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S3.E2 - Horror Tropes
96 Plays9 months ago
This season we are going to pick our favourite tropes from the genres that we discussed and think might be popular this year in publishing. First up, our favourite horror tropes!
- Naomi Gibson, author of Every Line of You, Game Over Girl
- Melissa Welliver, author of The Undying Tower, My Love Life and the Apocalypse
- Jamie Greenwood, creator & host of the Write and Wrong Podcast
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Transcript
Introduction to Character Tropes
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you reckon Christian Grey is different characters? Whoa! You had it here first. I'm just finished it. After every episode was like, oh my gosh, I'm so angry at these toxic characters. Like, she'll have more food in my mouth, press next episode. Because I loved it. But obviously I hate it. This is so much fun. Because this is my Malfoy Hermione family. Yes! She shouldn't have done that. I'm trying to make Neville happen. It's too wholesome.
Host Introduction and Horror Tropes 2024
00:00:35
Speaker
Hey everyone, I'm Jamie Greenwood and I'm Melissa. As you guys know, I am
00:00:44
Speaker
doing this episode I'm going to be hosting because I'm really excited. So I'll explain what we're doing. In the first episode, we obviously had a little look at what genres we think might trend in 2024. And we asked some people to help and think about what they might think might be trending in 2024. So we thought we would break down the episodes by our favorite tropes in those genres. And the first episode that we're doing today is horror.
00:01:07
Speaker
So I'm really excited because I love horror. I watch like five or six horror films a month. But interestingly, don't read many horror books. So I'm interested because I know Naomi, you do read some horror books. And I know that Jamie is feeling possibly not super confident.
00:01:24
Speaker
So this should be really interesting.
Favorite Horror Tropes: Distress Signals in Space
00:01:27
Speaker
So why don't we jump in and say, Naomi, what sort of trope were you thinking is like your favourite horror trope that you thought you'd bring to the public? I was excited about this when we talked about doing this episode. Yes, I read a lot of horror. I never used to. I was chatting to Jamie about this and I was saying I never really used to be into horror because
00:01:47
Speaker
I just found it too scary and then Covid hit and the world was really scary. So how scary could it get? So I watched a lot of horror. I think so, yeah. So my favourite horror trope, though, I think bends quite nicely with sci-fi and I love to respond to a distress signal.
Exploring Space Horror Tropes
00:02:06
Speaker
where you have one spaceship going about their merry way, they're probably on a mission or whatever, and then they get this beeping noise and they're like, oh, it's a distress signal from that long lost ship way out in the middle of nowhere. And they have this conversation about whether they should go and get it and how actually if they did, it'd be really beneficial, but they are veering way off course.
00:02:28
Speaker
And it all boils down to this, should we, shouldn't we decision? And of course they do. And then all hell breaks loose. And every time it comes up, I just get so excited because you just know what is going to happen. And it's just, yeah, it's brilliant. So totally here for everything that unfolds afterwards.
00:02:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's one that works well in books and films as well, actually, because it's such a good hook, isn't it? It's the sort of thing you would see immediately on the blurb. It's not like a trope that comes in later, like when we talk about the helpless window death before anything, which obviously is a passive spoiler, so it would not be on the blurb. This is one that would be, you know, immediately what you're getting. What's going to happen? Yeah, it's right up front. It's probably in the first chapter. Yeah, that's good.
00:03:08
Speaker
When, when you said you would do this trope, all I could think of immediately, like you said, was just like space, sci-fi. Yeah. It happens so often with like sci-fi stuff. Yeah. It is super common. You get classics as well, like Star Trek playing with it, you know, in like little individual episodes and Star Wars as well with Leia sending out a distress signal, you know, it's just, it creeps in in little places as well. But yeah, you can get like a whole movie that revolves around it or a whole book that revolves around it.
00:03:36
Speaker
And it just boils down to that decision, should we, shouldn't we? And then because they do, it's not good. Everyone dies. It's the, it's the call, right? When you talk about story, it's the call and then the heroes, whether they answer the call. And yeah, now that you say it, the whole of Star Wars is like, Luke's journey is all set off by the fact that he answers the call of Princess Leia through R2-D2.
00:04:02
Speaker
There you go. Rolled it down. The whole basis. The famous horror film, although it's just one of those ones that lends itself well to horror, to be fair. Yeah, definitely. And it's just good in anything. Yeah. Yeah. Because I had like Alien, I think. Aren't they going to find a... They're going to furnish it. They do it in Sunshine as well. Yes, I love Sunshine. It's not the main plot, but at a certain point they do and they have that thing you were talking about. They're like,
00:04:32
Speaker
I'll say will they weren't they that's a romance thing but the will they weren't they of whether they go and rescue the other answer the distress signal yeah you get all the all the sci-fi series there's always one or two episodes where they're like yeah let's go investigate
00:04:47
Speaker
It's an easy as like a continuous series, especially in the old format of how TV was done when it was like every week you have a 40 minute episode or whatever. The writers were probably like, we don't want to do something for the main arc here. Let's just do a distress call episode. Easy.
Distress Signals in Non-Space Settings
00:05:06
Speaker
It's like a bottle episode on another ship. And it lends itself nicely to Monster of the Week with those kinds of things, which is why it works so well with horror.
00:05:13
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, what are you going to find at the other end? Why is that shit down? What happened to it? Why is it going? Why aren't they talking? Yeah. And then suddenly that thing on the derelict ship is now on your ship because you docked with it. It's brilliant. Yeah. So true. I was, although I was trying to think of it in like more grounded, like real life settings. And I couldn't really, I'm pretty sure and like this is,
00:05:38
Speaker
Let me tell everyone I don't engage with much horror stuff. I'm a big scaredy cat. But I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of horror things set at like abandoned ships in the middle of the sea. And I'm sure this is this lends itself into to that probably.
