Needs Help: Faux Horror Film

A combination of "Ambiguous Name," "Unclear Description," and "Duplicate Trope" so I'll go with "Needs Help."

Let's start with the name. The name makes it sounds like it's "presented as a horror film, but it's not." The thing is, most of the examples are still horror films, they're just not supernatural horror films. This problem is carried over to the description, which seems to think "horror" is synonymous with "supernatural."

The description also gets confusing as it seems to imply that there's no threat whatsoever. It specifically says "there's no psycho killers, it was just a ruse." If that's the case, then two things: there's a ridiculous amount of misuse on the page (most of the examples are still slasher flicks and there is a hell of a lot of psycho killing going on) and B: It's an almost perfect overlap with "Scooby-Doo" Hoax (with a few examples instead being Through the Eyes of Madness). Either way, it's covered.

So yeah. At the end of the day, it's an awful name and if the description (which doesn't fit the name) is correct, then it's covered by other tropes and hilariously misused on the very page. Someone tried to cutlist it at one point, and while I actually agreed with the sentiment, I figured we should go through the proper venue.

All the ZC Es on the page aren't helping. I really hate that trend on genre pages. It's hard to figure out what this is going for.

I'm not reading the trope description as implying that the horror must be supernatural: "The supernatural elements, monsters, aliens, psycho killers, etc., are a ruse of some kind."

Supernatural elements is just one item on the list, which also includes aliens and psycho killers.

However, I also object to the opening line "This is where a film is advertised as a Horror film, but there is no horror", because the horror is there - it's just that it turns out to be based on a hoax or on the heroes being "schizophrenic or overly paranoid".

This does indeed sound like a perfect overlap with "Scooby-Doo" Hoax and/or Through the Eyes of Madness.

I think it should be cut as a duplicate trope.

I'd second that.

This does sound like a duplicate. I read through the page, and every example I was familiar with and/or had context fit better under "Scooby-Doo" Hoax, Through the Eyes of Madness or was a subversion of the trope, making it a straight horror film, and thus not this trope.

Agreeing that this should be cut as a duplicate of "Scooby-Doo" Hoax.

I'll pitch in another vote for "cut as a duplicate".

Me Too!.

Same here.

Do we start the crowner now? This is my first time on TRS.

If this is unanimous (and it seems like it is), then that probably won't be necessary.

"WARNING LIKELY SPOILERS BELOW!" More like "likely Zero Context Examples below"... In fact, the earliest archived version of the page seems to be entirely zero-context. The description seems to have been written by a troper with a grudge against these films. It doesn't seem to have ever gone through YKTTW. Cut it.

edited 22nd Jan '16 8:24:55 AM by Prfnoff

Interesting - that first version of the trope seems to be even more duplicate than it is today: it's just "Scooby-Doo" Hoax as applied to film.

Has it been decided to cut it? If so, I can make the request.

Bump. Do we have a consensus to cut here, or does this need a crowner?

It doesn't look like there's anyone here who objects to a cut.

I support cutting it.

Alright, then I'll proceed with dewicking this.

EDIT: And done. I've submitted the article to the cutlist.

edited 19th Mar '16 8:26:28 AM by Morgenthaler

Lock!