10 Annoying Movie Tropes That Can Ruin A Horror Movie
8. The Car Engine Won't Start
Think really hard. Throughout your lifetime, has your car ever stopped working on you? If yes, what was the frequency throughout your driving career outside this rare incident? Not many, right? Also, in any of these scenarios, did the car happen to get flooded when a masked, axe-carrying psychopath was chasing you after escaping his woodland lair?
It’s that age-old cliché, usually found in your slasher movie: whenever someone leaps into their car in a desperate attempt to escape, the engine just never seems to work… ever. We can add missing keys into the mix, too.
What follows is smashed glass, and, if it's a hapless victim, they get their just deserts. If it's the final girl, often she manages to duck out in time and leads that killer to an industrial warehouse for the inevitable cat-and-mouse finale.
It’s all an excuse to ratchet the tension for an extra beat, or chuck some more conflict at the audience. But at this point, what would feel more unpredictable is if someone jumped into a car and it started it up smoothly for a clean exit. Not as exciting, is it? Less groan-worthy, though.
Hats off to the Scream series, as the first two movies flipped the stalled-car scenario on its head (the killer has the keys!) and delivered nail-biting set pieces out of it.