Film cliches you want to fuck off

[Dave The Triffids]

Hope this hasn't been mentioned yet - People rifling through medicine cabinets (the ones that no-one has; those thin ones attached to the bathroom wall with a mirror on the front) and clumsily spilling all the pill bottles out.

[All Surrogate]

Heh, that's instantly made me think of the pharmacy scene from Zaat.

[Fr.Bigley]

The obligatory group of teens/jocks/bullies/inmates that single out the weedy person on the large lunch table in the cafeteria, followed by some form of beatdow/fisticuffs.

[Magnum Valentino]

"No! No hospitals!"

[Blue Jam]

Any joke about a vain character wearing sunglasses bumping into things. Yes, if you wear very dark sunglasses in a dark room you may struggle to find your way around but generally sunglasses are designed to be see-through.

Also wanting to protect your eyes isn't vain.

[kalowski]

I was thinking how great it would be to make a film and fill it with loads of the clichés in this thread, but then I started watching The Handmaid's Tale tonight and see I've been beaten to it.

[Blue Jam]

Hope this hasn't been mentioned yet - People rifling through medicine cabinets (the ones that no-one has; those thin ones attached to the bathroom wall with a mirror on the front) and clumsily spilling all the pill bottles out.

Those orange pill bottles Americans get prescriptions in do seem easier to knock over than the cardboard packets we get on the NHS tho.

[greencalx]

In a C20th period piece, every piece of architecture being from the same decade in which the film is set. Because no building lasts more than 10 years.

[olliebean]

One character commits an act of (usually) extreme violence on another. Then we instantly cut back to the moment just before it happened, and realise they were just imagining doing it.

Seen two examples of that in the last few days.

[Icehaven]

In a C20th period piece, every piece of architecture being from the same decade in which the film is set. Because no building lasts more than 10 years.

That's a really good point. I know nothing of architecture but surely it was almost as mixed then as it is now decades-either-way wise.

[neveragain]

One character commits an act of (usually) extreme violence on another. Then we instantly cut back to the moment just before it happened, and realise they were just imagining doing it.

Seen two examples of that in the last few days.

Yes, I've seen far too much of this as well. A subversion where you cut back to the person apparently thinking of the violence then reveal they actually did do it would be great but I've never seen that.

[Greg Torso]

Vengeful ghosts that won't shut up.


AVENGE US! AVENGE US!

Alright alright, stop going on about it

AVENGE US

I am! I'm going to do it, OK?

AVENGE

I'm fucking doing it Christ will you stop grabbing my legs
do you want me to avenge you or not?

YES YOU MUST

let go of me then you pricks

FOR CENTURIES WE HAVE LAIN IN SLUMBER

right you know what. Bollocks. I'm not doing it.

PLEASE

no, I warned you. I told you to stop going on about it and you wouldn't so now I'm not doing it.

THEN DIE

well if you can kill me why can't you just avenge your own god damn self

[Small Man Big Horse]

One of the seen too much of recently is where a gypsy type insists on reading the sceptical heroes palm / tea leaves, but then looks horrified and refuses to tell our lead character what terrible things they've supposedly seen.

[Dusty Substance]

This will have already been mentioned but I keep seeing the trailer for Black Widow on social media and it features that tiresome cliche of a three-point landing and a slow raise of the head. Fucking hell, Hollywood. They've been doing this for 22 years.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Something really horrific or weird happens - then the person it is happening to wakes up in bed.  Everything seems normal at first, then something else horrific or weird takes place.  The character then wakes up, this time properly.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Something really horrific or weird happens - then the person it is happening to wakes up in bed.  Everything seems normal at first, then something else horrific or weird takes place.  The character then wakes up, this time properly.

That one was used to great effect in An American Werewolf in London. It probably wasn't much of a cliche at the time, though.

[Cuellar]

A room (in a hospital, a hotel, an office, a prison) conspicuously numbered 101

And a villain will be in it, or something bad will happen in it, or something sinister found in it.

