Best horror movie stupidity of all time

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Darkman picture

Stupidity: After Julie tells Louis that Peyton is still alive, she notices the Bellisarius memorandum on his desk and realises he was involved with the destruction of the lab. If Louis had kept the memorandum in his desk instead of in plain sight, he would never have been found out.

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Darkman II: The Return of Durant picture

Stupidity: When Eddie and Darkman, who is disguised as Eddie, both run after the cab Laurie is in, Darkman calls out to her in Eddie's voice. If he had used his own voice, she wouldn't have been captured.

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Van Helsing picture

Stupidity: When Anna, Velkan and the villagers successfully trap the gray werewolf in a huge cage, the villagers start firing on it. Anna says they need to use Velkan's gun because it has silver bullets in it. Since everybody knew they were fighting a werewolf, all of them should have had silver bullets for their guns.

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Scream picture

Stupidity: In the scene where Billy, Stu and Sidney are in the kitchen (when Sidney finds out they are the real killers), they begin to stab each other as a part of the plan to fool the police into thinking they were almost killed by Sidney's father, whom they were going to frame for the murders. They were planning on killing Sidney and her father, so it makes absolutely no sense that they begin stabbing each other BEFORE killing Sidney and her father, especially since Sidney would be at more of an advantage of outrunning them should she have the opportunity to since they have both been stabbed multiple times.

LittleWildman

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Fright Night picture

Stupidity: When Charley goes to Evil's house, he asks him how to protect himself from vampires. Since Charley is such a huge fan of Fright Night and watches it all the time, he should already know everything to protect himself from Jerry.

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Suggested correction: Being a fan of horror films in general and watching Fright Night on TV doesn't necessarily give someone expert knowledge of how to fight vampires. In fact, not every vampire movie is consistent with rules (including this one) and it is far from stupid to consult a friend who knows more than you about the subject. Think about it like this: If you watched every comic book movie that was made and every TV show based on comic books, then found out Galactus was real and you had to fight him, you wouldn't ask your friend who was a comic nerd for advice?

BaconIsMyBFF

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Child's Play picture

Stupidity: The climax takes place during the launch of the "Buddi 2," a hotly anticipated tech gadget. The entire film has been leading up this point, and it's a big deal that it's being launched. And yet, there are no more than maybe 20 people waiting. Not a mistake per se, but totally unrealistic compared to the huge crowds these sort-of launches typically bring in.

TedStixon

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Suggested correction: Bear in mind, this is just a cheap retail store in downtown Chicago; presumably, every major department and toy store across the country is having a similar event, so this opening would logically only draw people in the neighborhood with children the right age and willing to pay the opening-day price. Plus, we hear a voice on a radio warning of upcoming rain. The report is proven wrong since there's no rain for the rest of the scene, but even a warning of rain would ward some off.

Anson Gordon-Creed

I'll agree to disagree. I live in a relatively small, quiet town in upstate, New York, and events like new tech-launches (new iPhones, video games, etc.), movie premieres, anticipated book releases, etc. still regularly bring in pretty huge crowds at virtually every participating store. (Ex. Lines going out the doors and wrapping around the building.) Heck, I know someone who tried to get the last "Harry Potter" book opening night and couldn't because every local book store was packed completely full. So I have a hard time believing the crowd would be so small. The fact this movie also takes place in a pretty major city like Chicago is another strike against it.

TedStixon

More Child's Play stupidity
The Wolfman picture

Stupidity: When Lawrence begins turning into a werewolf in front of Dr. Hoenneger, his fellow doctors, Inspector Aberline and the guard, everybody just sits in their seats and watches the transformation instead of running for the door.

