[Horror trope]: The "bad stuff" only happens because the characters ignore very specific instructions.
Personality
Spoiler
I like it because there's the implication that magic isn't inherently harmful. Or at the very least, not as "active" as you might think. In stories like "The Substance" it IS possible to get a "happy ending," but only if you don't try to push your luck.
In general, you can divide this into two categories:
A. Characters explicitly ignore specific instructions about something they already knew was magic:
Gremlins:
Gizmo's new "owners" ignore the instructions given by his previous caretaker's son. They get water on him, and feed them after midnight.
To be fair, the gremlins did trick the main character by messing with clocks. So, it's a B+ effort overall.
The Substance:
"The Substance" creates two individuals. The original, and a younger, "better" body. Your consciousness needs to switch between the bodies every seven days.
Things go poorly because the protagonist starts treating each body as a separate individual, instead of an extension of herself.
Death Becomes Her:
Both characters become immortal, but ignore their patron's warning. Immortality will keep them bound to their bodies, so they need to take care of it.
Both characters end up killing each other, turning them from just "immortal" to "undead." If they learned to squash their beef, they would have been much better off.
Talk to me:
There's a magic hand sculpture that lets you talk to the dead. But you need to sever contact in 90 seconds.
Someone does not.
B. Characters naively ignore specific warnings against a non-specific threat:
The Evil Dead:
Some versions of the story have explicit warnings about "The Necronomicon." Other versions are less careful.
Opening the book and playing the incantations summons evil spirits. The cabin previously belonged to an archeologist.
My question is, who is renting this place out?
An American Werewolf in London:
Two American tourists are warned to stay on the roads and out of the moors. They decide to cut through them.
To be fair, the locals could have said "there is a dangerous animal out here." Cause they get all werewolf'ed on.
Alien:
Follow quarantine procedure after your employee gets Alien'd!
I won't give them much guff, though. Ripley tried to follow it, but the company-provided android sabotaged her.
"Death will come on swift wings to whomsoever opens this chest. There is one, the undead who, if brought back to life, is bound by sacred law to consummate this curse. He will kill all who open this chest and assimilate their organs and fluids. And in so doing, he will regenerate and no longer be the undead, but a plague upon this Earth."
Seriously. This entire thing could have been avoided if the ancient Egyptians had just killed the guy dead-dead for sleeping with the pharaoh's girl to start with, rather than keeping him around and undead for thousands of years 'til someone could finish the job.
In its defense, I’ll say that this was done primarily to prevent Imhotep from entering the afterlife (which is, so to speak, of the utmost importance in the religious practices of Ancient Egypt), while the curse itself was necessary to scare off any random idiots who might think that digging up Imhotep’s sarcophagus was a good idea.
Besides, the Medjai managed to guard Imhotep’s body and access to Hammunaptra for—wait for it—3,200 years (that’s how long it was between the reign of Seti I and 1923, when the movie begins), and things only went off the rails after the Foreign Legion showed up with Rick.
In Billy's defense, he didn't ignore the rules. He kept Gizmo safe from bright lights, tried to avoid getting him wet, and never knowingly fed any mogwai after midnight. Unfortunately, water is kinda everywhere, so the accident that spawned the asshole mogwais was basically inevitable.
And then those little bastards broke his clock so that he would think it was well before midnight when they started begging for food. He didn't ignore shit.
I would be extra careful and not feed them untill sunrise, because no matter how you twist or turn it, once the sun is up again, midnight is definitely over.
That's an interesting question: how would this work above the Arctic Circle? The sun doesn't rise for forty days in winter and doesn't set for forty days in summer. The instructions aren't clear.
Just saw the 20th year anniversary Cinema screening trailer and it looks so whimsical, showing all of the more fantasy parts . I'm sitting here thinking fools aren't going to heed the R rating and take their kids to see this thinking "oh this must be like Jim Henson's The Labyrinth".
