Editorials
Dear Horror Cliche, Please Go Away.
Consider this an open letter to every cliche that’s ever made us laugh with its predictability, or weep at its implausibility. While I realize cliches are what makes the world go round, I’m pretty sure they’re right up there with other vital things like Jolly Ranchers and fossil fuels; the horror genre in particular tends to be plagued by these the most. More often than not the problem lies with just how extraordinarily difficult it is to scare someone who’s sitting on their couch, safely hidden deep under a mound of Cheetos, in their locked home surrounded by other homes. Other times this epidemic can by blamed on the film’s creator who, whether by a lack of imagination or money, wasn’t able to think of (or create) something startling and unpredictable. Here are some of the more annoyingly prevalent cliches out there that I really, really want to leave the horror genre and go back into Michael Bay’s films where they belong.
Sure kids are beautiful, the symbol of life, or whatever. But you never know exactly what’s going on behind those wee beady eyes. Sometimes, whether by alien mind manipulation or a renegade virus, kids get out of control and the only way to solve the problem is by grabbing a shovel and taking them out back with promises of candy. These children are a nuisance, but there are times when the kid could’ve solved the crisis long before it got out of hand. The problem is, no one ever believes the kid. Of course, if you’ve seen films like Village of the Damned or The Omen, can you really blame adults for fearing their offspring? Most of the time kids haven’t a clue as to what they’re on about, they just ramble on with their hand halfway up their nose, but on rare occasions they can also be helpful in surviving against what you’re being hunted by, whether it’s ghosts, psychopathic killers, aliens, or whatever this film is about.
It seems like in half the zombie flicks I watch the people in them refuse to recognize what it is they’re up against. Someone barges into the Town Hall covered in blood, mumbling about people dying and coming back to life before shuffling over to the nearest life form and taking a big bite out of them. That person, now infected, turns into another flesh hungry, moaning soul. The frightened townsfolk in the Town Hall gasp at the terrifying words this blood soaked individual keeps sputtering on about and after much contemplation they decide that “whatever these things are”, we can’t stay here. They’re zombies. Sever their spinal column or shoot them in the brain and they die. There. Now you’re adequately prepared for the coming zombie apocalypse.
What started as a fairly clever and easy scare for the filmmaker quickly spiraled out of control when every other movie threw in the same ploy. Now this cliché has evolved, though not entirely, into something else. We’re so used to jumping at the sight of something scary in the mirror that when nothing’s there we breathe a sigh of relief, and sometimes, the thing staring back at you in the mirror is a harmless friend or family member. That way we still get startled but we also feel a little dorky for it. Thanks for that.
Small towns have it rough. I mean, come on, whenever something big and scary visits the world it never trots on over to New York, right? Wait, that was an awful example. I should’ve said Houston. Yeah, Houston. My point is that when the shit hits the fan the small town sheriff and his army of two to three recently hired cops is the only defense standing between said big and scary thing and the town’s helpless citizens. This plot has worked for a plethora of films including The Mist, The Fog (like The Mist, it’s just harder to see), and 30 Days of Night. It’s pretty successful in ensuring only a few people will survive whatever it is that’s making all the noise, but I fear this plot has been rode hard and put away wet, so I think it’s time we come up with something a little more original.
Otherwise known as ‘Let’s Split Up and Investigate’ Syndrome where the teens get a little too cocky and/or stupid and/or horny so they decide they’re better off in easier to pick off groups. This has never worked and it’s one of the most annoying clichés on this list (and that’s saying something for any list that includes children). But the problem doesn’t necessarily lie with horny teens and their shenanigans, as really any group of people in a horrifying scenario have the chance of splitting up to get something done. Stick together people!
I could take some examples from the ever-growing list of `Americans going to another country for fun just to get killed’ but do I really need to? I do? You’re so needy. What about: Hostel, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, The Descent, Turistas, Cabin Fever, House of Wax, The Hills Have Eyes, sadly, I could go on and on. I should also mention that this epidemic isn’t limited to Americans (like in Wolf’s Creek, Welcome to the Jungle, and Eden Lake).
Fortunately, this cliché can be easily solved through a few easy steps. Step One: When choosing your destination, pick somewhere heavily populated and preferably within your home country. Step Two: When choosing which friends to take with you, pick people you can count on and, if at all possible, those who know how to kick some serious ass should the need arise. Step Three: While packing your bags, throw in some survival gear, just in case. Step Four: No matter where you go, always respect the locals. If something bad happens you might need their help, and if you’re an ass to them they just might become the bad thing that’s happening to you.
