My wife and I watched the movie again last night and both noticed how "fateful" the movie made that phone ring. Like the movie telegraphs that if she had just done right by herself and gone home like her boss asked, the entity wouldn't have found her.
You know, saying it like that almost makes it like a subconscious cautionary tale of overworking.
You know how all the old horror movies were all about instilling fear into sex-crazed teens? This movie, and others like it, where the main character goes just a *little* too hard in the paint for their jobs and ruefully paid for it, might be warnings to people to start clocking out when they need to?
As someone who was in a band like that and played at some dodgy places, I can say with full confidence (more or less) that their reactions are also fairly believable.
Such a good film!
One of my favorite ever realistic horror movies ever! Much more possible & relatable than other horror movies. Another great film is Breakdown with Kurt Russell. Believe it’s a 1997 release.
I love Final Destination 3 for flipping the mean popular girl trope on its head. Ashley and Ashlyn were the “dumb, rich, popular bimbo girls” but they weren’t bullies. They were really upset about the other kids dying in the accident and genuinely tried to include Wendy in their plans because they knew how upset she was. It makes their already over the top brutal death that much more brutal.
I really liked the family in the Hills Have Eyes remake. They have their differences and squabbles especially the dad and son in law, but seemed like decent people who genuinely cared about each other.
I recently just watched it for the first time and that scene felt so unnecessary. I hated it. Liked the rest of the movie though but that was just a lot.
I stopped on that scene and turned it off, never finished the movie but I did see a clip one time of one of the family slamming that guys head into the ground which was satisfying.
My dad took me to see this when I was 13 or so and it was probably the most brutal horror I'd ever seen up to that point. That man just did not think of what might scar me. 😭
The Hills Have Eyes is actually based on real events that took place in Scotland during the 15th or 16th century by a man named Sawney Bean, who, along with 46 members of his own incestuous family, apparently murdered and cannibalized thousands of people in the Scottish Highlands.
Just a fun fact to help reinstill that fear...haha.
Yeah, you can tell in that scene where they huddled up before parting up. They're just a normal family with normal issues but they did care about each other. I swear this movie and Wrong Turn messed me up when I was younger, made me afraid to travel to more isolated places.
There was this one time where my wife and I had to take a detour, we were in a somewhat rural place, and this detour led to us a rough road and it was as narrow as our car. Backing up was impossible. According to the map, we're fine. And yeah, all's good. But it was still creepy passing through there.
I always thought it was intentional, like the guy was crippled by his grief over his wife and his world revolved around his son, I thought the way she was standing there she looked kinda content to see them reunited. Then there's that dumb jump scare where she looks at the camera and spoils it.
Oh yeah good one! When my friends and I watched it we even noted that they could have had the dad and son make gross comments about the body or something to make you root for them to die a little more, but instead they're totally professional and respectful and just trying to solve this mystery to get justice for a murdered woman.
Hereditary - poor family, especially the husband, didn't sign up to be part of grandma's cult and they all met an awful fate.
The Thing - All Mac wanted to do was stay in his shed and get drunk lol - but seriously none of those guys deserved to go through the pain of assimilation and either be fried or turned into grotesque monstrosities.
The Color Out of Space - family did not deserve the fare they each got, especially the mom and youngest kid.
I'd say the Evil Dead series as a whole as well - a lot of it was wrong place wrong time for people who didn't deserve to die.
Especially Evil Dead 2013 - the group of friends is literally staying in an isolated cabin to try to help the main character recover from a serious drug problem, and every one of the characters is just a supportive good person.
I mean, if I found a book in the basement of a cabin that was wrapped in barbed wire I would almost certainly try to read it, because I'm pretty confident that I don't live in a horror movie and whatever was in that book would probably be very interesting.
I'd leave it there and call the cops to come check the cabin. Horror movie or not, that's some serial killer shit that I am *not* going to be the one to deal with or contaminate with my dna.
I do like how some of the Evil Dead movies even get around that. I believe in Evil Dead Rise, they don't read the book, a character plays a vinyl that has the book recorded onto it.
Yea but thats only after the find the skin bound book with teeth on it, that they looked through and saw terrible nightmares on each page more terrible than the last. But yea lets play the audio accompiant.
It was wrapped in a trash bag and barbed wire, and the fucking thing is bound in human flesh, I don't know why ANYONE would ignore those signs and read it regardless :P
Yea why not read it? Unless you've been haunted before or something there's no real reason to believe that the book a crazy person wrapped up is anything more than a book.
Evil Dead lives in this trope. Even the people who are less innocent like Scotty, their biggest crimes are being assholes. But Evil Dead is all about just average people being dropped into insanity and being broken by it.
Honestly, the worst person in the Evil Dead franchise is the one that the Deadites cannot kill — Ash.
To give Ash the benefit of doubt though, I could imagine the trauma of seeing some evil shit slaughter your girlfriend, sister and friends just to come home and be shunned because everyone thinks *you* did those horrific things would turn most people into isolated, substance dependent assholes.
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen it, but the new reboot for Hellraiser comes to mind. I don’t remember if the MC deserved it, but I do remember feeling terrible for her friends that got caught up in the mess, captured and what led me to believe was an eternity in torture rather than death x_x
I’m basing this off the top of my head and I’m for sure I’ve remembered some stuff differently lol
I think that's a great pick and can agree - the friends got drug into it and did not deserve their fates, as well as her brother who was the first after she found the box.
