B-movie plots/hooks that you detest.

[SynapticBoomstick]

Is there a type of tried and tested x infinity b-movie hook that you can't stand? A plot line that you wish the genre could do without? Stories that make you get out a magnifying glass in a vain attempt to find any link to horror or science fiction?

I've got three big ones that chew at my brain:

Killer Weather/Other Movies - lightning, snow, waves, quakes, floods, the whole lot. There's no enemy to fight, no danger to avert, nothing. "Mack, there's a cyclone heading for the town at 55 mph and we can't stop it." "You go out and try to warn people. Meantime, I'll stay here at the station with the bit actors and get into an awkward situation with the lead female role." They aren't fun, they aren't interesting, they just plain aren't.

Killer Insect Movies - "But why? Giant killer insects are cool!" Yes, giant killer insects are cool, as long as they're giant. These aren't. A swarm of mosquitoes, ahh!, A swarm of killer bees, ahh! A swarm of fire ants, ahh! Get the general picture? Just like the last one, this isn't a movie, it's a news event, albeit a fake, directed one.

Giant Snake Movies - I love giant snake movies! Sinister, emotionless, scaly killers that can digest the better part of a small cast in under the first hour. Yet unbelievably, just like a nymphomaniac, they can get boring if there are too much of them. "We need your giant snake to kill our giant snake." That was the last time it was fun (aside from Komodo VS Cobra). After that you're just better off evacuating the base and opening the doors so that the snake will crawl out into the Antarctic weather and freeze to death. I don't really count Basilisk: The Serpent King because that was obviously a Wyvern and it was just a big dumb monster picture (the BEST kind). Other than that, giant snakes may need a break for a good shedding before they make another appearance.

So, how about you? Another round for the table.

[akiratubo]

Devil movies.  They just never seem to work.

Movies in which the monster only has a cameo, and/or is too easily defeated.  If the monster is going to be mostly offscreen for 2/3-3/4 of the movie, it better not just show up to get killed.

[LilCerberus]

Serial killer movies that can't decide whether they want to be a horror flick or a mystery movie. The kind that spend their entire runtime emphasizing one disagreeable twerp or angry victim, only for the killer to wind up being somebody that had no mention other than a rather transparent cameo somewhere in the middle of the movie.

[SynapticBoomstick]

Serial killer movies that can't decide whether they want to be a horror flick or a mystery movie. The kind that spend their entire runtime emphasizing one disagreeable twerp or angry victim, only for the killer to wind up being somebody that had no mention other than a rather transparent cameo somewhere in the middle of the movie.

Reminds me of The Bone Collector.

[LilCerberus]

Reminds me of The Bone Collector.

I haven't seen that one, but I was thinking along the lines of Too Scared to Scream or Nail Gun Massacre.

[BeyondTheGrave]

I never really liked "Evil Child Movies". Because it always the same. Mom/Dad get hurt mysteriously and their son/daughter is like 9 years old is watching them with dead eyes and no facial expression.

If I can give you away to a orphanage or beat you physically with a swtich your not scary.

[peter johnson]

Not to be argumentative, but I immediately thought of a tiny insect swarm thang that WAS scary and entertaining:  The tiny insect swarm episode of "The X-Files" -- I'm not fannish enough to have the episode name memorized --
And, dang it, I do too love giant snake bad movies -- Okay, I can see your point that maybe there are just too many of them -- I feel the same way about zombie movies -- but I've really never seen a bad giant snake movie that didn't give me some cheap thrills and great laughs -- I own quite a few, with their terrible terrible CGI that makes the snake float over the ground instead of actually crawling!!  No, I still love that sort of Cheepniz --
Aside from zombie movies -- too many of them/tired of them/Sean of the Dead really has the last word -- I get fed up with the Ominous Book convention.  You know:  Someone finds an old book or old something or other & reads aloud from it & All Hell Breaks Loose!!  "Night of The Demon" and Hammer's "The Devil Rides Out" do it well -- 99% of the other films I see try this fail boringly . . .
peter johnson/denny wait!  don't read that aloud!!  aaaaaiiiieeee!!!!! . . .

[SynapticBoomstick]

"You musn't read from the book!"

I agree that giant snakes are still entertaining, at least to a degree, but I'm not excited by the idea of them as much as I once was.