Otherwise known as Denial, (hence the orange, in case you were wondering), people in horror films tend to think there’s nothing after them when its blatantly obvious something is. This cliché usually calls slasher flicks its home, but really any other subgenre can house this annoyance. If you’re wondering whether or not something’s trying to kill you, here are some hints that could prove your life is in danger: are the bodies of your friends turning up maimed and beaten? Did the power recently go out? Were you recently explaining to people the rules to survive a horror film? If you answered yes to any of these there’s a small to moderate, to possibly severe (or 100%) chance that someone’s about to make a pretty pretty dress out of your spleen.
No need to clarify here, Psycho started it and since then it seems every horror movie is following suit by throwing a hot chick in a shower (baths work too) to please the legions of prepubescent boys out there. Yes, sex sells, but it can also make the movie, or at least the scene very predictable (predictable = not scary).
Before I get into how annoying this cliché is I feel we should take a moment to really soak in just how disturbing the above image is. A creepy old man with a grin on his face and a remarkable resemblance to our last president holds a giant key whose sole purpose is to be jammed into the crotch of the young, almost completely naked boy’s crotch to unlock his virginity? That’s a damn scary plot for a horror film right there.
Every Jason film has taken the sex hungry teens approach until it became a running joke in the series, but to any teens aspiring to survive a horror film I’ll give you a bit of advice: if your life is in peril, don’t have sex. Unfortunately, like the previous cliché this too survives simply to satiate the seemingly bottomless sexual appetites of teen boys, which means I don’t predict it going anywhere anytime soon.
It was surprisingly difficult to find the above image; after spending way too much time in Google Image Search I gave up, threw in my copy of the movie, and took a picture of it. I hope this dedication pleases you. This is probably the only cliché to match (or come close to matching) the Sex Sells approach in number of times seen in a horror film. On too many occasions, after having stabbed or shot the killer/monster, the survivor gets too complacent in their victory. They think, wrongly, that they’ve beaten their predator only to find the guy they thought was dead missing, or coming back to kill them. If you find yourself in the self-satisfying position of just having `beaten’ the killer, go by this motto: If in doubt, empty it out. Granted, this only makes sense if you have a gun, but the same rule applies no matter what weapon you’ve armed yourself with.
Ok, I lied. This cliché probably outnumbers them all if you consider how many times the lights/phone/car/flashlight fail during horror films. If you’re visiting BFE (Bum Fuck, Egypt) for a weekend, your cell phone probably won’t be getting reception. And whether or not you just filled up your brand new car’s tank, it’s going to die on you. Oh, and whether or not you recently inserted new batteries into your heavy-duty survival flashlight, it’s going to die on you too, and you know what? You will soon follow. We could chock this up to a series of technology related coincidences, or the frustratingly shallow imagination of the film’s creator. This cliché will be here for the long run.
Did you hear that thing in the distance? Did you see that shadow out of the corner of your eye? Did you feel that thing brush up against your leg? Instead of moving away from the thing that’s moving in the darkness or getting frisky with their legs, people in horror films tend to migrate towards the disturbance to investigate. They also tend to do this in small, easy to pick off groups (See: `Horny Teens Get Picked Off One by One’). This cliché is annoying because it’s unrealistic. I don’t know about you but if I heard a far off scream, saw something lurking in the shadows, or noticed something making babies with my leg, I would haul ass in the opposite direction, and then get some new pants. I’m guessing there are a lot of whiny baby faces like myself who would agree, and while you might laugh at the girly way in which we run, at least we’ll survive longer than you. Until we sign up for the sequel, of course.
This one isn’t a terribly common cliché, at least compared to most of those listed above, but it’s certainly one of the more infuriating ones. Luckily, there’s a way to tell when this is about to show its ugly face. If something insanely unpredictable happens (like someone important gets killed off) and we’re all on the edge of our seats waiting to find out what will happen next, then you know this is probably a dream. Because then they wake up and it was all a dream. What starts off as a sigh of relief as we realize one of our favorite characters is still alive quickly transforms into anger when we realize we’ve been duped, again.
But that’s not all, no sir! Filmmakers are an unpredictably clever bunch so they’ve found a way to fool us yet again! How, you ask? With the `Dream within a Dream’ approach, where something crazy happens, they wake up, then another crazy thing happens, then they wake up again! Woah, Mr. Conductor, how about you let me off this crazy train of unpredictability! The unstoppable evolution of this technique? The dream within a dream within a dream within a dream. Most likely to perfect said technique? Michael Bay.
In this day and age, the word “troll” is often used to describe various online nuisances. Yet as abundant and irksome as the modern troll can be, they aren’t usually as fearsome as their mythological counterparts. I’m not talking about the small and gentler versions that have become more common to see in media. No, there are much bigger and scarier trolls out there—and André Øvredal’s movie Troll Hunter is one of the best places to find them.
