Fifty More Horror Clichés That Should Be Left to Spoil

#8: Villainous Team Ups Suck

Once upon a time in the past, the idea of teaming up a bunch of evil people together was seen as innovative. After all, if the heroes of the narrative could be allowed to do this, then why couldn't the antagonists? With many evil minds together in one place, plans of complete chaos could be crafted effortlessly. Using more than one single approach to the matter, more horrific actions could be done by the antagonists than just doing them alone. The Earth would be left in a state of anarchy, with only the bravest souls being even slightly capable of taking down this spreading darkness. It would be great fodder for a comic book story, but an even more innovative one for the horror genre. After all, with the horror genre's slew of iconically evil characters, why could this feat not be tried out at least once? Bringing even a few of these iconically nasty characters together would be a recipe for something potentially gruesomely great.

Then, the movie Suicide Squad came out in theaters. It was with that one mediocre comic book movie that people came to associate any villainous team up to be undesirable. Not helping the situation were attempts from horror movies in the past to achieve a smaller version of the same goal. Teaming up Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger ended up being a simple cash grab movie at best, not being fondly remembered by many horror fans. The movie Alien Vs. Predator additionally ended up being a simple horrific snore feast that no one dares talk about in public. Suicide Squad just ended up being the final straw towards any type of horror character team up ever happening. Eventually, ideas for the Dark Universe, which would have created a Marvel-like crossover event for iconic horror movie monsters, were shelved completely, leaving the idea for any type of villainous team up unheard of for most.

This is a complete shame in my opinion. The potential a villainous team-up would have had on any genre, especially horror, could have been high. With so many iconically scary characters to choose from in the horror genre, it really is baffling that no one tries to really test the waters of this grand idea out yet. Fan fiction writers have tried out this formula with great success in the past. Why can't a horror writer or horror movie director try doing the same?

In my mind, creating a villainous team-up with the scariest of horror villains would be astounding to see. It is one thing to see a bunch of horror creatures cross over together once in a blue moon in movies. If this happened with some of the biggest horror icons like Samara from The Ring movie franchise and Carrie White from her iconic Stephen King novel, the results would be legendary.

Let's imagine for a second that some type of inter-dimensional event caused multiple horror story universes to suddenly collide together. Slasher killers, horror creatures, and supernatural entities would meet each other from this event for the first time ever. Though they would see each other as enemies at first, eventually these horror icons would come to see that they share a common goal; causing fear and mayhem towards the general public. Thus, an alliance would be bridged between these multiple different forces, that for the world around them would spell complete chaos. The scares would be at an all time high for audiences, now faced with multiple different antagonistic forces causing differing types of bloodshed. In the end result, there would be the perfect horror environment to craft a strong good versus evil narrative that people could easily find themselves getting behind.

Call this idea an example of being a complete fan girl, but I seriously do believe that the right horror writer out there could make this type of idea work well. Just by balancing the screen time these horror characters get, whether the writer's own characters or ones from popular culture, a truly beautiful narrative could be crafted. It would break regular conventional horror story telling, evolving the medium into something fresher for audiences. The whole thing would be legendary!

Whether or not you agree entirely with my idea, you do have to admit a horror icon team-up could work. It would be new avenue the horror genre badly needs right now. The creativity could be off the charts, and allow new types of storytelling to come into existence.