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{{trope}}
{{Deathtrope}}
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]] in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
* In ''[[Skyline (Film)|Skyline]]'', with LA full of alien monsters eating everything that moves, our heroes decide to try and escape in cars with big, growly engines and in broad daylight. Granted, their chances weren't all that good whatever they tried, but at least on foot and at night they had some small hope of evading detection. And let's not even think about the fact that their entire daylight plan was to escape by boat. From flying aliens. Yeah, that will work!▼
== Subpages ==
{{subpages}}
== Other Examples ==
▲* In ''[[
* In general, [[Adults Are Useless|parents in horror films,]] [[Not Now, Kiddo|when they ignore]] [[Adults Are Useless|every sign possible that something is trying to hurt their child, to the point that it looks like]] [[Abusive Parents|emotional abuse.]]
* [[Drill Sergeant Nasty|Hartman]] from ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]''. When Pyle is in the middle of a nervous breakdown and holding a rifle, he decides that, rather than call the MPs, he should insult the poor guy. It doesn't end well for him.
* Also in general, ANY movie where at least one character stops running to tell the murderous psychopath/monster/demon/abomination/whatever to "wait."
** Any horror movie that relies on a
* Bulk and Skull during the skydiving scene in ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Scream (
{{quote|
** Also [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] at the beginning, when [[Drew Barrymore]]'s character asks "Who's there?" the killer taunts her on the phone with, "You should never say, 'Who's there?' Don't you watch scary movies? It's a death wish. You might as well go outside to investigate a strange noise or something."
** Only about three minutes after uttering the above line, Sidney is attacked by the killer and she [[Genre Savvy|actually attempts the front door first]] before realizing it's locked and she has no time to unlock it, which sends her running up the stairs.
** Another character in the movie, Tatum ([[Rose McGowan]]) is killed after trying to crawl through the pet door in an automatic garage door. Naturally, she dies when the killer does something she wasn't smart enough to do: open the door.
* The location of ''[[
** Not to mention the sheer dumbness of giving something as deadly as a shark increased human brain power in the first place. That was bound to go well.
** As Cracked.com put it, "You know what makes a really effective defense against sharks escaping? Hundreds of miles of dry land."
* The Northern Water Tribe counts as this in ''[[
** Also the Fire Nation imprisoned some earth benders on...Earth. Luckily the Earth benders [[What an Idiot!|never actually figure this out]] until Aang came along.
* Everybody in ''[[Screamers]]''. Two sides are fighting a war on a planet. One side deploys the screamers, small burrowing robots. Ok, not so bad. Said screamers are equipped with an adaptive learning AI. Ok, that's risky, but not suicidal. The screamers are also built in an automated factory, and the screamers design and build newer generations of screamers. At this point, the concept moves from "risky" to "out and out suicidal". But the worst part, the thing that make you suspect the designers of the first screamers had a death wish, is the robots programing. The screamers are programed to kill any living thing they encounter, without any Friend or Foe system. Naturally, the screamers kill every single person on the planet. Its the worst case of this trope and Genre Blindness I've ever seen.
** To be fair, the film implies that the Screamers were only set up and let loose by the Alliance after the planet's population had already mostly been killed off with bio-weapons and nuclear strikes by the NEB, and the Alliance was literally at the point of losing the war if they didn't do something crazy and desperate to change the balance of power. It's also pointed out by the surviving Alliance commander that this was a crazy act of desperation, and that there were all sorts of potential unintended consequences. So not quite Genre Blind so much as simply an attempt at Refuge in Audacity that didn't work out so great. Also, the Alliance troops did have an Identification Friend or Foe system they could wear, called a "tab," that was supposed to protect them from screamers.
** The IFF system would have been great if it actually ''worked'', but the film makes it clear that screamers looked at the IFF tabs as just a thing that goes "ping".
** And the tabs wern't an IFF system. They said "I'm already dead, don't kill me" not "I'm on your side, don't kill me".
* Ofelia of ''[[
** To be fair, it's possible that the feast exerted a sort of hypnotizing effect on her. Pan's Labyrinth was influenced by various fairy tales, and such an effect is [[Artifact of Attraction|not unheard of]].
** [[It Makes Sense in Context|She was about eight years old, in the middle of a war and all the food shortages that go with it, also sent to bed without supper, suddenly seeing a banquet where everything looked and smelled amazing.]] The monster should have tipped her off, though.
** Ofelia likes fairy tales, and the movie is set up like one. In some fairy tales (but not all), the main character will fail to listen to advice, or do something they were told specifically not to do. In some cases the tale ends here, otherwise the main character must do something to redeem themselves in the eyes of their quest-giver. So Ofelia is just acting in accordance with the fairy-tale princess that she believes she is.
* On a more minor example, during a High Speed chase through a densely packed forest in ''[[
** Considering that Luke demonstrated that the speeders can change elevation, racing through the trees at ground level in the first place qualifies everyone involved. On top of that, after Luke had been knocked off his speeder, his foe doubles back to finish him off rather than continuing on to get help, as all of the speeder troopers were commanded to do (and is the reason why they bolted from the scene in the first place).
