Horror movies are filled with people who make stupid moves.
Would-be slasher victims trip over their own feet as they flee, police never believe anyone
who claims a killer is on the loose and everybody always assumes the monster is dead just because
it’s down.
Sometimes, however, a horror movie features a character so overwhelmingly dumb that you
almost can’t help but wonder whether they actually deserve their grisly fate.
Here are a few of the most facepalm-worthy moments in fright flick history.
Lambert’s folly
Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece Alien may have revolutionized the horror and sci-fi
genres, but that doesn't mean its characters weren’t prone to the occasional moment of
frustrating stupidity.
Let’s put aside the obvious that the Nostromo crew should never have let Kane out of quarantine
and briefly shine a light on Veronica Cartwright's character: Joan Lambert.
Cornered by the xenomorph as the crew preps the Nostromo for self-destruction, Lambert
reacts by, well, by not reacting at all.
Chief Engineer Dennis Parker sacrifices himself in an attempt to save her, throwing himself
at the towering monster, but Lambert still just remains planted to the ground, unable
to do anything but cry and scream helplessly.
Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t make it.
Parker deserved better.
Space mistakes
Prometheus may not have lived up to the high standards set by some of its predecessors,
but that’s not to say it wasn’t a sufficiently creepy movie, even if it featured its fair
share of boneheaded decisions.
The first comes courtesy of Rafe Spall’s character Milburn, who encounters a snake-like
creature inside a mysterious alien temple.
Milburn, a biologist, decides the best thing to do in that situation is to reach out and
touch it.
You can probably guess what happens next.
“Get it off!
Get it off!
Get it off me!”
Then we’ve got Vickers.
After the Prometheus self-destructs by ramming into the spacecraft of the movie’s villainous
Engineers, the flaming wreckage comes crashing down towards her and fellow explorer Elizabeth
Shaw.
The ship hits the planet’s surface and begins rolling towards them like a wheel.
Vickers, for some reason, attempts to outrun it, rather than, say, taking a few steps to
the side.
“No...No...No no no no no!”
Life hacks
James Wan's Saw helped popularize the "torture porn" subgenre with a terror-drenched odyssey
of elaborate and grotesque death traps.
The star of the show is Dr. Lawrence Gordon, the oncologist-turned-prisoner who ultimately
ends up taking drastic measures to escape his shackles.
Except he didn’t really need to.
Believing his wife and daughter to be in danger after talking to them on the phone, but unable
to reach his cell phone because he accidentally lost it, Lawrence proceeds to use the hacksaw
to cut through his lower leg and free himself.
Had he thought to just use the saw to pull the phone towards him, he might have discovered
his family was safe without having to cut off his own foot.
Blowing a good lead
When Scream’s Ghostface killer attempts to corner Tatum Riley in a garage, she actually
does a pretty good job of defending herself.
Things fall apart, however, when she decides to attempt an escape by diving through a small
dog entrance cut into the garage door.
Obviously, it doesn’t work.
And let’s not kid ourselves, either: This scene was probably nothing more than an excuse
for some close-up shots of a braless Rose McGowan in a short skirt struggling to fit
her upper torso through a small door.
A shocking twist
Whilst It Follows was lauded for its chilling intelligence and deft handling of mature themes,
the movie nonetheless suffered from the inclusion of a devastating, unintelligent choice made
by its lead characters.
In an effort to bring an end to the deadly entity that stalks Maika Monroe’s character
Jay, she and her friends concoct a plan to trap the creature in a swimming pool filled
with live electrical devices.
Thanks in part to the fact that said creature is immortal, this plan doesn’t exactly work.
Even Director David Robert Mitchell pointed out the trap wasn’t particularly well thought
out.
He said:
"It's a kid-movie plan.
[...] Something that Scooby-Doo and the gang might think of.
They do their best to accomplish something, and we witness its failure."
Laurie’s SNAFU
In Halloween H20, Jamie Lee Curtis' character Laurie appears to finally defeat her murderous
brother Michael Myers after cutting off his head.
When it's revealed that the man she killed was actually a paramedic donning her brother's
signature headpiece, however, she’s forced to face him all over again, and makes a mistake
that costs her dearly.
When she’s given another chance to kill Myers in Halloween: Resurrection, Laurie reaches
out to pull off his mask and double-check that it really is her brother standing in
front of her.
At the same time, she fails to realize that his hands are still free, giving him the perfect
opportunity to turn the tables on her.
“I’ll see you in hell.”