1.7 mph but always catches the sprinter.
Back in 2022, I posted a piece called 10 Movies I Would Live/Die In. A realistic picture of whether or not I could successfully navigate my way to safety in different movies.
If I see you surrounded when you could have power-walked to escape slow zombies, I’m biting you myself. You can thank my recent trip to England for that.
15. The final scare after the happy ending.
A hand comes out of the ground. The killer comes splashing to the surface of the water. The killer is no longer where you left him. The light comes on in the eye of the homicidal robot in the junkyard.
These things ain’t unkillable. The production company wants a sequel and your dollars!
That’s the real final scare.
If you ask me, the best ending was in the 1999 movie Bats. They said that if even one genetically mutated bat lives, the world is in danger. The explosives are detonated, the mine entrance collapses, and all of the bats freeze and die…or at least we thought. The camera pans away in the final scene to show the site from afar, just as a bat’s head burrows out of the ground!
Then the heroes unknowingly run it over as they drive away.
Bravo, crew. You got it right.
And that’s it! Fifteen idiotic decisions that make movies longer than they should be. Do you agree with my selections? Do you have any to add? I do, but I’m keeping it at 15, especially considering the length of my last blog post. Figured I’d be merciful this time around.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t add your gripes to the comment section below. And be sure to sign up at the bottom for email notifications of future posts from Kenny’s Camera, Cooking & Crazy Confessions at ZootsBlogSpot.
And oh yes, Happy Halloween!
