What tropes/clichés are you fed up with in films?

[paranoid marvin]

Why bother when (seemingly) that's what people want? Or at least they're happy to shell out to watch that?

The numbers of intelligent/smart horror seem to have diminished, only to be replaced with cheap shocks and gore.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

Violent bad guy on the loose, killing people. A character who the bad guy is chasing/stalking/hunting is attacked by the villain, but manages to get the drop on the villain and lays them out flat, or crawling around on the ground, stunned, with something solid, like a frying pan. The good character knows what the villain is up to, killing people, and yet, they drop the frying pan and run away. The villain gets up, and either chases them and catches them, or gets away, to continue killing other characters in the story. They never finish them off or incapacitate the villain because that would end the story immediately.

 

[BAYLOR]

Why bother when (seemingly) that's what people want? Or at least they're happy to shell out to watch that?

The numbers of intelligent/smart horror seem to have diminished, only to be replaced with cheap shocks and gore.

And gimmicks like the difficult to see menace in the dark as mean of generating suspense , tension and surprise . It's been used so much that it's become boring and predictable . .

 

[CupofJoe]

And gimmicks like the difficult to see menace in the dark as mean of generating suspense , tension and surprise . It's been used so much that it's become boring and predictable . .

It worked well in the first Halloween film, where Jamie Lee Curtis seemed to always be standing in front of a dark window or doorway...

 

[BAYLOR]

It worked well in the first Halloween film, where Jamie Lee Curtis seemed to always be standing in front of a dark window or doorway...

And predictably , became an overused trope .

 

[BAYLOR]

Heroes running in slow motion from a gigantic climatic explosion .

 

[JunkMonkey]

Heroes running in slow motion from a gigantic climatic explosion .

Or even worse, walking in slow motion towards the camera as something big explodes behind them.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

A person gets into some sort of danger. They call someone up, maybe even a cop connected to the case. Problem is the person they call is 30 minutes away. Instead of having the police send the closest car to the person needing help, we get to see the person originally called driving to the rescue and they probably won't get there in time. Program continues.

 

[Swank]

An inciting event happens. The characters deal with the problem. There is a resolution.

Hate that.

 

[BAYLOR]

Irritating cliched heroic speeches made by the heroes before the final battle takes place.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Irritating cliched heroic speeches made by the heroes before the final battle takes place.

There was a very good parody of one of those by Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones.

 

[Toby Frost]

They never finish them off or incapacitate the villain because that would end the story

Mark Twain once said something like "Stupidities should not be forced onto the reader" and I think this qualifies. However:

Instead of having the police send the closest car to the person needing help, we get to see the person originally called driving to the rescue and they probably won't get there in time

I can see why you might do this in a story, and not just to create jeopardy. I once went to a talk by a police inspector, who said that interacting with the law (ie as a suspect or victim) is a lot less personal than stories make out - the inspector who investigates the murder doesn't interview the suspects, etc. But it's often changed in stories to give the law a single personality.

It's not really a trope, but I find it odd how humanoid aliens usually wear clothes, while non-humanoid intelligent creatures seem to wander about either nude or partially armoured. It's strange how the Predator can fly between galaxies but doesn't seem to have invented shoes yet.

 

[SilentRoamer]

Couple of cliches I find annoying:

Female Action heroes with the strength of very large men:
5ft high female girl bosses throwing around 6ft 5 guys who are about 175% their own body mass as if they weigh nothing at all. Not that you can't have believable female action heroes, but I think it needs to be done well - Sarah Conner - perfect example, in the second films you never doubt for an instant when she decks people because she looks the part. However I think thats an edge case.

Watched a series recently on Netflix: "Fool me Once" and it has this tiny female protagonist threatening people who weigh significantly more, and will be significantly stronger, to the point it completely removes me from the show as I scratch my head and think.... really?

It's bad enough when its just a reasonable sized action hero and a lot of action sequences suffer from this, it's just even more jarring when the physical differences are so obvious, and whilst yes, skill and training plays a part, if you are talking about 175% mass difference then the training becomes increasingly worthless.