00:05:56
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely does. Like it'll still have. So, um, I was thinking there was a TV series that came out last year called The Rig. Um, and those are really famous people in like, um, like England and Martin Compton and yeah, like loads and loads of famous people. And that was, I mean, it's essentially a ship, but that was a rig at sea and they lose contact to the land, but then they have contact with another rig they can see in the distance. And then that loses contacts. Yeah. It's a supernatural force and it is horror thriller type of thing. I don't want to spoil anyone's not seen it.
00:06:26
Speaker
That's a nice little twist on the trip actually like the whole loose communications with
Book Recommendations: Distress Signal Trope
00:06:32
Speaker
the mothership or various people that can help you. They're trying to warn you about something and you can't hear them.
00:06:39
Speaker
And you don't get the distress signal. Yeah. Other way around, like you lose, you lose connection with civilization, not civilization. Yeah. Yeah. And then the twist reveal is that like, Oh, they're not asking for help. They're saying run. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. No, don't go there. But I have some good book recommendations. If anyone's interested, I, um, a really good one called Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes. And that is basically, um,
00:07:08
Speaker
a crew responding to the distress signal of this long lost luxury cruise ship in space and it's basically like the Titanic but in space and the Titanic equivalent has gone missing. It's famously lost. There's loads of rich people on board, loads of
00:07:25
Speaker
goodies if you were that way inclined and the crew decide they are that way inclined so they go on board to rob it basically and then all hell breaks loose as they realise why I'd become lost and what had actually happened to the original crew. It's very good.
00:07:40
Speaker
That's a pretty cool setup. It is really good. Titanic in space. Yeah. That's not on the cover actually. And I'm just like, it should be. That's basically what it is. Let me market this book. And then the other one is a YA book called Contagion by Aaron Bowman. And that is like a research crew responding to Bannett that were digging up something exciting. And then suddenly
00:08:07
Speaker
the planet just isn't responding and they send out the distress signal. And when the research crew get there, all the researchers are dead and they have to
Horror's Overlap with Thriller
00:08:15
Speaker
figure out what happened. And it's basically a creature feature. It's pretty good. Okay. Is, is the original, the thing, a distress signal or are they just a team of scientists? Um, I don't know if that's a distress signal. I think that's just something they dig up. Um, because it's like in permafrost or something, isn't it?
00:08:37
Speaker
Yeah, which is probably in itself a trope. I was just thinking then with especially distress signal and thinking about the other way around if you're separated from civilization, you could roll that trope. I don't know, horror is a really funny one because I always feel like it crosses really closely with thriller and I think there are some people that love thrillers but absolutely hate any gory horror.
00:09:01
Speaker
and therefore would steer away from certain types of thrillers so i was thinking about like even things like i know it's obviously based in real life but 127 hours and obviously he's trapped but they're looking for him so in a way it's like a distress signal yeah i'm thinking he's out there they can't find him yeah and that that and it causes it creates a horror atmosphere you know what i mean
00:09:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I haven't watched because it just looks like it'd be too real. I did watch it in the cinema with my dad and I closed my eyes when he cut off his arm and I cannot unhear it. And I say this knowing it was a real story and I did actually read about the guy and he's amazing, don't get me wrong. Yeah. However, it was, yeah, I don't know if he helped like make the noise, but the noise was absolutely terrible. Oh my goodness. Yes, the noise. Please let us talk to me.
00:09:53
Speaker
I do think about this trope that I don't know if this trope is this, like if it's, if it's still the trope, if it's the person in distress, because the trope is very much like answer a distress call. So I would imagine that the POV has to be from the people outside of the distress, because the distress call is the mystery box, right? It's the question mark. Whereas like, if you just know people are coming to help you, there's no,
00:10:16
Speaker
That was awesome.
00:10:21
Speaker
question mark.
Survival-Themed Horror
00:10:22
Speaker
So especially with horror, it's like, maybe you could make it work, but
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's tricky if it's so we watched a film in my little horror club called Fall. So I think it's like described as survival horror. So that is that they're stuck out in the middle of nowhere and they decide to like thrill seekers decide to climb this really, really, really tall tower. I don't really, I think it's supposed to be like, like a phone signal tower. So interestingly, in terms of distress signals,
00:10:52
Speaker
And halfway up, obviously one of them falls and gets injured and it's like terrifyingly tall and she can't get back down because the ladder's fallen and she has no phone signal. So she kind of has to create a distress call in order to get help. But as you say, if you're not answering the distress call, maybe it massively changes. So then it becomes more like survival thriller rather than horror. Whereas I think if you're answering a distress call and then you're isolating yourself,
00:11:17
Speaker
From that first little bit where you're in the normal world and you're safe and then you're removing yourself from that and putting yourself in a dangerous situation which creates the horror vibe.
00:11:27
Speaker
you don't even have to be disconnected, I don't think. Because I don't think in Alien, they're disconnected from, they have like a communications line, I think. It's just that no one can get there in time. Yeah. Yes. That's true. No one can get there in time. That's also quite hoffery because knowing that you're still alive, able to talk to somebody, you can't get there. But then there's that added
00:11:51
Speaker
who is actually on the other end and who is actually going to come and is that a good person or a bad person? That could be like another element of fear. Yes,
The Role of Communication in Horror
00:12:01
Speaker
like in Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James. Yes. That's like a plot point, isn't it? That everything's going fine and she's chatting her way to earth.