It doesn’t take long for Troll Hunter (or Trolljegeren) to dump the Blair Witch Project-esque setup and aim for something a lot fresher. The trajectory of the story is augmented by Otto Jespersen’s character Hans, the titular Troll Hunter. The second he comes barreling out of the deep, dark woods and shouts “troll” at the camera, this movie takes a turn into what feels like uncharted territory. Not only subject-wise, but also conceptually.
For fantastical and made-up subject matter in cinema, found footage is a fast way to add a guise of believability. After all, what we accept to be the most crucial aspect of documentaries—the truth—rubs off on pseudo-documentaries, despite our understanding of the pretense involved. That is what Øvredal delivered with Troll Hunter: a movie so convincing that some viewers wondered if trolls really do exist. So, had this been straightforwardly made, it likely wouldn’t have been as effective. Conventional narratives would be more inclined to treat something like trolls as flat out unreal, and never try to convince the audience to think otherwise.
Hans petrifies the three-headed Tusseladd troll.
The viewers, like the characters trailing Hans, are quickly thrown into the deeper end of that extraordinary story. They have to process all this new information while staying on the go. So, although there is no significant amount of meandering, narratively or physically, there is still a good amount of atmosphere, not to mention tension building. It’s never anything frightful, but then again, Troll Hunter isn’t your standard offering of horror; it’s more on the low end of the dark fantasy spectrum. We aren’t ever spirited away to a faraway world—we stay in rather familiar surroundings, as well as dip into those less so. The outcome is a movie where you’re constantly more in awe than in terror.
As fantasy fiction might do, Troll Hunter prefers not to deal with incredulity. There is no time to waste on doubt, as interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), soundperson Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) all follow Hans around, recording whatever this character is willing to reveal about his bizarre job. Of course, the Troll Hunter himself is not an open book; in that respect, the diegetic documentary fails to fully capture and unpack the more interesting of its two subjects. Yes, all those giant, monstrous trolls are indeed incredible, but understandably, your mind wanders to their pursuer. What kind of person signs up for this gig and then chooses to stick with it for so long?
Reviews have called out Troll Hunter for its lack of character development. In regard to Thomas and his fellow documentarians, that criticism is valid, but bear in mind, they aren’t the focus of the story, either. Meanwhile, Hans is a well-crafted character. At least better than first realized. Before he was introduced, Hans had already grown tired of the troll grind. Fed up with that low compensation for his services, resentful of the bureaucracy, and wanting to expose his employer on a large scale, Hans’ discontent is glaring.
Then there are those finer details about the Troll Hunter, such as that indifference to both the natural splendor of his everyday surroundings and the affections of an obviously smitten colleague, that also suggest some level of despondency. So it is fair to say this movie doesn’t feature any sizable growth for its characters; however, the namesake isn’t underwritten. No doubt, putting a real-life character like Otto Jespersen in that role is partly why Hans is so fascinating—maybe even relatable.
Otto Jespersen as Hans the Troll Hunter.
There is always a small risk whenever using the term “mockumentary” to describe a found-footage movie, as the word could imply humor where there is none. In the case of Troll Hunter, the term’s usage is appropriate. Some folks have claimed the English-dubbed version has the more comedic tone, however, the Norwegian cut isn’t exactly humorless. Apart from the trolls’ absurd appearances, this is a movie where the characters nearly choke on the monsters’ farts, and Christians are like walking targets. Hans’ complete apathy towards everything is another cause of laughter. Overall, the comedy is intentionally dry and inconsistent. Unfunny, though? Absolutely not.
In a movie where endemic creatures are maltreated, as well as disavowed from living freely and peacefully, it’s hard not to notice the ecological message buried beneath the story. In addition to that is the unmistakable political satire. There is this whole business about intrusive and unsightly power lines—like trolls, they’re big blemishes on the land—that leads to what is perhaps the movie’s funniest moment. The scene in question is that one where certain electric lines, the ones secretly being used to keep the trolls at bay, go in a loop and don’t actually send power to any residents. Yet the monitors of said lines don’t find this at all weird. So it stands to reason that Øvredal was having a go at those who accept the government’s doings without question.
Looking past the fact that trolls aren’t actually real, this movie is an enlightening source of information. And not just for international audiences; Norwegians, too, get schooled about their homeland’s own mythology. It’s also evident from everything on screen that Øvredal and his crew were enthusiastic about the topic. The creature designs are the most indicative of that zeal; those imaginative yet myth-accurate manifestations are equally amusing and grotesque. One second you’re laughing at their phallic noses, the next you’re white-knuckling during a hairy sequence. Most surprisingly is how well the trolls’ visual effects hold up after fifteen years. It’s not all spotless, but on the whole, they remain impressive.
Vouching for a mockumentary about trolls isn’t easy, but those who do come around and give it a shot will more than likely be grateful for the recommendation. For Troll Hunter is a real find in that vast and varied genre we call “found footage“.
A bridge troll reaches up for food and finds Hans decked out in armor.
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