It's like from that book isn't it

[idunnosomename]

Hope this hasn't been mentioned yet - People rifling through medicine cabinets (the ones that no-one has; those thin ones attached to the bathroom wall with a mirror on the front) and clumsily spilling all the pill bottles out.

what the fuck are those about. what bathroom has a little cupboard above the sink with a mirror on it. i've shit and brushed my teeth in many a room with a bath and never seen one

[olliebean]

what the fuck are those about. what bathroom has a little cupboard above the sink with a mirror on it. i've shit and brushed my teeth in many a room with a bath and never seen one

My bathroom has a little cupboard above the sink with a mirror on it. I've certainly seen them in other people's homes as well.

I don't keep pills in it, though. I keep those in the kitchen, because I take them with food.

[Magnum Valentino]

what the fuck are those about. what bathroom has a little cupboard above the sink with a mirror on it. i've shit and brushed my teeth in many a room with a bath and never seen one

Absolutely fucking loads.

[Icehaven]

We've got one too, but there's no pills in it because we don't want nosy visitors finding them.

[Dex Sawash]

In every American house built from 50s-80s (may have started  before then). The one in my last house had a little slot in the back of it that you were meant to drop your old razor blades through so they fell down inside the wall.

[mothman]

When we had our new bathroom installed, we resisted having the stereotypical bathroom cabinet. We then spent nine years with everything (that might have gone in it) piled on the windowsill, before finally getting a non-mirrored non-white cabinet that sits on the floor in the corner.

[olliebean]

In every American house built from 50s-80s (may have started  before then). The one in my last house had a little slot in the back of it that you were meant to drop your old razor blades through so they fell down inside the wall.

That doesn't sound like a good idea. You'll end up with gangs of tooled-up rats roaming the wall cavities.

[jamiefairlie]

We've got one too, but there's no pills in it because we don't want nosy visitors finding them.

.

But what do you clumsily knock over when you're emotionally distressed and want an audience to see it? A bar of soap? A bottle of Vosene?

[Sebastian Cobb]

How many us films/tv shows have a secret passage built into a big industrial washing machine? Just seen it in this Gunpowder Milkshake but obviously it was a thing in Better Call Saul/Breaking Bad and there's some film whose name I forget where the machines in a laundromat were the entrance to a secret rave.

[Brundle-Fly]

Thrillers/ horror films that open with an aerial shot above trees with a road running through the middle of them. It's become as hackneyed as sped-up film of clouds passing or busy traffic.

A captive who has been tied up, handcuffed, etc for a period of time has to say to their captor with confidence, "Is this really necessary?"  For extra points?  "Can you tell your friend to stop pointing that thing at me?"

[thecuriousorange]

Thrillers/ horror films that open with an aerial shot above trees with a road running through the middle of them.

They've got the Shinning.

You mean Shining.

Shut up. You wanna get sued?

[Brundle-Fly]

The stern but kindly detective sgt/ police officer who arrives at the house to investigate a disturbance/ follow up an investigation. Psycho/ victim under duress tells them everything is fine but as soon as anyone says "Well, would you mind if I take a look inside?" you know it's almost certainly curtains for that guy.

When something malevolent is hiding in a room (usually in the closet) and is discovered by a scared protagonist; whenever They try to prove it to another character the evil being/psycho has suddenly disappeared.  It would be really original if they pulled back the curtain and the villain was still there. That would be such an unexpected jump scare.

Actually, anybody hiding in a built in wardrobe to escape a psycho/ monster has gone beyond cliche.

[JaDanketies]

How many us films/tv shows have a secret passage built into a big industrial washing machine? Just seen it in this Gunpowder Milkshake but obviously it was a thing in Better Call Saul/Breaking Bad and there's some film whose name I forget where the machines in a laundromat were the entrance to a secret rave.

There is / was a cocktail bar in Manchester set behind a fake launderette storefront.