*** A reasonable argument could be that, once dismounted, Luke used Force influence to convince the trooper to swing around and try to kill him. If you watch closely, Luke pulls out his light saber before the trooper turns around.
*** The Rebels at least have a valid reason in flying at treetop level—they're in pursuit of someone else who is staying down amidst the trees and can't afford to lose him. The fleeing Imperial bikers, on the other hand, have ''less'' than zero excuse for simply not going up until they were in clear airspace, because the entire reason they're fleeing is they're trying to get help and their comlinks are jammed. Hey, you know what would have let your nearby base know you were in trouble? ''Taking the dogfight up to where they could see it happening!''
** Also, the Imperial ground forces in general in ROTJ deserve this. Locating your sensitive base in the middle of a forest where there's plenty of places for the hostile natives to hide? Oh, and wearing bright, gleaming white armor to a fight in said forest? Apparently, the Empire never invented camouflage.
*** [[Star Wars Expanded Universe
*** Justified. The legion on Endor was very recently assigned there by the direct order of the Emperor as part of his trap, and Palpatine very seldom bothers himself with the actual details of military logistics. Specifically picking a unit that was equipped with forest-camouflage gear instead of default-pattern gear because the battle was going to happen in a forest wouldn't even occur to him.
* The level of intelligence exhibited by the human race in ''[[Idiocracy]]'' can be boiled down to two phrases: [[Groin Attack|"Ow, my balls!"]] and "[[Creepy Monotone|Welcome to Costco. I love you]]."
* Hud from ''[[
* Micah from ''[[
* [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[
* Ed from ''[[Shaun of the Dead]]'' takes this to new levels. The characters need to get past a horde of zombies, and do so by acting like zombies to avoid drawing attention. When they are nearly to apparent safety, Ed's phone goes off... ''and he answers it and starts cheerfully talking on the phone, less than ten feet from dozens of zombies.''
** Previously, he had "accidentally" crashed their first car, giving him an excuse to drive a Jaguar instead. Following after the cellphone incident, the electricity comes back on and he starts playing a pinball machine, which draw the attention of a zombie in the same building as them.
* Although this trope is hardly rare in slasher movies, special mention must be given to the [[Final Girl]] from ''[[Friday the 13th (
** The worst part is that if the girl HAD finished off Pamela any of those other times, she probably would have lived a long life. The only reason she's killed in the next movie is because Jason witnessed her killing Pamela, which he probably wouldn't have if she had killed Pamela before she finally did. Not only that, but since we never get any evidence that Jason killed anyone before Part 2, might this might have even been what drove Jason over the edge.
* At one point in a screening of ''[[Halloween (
** Also, she never thought to maybe ''pick up the knife'' that Meyers dropped after being killed the second time so that if he did get up she could defend herself.
** Of course, to be fair, her friends that do get killed are even ''worse''.
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*** On the one hand, he had been pretty docile for about seventeen years, not making a sound or causing anyone any trouble. On the other hand, he was in the hospital for committing multiple brutal murders, and even killed one of the hospital staff for insulting him. Best not to provoke him.
* Multiple characters in ''[[Burn After Reading]]'' more than qualify, but Chad Feldheimer goes above and beyond the call of duty, and definitely earns the title since he ends up getting shot in the head before the second act is even over.
* In ''[[Species]]'', SIL is a sexy female alien who is driven by instinct to reproduce as much as she can, doing so by seducing male humans, who she later kills. Most victims at least don't know such an alien is out hunting for them; Dr. Arden, however, ''does'', and is deceived by SIL disguising herself with [[Paper-Thin Disguise| nothing more than a new hairstyle]]. He has nobody to blame for what happens to him but himself.
* The science fiction spoof ''[[Mom and Dad Save The World]]'' has a memorably absurd case of this on a massive scale, played for laughs of course: There's a weapon called the light grenade that disintegrates anyone it comes in contact with once the pin is pulled, but only if the victim is dumb enough to actually pick it up. It has the phrase "PICK ME UP" engraved on it. Because the movie literally takes place on a planet full of idiots, one of these left out in the open takes out an entire platoon of evil troops, each one picking it up immediately after seeing what just happened to the last guy who did that.
** When last seen, the next-to-last survivor of the platoon is just getting disintegrated, while the last survivor is radioing for more reinforcements to come pick up the grenade.
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**** Of course the irony of this is King Raff, the smartest of the people on the planet, who admits even he himself is an idiot, somehow invented almost all the technology on the planet, including the Light Grenade, a device that is infinitely reusable, and leaves seemingly no waste, just lots of piles of perfectly clean clothes, as well as a beam that can pull a car and safely transport it and its occupants through space from Earth to his planet.
** In addition, Todd, while trying on hairstyles, asks "Mutton chops or Goatee" to one of the pair of twin guards, to which the guard responds, "Mutton chops, M'lord"; Todd's response is to tell the Guard, "No... shoot yourself in the head." which the guard does (Too dumb to live, so he killed himself, because he was ordered to do so) then Todd asks the other twin, who without a moment of pause or thought cheerfully responds, "Mutton chops!" then at Todd's stern look draws his gun and shoots himself in the head (Twins, too dumb to live... or maybe not), but wait, after checking himself in the mirror once more, Tod says, "You know, they have a point." Of course the entire planet is essentially TSTL.
