How to survive a horror movie

So, you’re in a horror movie?

Okay, don’t panic. The chances of survival are pretty slim, but there are tried-and-tested methods you can use to cut the odds in your favour. I have spent the last 30 years doing a high-level anthropological survey of horror movies’ tropes, plot devices, and character arcs. There is a formula for survival, so make sure your phone is fully charged, carry a weapon, and stay out of the woods as I take you through the revised rules for surviving a horror movie.

1. Avoid that rich prick.

If there is a member of your friendship group who no one likes but you all put up with because they (or their parents) are filthy rich, and they’re an insufferable, feckless bell end — DON’T GO TO ANY EVENT THEY HOST. This person is dead by the end of the first reel, and their selfishness and snivelling, self-serving behaviour will damn them and their guests. Please don’t spend any amount of time with someone you know is an awful, avaricious, snivelling little worm who will die horribly and probably take you with them. No massive out-of-the-way holiday home is worth risking getting your liver pierced by a big lad in a mask. Stick with your homies and hoover up Pop-Tarts in someone’s basement instead.

2. Don’t investigate noises.

You’re home alone, maybe reading your favourite horror blog, just chilling, when you hear a weird noise elsewhere in the house. For the love of Gygax, don’t investigate! If you hear nails scraping on the walls, wet washing being thrown onto a surface, or — worse — your name whispered creepily in the shadows, stop. If you investigate, it’s going to end poorly for you: you’ll be listed in the credits as Dumb-ass Dead Guy #2. You’ll go and check, your cat will startle you, and then, when you think you’re safe, you’ll get a very large knife plunged somewhere sensitive. Curiosity killed the cat; the cat will be fine. You’re the one who ends up in a body bag.

3. Turn around and start swinging.

Okay, you ignored the last rule or were caught short and had to venture off into the house/abandoned fairground/woods/slaughterhouse alone. First: have a weapon — something with a bit of heft, like a cricket bat. Don’t rely on a gun unless you are Jason Bourne. In a horror movie, a novice with a firearm has the survival odds of a jellyfish in a blast furnace. You’re looking for the masked killer, monster, or fracking SpongeBob; if you ever want to know where it is, it’s behind you. If the hair on the back of your neck rises, don’t hesitate: turn around and start swinging, hard as you can. Lash out until you feel a crunch. Keep going until the fella in the mask is a broken heap — then keep going.

4. NEVER split up.

Do you like your friends? Do you like being alive? Good — combine these passions. Don’t ever send your friend off alone. Go everywhere as a group (and I mean everywhere). If you have to pee, get them to face the other way. Want to slip away for a bit of nookie? TOUGH! (More on that later.) Think of porridge or something until the urge passes. If some arsehole suggests you split up to search quicker, point out you won’t cover more ground by splitting up — you’ll just be spread over a wider area when the bad guy eviscerates you into festive confetti. For the extra ten or fifteen minutes it takes to do everything as a group, it’s well worth staying with your peeps, come hell or high water.

5. Run OUT, not UP!

The inevitable has happened: a big sod with a mask, a knife, and a murder boner has decided to shed daylight on bits of your anatomy that you’d rather keep. What now? RUN. But for the love of your soft, gooey internal organs, run OUT, not up. Get to the door, open it, and don’t stop until you reach Hawaii. DO NOT RUN UPSTAIRS. There are a finite number of floors in your house; eventually you’ll run out of stairs and realise the big sod with the kitchenware is between you and your next breath.

6. Books are for nerds and daylight.

A few things here. If you read a book that tries to read you back, put it down. If a book makes creepy whispering start in Latin, put the damn book down. Wired “leather” covering? In the bin it goes. And whatever you do, even if an army of the undead is knocking the door down, DON’T READ ALOUD in a language you don’t understand. Treat every sentence as if it says, “Please bugger me with a chainsaw and possess my worthless corpse.” As a rule of thumb, if the book is dusty — like ‘untouched by human hands for strange aeons’ dusty — maybe just watch a rerun of Futurama instead.

7. Learn to love automobile maintenance.

Don’t be that guy who runs helter-skelter to their car, drops the keys (because of course they do), and then the car won’t start. You somehow get in, slam the door on the big son of a bitch with a grudge, and your starter chokes a few times, gives a pathetic cough, and dies… then so do you. If you enjoy having blood in your veins, always make sure your car is in good working order. Whatever your wheels are, make sure she’s fully gassed, the battery works, and she’s ready to go at a moment’s notice.