00:12:10
Speaker
And then, this isn't a spoiler, this happens in the first couple of chapters and there's like the crooks of it. You don't know why she's a teenager on her own and then one day the signals that come from Earth are saying that there's been a terrible event happening on Earth and it means that they'll no longer be able to speak to her and they're sending a ship that will catch up with her ship and stop her going where she's going. And then she starts communicating with the other ship and you don't know whether they're like good people or bad people and you don't know what's happened on Earth. And that's quite a good one.
00:12:38
Speaker
It's her only contact. She's all alone in the middle of space. And that's the only person she can talk to. It's very good. Yeah, it's really good. And it does have horror vibes. It does. It's terrifying. There are terrifying bits in it.
00:12:53
Speaker
Yeah, I guess the crux is basically like something is coming or you are going to something. You don't know what that is and you don't know whether you can trust it or not. Creeping dread. Yeah, I love it. But there's like, because it's a distress call or in that one, which is a kind of like reversed version of it.
00:13:09
Speaker
it's there's a baseline of this like is a ship that should have been fine or like this is a ship that we built this there should be like humans or like this should be part of our team or like people our allies should be there but you don't know so it's like the undercurrent of knowing that this should be fine and you should just go there and hope that everyone's okay with the then layered on top being like but something suspicious is going on here and that's worrying
00:13:38
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. I like the hunter becoming the hunted as well. Usually it's people who are rescue people and have all the tools and they go in and then of course suddenly they realize that they're not in distress. They're now the ones in distress and they're being chased by something is quite common. One, especially with the space ones.
00:13:54
Speaker
It's also a huge crutch in video games use this all the time. It doesn't even really matter what kind of video game because it's, I mean, just like with any storytelling, you want the, you want the protagonist or the character to go to a certain place. And in video games, you're, you're very like susceptible to just being like, there's a thing over there. Go look at it. And you're like, okay, this is the game. Obviously you have to, you have to do more.
00:14:20
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You have to do more with a book or a movie, uh, to sort of like justify why they're going in said direction. They need more motivation, but yeah, in video games, it's, it's like a classic, oh, we need the player to go in that direction. Let's say there's a distress beacon or something, make them go collect it. They'll go get that. It's the perfect tutorial level. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
The 'Let's Split Up' Trope in Horror
00:14:45
Speaker
absolutely. And the whole thing is just compounded by the fact that you're in space, you're all alone.
00:14:49
Speaker
There is nowhere else to go. And if you've invited something into your safe even, it's just even more horrifying. Did you guys ever see Event Horizon? Yeah. I think come at the end of the 90s. Yeah, I thought that was really good.
00:15:04
Speaker
One of them so you say you don't watch horror that I can't watch that. That's pretty scary. I think I studied that actually Yeah, it's part of my music technology. So force Torah force Torah. Yeah Yeah, I had a great ending though one of those like open-ended endings we were like
00:15:29
Speaker
I'm so interested in what yours is then, Jamie, as somebody who self-confessed does not watch or read, etc. much horror. I can't wait to hear this one. Well, the trope that I chose, which I feel like is probably the most mocked trope in horror, is that when all the people decide, this will be a great idea, let's all split up and go in different directions. And whilst, obviously, I had to do a lot of research for this because don't watch much horror.
00:15:57
Speaker
but it turns out this is you often on the internet referred to as the let's split up gang which is a direct which is based on scooby-doo yeah so you know how kind of silly this trope has become that it's literally named after scooby-doo
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah. Which I thought was funny and like it's fine in Scooby Doo because it's like a silly show with like a pseudo talking dog solving weird spooky things that are never actually spooky with like cartoon villains.
00:16:31
Speaker
It's great. But, um, yeah, I, I had to do some research, as I said, I think there's like, this can work. I think it's not one of those ones where it's like universally bad, even though it might be the one trope in horror where everyone's like grown. Why are you splitting up? Doesn't make any sense. I don't want to be here anymore. Like I don't believe any of your character motivations or anything.
00:16:58
Speaker
So let's jump into some examples. I had the Blair Witch Project, uh, so that probably ages me quite a lot, but it's, it's like one of the earlier found footage when just before, I think it started a trend of everything being found footage. The, the, the premise of is that it's these like students who are making a student film, um, about this like weird superstition that apparently in the woods, there's this witch that does stuff.
00:17:28
Speaker
So they all go out with their handheld cameras and they split up to cover more ground. That's the whole justification. And correct me if I'm like getting some of the details wrong here, but as far as I can tell, they're like, yeah, this is just a superstition. It's just going to be some like a couple of weird things, but there'll be nothing here.
00:17:47
Speaker
And I think that's fine then. It makes perfect sense that they would split up and look at stuff because they, as far as they're concerned, there's no inherent risk with what they're doing. They're literally just wandering around the woods looking for like vaguely spooky things. And they're probably, it's probably not, I guess in their minds, they're like, it's not even going to be spooky. We're going to have to try and make this as spooky as possible. Yeah.
00:18:08
Speaker
So just like logically it's like yeah they're trying to get this assignment done you know it makes sense for the group to split up to divide and conquer to finish getting as much footage as they can get similar premise similar stuff is like the shining i think works for this because
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah. And that's a huge area to cover, obviously, with not very many characters. Exactly. But they go under the pretense of this is just an empty hotel. And so it wouldn't be an issue to be like, OK, well, let's all meet back here. I'm just going to go explore and then we can all meet back. Because in theory, that shouldn't I mean, no one could possibly think up the stuff that Stephen King thinks up that is in that hotel. So.
00:18:51
Speaker
That's where I think that the trope can work. I think this is one of the tropes where it's like when it's not done right, it triggers like a visceral rage and disappointment inside
Criticism and Strategic Use of Split-Up Trope
00:19:04
Speaker
of you. Yes, it's very frustrating. When it's done right, you don't notice it. You don't think about it. If it's well reasoned, yeah.