** Of course that isn't Tod's only TDTL moment. To penetrate the castle and save his wife, Richard Nelson aka Dad in the title, leads the idiot rebels (whose favorite weapons that their leader innovated are large smooth and round rocks which they hurl like shot puts) to build a giant hollow wooden statue of Todd and put it outside the castle. Todd is called to see it, and cheerfully rushes to look, then chides his soldiers on how it looks nothing like him, but instead of having them destroy it, he shouts to open the gates and bring it in to show everyone how much it looks nothing like him... though the rebels did nail the trapdoor securely shut.
* Pretty much ''any'' attempt the JSDF uses to stop/kill [[Godzilla]] falls under this. Most of the time, they only succeed in angering him...[[Unstoppable Rage|which only makes things worse.]] Conventional weaponry only annoys Godzilla and giant robots and laser cannons only serve as a temporary solution before Godzilla gets back up again and lays waste to them. And, yet they still use them in each film.
** The aliens in the Showa era don't seem to fair much better. You'd think they'd learn by now that Ghidorah is just going to be defeated by Godzilla (and whoever Godzilla is teamed-up with at the time). [[Failure Is the Only Option|Yet, they don't.]]
** Orga from ''[[
** Gabra from ''Godzilla's Revenge'' just loves to bully Minya, even though he's ''well''-aware that Minya happens to be [[Papa Wolf|Godzilla's son.]] He learns his lesson the hard way, maybe.
* ''[[King Kong]]'': Capturing a giant ape who's smitten with a female human and bringing him back to civilization? [[Sarcasm Mode|That's a GREAT idea!]] [[Tempting Fate|What's the worst that could happen?]] Oh... right...
* In most versions of [[Doctor Strange]]'s origin, Strange is a selfish, egotistical [[Dr. Jerk]] until an accident costs him the use of his hands and his career. The film version, however, adds this Trope to the origin, as it was caused when Strange was driving at night, using his mobile phone. Yeah, he found out the hard way why there are laws against doing that.
* The archangel Gabriel from the movie ''Gabriel'' qualifies. From the very first person that he meets onward he is constantly warned that using his powers will attract the attention of every bad guy in the city, letting them know exactly where he is. So what does he do? Why, he seeks out his fallen comrades who are in hiding and proceeds to use large quantities of his powers to "help" them, even when they specifically and emphatically tell him not to and yell at him for it after the fact.
** To top it all off, Gabriel is actually shocked and suffers a [[Heroic BSOD]] when he learns that he DID, in fact, lead the bad guys to his comrades and they all died because of his stupidity. [[The Dragon|Asmodeus]] even points out, "If you didn't want them dead, why did you lead us to them?"
* ''[[
* ''Revolver'', a forgettable 2005 [[Guy Ritchie]] movie, has one scene where a somewhat quirky and unstable hitman is clearly uncomfortable about [[The Dragon]]'s [[Kick the Dog|interrogation techniques]]. When he complains, the bad guy threatens him with [[Tempting Fate|"Question me again, Sorter, and we will have a falling out."]]. They do indeed have a falling out.
* Many, many, many characters in the ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' series. Especially in ''Jurassic Park III'', when Amanda is shouting into a megaphone. Towards a forest. On an island she knows is filled with dinosaurs.
** That's not even half of it:
{{quote|
'''Dr. Grant:''' And tell your wife to stop making so much noise! We're food to these damn animals.
'''Paul:''' ''(yelling)'' AMANDA, HONEY! DR. GRANT SAYS IT'S A BAD IDEA!
'''Amanda:''' ''(on the megaphone)'' WHAT?
'''Paul:''' ''(pointing broadly at Alan)'' HE SAYS IT'S A BAD IDEA!
'''Amanda:''' ''(on the megaphone)'' WHAT'S A BAD IDEA?
''(a roar is suddenly heard)'' }}
{{quote|
'''Sarah''': No, don't bet on it. Tyrannosaurs have the largest proportional olfactory cavity of any creature in the fossil record with the exception of one. }}
* Jesse from the second ''[[Alien vs. Predator (
** There's also the part near the beginning when the pizza delivery boy and his brother go down into the sewer for his car keys at night and nearly get killed by the Predator. It wasn't even like it turned to night by the time they got to the sewer, they clearly waited until night to go down, presumably so no one saw them doing it. Granted they didn't know that the Alien or Predator were on Earth yet, but still one would think that going into a sewer at night is just asking for ''some'' sort of trouble.
** Also none of the characters seem capable of realizing that the Predator is fighting the Aliens and that maybe it would be a good idea to just let it go about it's business and not bug it. The main character seems to at least partially notice this near the end, choosing to flee and leave the Predator alone rather then trying to fight it (an action that gets some other characters killed).
** Weyland in the first film. He was just spared by a Predator, so he takes it as an insult and attacks it again. You only get mercy once, moron.