As for argumentative, that's the whole point of forums

[Snivelly]

I never have liked giant snake movies either, I despised Anaconda and everything made since has just been a bad knock-off.

I'm sick of watching movies that rip off the plot of Jaws, just set in a different locale.  Every monster or anomalous animal movie I've caught on Sci-Fi lately has been like this, such as Maneater or Eye of the Beast. 

[Torgo]

Any B movie in which the audience is actually ahead of the characters in the film in terms of what is really going on and you have to wait for them to play catch up.

[Mr. DS]

1.) The spooky kid who can sense things.  Ever since Haley Joel Osment things have taken a rather awful ride in this hook.

2.) The shock ending.  I hate when evil is vanquished and yet in the last two minutes one of the survivors are killed and the monster is still alive.


3.)

Movies in which the monster only has a cameo, and/or is too easily defeated.  If the monster is going to be mostly offscreen for 2/3-3/4 of the movie, it better not just show up to get killed.

I hate these hooks as well.  Especially when the monster gets headlined in the title of the movie.

[Dave M]

The monster or the dangerous thing mentioned in the title either fading into the background in the second half (like the infected people in 28 Days Later), or just being kind of a backdrop for a little soap opera plot all along (Titanic, Pearl Harbor). It's like they're following the old "you can't make a movie about _____, movies are really about human relationships and feelings and stuff" rule a little too slavishly. From what I hear, that's what went wrong with the Transformers movie. Instead of emphasising the essentially human characters of the Autobots, since they're TECHNICALLY not human, the movie has to be about some other people who LITTERALLY are human.

The downbeat ending that feels obligatory, like they're afraid us horror nerds will call them sellouts on all the message boards if any of the main characters survive.

[the ghoul]

1.  Movies that are just a dream, or all in a character's imagination like in "Godzilla's Revenge," the worst Godzilla film ever (not counting the mis-named Hollywood travesty).

2.  Movies where the monster turns out to be a hoax like in "The Beach Girls and the Monster."

[Yaddo 42]

I hate disater movies so count me on the hate for natural disaster movies and swarms of normal size bugs.

A group of teens/students/reform school bait/rehab folks/outward bound group/corporate retreat/friends on a bonding experience/National Guard soldiers/etc. out in nature. it's just an excuse to get another batch of monster/killer chow together, run around, fall down, act scared, and get killed.

The retired expert/best we ever had brought back (often under duress) for one more job. Never gets too rusty to do the job even if he drinks, lets himself go, isn't up on how things have changed, or just doesn't give a damn anymore.

Female vampires/succubi named Lilith, and no one ever picks up on it. More points off if the hero is named Adam, because that's original.

Not a plot hook, but b-movies have really begun to feast on themselves when they all have a character who has seen plenty of b-movies or is a wannabe filmmaker (mini digital camera included for stupid POV shots). I also long ago got sick of real film directors being used for character or place names, it just takes me out of the picture.

NAPH either but: Forrest Ackerman cameos. Go the hell away, it quit being cute decades ago, and you tried to bring Perry Rhodan books to America.

[SynapticBoomstick]

A group of teens/students/reform school bait/rehab folks/outward bound group/corporate retreat/friends on a bonding experience/National Guard soldiers/etc. out in nature. it's just an excuse to get another batch of monster/killer chow together, run around, fall down, act scared, and get killed.

The retired expert/best we ever had brought back (often under duress) for one more job. Never gets too rusty to do the job even if he drinks, lets himself go, isn't up on how things have changed, or just doesn't give a damn anymore.

Not a plot hook, but b-movies have really begun to feast on themselves when they all have a character who has seen plenty of b-movies or is a wannabe filmmaker (mini digital camera included for stupid POV shots). I also long ago got sick of real film directors being used for character or place names, it just takes me out of the picture.

Old as it is, I doubt the group-clusterf--k movie will ever go anywhere since they're just too damn easy to make. I also totally forgot about the ex-hero; there's this "great" Steven Baldwin movie called Active Stealth that falls nicely into that category. It's that kind of b-grade military movie that you just keep watching over and over for no reason that can be explained rationally. On that third point, i know what you mean but i can't remember any of those film names; having a b-movie fanatic in a b-movie is like the old "what do you think, this is a movie?" joke. Not all that funny.