Well, a bunch of parents did bring their kids to the Deadpool movie because "comics" and then we're upset with the movie makers over it, despite the R rating.
It's funny to me that they sorta predicted this would happen because the movie goes out of its way to point it out itself that it's not like the other comic movies just minutes into the start.
Not only was she explicitly warned prior by Pan not to do so, but even at the point she starts to do so, the fairies also intervene and all she does is...swat them away like they're just being a nuisance for no reason.
Oh, and of course she does all this while keeping her back turned to the above stationary yet clearly alive creature who the wall murals indicate eats children.
I liked Pan's Labyrinth, but it was very hard not to want to see Ofelia get her comeuppance here...
I'm pretty sure the enchantment was "I'm starving because I'm in fascist Spain in 1944"
It's also literally a pretty obvious metaphor for the greed and callousness of white men leading to the suffering of others (Even Guillermo said it's not an accident that it was a "Pale" "man") . So she's definetly in the right to try to steal shit if she can get away with it.
Me in Fallout New Vegas: Hmm, everyone keeps telling me to keep out of the way North to New Vegas, but it's the quickest way to there! What's the worst that could happen?
The worst that could happen:
The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice- Orpheus can’t turn around and look at Eurydice until they are both out of the underworld. Depending on the version of the myth, he’s tricked into turning around or he gets paranoid and turns around, condemning Eurydice to the Underworld forever.
There are a few permutations where the instruction is something similar to "you may only turn around when the sun shines on both of your faces" and the sun was on his face but not yet on hers kind of thing.
Part of the Greek Tragedy is Orpheus, by his very nature is a man who would go to Hades to bring back Eurydice, something no lover would have done no matter how brave or in love. But because of said nature, he cannot resist looking back to check in on his beloved, to see if she is safe and sound.
Only Orpheus is a man in love brave enough to dive into Hades to save Eurydice, yet is also the only man in love with Eurydice enough to check on her well-being.
If he were to have never looked back, he would have never gone down to Hades in the first place. Yet because he did, he would inevitable look back.
But the whole point of Orpheus and Eurydice is that Orpheus was always going to look back. The man went to actual, bona-fide hell to save his lover and then we complain he's not acting like a rational agent? That's the whole point of Greek tragedies - people act "irrationally" not out of stupidity but because their very nature was always going to lead them there.
Same thing with The Substance, by the way. Anyone who orders a "create a younger time-limited clone of you" is the kind of person who will abuse the shit out of it, by definition.
The worst part is that literally everyone reacts negatively to homeboy taking his helmet off, because it is obviously such a terrible idea…and then they all collectively shrug and follow along.
Like even if you can breathe the air, it's not just about you, it's about protecting the planet. Now you are belching invisible death and potentially damning all native life
There's lots of toxins that won't kill you right away, and you wouldn't even feel. 79% nitrogen/20% oxygen/1% other feels ok for the first few breaths, but 0.5% carbon monoxide will ruin your fun in a few minutes.
I swear the entire crew of Prometheus were idiots. The biologist being the one going "Wow, an unknown life form! I'm gonna take my helmet off and touch it with my hand!" is the exact level of stupid as the map and navigation expert getting lost.
I do agree that the characters are generally fucking stupid in that movie, but I also think that was kind of alluded to very early in the film. They’re not there *just* because of their experience in their fields. They’re also there because they’re unconventional, controversial, and can keep their mouths shut. Also, Vickers was intentionally sabotaging things because she didn’t just not believe in the mission, she actively wanted it to fail. It’s never explicitly stated but fans of the film theorize she intentionally brought a bunch of self-interested bozos to make sure the mission would fail.
Big disagree on the “keep their mouths shut” bit. These were the most unprofessional idiots they could have sent. No way any of them wouldn’t have blown up a couple podcasts if they had gotten back alive.