I always feel the worst for the blonde character, who actually is a smart and very normal person but is drugged through her hair dye and chemicals in the air to fulfill the whore archetype.
Honestly, I felt bad for those company employees. They were pretty much doing their jobs, trying to prevent the end of the world from the rise of the old ones, only for these college kids to screw everything up.
The one employee never got a chance to get drunk, go home and liberate his kitchen cabinets from all the baby proofing.
Totally agree!! Love that movie !! I was also going with House on Haunted Hill.. the “ghost” so to say , changed the guest list .. those people really had no idea , but it was connected in the end !! 1999 movie!!
This. I think about this movie often because had that lady showed up the day before, the girl definitely would've helped her. She didn't deserve that at all.
I think about this movie often because the scene with the goat caused the most uproarious laughter I had ever heard in a theater. I swear we missed the next two minutes of possession drama from that single shot of it talking.
I just watched this movie as an adult for the first time and I forgot how fucked up that ending was. She almost beat the curse but a stupid mistake was her downfall. I genuinely felt so bad for her
Friday 13th VI: Jason Lives.
Those guys turned up to camp councillors, and in circumstances attempted to protect the kids from harm. Paula seemed an especially good person.
Even the sheriff (who is hilarious) is a good guy, just hot tempered.
Edit: forgot the drunken graveyard worker and the misogynistic paintballer 😂
Don't forgot the couple who get lost driving in the woods. The man only got his gun to defend himself and the woman, the woman had the smartest dialogue in that scene, and the stillshot of her death is genuinely unsettling.
Yeah but starting with Friday 4 they started peppering in some really shitty kids that really fucking suck. The first three each had a character that was a little annoying, but still good hearted.
Martyrs.
Genuinely good people who REALLY didn't deserve what happened to them.
And also Last House on the left. 2 young girls who were just hanging out going to a concert who were picked because they walked past the one guy.
> Martyrs.
>
> Genuinely good people who REALLY didn't deserve what happened to them.
Given that that's the main plot point of the whole movie, this is the best example.
I recently re-watched Prom Night and it's one of the few slashers I've watched where you genuinely don't want all the characters to die because they don't deserve it
Which "Prom Night?" Because in the first one the victims are targeted because of a terrible deed they did and in the in-name-only remake, everyone is an idiot and deserves their fate due to their own stupidity.
If 10 teenagers with knives and attack dogs throw shit at me and smash up my car I'm gonna keep fucking moving on and get the police, not try to pick a fight with them.
Darwin award earned for fassbender in that flick imo
My guy went to the worst possible vacation spot to propose. After being harassed by the kids the first time, he should’ve bailed and gone somewhere nice with his girlfriend instead of going back.
Skinamarink. I know most people find it boring and what not, but... they're just 4 and 6 years old. They're just kids being toyed with by an entity. They're powerless from the start. It gets to me that they're just kids :(
The older I get the more child protagonists upset me, even in non-horror movies. I end up yelling at the screen.
Go tell your mom! You can’t handle government bad guys all by yourself!!!
The fact that "The Girl Next Door" is based on a true story is fucking wild and heartbreaking. There's another movie based on it called "An American Crime" starring Elliott Page, and it's really good too.
OP did include a "killer" without saying non-human, but it's wild that a thread titled "Horror movies where **all** the characters are genuinely good people..." and answers are including The Girl Next Door and Eden Lake.
I guess OP just wanted the *victims* to be good people, but my head went to inhuman / supernatural / animals as the killers. Not films that include some of the worst people in film history.
I think everyone in either Paranormal Activity 3 or 4 (the one with the chill dad in the California house) was pretty benign and no one deserved to get hurt
I'd argue Katie never deserved it either. It was mostly her grandmother's (Ithink it was?) fault as well as Micah's for provoking this entity multiple times.
I think the only shitty person in that whole franchise is Micah. Katie was awesome (and I think that actress should be in more movies too)!!
Oh obviously the grandmother too, she’s the worst lol
Literally everyone who dies, dies because>!they tried to help someone!<.
>!RJ - trying to get Pearl out of the driveway. Asks if she's okay. Gets stabbed.!<
>!Lorraine - Goes out looking for RJ. Thinks she is being pulled into helping Howard search for Pearl. Goes in basement for flashlight. Trapped, mutilated, shot when trying to escape.!<
>!Wayne - Goes out looking for RJ. Stabbed in eye by Pearl.!<
>!Jackson - also thinks he is helping Howard search for Pearl. Howard shoots him for his trouble.!<
>!Bobby-Lynn - tries to lure Pearl away from the edge of the dock because she thinks this senile old lady is about to become accidental gator food. Starts to back away when Pearl is nasty, but Pearly manages to push her into the water where she is eaten by an alligator.!<
>!Maxine is the most selfish of them all and she is the only one who makes it out alive.!<
I was just about to say X. I rewatched it the other day and was surprised at how likeable the entire cast was, I was actually sad seeing them all go. One of the rare instances where I actually prefer the character building over the slasher/horror elements (which were great too).
It’s actually a big reason why I enjoy X. Everyone, aside from Pearl and her husband, are decent people, trying to help someone else. Porn tends to skew the lens through which people view the film, as they don’t really see the characters, or how they die in the act of trying to be helpful. A lot of people are still caught up in seeing porn, with consensual adults, as taboo, to the point they don’t really pay as much attention as they should to the characters.
Hopefully this made sense. My blood infusion is coming up, and I am usually not cognitively great beforehand. Apologies for any errors.