* Dr. Schneider from ''[[Indiana Jones and
** Donovan also qualifies. After being told that "while the true grail brings life, the false grail will take it from you", he pauses, not knowing which one to pick. When he lets Dr. Schneider choose for him, he simply assumes it must be the one. [[Idiot Ball|Should have asked for another volunteer.]]
*** This is more an example of [[Distracted By the Shiny]], because Dr. Donovan was obviously overwhelmed by the moment, thinking he was holding the legendary Grail in his hands.
** Indy himself qualifies: A German officer has a gun to Schneider's head and is threatening to kill her if Indy does not put down his gun. His father tells him that the officer won't kill her, and not to listen to her either. Despite this, and, just as importantly, if not more, despite Schneider's German name and accent, Indy puts down his gun (whereupon Schneider pretty much immediately turns out to be an enemy).
*** Being fair to Indy he already knew she was German. He just didn't know she was a ''loyal'' German, as she'd previously managed to convince him that she was one of the Germans who didn't like Hitler. Indy's behavior in this situation is more 'not willing to bet someone else's life on a his-word-vs-hers' situation, which is only mildly heroic stupidity.
* Raymond Cocteau in ''[[Demolition Man]]'' frees a dangerous psychopath in order to get rid of an enemy, but he has it implanted in his brain that he can't ever harm him. However, he also allows him to bring other criminals inside his home who don't have the don't-harm-Cocteau rule implanted. It doesn't end well for him.
* Davis in the 2004 remake of ''[[The Flight of the Phoenix]]''; the plane has just crashed in the middle of the desert and it's stormy outside. He goes out, in the middle of the night, to take a leak. Not only does he walk ''unnecessarily'' far away from the plane (It's the middle of the night! No one will see you, jeez), he somehow trips and falls down, then rolls ten meters away from where he was -- ''and gets '''lost'''''. He fails to find his way back to the plane, and dies out there.
* ''[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'': Considering the '''numerous''' mistakes they make throughout the film, Brad/Asshole and Janet/Slut certainly apply.
* ''Tom Yum Goong'' (''The Protector/[[Ong Bak]]''). Given that they've watched ''dozens'' of their comrades writhe in excruciating pain, most of the [[Mooks]] in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsJ5s6CKmog this scene] qualify ('''Warning:''' [[Rated "M" for Manly|This scene may impregnate the viewer, regardless of sex]]). If only they weren't practicing [[Mook Chivalry]].
* Many of the characters in ''[[
** Commented upon in the [[Mystery Science
{{quote|
* Half of Gotham in the 1989 ''[[Batman (
* ''[[
** She wasn't there by
* In ''[[
** An employee figures out that Bruce Wayne must be Batman, and wants to blackmail him. Lampshaded by [[Morgan Freeman]]'s character: "Let me get this straight. You think that one of your clients - one of the wealthiest, most powerful people in the world - is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands, and your plan is to ''blackmail'' this person?"
* ''[[Prince of Space]]'': "Your weapons have no effect on me!"
** [[Shooting Superman|"Shoot him!"]]
** [[Mystery Science Theater 3000
* The three victims in ''[[
* Anyone in the 2008 not-remake of ''[[
* [[Damsel Scrappy|Parker]] in the 2010 ''[[Open Water]]'' knockoff ''[[Frozen (
* ''Every single human being'' in the ''[[
* Also another film riffed by ''[[
* Will Stanton in the film ''Dark Is Rising''. At the end of the movie, he and the other Old Ones are forced to retreat into the Great Hall, where their enemy the Rider cannot enter unless invited. Will then proceeds to throw open the doors when he hears his parents and sister calling him only to learn that it was just the Rider
** This is based on a very ''early'' scene from the book, where he, Merriman, and the Lady are holding a three-person circle of power in the Hall while the Dark tries to beat down the door, and they break his concentration by convincing him briefly that they've got his family captive. He lets go of his new comrades' hands, and the Lady has to temporarily die to save the day. Then Marriman actually explains a little bit, although he has an infuriating habit of explaining nothing, ever. (Will's also only just eleven in the book.)
** The '''only''' good thing about that movie is it had the [[Doctor Who
* Both [[Hulk (
** In the second film, Ross specifically tries to knock Bruce out with gas instead of making him angry, and orders his men ''not to engage''. If Bruce hadn't seen Betty there being kept away from him, it might've worked. Nice job breaking it, Betty!
** Emil Blonsky deserves special mention. He held his own in a battle with Hulk, mainly because of how quick he was, due to the super soldier serum he'd been given. After he and the rest of his military division have thrown everything they have at Hulk, and he is still walking, Ross tells Blonsky to fall back. Blonsky then rips off his earpiece, drops his gun and attempts to stare down the Hulk, saying "Is that all you've got?" Cue Hulk-powered thrust kick to the chest, followed by being smooshed all over a tree.
* ANYONE who buried anything in the burial ground in ''[[Pet Sematary]]'' after seeing the initial results (heck, after the initial ''warning'' for that matter). You'd think that after seeing what happened to Church the cat they would have stopped, but the guy then proceeded to bury his hit-by-a-truck toddler son Gage, who then came back and killed his wife. [[What an Idiot!|If that wasn't enough yet,]] he then '''buried his wife there''', and she mercifully put an end to his chain of idiocy.