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah, makes sense. They split up. Why wouldn't, well, like, you know, they're just bored and like wandering around. It's fine. Yeah. I do wonder though, if you get trolled on purpose sometimes by the filmmaker, I just think it's something I've not brought up for ages on the podcast. So in The Walking Dead, this happens all the time. And as soon as they say that, you're like, please.
00:19:28
Speaker
don't be so ridiculous why are you doing this and there was like an old joke in the earlier seasons that they would split up all the time and nobody would be watching they had two children with them the children are like eight and ten and those children man one of them something bad happens quite early on and the other one it's a joke that rick and laurie never know where their son is they're always just like where's carle
00:19:50
Speaker
why do you not have carl it's because i split up and carl being 10 years old is like i'm just gonna go and explore and it's quite rage inducing but also i do wonder because it happened so much for a few seasons if they were kind of doing it on purpose because they knew my blood would boil the moment they sat
00:20:06
Speaker
They were splitting up and maybe they're playing me a little bit. Now I think about it. Probably. That makes sense. I was going to ask you about Walking Dead because I was like... Of course. I tried to think of a few things where, yeah, like the ones where it really doesn't work. And I was like, the issue why it doesn't work in Walking Dead, and I've only watched season one of Walking Dead, so it got it to Fuzz and Melissa here, but the reason why it can't work for me is because they are more than aware of the world that they live in and that it is infested with zombies, like every which way.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. The only time I think it's okay is in season one. They get trapped in a abandoned mall and they have to distract the zombies away from an entrance so that they can all get out. And the only way to, because there's like eight of them in this building, the only way to do that is two of them cover themselves in zombie guts and decide to walk through and grab a car to like lead them away.
00:20:59
Speaker
walk through the crowd and of course it starts raining and it's like all this tension but that was okay. And of course they can watch them from the roof so that like on the roof of this really large building and they can see their friends going through this up so it creates a really good sense of like dread and they can't speak to them directly because obviously they can't shout out or anything. And then there is a bit where they get in the car and drive off to drive away the zombies and they panic a bit that they've been left behind and that works quite well.
00:21:24
Speaker
but then they just start losing children. Because every time it's these children, they'll be fine on their own in the zombie apocalypse. No, they're not. I think I also had a point where I was thinking, and this is like outside of horror, but it's still that kind of trope, the split up thing. That's a really good example of it is I think it works really well when it comes with direction. So they split up there because they had a plan and they did a certain thing and like outside of
00:21:52
Speaker
um horror get something like Lord of the Rings where the fellowship splits up and even though that's kind of the conclusion of the first book that's kind of the arc the book takes but it's a lot of the reason the justification for them splitting up is because they have different strengths they essentially break off into multiple groups to go and pursue different things because they can accomplish a lot more for Middle-earth and kind of the overall goal in their individual groups than they could so like when you have like Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn
00:22:22
Speaker
can take down a million orcs by themselves, but if they have to look after Merry and Pippin at the same time, they can't take nearly as many, you know what I mean? So, like, the direction that helps. And then there's a really kind of simple one is in The Avengers, I guess in all of them, but mainly in the first Avengers movie I was thinking. Literally, if you think of the scene where Captain America and all of them are in a circle, and then Captain America is like, you do this, you do that, you do that.
00:22:49
Speaker
and they all split up very much with a purpose and it's very tactical. It's still working as a team. I guess the thing is that there's no issue
00:22:59
Speaker
no matter what the genre, whether it's horror or what, with splitting up as long as it's justified, as long as it's logical and it makes sense. It's when they just split up for no reason. Or when it's actively dumb. Yeah, trying to get rid of people. The original screen. I was thinking screen.
00:23:19
Speaker
which is just a bunch of teenagers who basically start getting stalked by a guy in a mask. And it's, I mean, it's probably the reason why so many of these like tropes exist is like screams might be the blueprint for a lot of this stuff. But the idea is there's only one guy. I don't know if they know that there's any one murderer, but they are a group. This is a murderer with a knife.
00:23:44
Speaker
If they stay together, they could probably take him or her, or it. That's true because it's like they way outnumber him. Yeah. Right. And he's not got a gun or anything. He's not got a gun. He is weedy. We can take him.
00:24:00
Speaker
And it doesn't make any sense. It's like, oh, we can look for help faster. I'm like, you don't need to just stay together. Exactly. Just move slowly as a group. You'll be fine. It's like in Jurassic Park, isn't it? When they're picking off to strike the people who run out into the long grass.
00:24:25
Speaker
Yes, that's true. You're going to get eaten, you're going to get killed if you leave the group. Distraction feels like the name of the game sometimes with splitting up, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of, I guess, better. I mean, like, um, there was that, uh, what was it called? Leave the world behind, I think it was called. And it came out fairly recently. We watched that one in horror club and that, I think it's, um, I've got to say Julia Roberts.
00:24:49
Speaker
and all those famous people are in that. I can't even think he's in it now. Yeah, that one is a horror film about essentially everything starts to shut down. They realize there's a terror attack happening and there's like micro signals, they shut down all of the power grid and the Internet. So essentially what I'm saying is there's no communication. They don't know what's happening and people are getting sick and they don't know why and they're in this holiday rental that they've got. That's why it's called Leave the World Behind. Then the people who own holiday rental come back from holiday.
00:25:18
Speaker
And they're like, hey, we need to live in our house again because all the electricity shut down. Have you not seen, there's nothing on the news, et cetera. But they split up so often in that film. There's only like six of them. And like, literally some of them are dying and stuff. And they're like, okay, you go out in the car, the only car we have that works, and take them to the next door neighbor who might be able to fix them, AK Kevin Bacon. And I'm like, don't get me wrong, like I trust Kevin Bacon can fix anything.
