Things I Learned at the Movies

Didn't Freddy Kruger kill a guy in a wheelchair? It might not count, since he could walk in the dream world. And X-Men 3 might not count since it wasn't technically a horror movie.

Melissa wrote:

Didn't Freddy Kruger kill a guy in a wheelchair? It might not count, since he could walk in the dream world. And X-Men 3 might not count since it wasn't technically a horror movie.

I think the guy in a wheelchair in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre got it, too.

ZoZo wrote:

Melissa wrote:

Didn't Freddy Kruger kill a guy in a wheelchair? It might not count, since he could walk in the dream world. And X-Men 3 might not count since it wasn't technically a horror movie.

I think the guy in a wheelchair in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre got it, too.

I already mentioned that one.

As a superpower, the ability to hurl bolts of lightning at opponents is never an instant kill. At the least, it's a flashy form of torture, and at the worst, you have to juice someone for up to a minute to kill them. It never causes your heart to, like, stop beating.

On that same note, electricity is magic. It can do everything from bringing the dead back to life to giving a computer sentience (and often insanity).

A stab wound is something you can shake off. It's not agonisingly painful - you can go on fighting quite easily.

Stab wounds are not grit-your-teeth-and-bear-it wounds. They are "OH SHIT SHIT SHIT ARGH FUCK!!!" wounds.

The shoulder is not a safe place to be stabbed. It's like the hip for the arm, and there's a major artery there along with complicated muscles and a major joint. You could lose the use of your arm.

Or bleed to death, if/when the artery is hit.

Children are godmoding pricks. The only aversions to this are usually in schlocky horror films (The Toxic Avenger, Maximum Overdrive, Planet Terror) or tearjerkers/high dramas (Schindler's List, Walk the Line), though there are other exceptions.

Someday I want to compile a list of all movies where children beneath the age of 15 die or are explicitly implied to be dead (IE, no "Earth blowing up = dead children" unless it actually shows children being immolated or we hear a parent mourning their exploded kid.)

DarthDarthington wrote:

Children are godmoding pricks. The only aversions to this are usually in schlocky horror films (The Toxic Avenger, Maximum Overdrive, Planet Terror) or tearjerkers/high dramas (Schindler's List, Walk the Line), though there are other exceptions.

Someday I want to compile a list of all movies where children beneath the age of 15 die or are explicitly implied to be dead (IE, no "Earth blowing up = dead children" unless it actually shows children being immolated or we hear a parent mourning their exploded kid.)

Not a movie, but there was an episode of Torchwood (Sleeper) in which the trope was subverted when the mother got taken control of by aliens. You didn't actually see the baby die, but you did see her let go of the pram, which rolled into heavy traffic; then there was a crash, and people screaming. It was fairly obvious to anyone watching the pram was hit by a car and the kid killed.

DarthDarthington wrote:

Someday I want to compile a list of all movies where children beneath the age of 15 die or are explicitly implied to be dead (IE, no "Earth blowing up = dead children" unless it actually shows children being immolated or we hear a parent mourning their exploded kid.)

An example of the Earth quasi-blowing up and children explicitly dying appears in SDF Macross/Robotech when the Zentraedi bombard the Earth's entire surface into rubble from orbit. We see cities going up in flames and people being blown away, including a small child who a soldier tries to shield from the blastwave. I was watching the American TV dubbed/edited version (Robotech) when I saw it, and my jaw dropped when I realized this would have been shown on American kids' TV in the early 80s.

Rabid Badger wrote:

DarthDarthington wrote:

Children are godmoding pricks. The only aversions to this are usually in schlocky horror films (The Toxic Avenger, Maximum Overdrive, Planet Terror) or tearjerkers/high dramas (Schindler's List, Walk the Line), though there are other exceptions.

Someday I want to compile a list of all movies where children beneath the age of 15 die or are explicitly implied to be dead (IE, no "Earth blowing up = dead children" unless it actually shows children being immolated or we hear a parent mourning their exploded kid.)

Not a movie, but there was an episode of Torchwood (Sleeper) in which the trope was subverted when the mother got taken control of by aliens. You didn't actually see the baby die, but you did see her let go of the pram, which rolled into heavy traffic; then there was a crash, and people screaming. It was fairly obvious to anyone watching the pram was hit by a car and the kid killed.

See also: the recent Torchwood miniseries.

Spoiler:

DarthDarthington wrote:

Children are godmoding pricks. The only aversions to this are usually in schlocky horror films (The Toxic Avenger, Maximum Overdrive, Planet Terror) or tearjerkers/high dramas (Schindler's List, Walk the Line), though there are other exceptions.

Someday I want to compile a list of all movies where children beneath the age of 15 die or are explicitly implied to be dead (IE, no "Earth blowing up = dead children" unless it actually shows children being immolated or we hear a parent mourning their exploded kid.)