** This is easily explained by the book. The burial ground calls out to people, and at one point the main character mentions that he feels great when going off to bury Church. Besides, the main character is insane with grief after Gage dies and just loses it when his wife and Jud get killed as well.
** Then came the movie ''Pet Sematary Two'' (yes, there was a second movie), which was more of the same, but with most roles reversed either gender-wise or species-wise, plus a much higher body count, reanimated or not and a MUCH higher "creepy" factor in that the plot dared to bring up the utterly stay-up-all-night-thinking-about-it scientific side of the undead people/animals, courtesy of Dr. Chase Matthews the veterinarian: first the kids Jeff and Drew buried Zowie the dog after he was shotgunned by Drew's abusive stepfather Gus, and upon Zowie's return didn't really feel like there was anything wrong when the dog acted
* The military, law enforcement, and basically the government in general in the 2008 remake of ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still (
** Klatuu's people deserve extra stupidity points as well. Consider that their entire motivation for destroying humanity is to preserve the non-human portions of Earth's biosphere. They then set their nanotech-based weapon on "Dissolve Everything", ''including rocks and trees!'' In the immortal words of Robert Asprin, "Very inferior as superior beings go."
* Jake Sully in ''[[Avatar (
** And then of course he totally ignores the diplomatic mission entrusted to him and spends three months having a fun time. The Humans probably assumed he would have at least told Na'Vi that the humans needed them to move before, you know, the very last day.
*** "Having a fun time" was actually helping the diplomacy along a bit. For one, Dr. Augustine was allowed back into the village (she had been presumably banished after the school shootout). Of course, he still massively fucked up by forgetting the original mission. One has to wonder how he was even a former Recon Marine...
* Eddie Kim, [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Snakes
* In ''[[
* ''[[
** First averted then played straight with [[Bill Murray]]: Using [[Pretend We're Dead|make-up and his acting abilities to blend in with the zombies and avoid being killed]]? Pretty damn friggin' smart. Pretending to be a zombie in order to scare the unsuspecting jumpy teenager WITH THE GUN? Stupidity of epic proportions, especially when he saw the reaction that he got from the survivors who weren't currently armed with firearms and then trying it again with someone who was...
*** Its important to remember that all characters involved are literally stoned out of their minds at the time they start thinking this is a good idea.
** The girls also get one in their introduction, when they're setting up a scam pretending that Little Rock is bitten and needs to be offed. The whole monty hinges on the mark getting cold feet about shooting a kid and deciding to let Wichita do the deed - all it would've taken was for Tallahassee to say "Okay, I'll put her out of her misery" and a double-tap, and Wichita would've lost her sister. And it would've been entirely her own fault.
** The mark getting cold feet was never a necessity of the scam. The ploy was that they had no weapons to do the deed themselves. All Wichita had to do was request to do it herself regardless, with Tallahassee's gun.
* ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'':
** The whole race of Romulans in the latest installment
*** Far from being the [[Artistic License Physics|first time that this has happened]] in the ''Trek'' universe, but it is a definite case of [[Sci
*** Also Olson, not pulling his chute till the last second.
* The two dumb kids in ''[[Jaws (Film)|Jaws]]'', who decided that, while the town is on high alert for ANY potential shark fins, would do a prank involving a fake shark fin on a piece of wood, and tow it from underwater. Fortunately for the kids, they didn't get shot. Unfortunately, thanks to their distraction, at least one person was eaten and another kid was injured by the real shark, and managed to get away as a result.▼
** Spock was also the [[Only Sane Man]]'' in ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan]]''; it took him all of five minutes to figure out that the Federation had inadvertently created a [[Doomsday Device]] by building the Genesis probe, [[Idiot Ball|something that, in all their hubris, they never considered.]] Unfortunately, this is something Khan quickly noticed too.
▲* The two dumb kids in ''[[Jaws (
** The shark himself, for eating an explosive.
** ''[[Jaws (
* Clive in ''Cold Storage''.
* Several of the children who potentially stand to benefit from the tontine in the British ensemble comedy ''The Wrong Box'' grow up to be too dumb to live, as shown in a montage following the opening credits. Just to name two, an army sergeant orders his men to fire a cannon, oblivious to the fact that he is standing directly in its line of fire, and a big game hunter insists on waiting for a rhinoceros to charge before opening fire, and waits so long that he is swiftly gored when it finally does start charging.
* ''[[
** In traditional horror fashion, pretty much everyone else is just as dim. Everyone who finds evidence that the titular stepfather isn't who he says he is steadfastly refuses to notify anyone of note and putt around with the killer knowledge. Special commendation goes the supposedly [[Genre Savvy]] son who, despite being paranoid as sin, ignores several anvilicious clues that he's -right-. The cops at the end may also be considered this, if not 'Too Out of Shape to Live'; They fail to apprehend a man who has been stabbed, beaten, and thrown out a second story window. You could SEE THEIR LIGHTS APPROACHING while he was still sprawled out on the ground recovering.
