“There’s a trope in horror that I’m all set on. By which I mean I’ve had enough and would like something else.
It’s the Reasonable Skeptic.
Here’s how it work:
I move to a town where people say there’s a Ghost Barn and a bunch of weird shit has happened and people see the Ghost Barn mysteriously appear and disappear. Reasonably, I’m skeptical, so a series of events must occur before I can get on board and get to the place where I’m like, “What are we going to do about this goddamn Ghost Bard?”
The best handling of this I’ve ever seen is in Dawn of the Dead. Both versions.
In the older version, we start the movie in a TV studio where everyone’s reporting on the dead rising. It’s utter chaos. The next scene is a SWAT team going into a building and shooting people. I think we’re supposed to assume this is a riot or something, or that’s what the SWAT team thinks, but of course it’s zombies. Not only does this scene have a great head explosion (probably in my Top 10 head explosions in cinema) but by the time we get here, we’re in the shit, and we really do understand what we need to. There is really no part in this movie where we deal with skepticism that the dead are, in fact, rising and killing people. The movie starts past that part.
In the newer version, we basically start right in the action. Within 10 minutes it’s full on zombie chaos, and again, we know all we need to know.
The original Dawn of the Dead was an early entry in zombie cinema, even beating out most of the nonsensical Italian deals, including the one where a zombie fights a shark for some reason. And yet, they didn’t feel like an audience needed to go along with a character who refuses to believe there are fucking zombies everywhere until they are almost killed or experience everything firsthand.
The remake obviously came after a shitload of other zombie movies, including a nonsensical Italian movie where people were teleporting and the ending seems to be just random scraps of film left over. So, the people who made that were smart and said, Hey, let’s just skip the part where people are in disbelief and skeptical.
Some horror requires a certain amount of this. Like…Nightmare on Elm Street. Okay, that premise is pretty out there, so yes, if you were watching Nightmare on Elm Street, you’d probably be skeptical, too. But when we get to Nightmare on Elm Street 5, we need to skip the skepticism, if possible, or really shorten the fuse on it. Because that’s the least interesting part of the story, to me. We, as viewers, know exactly what’s going on. And we’re just waiting for the main characters to take the leap, assume it’s true, and see what happens.
That’s part one of why this really bothers me: If your character doesn’t believe the horror is real, that’s cool, BUT there has to be a reason for them to not be willing to take a leap. I mean, many, many, many of us have been cozy in bed and asked to get up, go downstairs, and check something. Do I believe that there’s a burglar, ham or otherwise, in our home? No. Even if there was, will I be able to do anything other than be victimized, hopefully just on the level of having a gun pointed at me? Also no. And yet, down I go. Why? Because it’s really not a huge deal to indulge someone in order to help put their fears to rest.
If you’re in a movie, and if someone is pleading with you, swearing, and if that person is pretty normal most of the time, then I think it’s worth your time to say, “Well, if you believe it this much, that’s enough for me to give you a couple hours of my time.”
So, when the horror is happening, I wish more characters would say, instead of, “It’s all in your head,” “If it’s this important to you, then it’s important to me, too.”
The second thing that bothers me, I’m bored. When I know exactly what’s happening and the characters don’t, and when a significant portion of the plot regards the period between the characters noticing the fishy thing and then getting to the level of knowledge I am as a viewer, that’s all boring time.
The real issue is that I’m holding a comic or watching a movie, so I already have an inside track. I know SOMETHING is going to happen. So when people start talking about a spooky barn, I’m pretty sure the spooky barn is really happening. And sadly, I have to wait for the characters to catch up.
It’s a minor gripe, in a way. Gideon Falls doesn’t overdo the waiting part. I just have a low patience for it at all. “