20 Things Horror Movies NEED To Stop Doing
The horror movie tropes that drive us all INSANE.
Horror fans know that it's one of the most creative and permissive of all movie genres, allowing filmmakers to deliver off-the-wall visions within which actors can do things they simply can't elsewhere.
But with so many hundreds and hundreds of horror films being made every year around the world and across budget levels, it's also fair to say that there are some trends that have become incredibly tired as of late.
20 of them, in fact.
These 20 tropes and trends are among the most played-out and worn-out of recent times that we'd like to see take a back seat in 2026 and beyond, if not be retired outright.
Though the intent might be good and there are certainly solid examples of their use, these techniques, plot points, and aesthetic choices have become overused enough to become annoying cliches over time.
That's not to say they can't find their way back into fashion after sitting things out for a while - a long while, though - but right now most of them simply signify a patent lack of imagination...
20. Trauma, Trauma, Trauma
Surely the biggest horror buzzword over the past decade-or-so has been trauma, because while trauma has and likely always will be a thematic cornerstone of the genre, it's felt excessively commodified in recent years - especially as part of the divisive "elevated horror" movement.
Though horror can absolutely be a ripe avenue through which to explore, say, the impact of abuse, the 2020s have been defined by an absolute deluge of trauma-with-a-capital-T horror movies.
And for every film that approaches the subject with a worthwhile perspective - say, Hereditary, Talk to Me, The Invisible Man, and The Night House - there are many, many dozens which use it as an empty substitute for actual narrative substance, to cash in on an easy, popular metaphor.
That is to say, it often ends up feeling rather tired and trite for the supernatural entity to be a stand-in for a character's own troubled past, and there's something to be said for a tangible villain that's just pure evil in its own right.