* Goddamn near ''everybody'' in the movie ''Warning Sign''. Firstly we have the Biotek employees who unzip their hazmat suits inside a sealed quarantine room - where they're making a deadly [[Hate Plague]] - to pose for a photo. Then when the virus is released into the facility, the other Biotek employees apparently have no idea what a quarantine lockdown is, staring at the closing shutters and alarms in confusion and then get upset when they are ''locked in''. They then try to argue with Joanie, the security guard who started the quarantine, to let them go because she was ''scaring'' people with the quarantine despite some of them ''knowing'' they were working on a hate plague. ''Then'' the concerned townspeople and relatives outside the quarantined building try to break their way in, despite being told the spin story that a chemical that would destroy their crops had been released inside. If not for Joanie having more common sense than everyone in the county and sticking to the quarantine protocols, Utah would have been ''screwed''.
* Rose in ''[[
** The crew and the ship designers that went along for the ride could also qualify. Believing the ship to be unsinkable despite knowing full well that it can only sustain limited damage? Pretty dumb. Putting a small number of lifeboats on the ship that can only house half the people on board tops in case the ship does sink? Really dumb. Sailing full speed into a part of the Atlantic that has icebergs out the wazoo, leaving you little time to react, and coupled with the two previous factors? Congratulations, you're Too Dumb To Live.
** Actually, neither The White Star Line or Harland & Wolff ever described -or believed- the ship to be unsinkable. They said that she was PRACTICALLY unsinkable. The press at the time simply did away with the 'practically' and it was never corrected. The number of lifeboats actually exceeded the amount set by regulations -that were twenty years out of date. What's more, all other large liners at the time suffered the same problem -inadequate lifeboats due to outdated regulations. It was just pure Irony that the 'unsinkable' ship needed them.
** After the disaster, a U.S. Senate Inquiry discovered -to their shock- that procedures on the Titanic that they thought were negligent, were actually standard practice for the time. The big liners for all the major shipping lines tended to go full speed ahead at almost all times. (Blinding fog was pretty much the only thing they'd slow down for). Maintaining the schedule was regarded as being paramount. As well, Captain Smith was not doing anything different than he'd done throughout his career. For decades, he operated ships in that manner and never had any sort of accident or serious incident. There was, realistically, no reason why he would think to do things differently now. And, as noted, all other captains did the same thing. As Senator Smith noted at the Inquiry, the state of shipping practices meant that a major disaster was BOUND to happen sooner or later. It was just Captain Smith's bad luck that it happened to him.
** Not the captain's fault either: it just had to be the day when icebergs decided to go further south. Using navigational charts, scientists have found out that the captain had traveled this route many times, and there were usually no icebergs. What was still surprising was that he actually ''disregarded iceberg warnings from a nearby ship''.
* The [[Animal Wrongs Group]] at the beginning of ''[[
** The US Army in ''[[
*** The initial mistake wasn't allowing unsupervised access, it was giving a civilian access to 'ALL' areas of the military installation, even the top secret
*** Even so, they lacked the most basic security measures, such as placing guards around an individual who carries the most dangerous pathogen known to humankind. Nevermind how children were able to sneak past outside of the safe zone as if they were sneaking out of a high school during a lunch break...
* Balian ([[Orlando Bloom]]) in ''[[Kingdom of Heaven]]''. It makes more sense in context and is more like a case of lazy writing, but Balian's inaction is the prime reason behind the Big Battle of the film. His refusal, on many occasions, to kill a blatantly evil and dangerous character (a French Templar named Guy de Lusignan, played by Marton Czokas), is the prime reason behind the siege and the Big Battle of the film. Guy and his conspirators are the ones that provoke the war between Muslims and Christians, and their intentions are made clear (in-story, i.e. to other characters and not just to the audience) from the outset, and yet Balian doesn't make a move, and he refuses to do anything when his advisors/friends repeatedly express their concern. He doesn't come off as noble, more like an idiot and a passive character. Many characters die as a result of his course of action (or, rather, inaction), but he survives the film. In the film's epilogue with King Richard I he should probably say: "I'm the blacksmith, and the main reason you have to retake Jerusalem from Saladin, I'm the one that should be thrown in a dungeon full of Twilight merchandise." This film is not worth watching for this very story element, it's a classic case of a story where if the main hero acted within common sense, there wouldn't be much of a story to be told.
* 2001 heist film ''Firetrap''. A building is on fire. A guard is badly injured. What's a guy to do to save him? Get on the elevator during a fire, and talk a woman you like into going with you. What do you think happened to them?
* Several characters in both the original ''[[Dawn of the Dead (
* ''The Boogens'' features an entire ''cast'' of this. The titular monsters may actually be smarter than the humans and dog, and they're not actually depicted as anything other than hungry. Sadly, probably the stupidest of the humans are the alpha couple, and thus survive.
* Madison, the birthday girl in ''My Super Psycho Sweet Sixteen''. While she and Skye, who happens to be the killer's daughter, are running from the killer, she picks that time to insult Skye again. You can guess what happens.
