I have begun to notice that this year hasn’t exactly been a good start for horror movies. While we horror fans were given amazing gems like Late Night with the Devil and The First Omen, I have been disappointed with the recent releases of Night Swim, Imaginary, and Tarot.
These films were obvious cash grabs, with jump scares thrown in to make it slightly entertaining, and horrible plots that don’t make any sense.
However, there is one particular trope that has been overdone in horror.
The dumb character trope.
It’s fine to have those dumb characters in your horror films, but don’t make each character the same. There should at least be several smart characters that do everything to survive, because having every single character be portrayed as an idiot completely ruins the horror experience.
One unfortunate example is the film, Tarot.
I have recently heard that this film featured the dumbest characters ever seen in a horror movie. The characters were cursed with a deck of tarot cards that have images of monsters. The cast is told that each of the cards they picked is going to come after them and kill them.
Instead of trying to find a way to survive, the characters decide to pick the dumbest choices that would inevitably lead to their deaths. They are even given advice to avoid the deaths by an expert, but yet they still didn’t listen…
The characters are always killed in the dumbest way possible that could have been easily prevented!
There is one female character in Tarot that selected the hanging man card. She was told to not run, and the monster wouldn’t come after her. Guess what she does?
SHE RUNS.
After being warned by the horror movie expert to freaking run, she DOES JUST THAT.
No surprise, the monster gets her.
After finding out about this spoiler online, (I read about the movie’s plot, because there was no way I was going to submit myself to watching this movie)! I was not even surprised.
I just felt so disappointed.
Horror movies need to stop with the dumb character trope.
As I have said in so many stories on Medium, as a die — hard horror fan, it takes me out of the experience. We horror fans want something new and refreshing, not the same old stuff we have grown tired of over the years.
We want characters that are going to shock us with their will to survive, not characters that we already know are going to bite the dust.
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