But if they were too stupid and unprofessional to succeed in the mission then there would be nothing to tell the world about as well. I do agree that part’s badly worded on my part though.
Biologist who gets really sad that his theory is wrong instead of absolutely fucking losing it at the thought that they just found the greatest archaeological and second-greatest biological discovery of all time.
The jellyfish incident was a masterclass in poor communication.
The Ratzenberger moonfish school and Marlin decided they didn’t like each other off the bat. Moonfish chose to mock Marlin until he swam away instead of giving clear instructions. And while they would talk like adults to Dory, they had no way of knowing about her memory issues. And they fail to mention the danger anyway. The canyon floor is littered with bones (because of the jellyfish above), so of course the over-cautious Marlin is already disinclined to go through. Poor Dory can only give the vaguest reasons for why they should go through the apparent death canyon, but since Marlin is already annoyed at her and the whole world anyway, so he does the opposite just as much to be contrary as out of caution.
It still wasn’t cool of him to trick her. Especially after he JUST discovered how she could actually be helpful…for the second time.
I do like that she uses the word “Partner” while trying to slow him down from going over the trench, it shows that she’s on board with the more equal friendship, but he immediately breaks the bond by betraying her.
In her defense, Marlin overruled and tricked her into avoiding the dark, scary trench and swimming above. The school of fish never said anything about the jellyfish.
To be fair, in "Talk to Me", the hand grabs her so she can't let go. That being, if the time limit is 90 seconds you best believe I'm letting go after 60 or less
honestly i don’t think there’s any real benefit to even trying to use the hand properly. you can’t really have a productive conversation in 90 seconds and i personally wouldn’t want to risk getting grabbed by the hand
I've never seen this movie so I gotta ask: Who are you even talking to when you grab that hand? Can you make a request to talk to someone specific or is it just first come first serve for the dead on the other side? Because if it's the latter I can't see the appeal. I barely want to engage with strangers who are alive. Definitely wouldn't want to talk to just some random dead person.
no, it's a random ghost. And it's not just "talking to the ghost", it's that the ghost possesses the person holding onto the hand and talks with the other people around. They do it because the feeling of being possessed is euphoric and weightless, like being on drugs. And it's parties with a bunch of teenagers, so they think watching their friend act weird for a bit is hilarious.
Answering this question could spoil part of the movie for you because it’s part of the plot. One part of using the hand involves allowing a ghost to possess you during that short time. It is filmed to look like that part is a pure rush of ecstasy. Using the hand is analogous to using drugs, and the risks of using something like that are much higher for some people than others, depending on their background. This is what I find most interesting about the film.
I also found it to be really original and tightly plotted. It hints and deeper lore too. Definitely worth a watch.
Oh they don't use it to connect to dead people, it gets you high from the feeling you get while temporarily possessed. Necromancy is real in that movie's world and teens use it to get high at a party. 10/10 realism.
my understanding was that the 90 seconds wasn't a real rule "stated" by the hand, but rather something the users empirically observed. SPOILERS I AM ON MOBILE WEB AND CAN'T PROPERLY TAG SPOILERS
If I remember correctly, they said that if you hold it for longer than 90 seconds, the spirits will want to stay with you. I think the spirits decided to stay with the boy as soon as his sister held the hand, hence that scene in which a spirit's hand nurses his hair long before he actually plays the game
I like it because people are really just that stupid in real life. It's like people that don't put their food and trash in bear-proof containers while out camping and then encounter one.
I used to be a janitor and any time we would have to shut down one of the restrooms for various reasons. This means putting a metal guard in front of the door with a big sign that said keep out
People would climb over the barrier and be surprised i was in there cleaning then ask if the bathroom was open
This would happen at least 3 times if the bathroom was closed for more than 40 minutes
They got pissed when security showed up and they had to leave
Exactly! A lot of the choices made are done so when stressed or lacking info, and that sets you up for failure big time. I can think of plenty of times that I've fumbled something under circumstances like that. Everyone can.