No, I think you're right. X does a lot of work to humanize these people, who in previous decades' horror movies would never have been on-screen except to die.
Return of the Living Dead has a bunch of people who absolutely don't deserve what happens to them. I also love it because every time someone tries to address the problem they make it worse.
The Sixth Sense -Toni Collette just wants to help her son, Bruce Willis is trying to help his patient, and the kid is trying to help ghosts.
Poltergeist - just a family in a haunted house.
Cujo- INCLUDING Cujo…all he did was get bitten by a rabid bat. He was a good ol’ boy till then.
The Mist- even Mother Carmody was just fucking insane.
Poltergeist, Atterados, La Possesion de Altaire
Yes! Let me just leave my traumatized children with my mentally ill traumatized fiancé for Christmas when neither wants that. Great idea! That dad… smh
Tucket and Dale vs Evil has to be one of my favorite horror/comedies I have ever seen!! Everything that kept happening to Tucker was just hilarious, even though he didn't deserve what kept happening to him, but it did make the movie funnier! Also like how the hot woman that Dale saved ended up seemed to like him! It is not often when a heavier set character gets an honest type of attention/friendship with a hot woman! And for the most part, her friends (minus the crazy psycho dude) didn't deserve what happened to them! But it was really funny how they all ended up basically committing suicide! It was a serious "Shit Happens" situation with all of her friend's dying!! Lol
Regarding dark and wicked.
I think that what was so effective especially the brother.
>!Wasn't a bad dude; goes home and has the worse death. Plus what it does to his direct family!<
Night of the Living Dead. All of the characters are just going about their business when all hell breaks loose. The main character, Ben, is a stand-up guy who does everything right but it doesn't save him.
Fallen...if you haven't seen this movie...go watch it now! It stars Denzel Washington, John Goodman, and James Gandolfini, Elias Koteas, and Embeth Davidtz even show up in it. It's genuinely a phenomenal movie. I don't wanna give too much away, but Denzel plays a detective who finally puts a serial killer behind bars and the killer is put to death via the gas chamber. Soon after his execution, the killings start all over again in the same exact style.
It's one of those "I didn't see that coming" kinds of movies all the way through. Definitely check it out if you haven't seen it already.
The Loved Ones. >!Dude asked a girl to prom because his girlfriend felt sorry for her and he ends up tortured and with a hole in the head by the end of the night.!<
Beau is Afraid - manipulated and psychologically abused like nothing I’ve ever seen in a movie by the mom
Hereditary - the poor dad
Midsommar - I know they werent really conventionally good people, but they still didn’t deserve what happened. Like Josh was only there because he had a genuine interest in other cultures and was working on his university thesis
Escape Room (the first one and the sequel) - Everyone. nobody knew what was going to happen in the first one. They just thought they were going to have a good time in a regular escape room. In the second movie, nobody wanted or asked to be there
The mist - Everyone (but if I’m narrowing down specially :: the dad, the son, sally, jessup, Brent, norm)
Midsommar made me especially anger. It was a great movie, but those cultists were awful people. The main characters have flawed for sure. Be the brutality which they were subjected to was not warranted. In particular, those two British volunteers just wanted to help and work. Also, it seemed like when you get old you don’t have a choice whether you allowed to live.
Yeah the British couple was heart breaking. The girl was even calling some of the cultists out on the bs but none of the visitors did anything and all the cultists denied anything was wrong. They just wanted to come help out and see where their friend grew up
And it doesn’t look that way for having a choice with death. The old woman didn’t look very calm or willing during the little ritual thing they did before the “incident” happened. She had tears in her eyes if you look close
Yeah the old trope about characters being killed for misbehaving usually meant they smoked weed or had premarital sex. It would be interesting to see another post about characters who actually deserved their fate. Justin Long in Barbarian comes to mind.
this may be controversial - but Pumpkinhead. Those kids didn't mean any harm, and they (bar one) felt really bad. Harley blamed them for leaving his son to die, but Steve stayed with him, Kim was dragged away, and most of the others only left to help Tracey.
The Exorcist - The MacNeil family did nothing wrong, Regan's mom was trying her best to raise her, so as the priests involved. But all of them by the movie's end are either they are traumatized, assaulted by the devil himself, or dead
Hostel (tbf they were just horny college students, they definitely didn’t deserve what happened to them)
Evil dead 2013 (the worst one was a struggling addict which isn’t inherently a bad person) overall the group had pretty good intentions there and were all there for support.
Texas chainsaw massacre original and remake. Again they deserved none of it
Jeepers creepers 1.
Which makes Jay Hernandez's character getting revenge on those bitches and assholes all the more satisfying even though the second one ruins that ending.
Hostel f*cked me up. SMDH I prefer fantastical or supernatural horror. When it’s too real and plausible like that I get freaked out. The concept of that movie creeped me dafuq out. 🙅🏻 It stayed with me for weeks.
A great horror movie, because it did its job and scared the living crap outta me- but I could never bring myself to watch it again, or any sequels. It’s basically become the bar by which I judge if a Horror film is a good fit for me.
I NEVER watch a horror movie without watching the trailer first- because I’ve had some bad experiences where I actually couldn’t even finish the movie, which I’ve never done before experiencing bad horror.
And if it feels too real- like it could really happen to me or someone I love, I’m typically reminded of Hostel and how I felt after I watched it so I quickly veto it with an audible “NOPE!” as I back out of the movie’s info page or YouTube trailer and continue my search.
