Freinds that hate each other

[Chainsawmidget]

I've been watching alot of slasher movies lately.  Granted they've never exactly been the pinnacle of logic or characterization, but it astounds me how often a group of people we're told are such great friends go somewhere only to send so much time arguing, fighting, backstabbing, and playing mean pranks on each other. 

I've never understood why people that see to hate each other so much also seem to be so eager to go places and spent time together.  Anybody else ever notice this?

[Couchtr26]

That seems to happen quite a bit.  You wonder how they are friends when they have seemingly superficial issues that bother them.  This is one of those conventions where you are almost wondering if they are silently happy when one dies. 

[Rev. Powell]

Making the victims nasty and unlikable allows the audience a certain sense of satisfaction when they're killed off.

[Jack]

Truly one-dimensional stereotypes don't have enough depth to do anything except butt heads with each other, as their one character trait tends to clash with the one character trait the other person has.  And as any lazy, untalented writer knows, having people argue is the easiest dialogue in the world to write.  Having them engage in friendly banter...oh god.  You'd have to spend upwards of an hour dreaming up actual personalities for these people and then figuring out a whole complex set of relationships between them.  Waaaaaayyyy too much work.   

[Flick James]

Making the victims nasty and unlikable allows the audience a certain sense of satisfaction when they're killed off.

Yep. That's the typical slasher plot device. I'll have to go along with that one.

[Jim H]

Making the victims nasty and unlikable allows the audience a certain sense of satisfaction when they're killed off.

Yep. That's the typical slasher plot device. I'll have to go along with that one.

I do give credit to the Friday the 13th remake for partly addressing this.  The rich scumbag guy everybody hates, the stoner character alludes to only being his friend to take advantage of his material assets.  

I can tell you this certainly happens in real life too.

[66Crush]

I think this conflict makes for good drama. The struggle between different classes and personalities is a story as old as time. It may seem stereotypical, but a story where everybody gets along is boring. When you put people in a volatile situation the best and worst of the personalites come out. Horror is formula. Part of that formula is the audience rooting for certain mean characters to die. It plays into the psyche of alot teenager's, who often don't know who they're real friends are and hang out with people who treat them badly just to fit in. I don't mind the cliche's as long as the filmmaker finds unique ways to tell the story. There are some movies I didn't think I would like at all, because I thought I could predict the outcome. But then a cool plot twist or an inventive new kill would change my mind.

[WildHoosier09]

This is actually a good example of something that comes up in movies all the time.  Whether it be a group of friends or whatever the second the bad-guy shows up and starts killing people they immediately set in to in-fighting and essentially show the worst group dynamics possible.  What always blows my mind is how often they do little to nothing to actually stop the bad-guy.  They either have some ridicoulous escape scheme or they start talking about who got them into this mess.
I have seen people in stressful situations in real-life and what decides whether they deal with it or not is a clear-set goal, if there is no clear-set goal then people fight but if they have a clear-set goal they will (typically) work together to take care of that goal.  for example a really bad storm hit my neighborhood last summer and there was some damage and a bunch of trees and debris blocking the roads/blocking the drainage ditches. Without any chainsaws or any real power equipment (just hand-saws/tools) the people in my neighborhood cut up all the trees laying in the streets and re-opened the streets as well as cleared debris away from the sewer-lines to stop flooding.  This was done in a matter of minutes, no one was leading/directing, people just saw what needed done and they did it.  By the time the cops and "calvary" showed up we pretty much had everything taken care of and all they had to do was get the power company to re-hook up the electrical lines that had been knocked down.  This depends on culture some but ussually if people know what goal needs accomplished they will do it.

In horror movies there couldn't be a more clear-set goal, kill the slasher.  Especially in movies where the slasher isn't immortal, this is simple math. You have 5 people, he has a knife. Five people with even just any random piece of junk in their hands (chair-legs, bricks, whatever) could easily defeat and kill one guy with a knife.  In real life I would more easily picture the 5 victims forming a hunting party and beating the crap out of the slasher.  But then I guess, it wouldn't be a slasher film.