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*** Not to mention that diplomatic immunity does not protect you when you're openly committing crime and your guilt is obvious. If nothing else, your country will revoke it in a heartbeat because they don't want to be associated with your crimes.
*** Even moreso, diplomatic immunity means immunity from prosecution, not harm. He had just shot a police officer and was still brandishing the gun at another police officer, who would not have to worry about diplomatic immunity since he'd be excused for shooting the guy due to self-defense concerns.
* Everybody in ''[[
* Sure, it's a disaster film (and a pretty silly one at that), but ''[[The Day After Tomorrow]]'' had this in spades. Hundreds of people are sheltering in the public library, and decide that rather than listening to the son of the smartest climatologist in the country (who just had an extended conversation with his father), they're going to go and do the exact opposite. Of course, they all freeze to death. Had they bothered listening, they would've been uncomfortable, but they would've survived.
** Those who do stay in the library, decide to burn books to keep warm. Books that they have to take off the ''wooden shelves'' to burn.
*** Wooden shelves have to be broken up to fit in most fireplaces, and are usually painted/stained with substances that release toxic fumes when burned. Books were the safer alternative by far. The dumb part was in tearing them apart and burning them page by page rather than using some loose pages as firestarters and then burning entire books- that would have been much more effective.
**** 'Breaking up' would have been trivially easy, as they had a fire axe available. Likewise, the 'toxic substance' used on shelving is ''varnish'', which is only a concern if you intend to ''cook'' over the fire—which they did not.
** Then there was the scene meant to be a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] in which Frank is dangling from a glass roof. The glass starts to crack and Frank decides to make a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] because there is no way the glass can support Jason and his weight. [[Fridge Logic]] sets in when you realize Jason is holding onto two steel support beams that could have easily held the weight of the sled, the entire party, and probably an elephant.
* The Prison Guard in ''[[
** It should also be noted that the other guard with him warns him that Larkin said not to touch anything. That's three separate warnings the guy ignored. Truly TDTL!
* The aliens from ''[[Signs]]'' walk around Earth naked, despite being as much vulnerable to water as we are to sulfuric acid.
* Whoever tries to domesticate [[Alien (
* In ''Southern Comfort'', the main characters are in the National Guard on a training mission in a swamp, miles from civilization. They see one of the inhabitants from a distance and decide to mess with him... by pointing their rifle (loaded with blanks) at him and "opening fire." [[Sarcasm Mode|Shockingly]], the locals have their own rifles, not loaded with blanks. Natural selection ensues.
* Vincent Vega of ''[[
** Vega is more careless than dumb, in large part due to him being a sociopath, as after Marvin gets shot, he doesn't even seem to care one way or the other about it and in Butch's case it seemed so absurd that Butch would actually come back there that Marcellus leaves to get donuts.
*** The rather logical explanation that Vincent is a moron because he is high on heroin for a good portion of his waking life has been forwarded.
* ''[[The Last House
* Every. character. in. ''[[Cabin Fever (
** I'd honestly like to take a poll of women to see how many would ''continue shaving their legs'' if the skin started to slough off with noticeable amounts of blood and scraping noises to [[Squick]] pretty much anybody out.
* ''100Feet''. A woman is being haunted by the vengeful ghost of her abusive husband. He's shown her that he can move anything in the house anytime he wants, so what does she do? She throws her wedding ring in the garbage disposal, then decides to fish it out with her hands. After narrowly avoiding losing her hand, she invites the neighbor boy over for some fun...
* Each member of the [[
* Coolio's character in ''[[
* A nameless Triad thug in ''[[Hard Boiled (
* David and Jack in the beginning of ''[[
* The title characters in [[Yossi And Jagger]]. One could argue that the film works best as a hour-long PSA about Why You Do Not Have Affairs Within Your Chain Of Command.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Judge Dredd (
* In ''[[Taken (
** The behaviour of Kim and Amanda is not that far fetched, as anyone who has been around privileged teenaged girls who have spent their sheltered life in a gated community in suburbia can tell you.
* Invoked in the slasher spoof ''[[
* Head goon Buddy in ''[[Christine]]'', when chased by the possessed big V-8 powered car, opts to run down a long stretch of straight highway, rather than get off-road where a car might have some difficulty getting through at any speed.
* Arguably Kalle from ''[[
* ''[[
* Arguably, the central character Annie in the 2010 film ''Trust''. At the age of 14, she starts chatting online with someone called Charlie whose admitted age over the course of the chats goes up from 16 to 20, then to 25, and when she meets him in person at a mall we see he has to be in his late thirties at least. And what does she do? Instead of walking away, she gets into a car with him. And then goes to a motel room with him. And models in red underwear for him, before he rapes her. Admittedly she is 14, but in this day and age if a 14 year old girl does not even think to let a friend or family member know she is going to meet up with a stranger on the internet, and then ignores the cardinal rule of not getting into a car with a stranger (which hopefully most six year olds know by now) then she is clearly headed for a nasty shock.