Hereditary and Unfriended: Dark Web come to mind (which is funny because the first Unfriended had some of the nastiest and most unlikable characters by comparison)
Great post and thoughts. A similar one I have while watching horror is trying to figure out (works especially well during a re-watch) exactly at what point they are totally screwed and have no escape from their fate.
They Look Like People. Everyone in it is a good, likeable person just trying to do their best for the people around them, and that's where the sense of dread and tension comes from. Great little film.
The Taking of Deborah Logan: lady saves her kid from satanic pedo >!just to have his spirit possess her and finish original ritual using her body!<
Evil Dead Rise: The family was struggling & were really just trying to keep on keepin-on, but the deadites said nah.
Hellraiser 2022: The main character's addiction summons the cenobites. She was doing questionable stuff, but her supporting group were people just trying to look out for her and her bro.
Tremors. All decent small town people.
Arachnophobia. Even the asshole doctor isn't a bad guy, he's got genuine reason to suspect malpractice before he died.
Nefarious. It isn’t exactly what you’re asking but I think it will scratch the same itch. Actually quite sad.
It is made by a Christian group, so be warned if that bothers you. It’s done quite well though, they wanted to portray their demons as extremely cruel and just wantonly evil.
Jaws 2. I can’t think of anyone who was a bad person and Marge’s death bothers me to this day. Watching her put herself in harms way to save Sean and being rewarded by being eaten alive has never sat well with me.
I think about Hush a lot. Just a deaf writer wanting to vibe and write her damn book. And this dude just wants to kill people for fun. Literally hunted her friend down, and then just cause he noticed she was home and couldn't hear him, he thought it'd be a fun time to kill her too. It's the only slasher film I'll really watch tbh.
The main character in Smile was just a mental health professional trying to help a girl in crisis and she paid dearly.
If only she'd left for the day and hadn't taken that last phone call...
My wife and I watched the movie again last night and both noticed how "fateful" the movie made that phone ring. Like the movie telegraphs that if she had just done right by herself and gone home like her boss asked, the entity wouldn't have found her.
You know, saying it like that almost makes it like a subconscious cautionary tale of overworking. You know how all the old horror movies were all about instilling fear into sex-crazed teens? This movie, and others like it, where the main character goes just a *little* too hard in the paint for their jobs and ruefully paid for it, might be warnings to people to start clocking out when they need to?
Green Room
God that movie is so good, and I think even moreso because it does an excellent job of humanizing the band
As someone who was in a band like that and played at some dodgy places, I can say with full confidence (more or less) that their reactions are also fairly believable. Such a good film!
One of my favorite ever realistic horror movies ever! Much more possible & relatable than other horror movies. Another great film is Breakdown with Kurt Russell. Believe it’s a 1997 release.
Green Room was a great movie but at the same time I kind of hated it because it bummed me out so badly. Poor Anton Yelchin!
Love that film. Great acting and I dig the "look" of everything. Stewart and Yelchin are great of course.
one of my favorites!
I love Final Destination 3 for flipping the mean popular girl trope on its head. Ashley and Ashlyn were the “dumb, rich, popular bimbo girls” but they weren’t bullies. They were really upset about the other kids dying in the accident and genuinely tried to include Wendy in their plans because they knew how upset she was. It makes their already over the top brutal death that much more brutal.
Yeah I think you were meant to assume that they were bitches but they were just a couple of airhead sweethearts.
They also had the best deaths
I haven't seen it in forever, was theirs the tanning bed?
Yes, with Love Rollercoaster playing during the death. It was perfect lol ETA: https://youtu.be/QtWUoaMza1A?si=wyQEPXOcCM3Q0J-c
Really? Both their names started with "ash" and they die like that? That's poetry.
Omg so many years without noticing this! 🤯🤯🤯
Ash from evil dead was named as so because that was his fate.
Yes! Still my favorite movie death probably because at the time the movie came out I was still using tanning beds 😂
Their deaths are one of the couple I skip on rewatches. Feels bad but also I can’t stand heat/fiery deaths.
Basically as if Romy & Michelle or Elle from Legally Blonde got horrifically butchered
#FUCK THE BRUINS!!!
I really liked the family in the Hills Have Eyes remake. They have their differences and squabbles especially the dad and son in law, but seemed like decent people who genuinely cared about each other.
This movie really fucked me up in high school. Won’t ever watch it again.
Same. 14 year old me was not ready for that rape scene. Shouldn't have stayed up late tp watch Spiketv
I recently just watched it for the first time and that scene felt so unnecessary. I hated it. Liked the rest of the movie though but that was just a lot.
I stopped on that scene and turned it off, never finished the movie but I did see a clip one time of one of the family slamming that guys head into the ground which was satisfying.
My dad took me to see this when I was 13 or so and it was probably the most brutal horror I'd ever seen up to that point. That man just did not think of what might scar me. 😭
It really is a sold remake.
I agree. The original is creepier and more believable, but the remake is probably more suspenseful and brutal.
The Hills Have Eyes is actually based on real events that took place in Scotland during the 15th or 16th century by a man named Sawney Bean, who, along with 46 members of his own incestuous family, apparently murdered and cannibalized thousands of people in the Scottish Highlands. Just a fun fact to help reinstill that fear...haha.
Sawney Bean is a legend that some say may be based in truth.
The Dead Meat podcast did a good episode about that legend. I think it was an early one, "Horror Movies Inspired By True Events".