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Species picture

Stupidity: The entire plot hinges on a military facility that knows it's housing what's essentially a sentient world-ending disease, and that has the foresight and resources to build a containment room with a cyanide failsafe, having nothing else to stop said virus from breaking out beside the glass her room is mostly composed of. Once she's out of that room, she just has to run through an unlocked, labeled exit door and hop a fence. Where are the emergency bulkheads? Where are the armed guards watching the hallways? Why isn't that fence electrified? Why isn't she wearing a metal shock-collar at all times? Even if that glass was bulletproof and/or they seriously underestimated her strength, they'd still have to open the door to her room at various times to give and take her food, books, laundry and waste.

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Child's Play picture

Stupidity: John, the guy who taught Chucky the voodoo spell is confronted by Chucky later on in doll form. When things don't go how Chucky wants, he finds a Voodoo doll of the same guy just lying around and uses it to torture him. So this idiot who knows Voodoo and what it does, happens to have a Voodoo doll of himself just lying around? Yeah sure, that can't go wrong at all.

Quantom X

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Suggested correction: Not all magic is evil, and the doll could've been made for something else.

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A Quiet Place Part II picture

Stupidity: If the song "Beyond the Sea" can be continuously broadcast on the radio station as a "cryptic clue" that there are survivors living on the island and the aliens are unable to swim, then someone could verbally announce that information over the radio and otherwise communicate with other humans. The same thing about how Regan's hearing aid incapacitates the creatures. Rather than explaining how to weaponized the high-frequency sound, only the hearing aid's noise is broadcast and anyone hearing it has to figure it out.

raywest

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The Meg picture

Stupidity: Nobody is ever going to take a nine-year-old child on a dangerous mission to locate and destroy a marauding, giant shark, a project that has already cost a number of lives.

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The Mummy picture

Stupidity: It's stated that Imhotep will fear cats until he has fully regenerated and two different scenes show him fleeing in terror at the sight of a cat. Despite this, none of the characters that Imhotep is trying to kill that are fully aware of his weakness even think to have a cat with them at all times.

Phaneron

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Drag Me To Hell picture

Stupidity: When Christine is told that to remove the curse, all she had to do was give an envelope with the button inside to somebody else and that individual would go to hell. She decides to go to the cemetery where Ganush is buried and places an envelope into her mouth. Had Christine actually bothered to check inside the envelope first to see if the button was inside, she would never have gone to hell.

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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark picture

Stupidity: When Ruth catches Chuck fishing for turds in their toilet, he yells at her and asks for privacy and then slams the bathroom door shut. He should have closed the bathroom door in the first place if he didn't want anybody to see what he was doing. It's not like anybody would think he was weird for going into the bathroom and immediately closing the door.

Phaneron

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Scream 2 picture

Stupidity: Ghostface ambushes Sidney and her friend with the two detectives protecting her while in the car. Ghostface busts out of the driver window, and slashes the throat of the driver detective and then assaults his partner, kicking the crap out of him. Ghostface is obviously going with the intent to kill and has a weapon. He just killed one of the detectives and threw the other in the street in front of the car. When Ghostface jumps in the car to take off, the living detective, beaten, jumps up with his gun trained on Ghostface. But rather than do anything smart, he just yells at the killer, the cop killer, to freeze and get out of the running car that he's standing in front of. He just saw the guy kill his own partner and knows he is intending to kill the girls in the back. His gun is pointed at Ghostface who is about to drive over him, but he just yells at him instead of shooting.

Quantom X

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Venom: Let There Be Carnage picture

Stupidity: Shriek is being taken to a new facility for superbeings, after a medical exam established that her sonic powers that she has been using since she was a kid are too strong to keep her at the correction house. So "naturally" for this transport she is not gagged, sedated, not even bound, and there's just one guy with her, not even wearing earplugs. It couldn't possibly be any more comically unsafe.

Sammo

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Scream 4 picture

Stupidity: Jill wasn't thinking too clearly when she plans her story. She only wiped the fingerprints off the gun but they would be all over the tape on Trevor's body. Then she wipes off the knife yet touches it again to slide it across the floor. She was thinking that Trevor and Charlie were going to be thought of as the killers but their fingerprints weren't on either of the weapons.

