On works
"As a rule, people in movies haven't ever seen a movie. They're not equipped to deal with anything strange."
"I don’t want to be teamed up with Dax if I ever get stranded in a horror film. 'As long as we can maintain contact, it should be reasonably safe to split up and see if any of us can find a way out of here.' Pfft."
— Darren Mooney
on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Move Along Home"
on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Move Along Home""The good guys wouldn't have been surprised by Darth Vader winning if they'd known from the outset they were in a movie called The Empire Strikes Back."
"I love how nobody on the wrestling program actually watches the wrestling program."
— Noah Antwiller about TNA Impact
"Right off the top you know who the villain is, because of his scary shiny glasses, and, like all transparent villains, he is contractually dumb. Why one would send a morally inflexible and preternaturally strong man on a mission when one has two perfectly competent officers who are already bent is far beyond me. For reasons of villainy, I guess. And I bet he never even bothered to watch the show."
— Spacey, ''Pity for the Fool", a review of The A-Team: War Stories:B.A.
"Good morning! I'm looking for a job."
"The only one left is in an abandoned hotel built on a graveyard, where a madman slaughtered his family and left their bodies in the bathtub."
"Okey-dokey."
"The only one left is in an abandoned hotel built on a graveyard, where a madman slaughtered his family and left their bodies in the bathtub."
"Okey-dokey."
— Italian comedian Marco Bazzoni as his character "Baz" note pretty much sums up this trope with a farcical re-enacting of The Shining.
"“There’s something wrong with this house,” says the serenely beautiful Rachel Weisz’s yummy mummy, Libby. No shit, Sherlock! Most of us have seen enough creepy movies to pack our bags and race to a motel the minute the youngest child discovers a secret room or sees a scary face at the window. But nobody in the movies ever seems to have seen a movie, so they don’t know how to behave."
— Angie Errigo, "Dream House Movie Review"
"Watching a Japanese indie horror game where the protagonist is like "it's the 4th of April and I just moved in to this apartment with weirdly cheap rent that is fully furnished and the landlord is creepy but I'm so excited to live alone for the first time and anyway it's so great living in apartment 104 :)" and I guess I'm just happy to see being an absolute doorknob in a horror scenario is a universal experience
— This Tumblr post
Tumblr postFiction
"I don't know where we'd be without Delacroix. This whole ship is falling apart and she's the only one who knows what from what. I saw her arguing with that creep Anatoly Koretzkin or whatever his name is, and she was giving it to him but good. But that freak job stares her straight in the eye and starts babbling about how she doesn't 'know the pleasure of the joyful unity' or some such. Mama mia, the clowns are running the circus."
—Constance Sanger, System Shock
You let one of those nutty cults gain a hold of Mankind and grow to become a State Religion of The Imperium. Becoming this fucking Ecclesiarchy thing. And then, people start to cut their own fucking spleen out, waving it around and throwing it at people, all in a pool of their own jizz and blood: to profess their love for me. And Then, you let some power-hungry motherfucking bureaucrat become the master of both the Administratum, and that overly dominant Ecclesiarchy Groxshit. Effectively controlling all our hot, leathery assassins from the Officio Assassinorum, and all Asshole Psykers in the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. Oh, and our Flashlight guys as well. AND THEEEN this balls-to-the-walls paramount of Imeperial incompetence that has become your leader starts to kill and torture anyone and and everyone he feels like because it makes his bureaucrat balls tingle with delight initiating a massive, totally pointless purge of all Mankind. And in addition: he did all this with the most evil fucking name I've ever heard: Goge Vandire.
Seriously, how could you ever trust a guy with that name? G-O-G-E Vandire. That name is just screaming "I'm gonna take your eye sockets and put my penis into them". I mean, fuck.
Seriously, how could you ever trust a guy with that name? G-O-G-E Vandire. That name is just screaming "I'm gonna take your eye sockets and put my penis into them". I mean, fuck.
—The Emperor of Mankind, If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device
Seven of Nine: A wormhole?
Harry: The wormhole. It leads all the way back to Earth!
Seven: The odds of finding such a phenomenon are infinitesimal.
Janeway: Never bet against the house.
