Rule of Scary: Difference between revisions

Contrast [[Narm]], [[Nightmare Retardant]], [[Rule of Cute]].

 

 

{{examples}}

*** Soylent Red is a delicious mixture of soy and lentil proteins!

*** [[Paranoia|Soylent Orange is unavailable at your security clearance, citizen.]]

*** Soylent Green is {{spoiler|exactly what they claim it is in the book}}!

* ''[[Eraserhead]]'' is completely [[True Art Is Incomprehensible|incomprehensible, like all True Art]], and profoundly disturbing.

* Any objections people had to the reinterpretation of Dr. Jonathan Crane in ''[[Batman Begins]]'' from a university professor to an asylum manager were forgotten the moment we saw his [[Mask Power|mask]] and his use of a chemical that can literally be called "[[Nightmare Fuel]]".

** The very fact that [[The Joker]] has any capacity to do anything that he does, ''ever'', breaks most common sense, but damn isn't he funny and scary for doing it. The song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbgLapRAloQ&feature=fvw The Dark Knight Is Confused] sums them up perfectly: The Joker's goons are schizos who are nevertheless dependable and self-sacrificing and for a guy who doesn't look like he had a plan, he musta organized these attacks on an evil day planner.

** Also, Freddy's glove. It isn't nearly as efficient as an axe, a machete, or hell, a ''gun'' would be as a way to murder people. But it hits the middle ground between [[Rule of Cool]] and Rule of Scary quite nicely.

*** Freddy's glove was intended to be as much a torture device as a killing tool. In "Freddy's Dead" you can see a variety of gloves in his basement, including one with what look like rusty nails for knuckles and one with straight razors attached to the tips. Also, he specifically killed young children. What would terrify a child more than ''that''? And since Freddy exists in nightmares, nothing he does has to be practical and can be as terrifying as possible. Freddy is basically Rule of Scary incarnate.

** The Pale Man is justified in that it's supposed to have been a humongously fat creature that lost its main sustenance, and as a result withered to almost skeletal proportions. That sustenance? [[Nightmare Fuel|Human children]].

* ''[[The Night of the Hunter]]'' applies this to the villain's [[Offscreen Teleportation]]. Asks one character, "[[Lampshade Hanging|Don't he never sleep?]]"

* Let's let Stomptokyo.com explain how this trope failed to cover the glaring improbabilities in the [[Bertha in The Attic]]-style plot of ''[http://www.stomptokyo.com/movies/b/bad-ronald.html Bad Ronald]'', shall we?

{{quote|''The thought that an orphaned lunatic might still lurk in the forgotten corners of a creaky old house is enough to make you start knocking surreptitiously on the walls of your own home, listening for hollow spots. However, this central conceit probably worked better as a novel than as a movie. On film, it becomes obvious that Ronald's subterfuge wouldn't last long once the other family moved in. Besides the fact that the lack of a shower in his room would probably mean that Ronald's body funk would knock passing planes out of the sky, Ronald couldn't possibly be quiet enough that everyone wouldn't figure out something was up. "It's just the house settling" only goes so far, especially when you consider that Ronald has a toilet in there. ("My house is haunted by a Phantom Flusher!") When Ronald carves all of his peepholes at eye level, the idea that he could go unnoticed in the house becomes downright ludicrous.''}}