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Top 5 horror tropes

Horror tropes are truly the butter of the horror world. Every move follows some form of formula or knowingly runs away from it. Some tropes are better than others. Because of that, I present to you, my top 5 horror tropes (at least currently).


Number 5: Body horror

Is it just me or is that body sort of wrong looking? I have a deep love for body horror done right. The best form of body horror isn’t necessarily the grotesque kind but rather the subtle ones. A limb that doesn’t look quite right, eyes that are a little bit too big, that sort of stuff. But of course, the grotesque nature of stuff like The Fly still holds up for me today!

Number 4: Unhappy endings

Horror is one of the genres that truly embrace the unhappy ending. Nobody survives, they all died at the hands of their murderer. Nobody got out of the haunted house. Stuff like that is truly good stuff. Embrace sad horrible endings. Dare to reject the Hollywood formula! Down with happy endings, give me a big dose of sadness after having been scared shitless!

Number 3: The silent jumpscare

I remember watching the Grudge (Japanese version) way back. One scene truly stood out to me. The characters are in an elevator, nothing suspicious about that. But if you look at the window behind them, on one floor, the scary kid just stands there! No character reacts, no music cue, no indication. If you missed you missed it. If you caught it, you jumped through the roof!

Number 2: Babies

This might not be a trope but I will still add it to my top 5 horror tropes God damn it! Babies are these semi-human things that can very easily tread into uncanny valley territory. Horror as a genre does this very well. Noroi is a great example of how you make babies absolutely terrifying. I can handle children just fine, but throw a baby at me and I will run the other way!

Number 1: Body/face distortion

Ever since I saw the American version of the Ring this has been a true haunt for me. There is a scene where they see a photo where everyone’s face has been distorted. Then we see that happen on the tv, and then on the people themselves. There is something that triggers my fight or flight response whenever I see that. Bodies that go through the same form of film distortion are hard to handle as well. But the faces man, oh the faces I just cannot do.

I hope you enjoyed this little top 5. Look forward to more of these during the month of Spooktober! If you have any suggestions feel free to tweet me or comment down below. Until then, happy hauntings!

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