Harry: The wormhole. It leads all the way back to Earth!
Seven: The odds of finding such a phenomenon are infinitesimal.
Janeway: Never bet against the house.
—Star Trek: Voyager, "Bliss"
Gwen: Ok, rule number one: Do not go off on your own. Rule number two: If you do go off on your own, never go in the woods. Rule number three: If you do go in the woods, never, ever, ever make out in the woods or you will die in the woods! (Beat) Where's Izzy and Owen?
Duncan: Breakin' rules one through three.
Duncan: Breakin' rules one through three.
"Did you guys ever actually watch the show?!"
— Guy, Galaxy Quest
"This is something that nobody has ever heard about or seen before."
— Ben, Night of the Living Dead (1990 movie)
"Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon’s lair, but, as I said before, Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons."
"Yes, when it's Hallerwern night and there's an insane paintin' runnin' around, there's no safer place for a pretty young thing like me than in the shower. My good man, would ya please pass the Port Plus?"
— Coach Z, Homestar Runner, "Jibblies 2"
Malcolm: This is like the beginning of every horror movie I've ever seen.
Reese: I think we should all split up.
Reese: I think we should all split up.
— Malcolm in the Middle, "Carnival"
"There's a lot of things you're blind to. But you don't realize it until it's too late."
— Harmon Rabb, JAG, "Déjà Vu"
"Walking around the aisles of shelves and racks in the Haunted Wine Cellar, you find yourself thinking about how great electric light is, and how terrible it would be if you were stuck in total darkness in the basement of the spookiest house in the Kingdom.
You might also think that, as an adventurer, you would know better than to have thoughts like that."
You might also think that, as an adventurer, you would know better than to have thoughts like that."
— Kingdom of Loathing, "Lights Out in the Wine Cellar"
"Ye'd best start believin' in ghost stories, Miss Turner... you're in one."
— Captain Barbossa, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Well, look at that, a real hot dog. But serious, who follows a stranger down a dark alley dressed as pups? I mean, on principle alone, I can't let this end well for ya.
—Hellfire, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"I should have hired those sellswords in the first place. Perhaps there's no need. This place is just a tomb, after all, and there are no obvious signs of habitation. It isn't as though the thousand-year dead will mind if I have a look around."
— Heddic's Volunruud Notes, found next to his corpse, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
"I can't believe he didn't suspect a trap. See what happens when you don't watch enough television?"
— The Joker, Justice League, "Wild Cards Part 1"
Vanessa: Okay guys, we gotta figure out a plan.
Birgitte: We should totally split up!
Lacie: I'm gonna go hide in the bathroom where it's safe.
Dana: I know. I'll run off to check an obscure noise in the kitchen!
Heather: I'm gonna slowly walk backwards into a dimly lit room.
Candace: Really? See, if they watch more domestic horror films, they'd know...
Birgitte: We should totally split up!
Lacie: I'm gonna go hide in the bathroom where it's safe.
Dana: I know. I'll run off to check an obscure noise in the kitchen!
Heather: I'm gonna slowly walk backwards into a dimly lit room.
Candace: Really? See, if they watch more domestic horror films, they'd know...
— Phineas and Ferb, "Night of the Living Pharmacists"
"That's crazy! The government doesn't lie to people!"
—A clueless human woman, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
”Right, I’m going to wander down that lonely deserted street and get my bag.”
—Professor MacDougal, said during a Zombie Apocalypse, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
"DO PEOPLE NOT RESPECT TIMEOUTS ANYMORE?!! Jeez, I can tell you guys didn’t play outside with your friends growing up."
—Marti Belle, Mission Pro Wrestling Keep 'Em Talkin'
Horror movie characters aren't killed by machete-wielding monsters or reincarnated psychopaths - they're killed by ignorance. Ignorance of the mortal danger they're in. Of the butcher lurking in every shadow. Of the new rules. Ignorance of the fact that they're in a horror movie.
The problem with telling a story, of course, is that you already know that I'm telling you about something significant that happened ... So of course, when you read me dreaming about the moroi, it seems significant. Doubtless I seem like a proper fool for not immediately packing up and going back to Paris. You can turn the page and assure yourself that you would be much wiser in my situation.