00:25:41
Speaker
But why did we not all go to Kevin Bacon's house? And then when we get there, it's like, he's telling us about like a bunker we could maybe go to. And I'm like, why are we not all together? Why did Julie Roberts stay at the house? This doesn't make any sense. It could have been so stressful. Now in the end, it was like a bit of a full flag. Like they were just tricking me to thinking it was stressful and it was actually kind of okay. But they split up real quick and then they're running in the woods because they see some deer and they get split up again.
00:26:07
Speaker
and she's like with the stepdaughter and it's just a nightmare they are literally everywhere they are so spread out in that movie and it's so dangerous and they can't communicate and it really annoys me that is
00:26:17
Speaker
And I mean, that's, I guess it's, I was going to mention Jurassic Park as well, but I think you would, you, I think it was the second one where they have the long grass with the raptors. Yeah. I was going to talk about the first one, which, um, and also as an aside, whilst I don't think people generally think of it as a horror movie, I do think the pacing and the structure of it is very much in line with horror. The first Jurassic Park movie. I agree with that. It's got the beats for it, hasn't it? Yeah. And it's like slow and kind of genius.
00:26:47
Speaker
Brings you in and you know what the scary thing is like there's an interesting I can't how long it is But it's like apparently the velociraptors you only you never actually see one until like 20 minutes before the end That's interesting. Yeah, you're just told about them you hear them. That's like a really good trope isn't it? Yeah, you don't see the monster. Yeah, like Jaws does that I think
00:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, George does that really well. But I was talking about Jurassic Park splitting up. I was going to say, and I don't think this is quite the trope because the trope is let's split up gang where it's like they decide to do it voluntarily. But if a group is forced apart, that's absolutely fine. So in Jurassic Park when, spoilers for like a
00:27:32
Speaker
50-year-old movie at this point, 40-year-old movie. No, it's not allowed. It's like 30 years old. It's 90, right? 1990? Something like that. Maybe? Question mark? Yeah, that sounds like right. When the T-Rex escapes the first time,
00:27:50
Speaker
then that's when like they all forced apart and like Sam Neill and the kids fall off the cliffside so they can't physically get back to the other people. The other people are like have to run away from the T-Rex. It's all chaos and then that's actually a really good hook for the story because then at that point it's not just we must survive which kind of lacks direction. It's we need to all get back together and that's like the driving
00:28:15
Speaker
Compulsion for all of the characters at that point is that we need to reunite and get back together and then get off the island. Yeah, I like to say that children in that are much less annoying than most children who do force people to have to split up. So often the reason like in Walking Dead that they have to split up is because children are being stupid.
00:28:32
Speaker
Whereas actually, they're quite clever in that one. Even when they're in that kitchen on their own, they're actually pretty good at following the rules. Because in Leave It All Behind, that's the main reason they split up. And I'm not counting it as four split up, it's because one of the children runs off into the woods. So like Marcela Ali has to go to Kevin Bacon's house and Julia Roberts has to run through the woods. It's mental. And it's like, why are we not keeping an eye on the children? Oh, it's only like the end of the world, I'm sure they're fine.
00:29:00
Speaker
Like just, oh, children. This is like a trope I don't like. That's not, does not count as my choice. But yeah, children in horror films can either be amazing, creepy, really cool or idiotic. And idiotic falls into your trope, Jamie. Yeah, I think it's like a trope within the trope, right? It's a crutch where the writer's like, I can't think of a good reason to like derail this right now. Let's just have one of the dumb kids run off. You know, I think I've seen A Quiet Place.
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah. It's a creature feature, Jamie. It's all right. You'll be all right with that one. I know the concept. It's like they can't speak, right? Yeah. You can't make any noise because the monsters don't get you. So there's this little kid in that. He has this really loud toy, you know, like loads of kids toys, really loud and noisy. And it's like he gets eaten.
Children as Plot Devices in Horror
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah. Like this is at the beginning, this is not a spoiler. They just don't flip that trophy on its head. They're like, nope, there are consequences.
00:29:58
Speaker
It was pretty funny. I'll also not be able to rescue you, you will get eaten. Melissa's just nodding her head like, yes. That is what happens. That is what should happen. You can tell immediately within 10 seconds of a horror movie whether a kid's going to be amazing and possessed and terrifying or a flipping idiot and you pin them immediately. You're like, nope, you're going to kill everyone. I see you.
00:30:24
Speaker
I also don't think in those kinds of situations it would be natural for a young, because they usually do it with a young child so that you can be like, oh, it's a young child, they don't understand. But I don't think it would be natural for them to run away. I think the natural thing that they would do would be run to whatever their parent or the parental figure is and cling to them and not move a step away from
Favorite Horror Tropes: Found Footage
00:30:45
Speaker
them. Yeah, I just thought so.
00:30:47
Speaker
Yeah. So that definitely does not count as my pick, but shall I tell you what my pick was? I'm well excited. So actually we talked a little bit about, so a couple of the films I'm going to mention we've kind of covered. So this one involves both like hidden monsters that you don't see for ages and then eventually see.
00:31:08
Speaker
And also, we'll talk a little bit about found footage with Blur Witch Project. So mine is found footage. So I think it can work two ways. There's found footage where somebody moves in somewhere and finds a box full of old tapes or something. And when they watch it, it's foreshadowing what's going to happen to them. That's a really common one.
00:31:27
Speaker
And then there's also found footage in the Blair Witch Project sense. And in terms of Hidden Monster, the Cloverfield sense, that was like quite famously a horror film where you do not see the monster and it's all found footage. And obviously they always have like a little thing at the beginning, which I love that kind of stuff. So I like a frame when I'm watching something, like I'm clearly just a baby and I can't like focus for more than 10 seconds. So if you give me a frame right at the beginning, which is like, this is a government announcement. This is the found footage, the only footage we have of incident blah.