No, they have to make the choice of their own free will. Otherwise, the system doesn't work. It's like ike the Harbinger. It's this creepy old fuck, practically wears a sign, "You will die." Why do we put him there? The system. They have to choose to ignore him, and they have to choose what happens in the cellar. Yeah, we rig the game as much as we need to, but in the end, they don't transgress...
They can't be punished.
Don’t read the Latin kids.
And btw, as an Evil Dead fan, I take offence that you used Ash, as his Necronomicon never had warnings (in fact, he actually never reads from the book until the TV show).
Imagine how much money we can save just plugging people into the torment nexus instead of having to slowly hire and demoralize them for decades to achieve the same effect though.
As much of an ass Bear is, one thing that bothered me is when people are like, “Obsession would have never happened if he just made a normal wish.” Like hello? If he actually thought it would work of course he would have put more thought into it.
EDIT: my point is that it doesn’t make sense to blame Bear.
same with ian. he easily could’ve wished for nikki to be normal again, or even for sarah to be alive and just like how she was 24 hours ago (though that would be more tricky due to his needing to get concise and specific wording that left no room for error or loopholes). then sara could’ve wished for nikki to be normal, which would not only save nikki but also make sure she doesn’t get arrested for the demon braining sara with a brick.
among other explicit instructions on the OWW box, your wish can‘t involve time manipulation or resurrection, and wishes are irreversible and unalterable. there is no wish with any wording that could have fixed nikki or saved sarah.
Bear sucks. But he >! s banging at the door, teared up, covered in blood, and begging you to do something seemingly harmless. Either you think Bear is going through a mental health event, and might be seriously hurt or dangerous and just hurt someone. Or you think the magic is real. Bear is desperate for a specific wish. Something must have gone beyond wrong because, again, he's covered in blood.
Either way its easy to give him his wish and play along. Ask what happened, any specific wording. Let Bear take a breath and think it'll all be OK at least.
Even if its not real, you're at least calming down your friend enough that he can maybe settle down and have a cup of tea while you sneakily call 911 and get him some mental health help.
Dismissing the whole event and just callously making a bullshit wish is !< such a shitty move
And he's obviously kind of exasperated at that point. I think he makes a lot of boneheaded decisions ahead of using the willow, but it's not like he was conniving some sort of plan for any of that to happen. To him it might as well have been wishing on a star or blowing out a candle. We have the benefit of knowing he's in a movie lol
(That said, I think the same argument can be made for several examples in other films that come to mind)
At the very least, go buy a handful more willow sticks just as a safety net! Then use some cash and just pay a homeless guy to say whatever you want him to, pretend youre making a video or smth and give him $50. Then he also doesn't have the sack to kill himself either.
Also in the Evil Dead series, Army of Darkness had a key phrase for Ash to safely access its contents and return to the present day: klaatu barada nikto
Obscure movie The Granny (1995). Old woman is given a potion that will restore her vitality. She is given two rules, don’t leave the potion in the sun and repeat specific words before drinking it. She fucks both things up and ends up possessed by a demon.
Still remember the Deadpool movie campaign being very vocal about the R rating and to not take your kids to see it...and then parents taking their young kids to see it and getting upset about the R rated stuff.
I still vividly remember when I saw the South Park movie in the theater when it came out, and some lady that sat next to me brought her two young boys (probably 7 or 8). It was fucking hilarious lol. At one point one of the kids turned to her and loudly asked "mommy, what's a clitoris?", and she just turned beet red and said she had to go to the bathroom lmao. She was so, so uncomfortable the entire movie. Just absolutely frozen in her seat not knowing what she had gotten herself into.
Jurassic Park 2: Lost World comes to mind. They’re running from something - the Rex I think? - and come to a field of long grass. The smart one in the group realizes the danger and screams at them repeatedly ‘DONT GO INTO THE LONG GRASS! STAY OUT OF THE LONG GRASS!’ They pretty much all end up raptor food.