* Very much Frank of ''State of Grace''. A mafia boss who goes to extreme lengths to kill his own friends and relatives just to satisfy the requests of another gang, against which he fears to lose in case of a mob war. It's really no surprise that he ends up being topped by Terry, his last remaining childhood friend, with even more added irony cause Terry was actually an [[Reverse Mole|undercover cop]] and was having qualms about busting Frank and the others.
* Makes the perfect couple with [[Bond Villain Stupidity]] in ''[[A History of Violence]]'', where all the mobsters, including their boss, dies horribly by the hand of the protagonist [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?|due to their inability to just kill him off at the first occasion.]] The result is particularly hilarious when we learn, just before the last shooting, that in spite of all the talking and the stalking the villains performed earlier, their intentions was REALLY and JUST and PLAINLY to see the protagonist DEAD. Bonus points for the fact that they even know he was the ultimate [[Badass]] from the very start.
* A variation (arguably) in ''[[The Vanishing]]''
* '''EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER''' in ''[[
* Many of the traps in ''[[
** For a more detailed rundown, there's Addison immediately sticking a hand into the obvious bladed trap, and then, instead of keeping her other hand out to free the first one, shoves it in too when the syringe she's going for spills (and [[Word of God|commentary]] reveals that the box had a key already in the back, so if she'd taken a few seconds to assess the situation she would have gotten the syringe with no trouble).
** Gus, who hears the reading of the note telling them all [[Schmuck Bait|not to try the key in the nearby door]], but decides to look through the peephole while Xavier does so anyway.
** Obi, who walks brazenly into a furnace and seizes the syringe without a second thought. If he'd taken a few seconds to look around first, he would have seen the valve to turn off the gas and wouldn't have been burned alive.
* In ''[[Star Wars]]'': ''[[A New Hope]]'', you'd think Admiral Motti would have known that dissing the faith of the big scary Sith Lord and personal hatchetman of the Emperor, Darth Vader, in his face is a ''very'', ''very'', '''''very''''' bad idea.
** While he may have known that Vader was under orders to not kill any of the senior staff, as Tarkin ordered Vader to release him, this merely downgrades his status from Too Dumb to Live to Too Dumb Not to Subject Himself To Pointless Suffering.
** His behavior is still spectacularly idiotic because even entirely aside from the part where Vader can literally kill him with his brain, Vader is the Emperor's personal loyalty enforcer. Openly insulting the chief of the secret police in a totalitarian regime is ''not a good career move'' regardless of how superpowered he is or isn't.
** Then there's Greedo, a bounty hunter so amateurishly stupid that he doesn't get the most basic line you need to say when you are covering your quarry, "Keep your hands where I can see them."
*** For extra stupidity points, Greedo's quarry is widely known to be an experienced gunman with a specialty in quickdraws.
* In ''Omega Man'': Richie subscribes to the popular "Children are Too Dumb to Live" concept. After Neville cures Richie of the plague, Richie asks if he will cure the Family (the bad guys). Neville declines on the reasonable basis that they are homicidal maniacs who worship the plague and prescribe the death penalty for those who are not afflicted by it. So Richie decides, on humanitarian grounds, to walk into the lair of the Family and tell them about how he was cured and they can be too. It is a relief to see Richie exit the gene pool. Too bad he brings down the hero as a result.
* Josh Dalton from ''[[Insidious]]'' definitely qualifies. Not only does he spend most of the movie as the [[Agent Scully]], arguing with his [[Genre Savvy]] wife, when he finally does accept the weirdness and go into the Further to save his son, he breaks every rule he was told to follow, culminating in him stopping ''ten feet'' from his body to yell at a ghost that's been stalking him since childhood ''to possess him specifically''. The ghost, of course, possesses his body, resulting in the deaths of his family and every other character in the film. And Josh is likely stuck with a [[Fate Worse Than Death]]. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]].
* Quite a few characters in the film adaptation of ''[[Battle Royale]]''. Toshinori Oda probably takes the cake for surviving a burst of gunfire due to his bulletproof vest, then jumping up a few seconds later and loudly proclaiming "I'm alive!"
* In an opening scene of ''[[The Karate Kid|The Karate Kid II]]'', [[Evil Teacher| Kreese]] tries to punch [[Old Master| Mr. Miyagi]], who is standing in front of a car; [[Deadly Dodging| Miyagi simply moves aside]], and Kreese puts his fist through the car's window, badly cutting up his hand. ([[Soft Glass]] clearly not in effect.) Kreese doesn't know when to quit, and tries to punch him again, and ends up doing the same to his ''other'' hand! And to make it worse, he is still regretting his dumb move more than three decades later, as when he appears in ''[[Cobra Kai]]'', his hands are still badly scarred.
* [[Laurel and Hardy]] were, of course, a comedy duo who made a living portraying two characters who were unbelievably stupid, but the most iconic example was in their 1932 short ''[[The Music Box]]''. The duo is trying to deliver a piano to a rich couple who lives in a home at the top of a very long stairway; after trying to carry it up there only to drop it five times, they finally get it up there where a postman tells them they didn't have to do it that way - there's a road that scales the hill they could have used to drive up there and park in front of the house. Of course, Hardy is ''very'' angry at his partner, but then they decide to carry it back ''down'' the hill and ''then'' drive it back up.
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