Creating Suspense with Found Footage
00:31:57
Speaker
which took place over this time period. Ego, and then they show you the footage. That's what they do in Cloverfield. And also paranormal activity, they do that. And I quite like those sorts of things. And I think they have a little card actually in Blair Witch Project as well. Because that was like one of the ones where the big thing about it was it was all found footage. And that's what people were like, wow, amazing. Which I always think as well, in terms of especially filming, must be so hard to film.
00:32:22
Speaker
To make it seem as if somebody's not very good at filming something because they're not a professional cameraman, but get everything in that you need to get into the scene must be impossible. And also not make your audience throw up because it's bouncing around too much. Oh my gosh, yeah, that is actually a really big one in Cloverfield, I've noticed it there. It's Cloverfield, isn't it, yeah. Yeah, like they do try and claw back, there's a lot of running.
00:32:44
Speaker
I think so much running, wouldn't you like? Fair enough, there's Godzilla, like I get it. I can't understand why they're running, I could get it. But couldn't you cut this bit out, government person who's put together this footage? Yeah, so I absolutely love that footage. Parallel activity is quite a famous one. And my favourite favourite that we watched last year. So if anyone doesn't know, parallel activity is. So there's like five of them now. And this is a really common trope. So it's
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah, there's loads of them. So somebody moves into a new house and the house is really cheap because someone was brutally murdered there. That's a really common plot. And so when they get there, they're like, oh, it's going to be so great. And they're like teasing their partner, ha, ha, ha. This is haunted and there's loads of silly job scares like TDD, we got this house so cheap because a family was murdered here, holla, la, la, la. And then of course, they're like going to be haunted.
00:33:36
Speaker
massively so yeah paranormal activities about um he starts hiding cameras in the bedroom because things move around at night and they sort of sell it to you as if it's a documentary style film and there were a few people that watched it who thought it was real because they oh no come on
00:33:52
Speaker
So I love that one. And then my favorite is Sinister with Ethan Hawke, which has been voted the scariest film of all time, quite a few times in a row. I haven't watched that. Yeah, there's a horror website. So it's a bit of a cult classic. So it's Ethan Hawke. And the main thing we always laugh about is he has this really famous, people might know, the Ethan Hawke Sinister cardigan. So he has this cardigan he wears the whole time. And whenever he's wearing the cardigan, the spirits don't touch him. And whenever he's not wearing it, they do.
00:34:21
Speaker
Like a magic cardigan. Everybody thought it was like a magic cardigan and it was like a really big easter egg, but it wasn't at all. It's like completely accidental. There was a disaster with this cardigan he was. But Ethan Hawke is a writer who hasn't had a very good run of books recently and he really wants to like strike out again and get really good books. So he doesn't tell his family and he moves into a house where family was brutally murdered. And he finds all of these video tapes of how different families were murdered over the years. Jesus. Yeah.
00:34:48
Speaker
And he watches them and the person behind the camera is always murdering them. So he's like really interested. He's like, yes, this is the best, best news ever. I've found these video tapes. I can write my new book now because he writes about horror things and like through crime. And of course, the children in the house that he can't see, but his children can in hiding corners start to follow him.
00:35:08
Speaker
And then of course there's like all these twists about yet. So it's all about like it's found footage, but it's kind of foreshadowing what's going to happen in the movie. What you see in the found footage. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a slightly, you still have that frame of your watching the found footage with Ethan Hawke. However, there's also. That sounds terrifying.
Challenges of Found Footage Filming
00:35:28
Speaker
I like horror, but there are some things I just can't
00:35:32
Speaker
Yeah, that one was a spicy meatball. It is pretty scary. But it's really good. I love found footage. I can't think of an example where I haven't enjoyed found footage. I do take your point sometimes it can be a bit motion sickness inducing. There's one that comes to mind. Oh yeah, go on.
00:35:51
Speaker
It was a Black Mirror episode. I think in the last season, season six, they've just done. And it was about a guy, and he wants to film a documentary or his girlfriend convinced him to film a documentary and his father died. And it's all about why his father died and how and what he was really getting up to. I'd have to find all this footage of what he'd done. And it's like, just.
00:36:12
Speaker
It's shocking. Yeah. Lock Henry, that one is called, isn't it? That's it. Yeah. And it makes the town famous, doesn't it? That's really good. So again, it's like that sort of mystery element as well, a bit like yours, Naomi, where it draws you in because you are wondering what happened in this town with this murder mystery and they find tapes and what's on these tapes and do these tapes you need to? I think I love that kind of mystery element too, yeah.
00:36:36
Speaker
Do you think there's a part of found footage which has sort of been lost, I guess, as technologies evolved?
Future Horror Themes: AI and Technology
00:36:45
Speaker
Because something like Blair Witch, which was like one of the first kind of big, like, this is all found footage things to kind of blow up.
00:36:53
Speaker
was filmed back in a time when we didn't all have very high quality cameras on our phones. And it was like the handheld cameras. So the idea of the footage being found was like, they literally had had like a physical recording, which they had to take out of the camera and put it in. And there's something kind of like, really cool about that, like the fact that it's a tactile object. Whereas nowadays, you know, that realistically, if something happens in a public place,
00:37:19
Speaker
If there's like a hundred people that twenty people have a video of it from different angles.
