Poor Judgement and Lazy Horror

Horror films have traditionally contained a number of elements vital to their genre. These are easily named by horror movie fans.

1. A group of friends: Now, this is simple enough. It's easy to get a group of friends in trouble, especially if they are young. Plus, a group of friends gives whatever beastie is hunting them down, enough fodder to present the viewer with a host of creative ways to kill.

2. Sex: Sex and horror have always gone together. Bram Stoker had this figured out way back, ladies and gentlemen. The reason sex and violence pair so well in fiction, is because both trigger the same responses of excitement in the brain.

3. Poor Judgement: This is the big one, folks, and the one I really want to discuss. In horror - particularly film - we find that poor judgement abounds. This, of course, keeps the potential victims in sticky situations. A few examples; Breaking off from the rest of the party to investigate a noise, when the audience knows very well that nothing native to this planet makes that sound. Or deciding to have sex in the middle of the supposedly haunted building, on a nasty bed that hasn't been cleaned in half a century, after other party members have vanished without a trace. Or, getting stoned when creepy stuff has been going down.

Now, poor judgement has its uses as a plot device. I'll never deny that. But I feel like a lot of storytellers have gotten lazy and use this as their "go-to" tool in horror. The synopsis of most every horror tale seems to be similar. "Group of friends goes and does something together, poor choices ensue, party breaks up, and beastie kills everyone (starting with the one person of color in the group) and the hottest girl survives by pure dumb luck."

There's a lot of problems with this. And I'm going to talk about them in the days ahead. Keep checking back with me to read up on Poor Judgement and Lazy Horror.