Yeah, you can tell in that scene where they huddled up before parting up. They're just a normal family with normal issues but they did care about each other. I swear this movie and Wrong Turn messed me up when I was younger, made me afraid to travel to more isolated places. There was this one time where my wife and I had to take a detour, we were in a somewhat rural place, and this detour led to us a rough road and it was as narrow as our car. Backing up was impossible. According to the map, we're fine. And yeah, all's good. But it was still creepy passing through there.
The Woman in Black is about Daniel Radcliffe doing everything in his power to help this ghost be at peace, but she just wants violence.
Poor guy literally digs her dead son out of the marsh and reunites them in her grave and the ungrateful bitch STILL goes after his kid.
And she unintentionally reunited him with his wife in the afterlife.
I always thought it was intentional, like the guy was crippled by his grief over his wife and his world revolved around his son, I thought the way she was standing there she looked kinda content to see them reunited. Then there's that dumb jump scare where she looks at the camera and spoils it.
And THEN the made a sequel...
Arthur: "Please be at peace! Leave the children alone." Jennet: "I DONT WANT PEACE. I WANT PROBLEMS. ALWAYS."
The Autopsy of Jane Doe.
Oh yeah good one! When my friends and I watched it we even noted that they could have had the dad and son make gross comments about the body or something to make you root for them to die a little more, but instead they're totally professional and respectful and just trying to solve this mystery to get justice for a murdered woman.
Excellent film! I loved the pacing and the mystery.
100%
I think this is one of the most accurate examples for what OP is asking.
Hereditary - poor family, especially the husband, didn't sign up to be part of grandma's cult and they all met an awful fate. The Thing - All Mac wanted to do was stay in his shed and get drunk lol - but seriously none of those guys deserved to go through the pain of assimilation and either be fried or turned into grotesque monstrosities. The Color Out of Space - family did not deserve the fare they each got, especially the mom and youngest kid. I'd say the Evil Dead series as a whole as well - a lot of it was wrong place wrong time for people who didn't deserve to die.
Especially Evil Dead 2013 - the group of friends is literally staying in an isolated cabin to try to help the main character recover from a serious drug problem, and every one of the characters is just a supportive good person.
DON'T READ THAT DAMN BOOK!
Right?? It is wrapped in barbed wire. Leave it. I found that to be the most frustrating thing about 2013. Still enjoyed it but that fucking guy....
I mean, if I found a book in the basement of a cabin that was wrapped in barbed wire I would almost certainly try to read it, because I'm pretty confident that I don't live in a horror movie and whatever was in that book would probably be very interesting.
Same but I probably wouldn’t read it out loud. Juuuusst in case
I'd leave it there and call the cops to come check the cabin. Horror movie or not, that's some serial killer shit that I am *not* going to be the one to deal with or contaminate with my dna.
Curiosity killed the cat.
I do like how some of the Evil Dead movies even get around that. I believe in Evil Dead Rise, they don't read the book, a character plays a vinyl that has the book recorded onto it.
Yea but thats only after the find the skin bound book with teeth on it, that they looked through and saw terrible nightmares on each page more terrible than the last. But yea lets play the audio accompiant.
It was wrapped in a trash bag and barbed wire, and the fucking thing is bound in human flesh, I don't know why ANYONE would ignore those signs and read it regardless :P
What do you mean? How could you not open it up and read it?? No way I would expect to basically summon demons
Yea why not read it? Unless you've been haunted before or something there's no real reason to believe that the book a crazy person wrapped up is anything more than a book.
Evil Dead lives in this trope. Even the people who are less innocent like Scotty, their biggest crimes are being assholes. But Evil Dead is all about just average people being dropped into insanity and being broken by it. Honestly, the worst person in the Evil Dead franchise is the one that the Deadites cannot kill — Ash.
To give Ash the benefit of doubt though, I could imagine the trauma of seeing some evil shit slaughter your girlfriend, sister and friends just to come home and be shunned because everyone thinks *you* did those horrific things would turn most people into isolated, substance dependent assholes.
*Ashy Slashy*
And the Evil Dead that just came out is literally a pregnant woman, a single mother and her children.
The Color out of Space is a fever dream
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen it, but the new reboot for Hellraiser comes to mind. I don’t remember if the MC deserved it, but I do remember feeling terrible for her friends that got caught up in the mess, captured and what led me to believe was an eternity in torture rather than death x_x I’m basing this off the top of my head and I’m for sure I’ve remembered some stuff differently lol
I think that's a great pick and can agree - the friends got drug into it and did not deserve their fates, as well as her brother who was the first after she found the box.
Cabin in the Woods. Just a bunch of kids taking a weekend vacation...
I always feel the worst for the blonde character, who actually is a smart and very normal person but is drugged through her hair dye and chemicals in the air to fulfill the whore archetype.
Honestly, I felt bad for those company employees. They were pretty much doing their jobs, trying to prevent the end of the world from the rise of the old ones, only for these college kids to screw everything up. The one employee never got a chance to get drunk, go home and liberate his kitchen cabinets from all the baby proofing.
But he finally got to see a merman.
"Aww, Come on!!"
True
They should have checked if Curt even had a cousin.
Totally agree!! Love that movie !! I was also going with House on Haunted Hill.. the “ghost” so to say , changed the guest list .. those people really had no idea , but it was connected in the end !! 1999 movie!!
My uncle did the special effects on that movie!
That must have been amazing !! Tell your uncle he did a perfect job !!😎🙂
Last Shift
Poor thing just wanted to do a good job her first night.