8. Just MOVE for heaven’s sake.

You’ve just moved into the house of your dreams — would you believe it, it’s haunted. One moment you’re unpacking your knick-knacks, the next the pictures are spinning and a ghostly hand reaches out of a poorly tuned telly. Time to leave! You hear a demonic voice croaking your name, asking for your firstborn? Get the hell out of Dodge. I don’t care if you end up in a hotel for the night or under a fracking bridge — have you ever heard of a haunted bridge? No. If shit gets spooky, pack the family into your (perfectly functional) car and burn rubber. Encountering ghosts in an abandoned hotel bar? Load up the wife and kids and get your arse on a snowmobile. There’s no need for Scatman Crothers to get hurt — just LEAVE.

9. Don’t have sex. No one is that cute!

This is fundamental. Ever since little Jason Voorhees drowned at Camp Crystal Lake, horny teens have been dropping like flies. Pre-marital sex is the leading cause of death in slutty sorority girls and meathead jocks in slasher movies. Unless your director is going for a progressive, sex-positive take on the genre, keep your goddamn pants on. For the love of Wes Craven, hop in a cold shower (with a buddy keeping an eye). Your ‘bad-boy’ boyfriend sneaks into your room? Mace the fool — because 1) he’s obviously the killer, and 2) even without a masked psycho, that’s just damn creepy. Same goes for guys: no offence, my peeps, but if you’re a solid 3–4 and a girl who’s an 8–9 invites you over for a “thinly veiled” hookup, you may as well save the masked monolith a job and jump in a wood chipper.

10. Once you’ve killed it, kill it again.

You’ve survived to the last reel. Wounded and ragged, you face off against your tormentor for the final showdown; you strike and knock them down. DON’T look away. DON’T assume they’re dead; keep hitting them until what remains is a fine red paste. They will always try to come back — human psycho, personification of small-town malice, or zombie sent to rid the world of horny teens — it’s not dead until it’s the consistency of ground beef. Even then, I’d set fire to whatever’s left. Feed the body into a car crusher if you must, but make sure the remains resemble a poorly made steak tartare rather than a person. Just in case some genius decides to dig up the son of a bitch and lightning decides to play resurrection.

11. Don’t watch a horror movie (alone).

If you’re in a horror movie, your director is probably the kind of dick who’d love to film you all cosy, snuggled in a blanket, watching a cheesy black-and-white monster movie while the killer lurks, planning how to redecorate his man-cave with your favourite body parts. If you must watch something alone, pick Family Guy, Robot Chicken, or My Little Pony — ANYTHING besides a pre-technicolour horror flick. One caveat: don’t be that guy pointing out tropes while actually watching a horror film if you think you’re in one — all you’re doing is making your own death a punchline (although writing an article about it is sexy and cool and wonderful).

12. Be a party pooper.

Do you want to go to an epic house party on the ‘Great Frat-boy Slaughter Fest Anniversary’? The correct answer is NO. If there’s a masked killer stalking people, don’t be in a place where drunk and stoned idiots congregate. Heard the quiet girl will get pranked at prom? Best skip it. There will be other parties (for you, at least). A bunch of bros getting high and playing with a Ouija board at a keg party? Hang out with the chess nerds instead. You’re better off geek than Greek on this one. Afraid of missing out on a little loving? Remember rule #9 — you’ll probably be comforting their girlfriend at the funeral. Nothing good ever comes of large teenage social gatherings during a masked killer’s murder spree. Pop a couple of caffeine pills and stay home.

13. Don’t say “cliché dialogue here.”

After the third or fourth body has stacked up and there’s no doubt you’re in a horror film, do not assign yourself a role. If you aim for ‘Final boy/girl,’ you will end up as ‘ironic meta commentator bisected with a hedge trimmer.’ By this stage you’ve stayed one step ahead, but don’t get cocky. As the late, great Randy Meeks said, “Never, ever, ever, under any circumstances say, ‘I’ll be right back,’ because you won’t be back.” I’d add: never say “You’re just imagining things” or any derivative. It’s not just the wind. When a friend, bloody and terrified, starts ranting about trees coming to life, don’t tell them they’re crazy — grab a god-damn chainsaw and get to work. And in the final face-off, when it’s just you and a killing machine with Maskaphilia, bite your tongue and DON’T tell them to “eat this” or “burn in hell.” It never ends well. At best you’ll take them with you; since the goal is survival, keep your mouth shut and get killing.

