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What horror cliché(s) do you hate?
🕑 Added 2024-09-05 14:44:10 +0000 UTCSome of us are big fans of horror, whether it's reading a Stephen King novel or playing a furry visual novel like "Echo" or its prequel "The Smoke Room". It can excite us or make us question our reality, but most of all, it should be able to scare us. With that said, what are some elements of horror stories or movies that you absolutely cannot stand?
Personally, I'm torn between two clichés out there that I can't stand. The first cliché comes down to when a story has filler. This kind of filler is mostly comprised of other cliched storylines we'd already seen a million times...or it just shows the characters wandering in the dark. I remember movies like "Alone in the Dark" and "The Purge" being filled with these scenes. Not only is atmosphere not being built up or stuff being gradually shown, but the characters already aren't ones we're not interested in.
The second cliché is when the story uses way too many jumpscares, or most of its scares are jumpscares. Anybody remember the Nightmare on Elm Street remake that came out in 2010? I remember that movie's 'scariest' moments being nothing but Freddy Kreuger jumping out of the dark with flashing lights and the camera shaking. I've seen moments like this in written form too. A jumpscare doesn't automatically make a scene scary unless there's a valid payoff, something never seen before (remember the basement scene in The Nun II? That's got a very original jumpscare!), or there's enough of atmosphere and tension built up to make it pay off. A horror story isn't scary when it's nothing but a creepy guy in makeup or a mask appearing out of the shadows or a dark room repeatedly.
Anyway, what horror cliché do you not like?