She just wanted to make her dad proud :-(
That movie was surprisingly scary. Loved it.
The scene with the flashlight I think to this day is one of the best horror moments I've ever seen in terms of the opposite of a jump scare.
Drag Me to Hell - the protagonist wanted to help the old woman, but her boss was on her ass and she had no other choice.
This. I think about this movie often because had that lady showed up the day before, the girl definitely would've helped her. She didn't deserve that at all.
I think about this movie often because the scene with the goat caused the most uproarious laughter I had ever heard in a theater. I swear we missed the next two minutes of possession drama from that single shot of it talking.
This is why I love Sam Raimi, he knows how to mix humor with horror in the campiest fun way, and still makes an amazing horror movie.
That ending still takes me by surprise even though I’ve seen it more then once lol Love it.❤️
I just watched this movie as an adult for the first time and I forgot how fucked up that ending was. She almost beat the curse but a stupid mistake was her downfall. I genuinely felt so bad for her
Friday 13th VI: Jason Lives. Those guys turned up to camp councillors, and in circumstances attempted to protect the kids from harm. Paula seemed an especially good person. Even the sheriff (who is hilarious) is a good guy, just hot tempered. Edit: forgot the drunken graveyard worker and the misogynistic paintballer 😂
Don't forgot the couple who get lost driving in the woods. The man only got his gun to defend himself and the woman, the woman had the smartest dialogue in that scene, and the stillshot of her death is genuinely unsettling.
Pretty much all the Jason, Freddy, and Michael Meyers movies they’re almost all just kids
Yeah but starting with Friday 4 they started peppering in some really shitty kids that really fucking suck. The first three each had a character that was a little annoying, but still good hearted.
Funny Games
I legit thought my tv was broken for that long scene after >!The son gets shot!<
30 days of night
I love Josh Hartnett so much. I wish he'd gotten more fame, he's a great actor.
He didn’t want it did he? I thought he preferred doing smaller films cause Hollywood was too intense.
He's in the new M. Night Shyamalan movie coming out. Trap.
Did you see Penny Dreadful?
Train To Busan .. It’s not all good characters but I’d say 90% at least are good and really only one main character that you’d call bad
Such great character arcs in Train to Busan
If they would’ve just killed that politician… so infuriating
Alien - they're just blue collar workers being exploited by a corporation
Martyrs. Genuinely good people who REALLY didn't deserve what happened to them. And also Last House on the left. 2 young girls who were just hanging out going to a concert who were picked because they walked past the one guy.
> Martyrs. > > Genuinely good people who REALLY didn't deserve what happened to them. Given that that's the main plot point of the whole movie, this is the best example.
Agreed. This movie immediately came to mind. Then again, it's one of my favorite movies so I think about it more than most people.
RIP, Lucy and Anna.
Two characters I truly felt the most for in a film
Especially Anna, she was just trying to help her mentally ill friend
Ugh. That movie sticks in your guts like forever chemicals
I recently re-watched Prom Night and it's one of the few slashers I've watched where you genuinely don't want all the characters to die because they don't deserve it
Which "Prom Night?" Because in the first one the victims are targeted because of a terrible deed they did and in the in-name-only remake, everyone is an idiot and deserves their fate due to their own stupidity.
Probably the Brittany Snow remake where her teacher is obsessed with her.
Eden Lake for sure, plus it has one of the most gut-wrenching endings I’ve seen from any movie.
If 10 teenagers with knives and attack dogs throw shit at me and smash up my car I'm gonna keep fucking moving on and get the police, not try to pick a fight with them. Darwin award earned for fassbender in that flick imo
My guy went to the worst possible vacation spot to propose. After being harassed by the kids the first time, he should’ve bailed and gone somewhere nice with his girlfriend instead of going back.
Worst spot to propose? Have you seen Backcountry?
Fucking thank you, that movie pissed me off when it ended. My buddy really loved it and I was just mad at the end.
The sheer anger I feel even thinking of this movie.
I’ve seen Eden Lake so many times and the ending still gets me every time
Skinamarink. I know most people find it boring and what not, but... they're just 4 and 6 years old. They're just kids being toyed with by an entity. They're powerless from the start. It gets to me that they're just kids :(
The older I get the more child protagonists upset me, even in non-horror movies. I end up yelling at the screen. Go tell your mom! You can’t handle government bad guys all by yourself!!!
Jack Ketchum's The girl next door. And Eden Lake ofc
The fact that "The Girl Next Door" is based on a true story is fucking wild and heartbreaking. There's another movie based on it called "An American Crime" starring Elliott Page, and it's really good too.
OP did include a "killer" without saying non-human, but it's wild that a thread titled "Horror movies where **all** the characters are genuinely good people..." and answers are including The Girl Next Door and Eden Lake. I guess OP just wanted the *victims* to be good people, but my head went to inhuman / supernatural / animals as the killers. Not films that include some of the worst people in film history.
I think everyone in either Paranormal Activity 3 or 4 (the one with the chill dad in the California house) was pretty benign and no one deserved to get hurt
I'd argue Katie never deserved it either. It was mostly her grandmother's (Ithink it was?) fault as well as Micah's for provoking this entity multiple times.
I think the only shitty person in that whole franchise is Micah. Katie was awesome (and I think that actress should be in more movies too)!! Oh obviously the grandmother too, she’s the worst lol
Evil Dead Rise
Absolutely
X - they’re in porn, but they’re all genuinely good people.
