By Robert Scucci | Updated
Modern technology has left the horror filmmakers stuck to tackle the use of the mobile phone, creating one of the most exasperating film tropes that I have ever encountered. Think of the number of protagonists to be spared if they had a functional GPS, the 911 on speed numbering or even a “deep focus” reading list on Spotify that they could use to control their breathing while using a listener On the Sneak so that they were not hidden in a cupboard. This relatively new horror film trope its ugly head in one way or a form or form, often to the detriment of the narration, because the use of the mobile phone must be addressed or that it ‘There would be no conflict if the filmmakers were unaware of the elephant in the room.
Mobile phone
After looking The conference And The mouse trapI noticed a model in modern horror films that I can no longer ignore, which is the trope implying characters recognizing the existence of mobile phones, and their will to give them so that they can be defenseless when Things start to warm up.
The two films have identical exchanges to approach the horror film’s mobile phone trophy, but they are treated very differently.
The conferencewhich takes place during a team construction retreat linked to work in a rural place, manages the problem in a somewhat graceful way. Before a day of construction of rafts and zip, the group leader urges each participant to put his mobile phones in a safe box, which makes the trope of horror credible in this context. I am ready to suspend disbelief because I made stupid work trips like this, and no one wants to drop off their iPhone in a lake and pay the ass for a replacement.
The same exact trope is managed The mouse trap In a way that makes me as a viewer feels like the shoe characters quickly in exchange to contact the Trope of Mobile phone just to make things happen, as to say: “Hey, we obviously live in the fiction of a slasher, so let’s put all our phones in a bag, and lock it, making it completely inaccessible before we all got older murdered. “”
Although the two films above come into the kind of horror comedy and should not be taken too seriously, they use the same mobile phone trope with extremely different results; The old exchange is credible, while the second looks like a cop that makes me get out of the film.
It’s your fault you were mutilated to death, stupid idiot!
One of the most satisfactory (and horrible) horror deaths that I have ever seen was BackcountryWhen Alex (Jeff Roop) manages the mobile phone trophy in one of the most silly ways as possible. Worried that his girlfriend, Jen (Missy Peregrym), spends too much time answering the questions related to work while hiking in the deep desert where he plans to offer him after finding his favorite childhood lake (without Map, of course), Alex secretly tears off his mobile phone and leaves him in their car parked before rushing into the forest where bear attacks are a legitimate danger that should not be taken lightly. Spoiler Alert, Alex is not the outdoors he thinks he is, and he gets torn off his face.
Backcountry Manages the horror film’s mobile phone trophy in a credible way, but the film is also compromised because everything is horrible that happens to the couple in the woods is 100% Alex, which made me cry out “She’s not going to marry you now!” The second I realized that they would not be in danger if Alex had not abandoned the mobile phone.
While Alex had good intentions and just wanted to have a perfect romantic getaway with his girlfriend, he was finally torn apart, leaving his girlfriend without mobile phone lost in the woods without access to help. If Jen has just brought her mobile phone with her and said, “Hey, we have no bars”, I would not have to think that Alex’s death was the result of his Histation by his own Petard .
Let the antagonists make the heaviness
Kegger on a right board had the good idea of the moment when the invaders at home used a signal jammer to disrupt everyone’s mobile phone service within a department of which he was certain that no one would escape. Each character from the party at home with a mobile phone meets all simultaneously the same problem, and Brad (Cory Kays) confirms through a rapid dialogue line that the attackers blocked the signal. The horror film’s mobile phone trope is quickly tackled without removing the viewer from the film, the blood bath begins and Bing, Bang, Boom, many people die.
Fear, inc. Also does an excellent job by working on the use of the mobile phone in its horror intrigue without being a direct wink to the trope, but rather integrating technology into the narration to increase its suspense. After having hired the titular company, which transforms its life into a slash of Slasher supposedly simulated (for fun), Joe calls 911 on his mobile phone, without knowing that his device had been programmed to redirect his call to Fear, Inc, doing it inadvertently reveal where he is in the very people who try to kill him.
Classics and vintage pieces do not have to face this
One of the reasons why I am attracted to horror films in the first aughts, the end of the 90s or earlier is that the mobile phone trope is a non-problem. At the time when the terrestrial lines were still omnipresent, all that a killer had to do was reduce power and boom, no phones. It was done so transparent that you didn’t even have to think about it.
Is there a serial killer or free killers? Well, they will make a threatening call from a salary phone while speaking through a ball sock, and if they move fairly quickly, there is no way for the authorities to find them. Could you imagine if Laurie Strode by Jamie Lee Curtis had a direct way to contact Dr. Samuel James Loomis (Donald Pleasence) in Halloween? The film would be over before it even begins.
Fortunately, the tropes of the mobile phone of the horror film were not an unfortunate necessity at the time.
It’s true … power is cut, mom and dad are not at home, and a masked murderer scrapes a path in each room in your house. Not a mobile phone in sight. Just people living in the moment.
(Tagstranslate) Backcountry
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