From Robert Scucci
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Modern technology has Horror filmmakers who are stuck, address the use of cell phones and create one of the most annoying film tropics I have ever seen. Think about how many protagonists could be spared if you had a functioning GPS, 911 on a speed selection or even a “deep focus” change on Spotify, with which you could control your breathing, be hidden in a closet. This relatively new horror film trope holds its ugly head in any way, in some form or form, often to the disadvantage of storytelling, since the use of cell phones must be addressed or there would be no conflict if filmmakers would ignore the elephant in ignorie. Room.
Cancel the cell phone
After you watch The conference And The mouse trapI noticed a pattern in modern horror films that I can no longer ignore. This is the trope, in which characters are giving away the existence of cell phones and their willingness to give them away so that they can remain defenseless when things heat up.
Both films have an identical exchange to address the horror mobile phone mobile phone Trope, but they are treated very differently.
The conferenceThe problem leads to the problem during a work -related team building in a rural location. A day ago full of raft building and tears, the group leader can ask each participant to put their cell phones in a safe box, which makes the horror trope credible in this context. I am ready to expose you to unbelief because I did on stupid working trips like this and nobody would like to fall his iPhone into a lake and pay the ass for a replacement.
The same exact trope is treated in The mouse trap In a way that gives me the feeling that the characters are quickly shot in a quick exchange to address the cell phone trope in order to keep things in motion as if we wanted to say: “Hey, we are obvious In the fiction of a slasher, let’s put all of our phones in a pocket and lock them up to make it completely inaccessible before we get everyone murdered. “”
While both films mentioned above fall into the horror comedy genre and should not be taken too seriously, use the same cell phone trop with very different results. The former exchange is credible, while the latter feels like a copy that brings me out of the film.
It is your fault that you are put to death, you stupid idiot!
One of the most satisfactory (and most terrible) horror deaths I have ever seen BackcountryWhen Alex (Jeff Roop) treats the cell phone trope in one of the most idiotic species. Worried that his girlfriend Jen (Missy Pereigym) would spend too much time to answer work -related questions while he wanders in the deep wilderness, where he wants to suggest after finding his favorite lake of childhood (of course without a card), Alex secretly grabs her cell phone and leaves it in her parked car before you drive into the forest, where bear attacks are a legitimate danger that should not be taken easily. Spoiler alarm, Alex is not the nature lover he thinks of it is and he gets his face torn down.
Backcountry Processes the horror film cell phone in a credible way, but the film also undermines itself because every terrible thing that happens to the couple in the forest is 100 percent Alex ‘to blame, “she won’t get married now!” In the second, I realized that they were not in danger if Alex did not leave the cell phone.
While Alex had good intentions and only wanted to have a perfect romantic short vacation with his girlfriend, he was ultimately torn into pieces and lost his girlfriend without a cell phone without an access in the forest. If Jen only brought her cell phone and said: “Hey, we don’t have bars”, I would not have to believe that Alex ‘death was the result of being raised by his own Petard.
Let the antagonists make the heavy lifting
Especially edge barrel Had the right idea when the house invaders used a signal study to disturb the cell phone service of everyone on a radius that they were sure that nobody would escape. Each character of the house party with a cell phone at the same time meets the same problem, and Brad (Cory Kays) confirms a short dialog liner that the attackers have jammed the signal. The horror film handy trope is quickly addressed without getting the viewer out of the film, The Bloodbath begins and Bing, Bang, Boom, many people die.
Fear, Inc.. Also does a great job to work the mobile phones in his horror act without being a direct allusion to the trope, but integrating the technology into storytelling in order to increase its tension. After Joe hired the title company that transforms his life into an allegedly simulated slasher alb dream, Joe 911 calls on his cell phone without knowing you reveal exactly the people who try to kill him.
Classics and period pieces do not have to deal with it
One of the reasons why I got dressed for horror films in the early Aughts, the late 90s or earlier, is that the cell phone trope is not a problem. When the country lines were still omnipresent, a murderer had to cut the power supply and boom without phones. It was made so seamless that they didn’t even have to think about it.
Is there a serial killer or murderer at large? Well, you will make a threatening call from a coin phone while talking through a license, and if you move quickly enough, there is no way for the authorities to track them down. Could you imagine if Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode had a direct possibility, Dr. To contact Samuel James Loomis (Donald face) in Halloween? The film would be over before it even started.
Fortunately, horror film handy tropics were not an unfortunate necessity at the time.
That’s right … the strength is cut, mom and dad are not at home, and a masked murderer works through every room in their house. No cell phone in sight. Only people who live at the moment.
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