At some point, “That makes no sense” stopped being a criticism and became part of the horror experience.
The Fine Print of Horror Logic
There are certain things you simply have to accept if you're going to be a horror fan.
You have to accept that the basement light will never work properly. You have to accept that nobody owns a flashlight with batteries that were manufactured sometime this century. You have to accept that a character will hear a noise from the darkest, most obviously cursed room in the house and immediately decide that investigating it is a perfectly reasonable use of their evening.
And you absolutely have to accept that the phrase “I'll be right back” is practically a legally binding contract with Death.
Horror has never exactly been a genre built around sensible decision-making. If horror characters behaved like ordinary people, an awful lot of movies would be approximately twelve minutes long.
“There's something screaming in the basement.”
“Okay.”
“Should we investigate?”
“No.”
“Should we call the police?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
THE END.
Congratulations. You have just watched the world's shortest horror movie.
Instead, horror gives us people who walk directly toward danger while the audience is sitting there screaming at the television like an increasingly frustrated football coach.
And after decades of movies, television shows and video games, horror fans have learned to accept an astonishing number of things that would be completely ridiculous anywhere else.
So grab your flashlight, ignore every warning sign you've ever seen and let's take a look at 25 of them.