Well, there are a few movies based on Steven King novels that have kids die. King'll kill a kid, no problem. Pet Sematary comes to mind. There's also It, The Mist and Salem's Lot. Carrie had teenagers die. Since many of them had cars, they were probably over 16. Same with Christine. They're horror films, but I don't know if I'd call them schlocky. King has apologized numerous occasions for Maximum Overdrive.
Does it count if it was based on a true story? (Schindler's List and Walk the Line both were.) The film Ray had a really scary scene where Ray hallucinated (can blind people hallucinate?) that his brother's dead body was in his suitcase.

In the Pitch Black movies, kids died.

Didn't the girl who had been rescued in Alien 2 die at the very start of Alien 3? The rescue pod crashed, and only Ripley was pulled out alive.

Also: No one ever has a headache just because. Either it's a hangover, or a brain cancer in its early stage.
Also: your hair will not be flat and greasy after you've been lying in a hospital bed for weeks. Even patients in a coma get their hair done weekly, by nurses.
(Well, you have to justify the IC bill somehow)

If you have a happy ending to a relationship in one movie, it won't last to the sequel. They either split up, or somebody dies. This is because babies and happy, stable relationships get in the way of the plot.

Observe Batman. The films end with him hooking up (except Batman Returns). By the next, they've gone their seperate ways.

And Transformers. William Lennox, possibly the only decent human character, is fighting to get back home to his wife and child. By number two, he's hardly mentioned. Because that happy marriage would get in the way of the plot.

The Unoriginal wrote:

Didn't the girl who had been rescued in Alien 2 die at the very start of Alien 3? The rescue pod crashed, and only Ripley was pulled out alive.

Also: No one ever has a headache just because. Either it's a hangover, or a brain cancer in its early stage.
Also: your hair will not be flat and greasy after you've been lying in a hospital bed for weeks. Even patients in a coma get their hair done weekly, by nurses.
(Well, you have to justify the IC bill somehow)

Sometimes people in movies get headaches from stress. Like the "Eet's not a too-muh!" line in Kindergarten Cop. The coma patient in Monkey Bone gets his hair and beard groomed by his girlfriend. Those are the only exceptions I can think of.

Melissa wrote:

Ray had a really scary scene where Ray hallucinated (can blind people hallucinate?) that his brother's dead body was in his suitcase.

Well since he wasn't blind from birth, I would think it's possible.

Melissa wrote:

Sometimes people in movies get headaches from stress. Like the "Eet's not a too-muh!" line in Kindergarten Cop. The coma patient in Monkey Bone gets his hair and beard groomed by his girlfriend. Those are the only exceptions I can think of.

You're right, I had forgotten that. Probably because stress headache in movies is cured by a single Excedrin chewed on the go. When I get 'stress headache', it's either Aulin and a darkened bedroom or a bullet to the head - they're that bad.

If some mysterious "researcher" tries to recruit you for a "study" that involves you and an eclectic group of people spending the night in some notorious or supposedly haunted location, don't agree to it.

All computer viruses feature some sort of fancy animation such as a worm slithering across your screen. And they all result in your computer dying suddenly.

If a single father has a girlfriend or fiancee, she will be a complete bitch who hates his children and wants his money.

And the dad will always end up with the nicer woman who loves his kids.

"Caprica Six" snapped a baby's neck to spare it the coming nuclear holocaust in the beginning of BSG.

Find some electromagnetic energy, and that means you've got a ghost on your hands. Things like desk lamps and power outlets never produce it.

If premature aging was caused by a virus/nanobots/magic spell, once said things are removed, you go back to appearing your actual age, no matter how hunch-backed, bald, and arthritic you became. Oh, and the hair will grow back, no matter how long it was, to the same length it was before the aging.

Does The Day After count as a horror movie? If so, there were a few shots of children getting trampled and vaporized.

If I recall correctly, The Blob also had a child being killed.

They kill the little boy in Sleepy Hollow. My mom hates that movie.

Every bullet carries a Death Curse that is cast on the victim on impact. People rarely actually have to bleed out from the wound or sustain significant damage to the central nervous system: A shot to the abdomen is instant death.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

A stab wound is something you can shake off. It's not agonisingly painful - you can go on fighting quite easily.

Stab wounds are not grit-your-teeth-and-bear-it wounds. They are "OH SHIT SHIT SHIT ARGH FUCK!!!" wounds.

The shoulder is not a safe place to be stabbed. It's like the hip for the arm, and there's a major artery there along with complicated muscles and a major joint. You could lose the use of your arm.

A lot of how someone reacts to a wound depends on that person's tolerance, and often how much adrenaline and other chemicals are running through their system at the time. The same wound that would make you squeal like a stuck pig might make someone else grunt, or they might not even notice in some situations.

It's actually common practice now after firefights to check over everyone else in your unit, even if they look perfectly fine, as they might be wounded but not know it yet.

A bullet has enough mass and velocity to throw people back fifteen feet. Trufax. And if there is a window behind them, they are going through it, no matter what.

Maximilia wrote:

A bullet has enough mass and velocity to throw people back fifteen feet.

The person launching said projectile, however, will at worst suffer a little muzzle flip.