14. Listen to the loony.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Welcome to the Monkey House, “A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.” In plain terms: when shit’s crazy, crazy may be sane. If a wild-looking man who hasn’t heard of a comb runs toward you yelling, “He comes at night! Watch the mirrors!!” take fracking notes. If a tinfoil-hatted stranger rants about aliens who steal his teeth, buy him a beer and ask for details. In almost every slasher the heroes are warned up front — and when they blow the warning off, they die. Don’t be a dick to the loony; they may be the only one who knows where the slasher’s heart is hidden or that the flesh-eating alien is deathly allergic to Bud Light.

15. Don’t pull any pranks, ever.

Ask yourself: have you ever said, “Oh yeah, they’re great — always pretending to be mortally wounded; it’s such a hoot”? No one enjoys a chronic prankster. Besides the fact pranksters are invariably douchebags, if you fake your own death two or three times and then actually get stabbed, no one will take you seriously — and you will die. Frantically trying to remember the sign for ‘No, really, this time!’ won’t help. If you constantly pull pranks, you’ll be among the first to die, and you’ll thoroughly deserve it. Your death scene will come with a laugh track.

16. Leave clowns the hell alone!

Clowns are mostly chronically depressed performers who could be the human avatar of an extragalactic being of pure madness that likes to scare children — so they taste better as a little snack. No good situation starts with, “We were almost completely defeated and then, thank god, a clown showed up.” Give one of these grease-paint motherfuckers an inch and they’ll take it, stretch it, and shiv you with it until you drown in blood. In the best-case scenario you get Sid Haig’s Captain Spalding; in the worst case you get Pennywise. Do yourself a favour: if you see a harlequin-looking jackanape with a fake smile plastered across their mouth, run. Run your arse off. (Yes, I am coulrophobic — how did you guess?)

17. Don’t make new friends.

Once you know you’re in a horror movie, set hard boundaries. Be choosy about who you spend time with. That cute, shy girl wearing an inverted pentagram who wants to hang out? She’s 100% an unstable witch looking for a human sacrifice. The new kid who doesn’t talk much but is built like a brick shit house? He probably has a collection of ashtrays made from human skulls. Even if a random new person isn’t literally evil, they can still get you killed with drama. A new person appearing during a masked-killer spree is suspicious; they might be the killer’s long-lost niece or the sole survivor of their last massacre. Whatever it is, you don’t need that drama. Wait until the masked sod is dead, then make friends.

18. Have a go bag ready.

If you hear about a videotape that kills you seven days after watching it, or the anniversary of the Rosh Hashanah massacre is coming up and Chad isn’t around anymore (sorry, Chad — you’re dead, mate), have a go bag ready. You want a cheap pay-as-you-go phone with a universal charger, spare vehicle keys, a heavy melee weapon (I’m partial to a cricket bat), money, a change of clothes (jeans or sweats), any medication you need, and a spare pair of glasses. When the shit hits the fan, grab your go bag at the end of the first act and don’t stop until the post-credit sequence (which, if we do this right, will be you drinking a beer in Mexico, working on your tan as the sole survivor because you recognised the pattern). Even if you don’t make it out of the area, having everything you need handy is sensible — if you start hyperventilating you won’t have an asthma attack because you forgot to refill your prescription.

19. Watch the news like a hawk.

This is important when you’re trying to piece things together. For example: two kids at your school died in their sleep — that’s relevant. What about the pile-up you narrowly escaped? Are other people who were supposed to have died showing up killed in gnarly, creative ways? You need to track stuff like this compulsively. An alert about an escaped mental patient, weird lights in the sky, missing campers — everything is a clue.

20. Collect urban legends and take them seriously.

If someone tells you there’s a videotape that kills you seven days after watching it, avoid it. If you’re warned that saying “candyman” five times in a mirror will summon Tony Todd to murder you, stay away from mirrors and don’t say his name. Treat urban legends as gospel if you want to survive. Fire up that browser and learn everything about the bogeyman lurking in your shadows. If you’re given simple rules to follow, FOLLOW THE FRACKING RULES. How hard is it to keep a pet dry, keep it away from daylight, and not feed it after midnight? Just do as you’re told — don’t antagonise the demon/villain/entity — and you might make it to the sequel.

So there you have it, my friends: Doktor Robster’s quick-and-dirty guide to making it to the other end of the film alive. Remember, though, if you’re a returning character in a sequel, your odds of survival go down considerably.

Don’t break the circle.

— Doktor Robster