Villains that can't shoot/Heroes that cannot be shot:
So I have really enjoyed Reacher - both Season 1 and Season 2, Alan Ritchson is an absolute unit and it makes all of his fight scenes very believable, however - there's an episode where the villains are shooting at a cop who is cornered, they must empty HUNDREDS of rounds into the car and seem to consistently miss. Stormtrooper shooting at its finest!

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Irritating cliched heroic speeches made by the heroes before the final battle takes place.

Agreed. Although Shakespeare was certainly a sucker for a good pre-battle motivational speech. I always wonder how anyone would have heard them. You know, outdoors in the wind, in front of 30,000 men at arms, without the benefit of a megaphone.

 

[farntfar]

Blessed are the cheesemakers.
..
One s'more onto the beach, my friends, one s'more.
..
We flew, We harpies flew.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Agreed. Although Shakespeare was certainly a sucker for a good pre-battle motivational speech. I always wonder how anyone would have heard them. You know, outdoors in the wind, in front of 30,000 men at arms, without the benefit of a megaphone.

It's all for show. There was no way you could hear anything said by the king/commander, unless you were within a few feet of them, and you were more concerned about the enemy in front of them than anything being said anyway. Is there any greater incentive to fight than to stay alive?

What was more important was for your king/commander to be visible and in harms way. That way you knew he was a man worth fighting for rather than any pretty speeches.

 

[ZroSkeerd]

I watch a lot of horror, and the one trope I'd get rid of immediately is cheap jump scares. I'm talking about the ones that are completely inorganic and have no real place in the story or even the scene except that someone said, "Let's do this and make the audience jump."

The most recent example I can think of is the final frame of the film Sinister, which is a great horror film, in my opinion, but the end cheapens the entire experience. We've had this tense, suspenseful film with a twist ending that's earned, but just before credits roll, the villain's face pops in from the side with a loud noise to stare into the camera for a second. It's stupid, pointless, and lessens the film by its cheapness.

My go-to violator, though, is Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. There's a post-coitus scene where the guy has gone downstairs to get a beer, and the girl is left in the room by herself. She hears weird noises and gets freaked out, looking around for the source. Then all of a sudden a cat jumps into the frame with a loud musical sting. We've never seen this cat before. We will never see this cat again. It's the first and only time we have even the slightest inkling that there's a cat that lives in this house. It's ridiculous.

 

[ANV]

Pushed romantic line where it doesn't make any sense for the character. Or for the story. Too much screen time spent on the romantic line where there are bigger issues, like the end of the world.
And the plot where the villain will destroy the world if not stopped ... I mean, why? There is rarely a good reason. I got it with Castlevania, but usually it is not that good.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Just a quick word on horror…

If you’re still watching Hollywood/James Wan/Blumhouse/Flanagan* and disappointed then you’re the fool (In a manner of speaking, not aiming this at anyone in particular).

There is no shortage of fantastic horror films. They’re indie or not major releases.

Horror is in a fantastic place at the moment.

*House of Usher was very good, though.

 

[ZroSkeerd]

*House of Usher was very good, though.

I haven't watched that one yet. Not to derail the thread, but how much connection does it have to the story? I enjoyed The Haunting of Hill House, but its connections to the source material were tangential at best.

I suppose that's not a trope, per se, but one thing I am tired of is "adaptations" that don't actually adapt the source story. Flanagan did it again with The Haunting of Bly Manor, which was an adaption of Turn of the Screw, except it really wasn't.

The film A Haunting in Venice is another one. It's based on Agatha Christie's novel Hallowe'en Party but bears almost no resemblance except someone dies at the Halloween party.

I'm not saying that makes these films and shows bad. On the contrary, I've actually had a good time with most of them. They just have little to nothing to do with the stories they're adapting, so I'm left wondering what the point is. Tell the story you want to tell. That's fine. But don't borrow another title just for the sake of name recognition, which is how it comes across a lot of times.