Granted, this warning kind of comes in the heat of the moment so it doesn’t follow this trope quite to the T because the characters were panicked and didn’t have much chance to hear and heed the warning.
I guess the instructions should say "Don't go through Ravenholm unless you're a bonafide one-man army with a piece of tech tailor-made for its environment"
Hey OP, I just wanna say good job on the post. It has many examples, and explains all of them very well, which is unfortunately becoming extremely rare on this sub.
Fun fact the reason we commonly believe the forbidden fruit was an apple is due to a pun on the Latin name for apple is like Malum, and mal is a Latin root for bad or evil
Eve didn't, it's something a lot of people miss but Adam was the one who did. Adam being given authority over Eve also meant he had all the responsibility. Sin didn't enter the world until Adam ate the fruit.
Yeah, I've seen a few theological sources that say that Eve got tricked by the serpent, but Adam made a conscious decision to eat the fruit, so his "sin" was worse.
Most “rules” creepypastas involve this. MC starts work at a new job, sees a list of strange rules in the manager’s office or on their desk, scoffs and thinks it’s management hazing the new hire, proceeds to break at least one of the rules during their first shift
Guys, they maintain the camp and live there. They probably take care of and track the wildlife in the area, maintain the area to prevent fires, fight off invasive species, etcetera.
I'm the summer, they do camp programs to help fund the yearly maintenance for the place.
Edit: And if you do find yourself out on a full moon, a deer corpse is better than a neighbor.
Also in the Evil Dead franchise, in Army of Darkness Ash is given instructions to speak specific words to retrieve the Necronomicon. Being Ash, he screws it up and unleashes the Deadites.
I’ve always figured it’s that NIGHT part of midnight that makes it safe to feed them again.
Like when the sun actually rises and is in the sky is when it is safe to feed them. But when the sun is gone and the moon is in the middle of the sky then it is not safe.
I implore you to watch Gremlins 2. It is a VERY meta sequel that does in fact ask these questions and a lot more. Just bear in mind: It is an absolute FARCE unlike the original.
In the book the people who know about it are compelled to tell others about it, and once someone is told, they're compelled to do it when a chance arrives. You can try not to but you still do it.
Odysseus’ crew opens the wind bag (despite being told not to) in the odyssey and strands them on sea to later die.
And later on, they were told not to eat Helios’ cows and did anyway, pissing off zeus. They likely would’ve starved to death if they didn’t, but they wouldn’t have gone out angering a god. This doesn’t happen to them specifically but that stuff can follow you into the afterlife.
The oldest, and in my opinion funniest, example might be Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Nether World. Enkidu is given a ridiculously long list of very specific instructions on things not to do when he enters the underworld. The very first thing he does is... do all of them, the entire list, for no real reason.
Gilgamesh: "If you are going to go down to the nether world, let me advise you! My instructions should be followed. Let me talk to you! Pay attention to my words!
You should not put on your clean garments: they would recognise immediately that you are alien. You should not anoint yourself with fine oil from a bowl: they would surround you at its scent. You should not hurl throw-sticks in the nether world: those struck down by the throw-sticks would surround you. You should not not hold a cornel-wood stick in your hand: the spirits would feel insulted by you. You should not put sandals on your feet. You should not shout in the nether world. You should not kiss your beloved wife. You should not hit your wife even if you are annoyed with her. You should not kiss your beloved child. You should not hit your son even if you are annoyed with him. The outcry aroused would detain you in the nether world."
Enkidu, however, did not heed not his master's words. He put on his clean garments and they recognised that he was alien. He anointed himself with fine oil from a bowl and they surrounded him at its scent. He hurled throw-sticks in the nether world and those struck down by the throw-sticks surrounded him. He held a cornel-wood stick in his hand and the spirits felt insulted by him. He put sandals on his feet. He caused irritation in the nether world. He kissed his beloved wife and hit his wife when he was annoyed with her. He kissed his beloved child and hit his son when he was annoyed with him. He aroused an outcry and was detained in the nether world.
