…when I found a list that’s supposed to be the Ten Best Horror Movies of the Last Ten Years.
And right there in the #1 slot, there’s a French movie, Inside.
And here’s this Horror Movie Reviewer saying,
I pride myself on never covering my eyes during horror movies–I’ve seen it all. Right? Well, I thought I had before Inside. I can vividly remember four moments when I closed my eyelids. Actually covering my face with my hands, though, that only happened once….
So, I saw this film.
And, first, I didn’t close my eyes, far less cover my face, even once. It looked like another day at work, to be honest. I deal with crap like that. (Note for folks coming in late: I’ve been an EMT for the past eighteen years, and before that I was military.)
And, it was silly.
Suppose, just for a moment, that you are a police officer. Your two partners have gone to a house to do a health-and-welfare check on a nice young lady who had reported a prowler earlier in the evening, while you stay back in the car guarding a prisoner. You hear gunfire, and your partners don’t return. You:
(a) Get on the car radio to Dispatch and say, “Officer in distress. I need backup,” or,
(b) Handcuff the prisoner and put him on a leash to take him with you while you go into the house.
Okay, say that you were drunk, stupid, and crazy, and took option (b) above.
Inside the house you find at least four brutally murdered folks, including your two partners, and a heavily pregnant and badly injured young lady who gives you to understand that her attacker is still somewhere in the building. Suddenly, the lights go out!
Do you:
(a) Say “Bugger all this for a lark,” and get back to your car pronto, there to call Dispatch to say, “Officer down. Send backup. Send EMS. Send SWAT. Send Ghod and the world,” or,
(b) Give the young lady your weapon to protect herself while you go searching for the fuse box in order to get lights back on, while the prisoner holds your flashlight for you.
Option (b) again!
“Facepalm” in not the same as “covering your face.”
No one who sees Inside will ever call it “silly.”
Oops. I just did.
JAMES D. MACDONALD 
Seriously? How many stories are based on the main character’s complete lack of common sense? Thanks for the morning smile. We’re not as cold as you, Uncle Jim, and it’s 4 here.
That’s what we call “an idiot plot.” A plot that only works because everyone involved is an idiot.
Doyle is of the opinion that all horror movies require idiot plots, because once you have competent people acting sensibly you move to another genre: thriller, mystery, dark fantasy, SF….
I’m not so sure about that. There was the recent The Door which was horror, and didn’t rely in everyone being an idiot (though there was one person who made a Very Bad Decision and the protagonist, a guy where I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and yell, “You had one job. Just one job!”
I might write something about that film soonish. Compare and contrast with The Gallows, maybe.