3. Don't Make It So Obvious Who's Going To Live Or Die
This goes for ALL films, ALL genres. Horror is a particularly big offender, and sometimes you can tell just from the poster. the trailer, or how naked they get. This isn't limited to girls with appealing sweater puppies. "Prometheus" is a solid film or a problematic one depending on who you are. BUT it also invests way more time in Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender's characters. If you had to place bets on who survived to the final reel....well, if you're like me and saw the obvious pattern your bet was pretty much a sure thing. Contrast this with "Alien" and "Aliens"....even "Alien3"! All of those films made it pretty clear that everyone was "on the menu" for the xenomorphs, laying waste to characters who were equally invested or "name" actors. Ripley was even supposed to die at the end of "Alien" originally, so even if you think she was clearly marked "unkillable", that's NOT how it was written. I'd charge you just KNOW because, naturally, Sigourney Weaver's in "Aliens" - So, she survives. And that's the thing - We have hindsight in those regards. In the same way, you probably watch "Star Wars" knowing that Obi Wan Kenobi won't make it to the end... I'm talking more about films that don't even try to differentiate "Top billed" from "Cannon fodder" before they even hit the theater. Anyone who goes into a horror film expecting the characters we don't spend the most time with or aren't blatantly "special" (related to the killer/psychic/has a special talent/has the most backstory) to live is kidding themselves. Joss Whedon's brilliant "The Cabin in The Woods" lovingly attacked/explained/parodied these expectations, fully aware that the girl who gets her shirt off has to die, the headstrong one'll make mistakes and die, and the girl we're most invested in needs to survive the longest or live. But that doesn't have to be how it works. For ANY movie. There was a palatable shock in the theater when I first saw "Pulp Fiction" and Travolta was gunned down by Bruce Willis. At that point, he pretty much WAS the main character the audience had put stock in. If the jeopardy or crisis of a film is real and everyone is mortal, people take notice and worry about everyone. The minute you start guaranteeing characters by promoting them ahead of an ensemble, that's when your film is either every horror film inspired by "Halloween", every action movie that Arnold Schwarzenegger made after "Terminator", or every movie that wants to be "Love Story" with a happy ending. The "special" characters live and everyone else is window dressing, or literally human shields. Just because you know who's going to live doesn't mean we need to, filmmakers. Keep us in the dark for a bit, and you're probably making a better movie to begin with.
In a parallel universe where game shows' final jackpots and consequent fortunes depend on knowledge of obscure music trivia and Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes, I've probably gone rich, insane, and am now a powermad despot. But happily we're not there, so I'm actually rather pleasant. Really.