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Bird Box picture

Stupidity: When Greg volunteers to watch the security monitors to see if the creatures can affect people through a screen, no-one even thinks to remain in the room with him to cover up the monitors with a blanket, towel or something similar in case the creatures' power can be transmitted that way. They tied him to a chair to reduce his chances of committing suicide, so they certainly thought there was a possibility that he would be in danger.

Phaneron

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Creepshow 2 picture

Stupidity: After the Slick devours Laverne, Randy jumps into the water and swims for shore with the Slick following. Even though Randy made it to shore, he stops and turns to confront the Slick, screaming that he beat it. When Randy turns around, the Slick immediately envelopes him. If Randy had just got up and started running instead of facing the Slick, he would have lived.

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Suggested correction: This is a deliberate movie making technique to make the audience think the character has escaped but at the last second a surprise is thrown in. It's the same as hanging over the body of the killer. It doesn't come under stupidity.

The_Iceman

Yes, it does. In any movie where someone comes face to face with either a supernatural enemy or even a regular one, confronting it is extremely stupid because the character could have simply walked away and made it to safety. The character confronting the killer is stupid because they'll always be killed. Better to do the smart thing and run as far and as fast as possible.

A example of a valid stupidity entry is an astronaut taking his helmet off when in space because he's an expert and knows better. A stupid person doing something stupid is considered a stupidity entry (which is essentially a plot hole writers use to move the story in a particular direction it wouldn't have gone otherwise). A character making the wrong choice because they underestimate the situation isn't a minor plot hole, in real life people underestimate opponents all the time, and movies exploit that all the time in their plot development (i.e. Apollo underestimating Rocky).

Bishop73

Suggested correction: Randy's decision isn't what constitutes a "stupidity" mistake. Stupidity mistakes are minor plot holes, which means characters can act stupid. Plus, when Randy gets to shore he's worn out so he tries to catch his breath. He then says he's won because he under estimated the Slick's ability to get him (which would fall under the category of "celebrating too early").

Bishop73

Put yourself in Randy's place. If you're friends were eaten by a huge slick like monster and you were swimming to shore with it chasing you, after making it safely to shore, would you want to turn around to confront it. No. That would be stupid because confronting it will certainly get you killed the moment your back is turned. The smart thing to do would be to keep running. Randy facing it was very stupid. Had he done the smart thing and kept going after he made it to shore, he would have survived. Stupidity killed him. Pure and simple.

First off, you said it would certainly kill you once your back is turned, which means if you're running away, your back is turned and if you confront it, your back isn't turned. But, he never tried to confront it. He just celebrates beating it. However, Randy thought he was safe once on land because he thought the creature couldn't attack him or reach him, so in Randy's mind he wasn't doing anything stupid. He thought he was safe, he thought he won. He was tired and sat to rest. But that's part of his character and his character traits. But, acting stupid isn't a "stupidity" mistake. Otherwise movies like "Dumb and Dumber" would just be thousands of stupidity mistakes because stupid characters are acting stupid. Now, if Randy knew the creature could kill him in water and he turns to celebrate his victory, or stops to rest, in the water, that could be a "stupidity" mistake since his character was already shown to know he can't stop in the water and the writers ignored what was already established as his character. Stupidity mistakes just are minor plot holes that go against already establish character traits or established facts/statements in the film.

Bishop73

Not only that, but, Randy was acting stupid since he chose to face it rather then run.

If you re choosing to say its a stupidity because they choose to fight rather than run then that's a moot point because you wouldn't have a movie in the first place! Movies get a degree of latitude when it comes to reality (people can be shot 7 times and still walk away as the credits roll) so rather than stupidity, this is under slightly suspended reality of how an actual person would behave. In this segment, we're talking about an oil slick with a mind of its own. 100% reality has to take a back seat where plot forwarding is concerned.

The_Iceman

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