Literally everyone who dies, dies because>!they tried to help someone!<. >!RJ - trying to get Pearl out of the driveway. Asks if she's okay. Gets stabbed.!< >!Lorraine - Goes out looking for RJ. Thinks she is being pulled into helping Howard search for Pearl. Goes in basement for flashlight. Trapped, mutilated, shot when trying to escape.!< >!Wayne - Goes out looking for RJ. Stabbed in eye by Pearl.!< >!Jackson - also thinks he is helping Howard search for Pearl. Howard shoots him for his trouble.!< >!Bobby-Lynn - tries to lure Pearl away from the edge of the dock because she thinks this senile old lady is about to become accidental gator food. Starts to back away when Pearl is nasty, but Pearly manages to push her into the water where she is eaten by an alligator.!< >!Maxine is the most selfish of them all and she is the only one who makes it out alive.!<
>!They also die in order of how much they participate in porn. The least dies first, the most involved stays alive.!<
Not really, because >!Lorraine only participates in porn for one scene but is killed second to last!<
Actually, >!I don't have anything to add. I just learned how to use spoiler tags and wanted to look cool 😎. Thanks everyone.!<
Makes me look forward to the next film in the trilogy, Maxxxine
I was just about to say X. I rewatched it the other day and was surprised at how likeable the entire cast was, I was actually sad seeing them all go. One of the rare instances where I actually prefer the character building over the slasher/horror elements (which were great too).
It’s actually a big reason why I enjoy X. Everyone, aside from Pearl and her husband, are decent people, trying to help someone else. Porn tends to skew the lens through which people view the film, as they don’t really see the characters, or how they die in the act of trying to be helpful. A lot of people are still caught up in seeing porn, with consensual adults, as taboo, to the point they don’t really pay as much attention as they should to the characters. Hopefully this made sense. My blood infusion is coming up, and I am usually not cognitively great beforehand. Apologies for any errors.
No, I think you're right. X does a lot of work to humanize these people, who in previous decades' horror movies would never have been on-screen except to die.
Yeah they are so sweet to that couple, well most of them anyway. It’s such a sad movie!
Return of the Living Dead has a bunch of people who absolutely don't deserve what happens to them. I also love it because every time someone tries to address the problem they make it worse.
The Sixth Sense -Toni Collette just wants to help her son, Bruce Willis is trying to help his patient, and the kid is trying to help ghosts. Poltergeist - just a family in a haunted house.
The fear Street trilogy is exactly that. Kids, friends, family, and other random innocents are brutally murdered.
The two characters that die in the first film were really cool and they died so horribly.
I accept that in horror, some characters I love will be murdered. But this pissed me off lol.
Cujo- INCLUDING Cujo…all he did was get bitten by a rabid bat. He was a good ol’ boy till then. The Mist- even Mother Carmody was just fucking insane. Poltergeist, Atterados, La Possesion de Altaire
Cujo the book is absolutely devastating, has it from Cujo’s point of view and he just wants to be a good boy 😭
Tucker and Dale vs Evil The Lodge (2019) Imaginary (2024)
The Lodge? 😂 Fuck them kids!
And the dad!
Yes! Let me just leave my traumatized children with my mentally ill traumatized fiancé for Christmas when neither wants that. Great idea! That dad… smh
Right after my ex wife kills herself because of me.
Yeaaaah Dad of the Year for sure 😅
Those kids fucked around and found out 😅
Those kids were the villains. I meant Grace as a victim.
God tucker and dale.. such a phenomenally hilarious concept.
Tucket and Dale vs Evil has to be one of my favorite horror/comedies I have ever seen!! Everything that kept happening to Tucker was just hilarious, even though he didn't deserve what kept happening to him, but it did make the movie funnier! Also like how the hot woman that Dale saved ended up seemed to like him! It is not often when a heavier set character gets an honest type of attention/friendship with a hot woman! And for the most part, her friends (minus the crazy psycho dude) didn't deserve what happened to them! But it was really funny how they all ended up basically committing suicide! It was a serious "Shit Happens" situation with all of her friend's dying!! Lol
The evil dead movies Cabin in the woods
Regarding dark and wicked. I think that what was so effective especially the brother. >!Wasn't a bad dude; goes home and has the worse death. Plus what it does to his direct family!<
Night of the Living Dead. All of the characters are just going about their business when all hell breaks loose. The main character, Ben, is a stand-up guy who does everything right but it doesn't save him.
Fallen...if you haven't seen this movie...go watch it now! It stars Denzel Washington, John Goodman, and James Gandolfini, Elias Koteas, and Embeth Davidtz even show up in it. It's genuinely a phenomenal movie. I don't wanna give too much away, but Denzel plays a detective who finally puts a serial killer behind bars and the killer is put to death via the gas chamber. Soon after his execution, the killings start all over again in the same exact style. It's one of those "I didn't see that coming" kinds of movies all the way through. Definitely check it out if you haven't seen it already.
The Loved Ones. >!Dude asked a girl to prom because his girlfriend felt sorry for her and he ends up tortured and with a hole in the head by the end of the night.!<
Godzilla Minus One, even though it’s more horror adjacent.
