Horror cliches

For our 2 minute opening we were thinking of a horror/thriller genre. Horror movies divide into several very different categories: slasher, zombie, vampire, mainstream horror Asian horror and revolting Eli Roth films. All of these subgenres rely on battle-tested cliches that appear again and again. Indeed, horror is the one genre in which the absence of cliches would ruin everything.

• If the Japanese started making horror movies that did not revolve around creepy little girls who come back from the dead to avenge themselves on other, even creepier little girls, no one would go to see them.
• If there was not somehow a sense in the Saw-style movies that the victims deserved to be dismembered, the genre would implode.
• If zombies didn't constantly turn up in unusual places - convenience stores, high-rise student housing -aficionados would drop the sub-genre just like that.
• And if Vampires weren't likable in some strange, misunderstood, vampiric way, vampire movies would be nowhere near as popular as they are.
• Small children are often in horor movies. When they are not evil they are troubled loners who consort with invisible playmates who are evil. If one hears children humming innocent nursery rhymes in the background, you can bet that someone is being brutally masacarde.
• Teens in horror movies are usuall spoiled brats who deserve to die.
• They are always the products of  broken homes. This is why they are so often home alone. Since horror movies are marketed towards teens, this suggests, teens already understand that everybody wans to see them die, preferably in some hideous fashion.

Horror films work best in rural settings because:

•  rustics are scary themselves, and because there are no neighbours to beg for help.
• Horror movies almost always contain a scene in which a woman washes her face in a sink, and when she straightens up and looks in the mirror, a girl missing half her face is staring directly back at her. If she decides to take a bath, the tub will soon fill up with blood.
• Horror movies also contain lots of scenes in which the living dead or the living un-dead zip past an open door or window, but nobody sees them.
• Its always a bad idea to go to sleep in horror films, or accept a ride from a stranger, or respond to a personal ad.