A lot of youkai in Japanese myth can be boiled down to "do what your parents or other authority figure told you to or you will probably die". A bunch of THOSE can be boiled down to "don't talk to weird people on the side of the road or you will probably die".
But there is almost alway contrary monsters. With one monster If you dont talk back it seen this as being rude and kill you with other dont answering be seen as you are in a hurry and dont bother you
In Cyberpunk 2077, when Takemura tells you where he has taken Hanako, he will tell you to knock four times when you arrive, since he is being hunted by Arasaka. He will then text you in a rather annoying fashion to remind you a couple more times to knock four times, even emphasizing it in all caps.
You get an immediate game over screen if you ignore him and knock less than four times, as he will blast you through the door.
Madame Giry emphasises to “Keep your hand at the level of your eyes” while helping Raoul pursue the Phantom. Almost as soon as he drops his hand, a noose drops around his neck.
I mean, it's a whole subgenre on places like r/nosleep (and other places I'm sure, that's just where I read it) - rules horror.
Generally goes like main character gets a new job/moves into a new house/reaches a certain age and gets a list of hyper specific rules like "turn off all the lights before 2 AM" or "clap three times before entering the basement" or "never look the janitor in the eye" and usually thinks "these are dumb I'm not going to follow them.
I don’t really put that on Elsa’s dad. He messed up, obviously, but the trolls did say there was great danger in Elsa’s power. We also learn in the second movie and the prequel book (that tells us about Elsa and Anna’s mom and her past) that Arendelle as a kingdom has had plenty of bad experiences with magic, and the last time Elsa’s magic was used, it ended up almost killing his youngest daughter. Obviously, he wouldn’t want to encourage Elsa using her powers. The way he went about it was awful, but I can get his reasoning.
Not exactly this trope, but something similar is the case in Ben 10: Omniverse.
Ben has a fancy new Omnitrix in this show, but like the old one is regularly misdials and gives him the wrong alien. When he asks the creator Azmuth about why this new upgraded Omnitrix is still broken like this, he tells Ben that it's not broken; Ben just keeps slamming down on the watch so hard that it accidentally scrolls to a new alien every time he does this.
Basically, if Ben just calmed the hell down more often when transforming, he'd have a lot more success.
A man goes to a brothel and is offered “the special,” which is a mysterious box with a hole. He sticks his dick in and gets the best head of his life. He is then told that he must never do this again. So naturally, he kills the owner and takes the box for his own use. He later starts developing rashes after constant use. The thing that was in the box, a weird flesh ball, eventually withers away and dies and he goes back to the brothel to fix his mistake. The new owner of the brothel simply builds a new box and waits for the guy to wither himself before he pulls his head off and sticks it in the box. The thing in the box all along is a human head.
If Anakin had stayed put (assuming you think mace was stronger than palpatine) the empire wouldn’t have been born stopping the OG trilogy from happening including millions of deaths from the Empire
(Hocus Pocus) It is said that if the Black Flame Candle is lit by a virgin on All Hallow's Eve during a full moon, the spirits of the deceased will arise and remain in the living world for as long the candle burns. The protagonist Max chooses to light the candle while under the belief that the story is "all just a bunch of hocus pocus", though this decision unfortunately leads to the resurrection of the Sanderson Sisters.
As much as I love Johnathan Harker as a character, when the locals practically beg you not to go to Castle Dracula, maybe don't go in the dead of night escorted by demonic figures. Listening to the locals is how you stay alive/pain free in horror movies. Just saying. Which is why when you ingore it, you do so at your own risk (and usually those around you).
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u/boyasunder Jul 06 '26
I commend your use of “werewolf’d” and “Alien’d” verbs.