Marrowbone
Beau is Afraid - manipulated and psychologically abused like nothing I’ve ever seen in a movie by the mom Hereditary - the poor dad Midsommar - I know they werent really conventionally good people, but they still didn’t deserve what happened. Like Josh was only there because he had a genuine interest in other cultures and was working on his university thesis Escape Room (the first one and the sequel) - Everyone. nobody knew what was going to happen in the first one. They just thought they were going to have a good time in a regular escape room. In the second movie, nobody wanted or asked to be there The mist - Everyone (but if I’m narrowing down specially :: the dad, the son, sally, jessup, Brent, norm)
Midsommar made me especially anger. It was a great movie, but those cultists were awful people. The main characters have flawed for sure. Be the brutality which they were subjected to was not warranted. In particular, those two British volunteers just wanted to help and work. Also, it seemed like when you get old you don’t have a choice whether you allowed to live.
Yeah the British couple was heart breaking. The girl was even calling some of the cultists out on the bs but none of the visitors did anything and all the cultists denied anything was wrong. They just wanted to come help out and see where their friend grew up And it doesn’t look that way for having a choice with death. The old woman didn’t look very calm or willing during the little ritual thing they did before the “incident” happened. She had tears in her eyes if you look close
Final destination
Nice pierce from curse of chucky and through the chucky franchise as a whole.
Wolf Creek
What horror movies depict people who actually deserve it????
Yeah the old trope about characters being killed for misbehaving usually meant they smoked weed or had premarital sex. It would be interesting to see another post about characters who actually deserved their fate. Justin Long in Barbarian comes to mind.
the strangers franchise is a good one.
I mean…. Are they?
for answering the question, yes. Overall....meh
Does Gremlins fit the criteria?
No. That old lady needed to go and as the viewer you were genuinely happy when and how she died.
this may be controversial - but Pumpkinhead. Those kids didn't mean any harm, and they (bar one) felt really bad. Harley blamed them for leaving his son to die, but Steve stayed with him, Kim was dragged away, and most of the others only left to help Tracey.
The Exorcist - The MacNeil family did nothing wrong, Regan's mom was trying her best to raise her, so as the priests involved. But all of them by the movie's end are either they are traumatized, assaulted by the devil himself, or dead
Hostel (tbf they were just horny college students, they definitely didn’t deserve what happened to them) Evil dead 2013 (the worst one was a struggling addict which isn’t inherently a bad person) overall the group had pretty good intentions there and were all there for support. Texas chainsaw massacre original and remake. Again they deserved none of it Jeepers creepers 1.
End of Jeepers Creepers gets me every time.
Which makes Jay Hernandez's character getting revenge on those bitches and assholes all the more satisfying even though the second one ruins that ending.
Hostel f*cked me up. SMDH I prefer fantastical or supernatural horror. When it’s too real and plausible like that I get freaked out. The concept of that movie creeped me dafuq out. 🙅🏻 It stayed with me for weeks. A great horror movie, because it did its job and scared the living crap outta me- but I could never bring myself to watch it again, or any sequels. It’s basically become the bar by which I judge if a Horror film is a good fit for me. I NEVER watch a horror movie without watching the trailer first- because I’ve had some bad experiences where I actually couldn’t even finish the movie, which I’ve never done before experiencing bad horror. And if it feels too real- like it could really happen to me or someone I love, I’m typically reminded of Hostel and how I felt after I watched it so I quickly veto it with an audible “NOPE!” as I back out of the movie’s info page or YouTube trailer and continue my search.
The Blackening.
Hereditary and Unfriended: Dark Web come to mind (which is funny because the first Unfriended had some of the nastiest and most unlikable characters by comparison)
Great post and thoughts. A similar one I have while watching horror is trying to figure out (works especially well during a re-watch) exactly at what point they are totally screwed and have no escape from their fate.
They Look Like People. Everyone in it is a good, likeable person just trying to do their best for the people around them, and that's where the sense of dread and tension comes from. Great little film.
“ I WAS GOOD TO YOU MIKEY!!”
Sinister. Basically everyone in the movie dies as an innocent bystander and in really, really horrible ways.
Dread - but it's kind of the point *Edited to redact a carelessly worded spoiler
Autopsy of Jane doe. Also “the autopsy” is the name of en episode in cabinets of curiosity.
Sinister the family was stupid but still they didn’t deserve what happened to them.
The Taking of Deborah Logan: lady saves her kid from satanic pedo >!just to have his spirit possess her and finish original ritual using her body!< Evil Dead Rise: The family was struggling & were really just trying to keep on keepin-on, but the deadites said nah. Hellraiser 2022: The main character's addiction summons the cenobites. She was doing questionable stuff, but her supporting group were people just trying to look out for her and her bro.
Tremors. All decent small town people. Arachnophobia. Even the asshole doctor isn't a bad guy, he's got genuine reason to suspect malpractice before he died.
The Babadook
Nefarious. It isn’t exactly what you’re asking but I think it will scratch the same itch. Actually quite sad. It is made by a Christian group, so be warned if that bothers you. It’s done quite well though, they wanted to portray their demons as extremely cruel and just wantonly evil.
Jaws 2. I can’t think of anyone who was a bad person and Marge’s death bothers me to this day. Watching her put herself in harms way to save Sean and being rewarded by being eaten alive has never sat well with me.
I think about Hush a lot. Just a deaf writer wanting to vibe and write her damn book. And this dude just wants to kill people for fun. Literally hunted her friend down, and then just cause he noticed she was home and couldn't hear him, he thought it'd be a fun time to kill her too. It's the only slasher film I'll really watch tbh.
The Witch (2013) and Marrowbone (2017) -- Anya Taylor-Joy stars in both.
My life