Dialogue/Script Cliches

[Kory]

Great list Burgo... there is one in there that I have to comment on, though.

* Cops work about 20 hours a day, eat Chinese food out of cardboard containers at their desks at 2:00 in the morning, and are awakened in their apartments at the crack of dawn by their partners (who are usually carrying coffee in styrofoam cups)


This is pretty accurate.  20 hour days aren't so unusual (I work 16's quite often), we like our chinese food, and coffee just doesn't taste as good when it isn't in styrofoam.

:)

[AndyC]

Very true. It's almost as if they're trying to sound crazy. Why is it necessary to insist that somebody was killed by a monster, when all it would take to mobilize the authorities would be to say that you saw him attacked? These characters should realize how silly they sound, but the story requires that they be disbelieved, so they tell the crazy truth, in the most unbelievable way possible, and complain that nobody believes it. The original Blob has a great example of this.

Of course, even if the story is unlikely, most real cops would feel obliged to check it out. A reported murder is a serious matter, even if somebody claims a monster did it. Most movie cops don't see it that way, however.

[Mr. Hockstatter]

Same thing when somebody drives up beside someone and tries to push them off the road.  Hey, hit the brakes and watch them fly off the road because you're not there anymore!

And the bad guy hanging on the roof.  Hit the brakes!  They'll still be going 60 mph - it'll be fun to watch!  And your car's tires will screech loudly on the dirt road!

[Kory]

No matter how slow a monster is (i.e. Frankenstien), the monster will ALWAYS catch up to you... even if  you're young and in shape.

When in a haunted house, people will always go into the room with the big scary doors.  Similarly, when lost in a remote area, people will always look into the dark hole or go into the creepy house.

The young couple having pre-marital sex usually get murdered at the beginning of a film.

[Fluffy CatFood]

Nobody has mentioned the cop who lost his partner and now only works alone, then gets a rookie partner, who he treats like dirt at first but then warms to them.
 
The group of phrases to really annoy me are in just about every slasher movie ever made, usually when some female character is alone in a dark place "Tod, is that you"? "c'mon guys, Quit playing around, this isnt funny"  "Who's there"?

[Dave Munger]

Almost every time I see a car chase, I tell the people being chased to put on the breaks (even though I am a caucasian). Sara Conor in Terminator 1 was the first movie character to obey my comand.

I think the running in a straight line thing comes from Cary Grant and the crop duster in "North By Northwest". Even there it seems kind of dumb, although I can see why Hitchcock did it that way, very dramatic and Cary Grant had a cool way of running.

I had a dream one time when I was wee where a monster was chasing me and I ran into some other people. Even in the dream I knew not to tell them it was a monster, I said a guy was chasing me and would kill them too.

[Dave Munger]

A lot of cliches seem to originate in some really good movie everyone tries to copy, like Psycho's shower scene.

Big, sweet retarded guys KILL EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH! From "Of Mice And Men", I think.

I'm guessing the slowly shambling monster comes from an early mummy movie, where spooky emphasis is placed on the mummy representing the inexorable working out of some millenia old curse.

[Susan]

odinn7 wrote:

> Don't forget that when a killer is chasing a woman, 90% of the
> time she's going to fall at least once.
>

i LOVe that, i had forgotten because ..well you don't see many slasher films anymore like in the 80's. I remember we used to pop in those slasher horror films way back when and would see the girl run and give a sideline commentary. "She runs, she trips, she falls. She runs, she trips, she falls!"

Doesn't matter how fast she runs either, the killer can easily stroll and will inevitably catch up to her. Usually he'll end up in front of her becaus eventually she'll stop running and walk backwards looking for the stalker, only to turn around and run into him.

[Fearless Freep]

"She runs, she trips, she falls. She runs, she trips, she falls!"

Which always sorta amused me that "tripping and falling down while being persued" is one heck of a bad survival trait.  If the human race was really that bad we'dve dies out a long time ago.

Under stress, humans tend to get adrenline going which improves senses and reflexes.  The 'fight or flight' reflex works wonders at improving our survival potential.  Movies that show people turning to whimpering, incompentan, jelly when facaed with danger kinda irritate me

Doesn't matter how fast she runs either, the killer can easily stroll and will inevitably catch up to her

I think Ken coined the phrase "Offscreen Teleportation" to describe that.

[Dave Munger]

Dinosaurs tend to breathe fire unless they're especially realistic.

Fire extinguishers are more effective weapons than fire arms are.

CEOs murder more people than mafiosa do.

[peter johnson]

Burgomeister mentions that the monster always gets the janitor at night -- Bill Cosby does a fantastic riff on that fact -- already a cobweb-covered cliche in 1967 -- in "The Chicken Heart"(That Ate New York City) on his "Why is There Air" albumn . . . .the janitor knocks over the vat containing the chicken heart, which immediately grows to enormous size and devours him.  It gets better/weirder from there --
Ulthar bemoans the villain who must speechify the reasons for killing the hero, giving him time to escape.  Remember the scene in "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" wherein some guy comes in on Eli Wallach in a bath & starts to do just that:  "You dirty dog, I've been tracking you for years, you killed my brother, etc. etc.", and Wallach blows him away with a gun he's got under water in the tub with him & says:  "If you're going to talk, talk;  If you're going to shoot, shoot!!"?
And, oh, I'd forgotten how much I despise the "giving birth everywhere" business.  What the hell are you doing on the Amazon Death Cruise in the first place if you're 9 mos. pregnant?!!?!?
Anyway, I've laughed my head off at a lot of these -- keep 'em comin'!!
peter johnson/denny crane

[AlexB]

Cars, especially if driven by the hero, are bulletproof

[Dave Munger]

Cars shot by the hero intantly expode like the Hindenburg.

[Dave Munger]

Pie Chart

Evil overlord list I read a long time ago and thought I might not be able to find anymore.

I like this thread, sue me.

[ulthar]

Dave,

FYI, this phorum does not seem to recognize raw html; if you want to embed links, try the bbs style tags instead.  In each of the examples below, the tags are shown in curly braces, {}, but you would actually use square brackets, [].

To embed a link: {url}linktargeturl{/url} where linktargeturl is the link you want, such as http://www.badmovies.org.

To embed bold, {b}bold text{/b}, such as BOLD TEXT.

For italics, {i}italic text{/i}, such as Italic Text.

And there are some others, too (like for images).

Hope this helps, :)