00:37:24
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, that's very true. Like what was quite fun in Sinister is that they have so I like looked quite deep into the film afterwards, because I really enjoyed it. And they filmed all of the different killings on Super 8 film. And they had to film it. They filmed it in real like what's making the movie on Super 8. And so each each video is labeled with a year. So it starts in 1966, which is basically as early as you can get where somebody might have a home video camera. And it goes through till
00:37:52
Speaker
I think the 90s, there might be an early 2000s one, but I think it goes to the 90s because the film's from 2012. And yeah, it's all super 8 footage. And apparently they really struggled to film with the super 8 footage when they were doing a particular drowning scene. So one of the family's drowns in the pool. And they're really struggling because it's super 8 footage to like get it underwater and properly film the family and obviously all the grim stuff that you want to like get on for creepy people like me for the movie.
00:38:16
Speaker
So I do think that can add an extra element, especially in films, with it being tactile. Whereas nowadays, it seems sort of underworked. It's cool, Ethan Hawke goes and he finds VHS tapes or whatever it is. But nowadays, you film that set in modern, and it would be like, he goes on the computer and he sees all these files.
00:38:40
Speaker
It doesn't have quite the same dramatic flair. But there are twists on it though. Our friend, Andrea Cordani, she wrote a book called Dead Lucky and that was all about somebody who gets murdered whilst they're live streaming. So there's that kind of twist on it, where it's just modernized because people are watching it happen as it happens.
00:39:08
Speaker
But yeah, I know you mean that the whole tactile thing is probably quite important.
00:39:12
Speaker
I wonder if we'll see a trend of, because obviously rogue AI is and has been a kind of popular thing to write about in various different mediums for a while now. I wonder if we'll see a sort of rogue AI slash horror thing where it's like the almost like the data has been corrupted and there's a sort of evil within the
Intersections of Technology and Supernatural
00:39:38
Speaker
AI itself. That could be interesting.
00:39:42
Speaker
Yeah. Not like a Skynet thing. You mean like a separate- No, not like a rash. Because the whole point of those is that it's supposed to be like rational, like the iRobot thing where it's like, we must destroy you to save you. You know what I mean? Have you seen the creator that came out last year? I've not seen it yet. No. Well that covers quite a lot of that kind of stuff.
00:40:04
Speaker
AI and whether AI does, you know, like, cause it's very common. It was, I mean, been in like the Avengers and stuff. The AI gets so smart, it realizes the best way to protect everyone is to murder them all. And there's, yeah, so it covers that kind of stuff. But I'm thinking more like supernatural horror. So I'm thinking like, you know, Event Horizon, and again, spoilers for a very old movie, Event Horizon is about a ship that essentially, I think the idea is that they've invented like a sort of hyperspeed, but the way they don't realize what they're going through to get there and what they're actually going through is hell.
00:40:33
Speaker
And so the ship is essentially possessed because it's gone through hell to get to its destination. I'm thinking like something more like that. And like, let's say you had a computer program, which was actually sort of supernaturally possessed. And it wasn't, so it wasn't just an AI, like logical motives. It was like demonic.
Possession Themes in Horror
00:40:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting you say that because that's what I was thinking about with physical things. It just a sphere like, doesn't it? For some reason, a physical thing has to be the thing that's possessed. I don't know why though. You have to burn it or you have to put it in a circle of salt or whatever. It feels like you have to do something with it. Like, oh, we've worked out how to kill the demon. We have to do this.
00:41:12
Speaker
I guess from a writing perspective, you do need a way to sort of overcome the evil. And like, it's very hard to do that without like a physical representation of like, yeah, we put it in a ring of salt and then set it on fire or whatever. So it could be.
00:41:27
Speaker
They did try and do it when they rebooted ring three, rings, ring plural. Yeah. Well, because that was 2017 and they did, they did have like, it's, they find a VHS tape is like the beginning of it. And then it's like, Oh, what's this? How does it work? How interesting. And then of course they play it and it's the ring spoilers. If you've not seen that really old film, it's about a girl who lives on a videotape and crawls out your telly. If you watch it and get phone calls, they're going to die in seven days. Happens in the first 10 minutes, not a spoiler, but yeah.
00:41:56
Speaker
And it's all the trailers, I remember. Yeah, exactly. It's in every single trailer. But when they're trying to stop Samara from still doing this, that's the name of the little girl, Samara, who crawls out and tries to like, I don't know, eat you. I don't want to know what happens if she reaches you, but not go stuffing. Your face goes all funny. Yeah. They have a thing where at the end, their computer goes funny because somebody has copied the VHS tape to a computer to try and study it. And so it possesses. Yeah. Yeah. So they do technically do that.
00:42:23
Speaker
Is that the end? It's like open-ended. It's near the end, yeah. There's lots of things where they're copying the tape stuff because that's the technology that they copy and then they take photographs of what's on the screen and then they try and take a photocopy of part of the tape and that ruins the photocopier and all this. There's lots of things where it starts to possess other objects, but they're still technically objects.
00:42:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. I think what we understand within genres of possession is that it must possess a physical object. So for it to be within the kind of system, I guess you'd probably be allowed to do it if it possessed a specific computer, but it would have to stay in that computer.
Found Footage Beyond Horror
00:43:06
Speaker
Yes, exactly. Whereas I think at the end of rings, spoiler, it does, it does get uploaded. That's like the whole thing. It's like the video is going viral. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Which is similar to what we were talking about with like Andrea's book, for instance. Yeah. It's like a viral video type thing. I suppose the fear comes from something, something normal being changed, you know, and having like a mind of its own. It's that normality being taken away from that object. And that's why it's scary.
00:43:36
Speaker
I know what you mean. It's tricky to pull it off, wouldn't it, with tech. Yeah, it just doesn't feel this scary for some reason. Yeah. The internet's scary enough, like, oh no, we're bringing Samara's on here. Oh, as you know, think of all the pedophiles that are on there that have to fight Samara. Okay. Like, oh no, it's terrible if they see the video. Oh no, how terrible. Yeah, there's worse things on the internet. I just feel like it's not that scary.
