"OMG, somethings trying to kill us! Instead of leaving or calling the authorities, lets all split up and try to find it!" Also, pointless jump scares.
When they do that in any film; you always know that's going to end badly for crewman #01, but Commander Riker will be OK. Have they never seen Enemy at the Gates? In real life it's always the officers they go for!
This is a problem I have with a lot of superhero TV/movies. People are suddenly gaining the ability to fly? Sure. And invulnerability? Yeah, maybe. And fire generation? Wait, where does that fit- Ice generation? Telekinesis? Astral projection, super-suits, telepathy superhearing light manipulation camouflage ability a tolerance for Lady Gaga the ability to communicate with slow loru- STOP!
Not enough restrictions on the creature. If you cannot restrict a beast, then it is overpowered and far less feasible, and if there are not good reasons for the characters to break these restrictions then it feels weak when they do to force the plot (which is not wise). There's nothing inherently wrong with using age-old tropes, such as vampires and Indian burial grounds, but we need to remember how these tropes came about and why they were so effective. What's even better than that is going to the source of the mystery itself, why did people write about vampires in the first place? What did it have to do with rabies, if anything at all? Alternatively, turn it into Comedy if you think it's become a bit of a meme. Alternatively, write what scares you. Asphyxiation? Torture? Serial Killer? I think what people are fed up of most is writers who don't care about doing their research or character motivations in these genres.
That's would be an interesting twist ending to a ghost story. Our POV character was the ghost, and the "ghosts" were actually the family living in the house! I'm sick of the "ghost with a vendetta" plot, the "cursed object" plot and the "Bloody Mary" plot.
That nobody just pulls up a chair and watches (blank). "I think I keep seeing something move in the mirror." "Oh, let's go down to the basement and see what we can find to answer that."
I don't mind people splitting up, it means more carnage faster. I am more speaking about language, I guess. "I think I keep seeing something move in the mirror." I would say "Let's sit here and watch and see if it happens". I wouldn't run off for answers unless I were sure it was happening. "I keep seeing something move in the mirror." "Ok, let's figure this out." This is a big problem for me in real life. I love to fight (verbally & physically) and use the words spoken to me to rile people up. I know the intent or meaning behind what they are saying, but (here's my cop out) I was raised by an English major and proper English was to be used at all times in our house. As a side rant; I care for an elderly woman and that means lots of news watching. Newscasters can't read a tweet without adding or removing words, and those words change the meaning of what was tweeted (or said, etc).
The way they always show, communicate with, or explain the ghostly thing. The scariest ghosts are the ones you never see.
I wish it wasn't done so often, the people like me who actually try to come up with original ideas for this genre are now stuck by thinking it has already been done before. (Sigh )
Ok, sure, but that scared the dog shit out of me when I saw it in the demo for Clive Barker's Undying. ...Admittedly, that was like 16 years ago now...
I agree. Like in that wizard in The Lord of Rings who one moment seems invulnerable and the next is cringingly helpless. You never know what to expect.
That's the one thing that bugged me about SW, because there was no definitive answer as to who fathered Anakin Skywalker, and I really need to know!
How about the guy in an abandoned house confidently opening closets with a flashlight in one hand and getting axed in the foreheads by Jason. I mean, what does he expect to illuminate in the closet, Grandma Moses?
That kind of silliness shatters the suspension of disbelief and ruins the film for many. It's an insult to audience intelligence. then you have these actors going around with bored expressions on their faces as the universe collapses around them. Are we supposed to feel abnormal because under the same circumstances we would panic?
How about Superman being able to move the moon from orbit in one picture while struggling to stop a commercial airliner from hitting the ground in another?
That's because commercial airliners are frail things, easy to rip apart. It's like the difference between redirecting a bowling ball and a soap bubble. Or something like that, but yeah, you're right.
No, you are right. Some parts of the airplane were giving way under the structural stress. So Superman couldn't just bring it to a sudden halt but had to gradually ease it to the ground. It also had passengers who could have been injured by the sudden deceleration.
It's in the film Superman Returns. Some surfaces of the airliner were buckling where he was exerting pressure and other parts that he grabbed were detaching themselves.
Most of the things I can think of have already been said, but I have read a couple of horror novels where people try to put jump scares in them which just doesn't work when you're reading. I loved the Ring books by Koji Suzuki because it has full characters, a really interesting story and he knows how to send shivers up your spine. Then you see what they got made into with the Hollywood films and while they are a bit of fun they're just basic horror cliches.