When I was a child, I hated horror movies. It wasn’t until I was an early teen that I started to truly appreciate the horror genre. I went from avoiding it at all costs to consuming all of the horror content I could. After I started, I simply couldn’t stop.
My love of the genre has grown tremendously over the years, but I find myself seeing the same things happen in different movies. Things that used to make me gasp are now making me sigh because I see how abundant they are. While there are many different types of horror tropes and ways to scare your audience, some of them are offensive, unoriginal and just plain boring. These four horror tropes are so out of date that if you see them in the movie or show you’ve just started watching, I’d recommend looking for a new one.
Ignoring stranger’s warnings
We’ve seen it far too often; a happy-go-lucky group of friends goes camping at a lake, campground, hotel or any other landmark that is famous for a string of murders that happened years ago. On the way, they stop at a local gas station where an eerie and rugged looking mechanic gravely warns them that they’ll all meet their doom as soon as they arrive. You’re telling me they decide to go anyways, without a second thought? I am begging horror writers and filmmakers alike to please reconsider making their protagonists so blissfully ignorant when it comes to being warned by strangers.
Mental hospitals aren’t like this
After the movie “Split” came out in 2016, there was a large discussion around how mental health should be addressed in horror. For too long, the horror genre has relied on throwing a different mental disorder on their villain and calling it a day. One of my least favorite horror tropes is when they go to a mental hospital to inspect a runaway patient who turns out to be the murderer. They often pan to other patients who are mindlessly babbling, screaming and running around waving their arms. It isn’t scary anymore, it’s just sad. People with mental disorders don’t automatically turn into psycho killers, and this trope further harms mental patients by portraying them as insane and dangerous.
What’s in the mirror?
Albeit, if you enjoy jumpscares, this one probably is a little scary. We all know what’s going to happen when the protagonist looks into their mirror at night. We all get that tingling feeling knowing someone or something is lurking in the darkness behind them. While it does get your blood pumping, there’s no longer that element of surprise. This horror trope is so overused that if I see this scene in the beginning of the movie or in any of the promotional photos, I usually just turn it off.
This is just offensive
You can’t call your horror movie diverse if the only diverse cast member dies in the first 10 minutes. Minorities are horribly underrepresented in horror movies, and in many instances, the only diverse character dies at some point in the film — it might even be in the very beginning. If the character manages to survive, then they face being undeveloped as a story character, instead relying on inappropriate cultural or gender stereotypes to further their own victimization. Recently, horror movies made to address racism, homophobia and gender inequality in society, or in the horror genre itself, have been created and widely acclaimed. Hopefully, we will start to see this offensive horror trope die out sooner than later.
