Even as we enter a new age of horror filmmaking, which we like to call the “M. Night Shyamalan,” there’s not as much reliance on tried-and-true formulas to generating the perfect plot twist or jump scare. Even classic tropes — which derive from cult slasher-phenomena like Friday the 13th, Halloween and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre — are becoming things of the past as up-and-coming filmmakers discover all-new weird and wonderful ways to terrify us on both a physical and psychological level. There’s countless horror tropes made famous across time, frequently recycled by even the most out-there indie films. We have the ‘ever-constant final girl’ (or nowadays final boy, also) trope, the ‘dead cellphone in the wilderness’ trope, the Sooby-Doo-esque ‘let’s split up’ trope, and the ‘alone in a dark house/place’ trope, among many, many others.
But what’s one of the most-used tropes ever? If you think hard enough, you’ll hit the nail on the head. No? Nothing? How about the ‘tripping in a dark forest’ trope? If that’s ringing some bells, it’s because that singular trope has been through the ringer so many times that it’s absolutely washed-up at this point… or is it? They’ll be naysayers doubting the authenticity of such a trope, given the severe lack of relatable real-life scenarios. But there’s proof, somewhere out there, that these tropes couldn’t be less fabricated. In fact, Redditors have banded together to prove that one of the genre’s most prominent tropes — ‘tripping/falling while being chased through the woods’ — isn’t as unrealistic as we’ve been made to believe.
Sparking one of the most enthralling Reddit discussions to date, u/heylistenlady took to the r/horror subreddit to share their experience of working on a secluded property owned by the family of a friend, completely surrounded by woodland without many trails to guide the way. Essentially, they were lost in a labyrinthian maze of foliage and greenery, but the eye-opening tale certainly seems to have changed their mind on the often-bashed trope. With an apt description that most of us can still only imagine, the user details trekking through a treacherous forest swarming with unsightly thorns, overgrown roots and a lot of uneven ground to trip over.
From that experience, the user claims that the experience “actually changed” their mind about how realistic the trope was. They said to their husband, quote: “Ok… people falling in the woods in scary movies makes sense now.” To which the husband concurred: “Yeah, imagine being barefoot…and it’s dark.” That life-changing moment must have resonated with fellow horror fanatics because Reddit exploded soon after with their own takes on common horror tropes and the comparison they could make to assess how true to life they are.
Another favorite was the ‘fumbling the keys’ trope, which sees characters either choose the wrong key in a set repeatedly or fumble the keys under pressure and fail to unlock a door in time. As we can all agree, that doesn’t just happen in fictional worlds. Hold up your hand if you’ve ever tried the wrong key in your front door. Well… it’s just you holding up your hand right now, but imagine there’s countless others doing it with you.
One user even bravely shared their ordeal with fumbling keys during an armed robbery, which certainly puts a ton of pressure on a person, we can imagine. Not only is it a terrible situation to be in, it doesn’t held when there’s a life-or-death incentive applied, such as being held at gunpoint. Imagine Leatherface charging at you through the woods? You’d be tripping, falling and fumbling your keys too. That guy can move!
Another analogy compared serial killers and their prey to the “tortoise and the hare” of horror, suggesting that slow and steady does indeed win the race. Well, it does when the person you’re chasing stumbles every other step. That’s just making the killer’s job all the easier.
Long story short: it happens to the best of us. Maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on the final girls who barely escape by the skin of their teeth.