00:44:00
Speaker
Um, but found footage can, I, I, there's a couple of examples of it like being not horror. And I think there's some really, it's just a really cool, I think if it gets overused, you can, you can get bored of it very quickly, but you see it every now and again,
Innovative Uses of Found Footage
00:44:16
Speaker
it's great. Obviously mockumentaries, it's kind of along the same lines with like the office and stuff like that. But I was thinking of, did you guys ever watch the movie Chronicle?
00:44:26
Speaker
Oh, I think so. One of Michael B. Jordan's earliest movies and Danes de Hans in it as well. And it's about these three. So it starts off Danes de Hans, it's like he films everything. They're like they're high school. He films everything. And these three guys basically find like a crashed kind of alien ship thing. And then they touch it and then they all wake up and they start having superpowers. But it's still all filmed as if Danes de Hans character is like holding a camera the entire time.
00:44:56
Speaker
But what's quite cool and interesting about it in terms of a found footage thing is at a certain point, their powers get stronger and stronger and that they can fly and they can do telekinesis and they start to be able to do all these different things. And at a certain point, whether this was the writers or the camera team were like, okay, I'm done with this found footage thing now.
00:45:15
Speaker
Danes de Han is so good at telekinesis that he's still filming everything, but he is holding the camera off himself, pointing at him, using telekinesis. So it kind of becomes a much more in-universe explained, but more natural filming the character kind of fan footage thing. Because it is exhausting to film fan footage. It is exhausting. It's cool. Cool way of doing it, I thought. It was a really cool movie as well. Yeah, parallel activity.
00:45:44
Speaker
handles it by they have lots of like holding the camera and being very annoying and they also i feel like they have to make it really obvious that like someone's holding the camera they're like oh yeah some idiot that's not cameraman's now holding the camera look how shaky it is whereas like that's not how i film things but they do they set up the camera on a tripod
00:46:02
Speaker
in their bedroom when they're filming at night to see if the monster like comes into their bedroom and stuff so they like put salt across the doorway and of course you see the salt like kicked out the way but you don't see what moves it and stuff and so that means it's not as shaky and also they can do jump scares with the camera which is always fun without footage so they can like have the camera suddenly fall forward and smash to the floor yeah yeah yeah and it like spooks you i'm just thinking one of the
00:46:30
Speaker
Subversions of this trope I suppose is diaries and diary entries. Because you get that a lot, I think in books where like you can read someone's journal entries and it's supposed to shed light on a book.
Blurring Genre Lines with Found Footage
00:46:46
Speaker
a mystery that's currently going on. So I suppose that's probably a bookish way of doing it rather than the movie way of seeing something, a bookish way of reading it. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, it's tricky to know how to, like I think in Cynthia's new one, Sign Sealed Dead, there's like letters, which again is like a written form. It's like letters coming from a different time about like a murder that happened. And so you're kind of reaching across time that way as opposed to watching found footage.
00:47:14
Speaker
I guess it depends if the found footage is the main story. Blair Witch Project, you're basically watching it. The idea is that it's all over and you're just kind of rewatching the footage. Or if like in the Ethan Hawke one, you were talking about Sinister, I think it was called. Yeah, Sinister. Ethan Hawke is the main character. You're following the characters. He is watching the found footage.
00:47:39
Speaker
So like within like books or like Cynthia's one or like if there's like a diary kind of thing and they're reading through it, you're following the character reading this found footage, which is a bit, I guess it's like a kind of distinction between whether it's the forefront or it's like the secondary thing.
00:47:58
Speaker
Yeah, and whether it's like, yeah, whether it's affected by how that person's seeing it.
Conclusion and Social Media Reminders
00:48:03
Speaker
Like, it's hard to do in film, but I watched, I'm trying to think what's called, I think it was called something ridiculous, like lift or something. And it was, what's his name? Kevin Hart.
00:48:16
Speaker
No, no. It's about, I'm thinking Lyft because it's about a guy who's like an Uber driver, a Lyft driver, and he's played by Steve Harrington. Cannot think what the actor's name is from Stranger Things. But he livestreams a murder spree in order to get views. Yeah, was it two non-players or something? He picks up two.
00:48:38
Speaker
No, it's not supernatural at all. He's just murdering people for lols. That sounds good though. What's that? Oh, not Steve. I can't imagine him doing that. It's very funny as well. It is quite funny and it's making fun of a lot of internet culture. But yeah, he's live streaming on his phone the whole time. So you even see the interactions. You see the comments, you see little hearts and stuff. And the whole time you see the people watching is growing and growing. And you also see people being like, this is obviously fake. So it's quite fun. Yeah.
00:49:06
Speaker
It's just called Spree. Spree. There he is. There's a fella. Yeah. And it's all filmed on like, I'm looking at the trailer now. It's all filmed with like sort of budget GoPro in the car kind of stuff. Yeah. As if it's home videos. Exactly. So they're still kind of making it older even then, even though they're doing live stream and stuff. Yeah.
00:49:28
Speaker
Yeah, that was good. Did we do it? Do I need to sign up? I think we did it. What do you do? Yeah. Do your best to sign up. I never sign up. I'm just like, yeah, okay, we're done.
00:49:40
Speaker
Thanks for putting up with our nonsense for another episode. To stay tuned to everything we're up to, you can follow the podcast on all socials at The Chosen Tropes. Follow Melissa at Melova, Naomi at Naomi G. Wright, and Jamie at Jamie X. Greenwood. Don't forget to check out Naomi and Melissa's books, as well as the Right and Wrong podcast. Thanks again, and we'll see you on the next trope.