10 Smartest Decisions In Horror Movies

Heard a noise in the attic? You're damn right I'm not investigating.

The Shining Danny Jack
Warner Bros

Once you've seen the level of stupid decisions a horror movie can throw at you, the smart ones feel a lot harder to come by. It's almost normal to go investigating the attics of abandoned psychiatric hospitals on Halloween night, or reading aloud a blood curse engraved in some discarded human skin they just happen to stumble across, or having open, passionate sex whilst you're halfway through running for your life from a very strange, very stabby man in a mask. Impending death just puts you in the mood, huh?

The point stands that rational thinking in the middle of these life or death situations is pretty rare, and probably deserves some celebration. So here's to the people that take one look at ancient burial grounds and mutter "f*ck that", to the people entirely not about antagonising angry ghosts, and those who know to leave Ouija Boards the bloody hell alone.

They might all die anyway most of the time, but at least they took their best shot at not dooming themselves to eternal hellfire in the process. You're the real MVPs.

10. Emergency Tracheotomy - Saw V

The Shining Danny Jack
Lionsgate

The saw series has some of the most ridiculous decisions in a horror franchise to date. From flagrantly ignoring the very clear rules laid out to them, to rushing themselves into sticky situations, to not thinking quite LITERALLY enough - the people stuck in Jigsaw's traps really aren't taking any MENSA tests any time soon. That's mainly because they're dead, but still.

There's one such case that stands out from the rest, however. One such man that took a look at his own personalised death trap and did exactly what he had to to survive, even when faced with one of the rare instances that there was no feasible way of escaping. The proteges really didn't play fair.

FBI Agent Peter Strahm gets caught out when he's attacked in a meat packing plant by a humanoid pig, which is poetic if nothing else. Waking up to a perspex box attached to his head that's slowly filling with water, Strahm fiddles with the box ineffectively for a while until realising there's no way out - at which point he grabs a pen in his pocket, jabs it through his own throat, and takes out the internal components in a rudimentary tracheotomy.

Pretty bloody hardcore, to be honest.

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Contributor

Horror film junkie, burrito connoisseur, and serial cat stroker. WhatCulture's least favourite ginger.