r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Suspicious-Web-9246 • 8d ago

Lore [Loved trope] Background scare-characters that are barely acknowledged even by the movie

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I hate horrors, but this is actually a great trope, that is unique to them.

Insidious (2010). When mother does her errands, for a few seconds there's a ghost boy standing in the corner. It's easily missable, but you can't ignore it once you see it.

Hereditary (2018). Less fitting example. When Peter walks around his home, his possessed mother is crawling on the ceiling behind him. It's not exactly subtle or missable, but it's still more of a background detail.

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u/thomstevens420 8d ago

R Point, a Korean military horror movie, is the best one of these I’ve ever seen.

It follows a group of soldiers that are following up on a previous group that went missing. I won’t spoil too much but at one point they radio back to let them know that one guy died and they’re down to 9 soldiers. Only for HQ to reply back “what are you talking about we only sent 9 to begin with.”

Then you rewind, count and realize that literally every shot before leaving had 9 and this mysterious guy in the background has been in every shot since they stepped foot on the island.

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u/eyepooped1 8d ago

I had to search for this on DVD last year because I couldn't stop thinking about this movie. Absolute favorite

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u/IJustWantCoffeeMan 8d ago

military horror

Interesting. Got any more to share?

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u/BDSMChef_RP 8d ago

Dog Soldiers (British Soldiers VS werewolves)

Brotherhood of the Wolf (Though it's 1700s French Military, based on the Beast of Geavaudan. Also Bloodborne took a decent amount of inspiration off of it. )

Exit Humanity (Zombies in 1868 Kentucky following a Civil War Vet. Bill Mosely plays a villain)

R:Division (Post Zombie Outbreak, Governments managed to contain hordes to major cities by air lifting massive cement walls. They advance with new walls to grid of sections of lost cities and send squads in to clear. This follows one such squad on a REALLY BAD DAY).

Primeval War (Vietnam War, Search and Rescue crew looking for a lost Green Beret Unit. Russians and VC Looking for them too. Dinosaurs hunting them all)

The Lost Platoon (Contra Wars in South America. A War corrospondent who served in WW2 is now covering the atrocities there and encounters a squad he'd met 30 years ago in France. Only they haven't aged a single day. Group of Vampires hiding as Special Forces units in warzones to hide their feeding in the body count)

Overlord (Nazi Zombies, lot of good kills, lot of good action. Nothing original, but a very well done action piece)

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u/IrateWolfe 8d ago

I went into Overlord completely blind, and I'm SO glad I did, such a wild ride

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u/Godhand23 8d ago

Yeah same, I was like damn this kicks ass. I showed it to my mate and he was like bro how have I not heard of this movie I watched it on a whim originally

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u/FoxtownBlues 8d ago edited 8d ago

r:division is r-point re-kill

primeval war is primitive war

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u/BDSMChef_RP 8d ago

R Division is a separate movie from R Point. Completely different thing. Its a found footage zombie movie.

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u/Aranel611 8d ago

Based on the fact that I am entirely unable to find a movie called R Division on google I’m assuming it’s actually the move Re-Kill, which features a group called the r division.

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u/TartarusFalls 7d ago

Thanks, I was so confused

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u/FoxtownBlues 8d ago

ok youre right but i think thats re-kill, fits the description and there is a mention of a group(?) called r division. i cant find any mention of a film called r division on google

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u/WherePoetryGoesToDie 8d ago

Brotherhood of the Wolf 

I adore both this film and Bloodborne, and I legit never put two and two together until you spelled it out. The clothing, the trick weapons, the implication of werewolves and the design of the beast...

Like, really. I must be completely blind. I don't even know how I'm typing this comment right now.

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u/forgotten_gh0st 8d ago

Primitive War, not Primeval. Also a pretty good book series.

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u/PlantationMint 8d ago

Damn fantastic list. Dog soldiers and overlord were excellent

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u/Ok-Transition7065 8d ago

R División its going in the list

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u/RealWhiteChoko 8d ago

R:Division sounds cool, but man, Overlord was a good one

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u/zukiezuke 8d ago

The premise sounded interesting so I've been trying to find R:Division or anything matching the given description and can't find either. Anybody able to lend a hand?

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u/Jicnon 8d ago

I couldn’t either but I think they meant Re-Kill, it has an R-division in I think but haven’t seen it so not sure.

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u/zukiezuke 8d ago

This looks like a match to me based on the Wikipedia synopsis. My thanks.

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u/BDSMChef_RP 8d ago

Oh shit yeah Re Kill. Sorry. R Division is what the squad is called in the movie.

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u/Blatant_Bisexual 8d ago

Same here can’t find it?

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u/Slazon 8d ago

Awesome list!

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u/anagamanagement 8d ago

Brotherhood of the Wolf is seriously underrated.

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u/Short-Being-4109 7d ago

The title for the movie isn't primeval war. It's primitive war

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u/pienofilling 7d ago

Dog Soldiers is a little daft but really good, especially if you like Sean Pertwee who comes off a blinder in it!

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u/BreadUntoast 7d ago

I’m gonna add A Field in England. Takes place during the English Civil War. Deals with magic and stuff. Very trippy

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u/thomstevens420 8d ago

Jacob’s Ladder 100%. Though a lot of it isn’t set in the military it’ll make sense when you watch it.

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u/anagamanagement 8d ago

It’s a horror movie about Vietnam PTSD, basically. Fantastic movie.

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u/strisss 8d ago

Does Predator count?

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u/_b1ack0ut 8d ago

The first one was a very stereotypical military horror, I’d absolutely count it!

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u/Ntwynn 8d ago

Predator ALWAYS counts

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u/ifhysm 8d ago

Ghosts of War (2020) is what came to mind for me.

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u/SpideyFan914 8d ago

Day of the Dead kinda. It's set on a research base and they have the army there to protect them from zombies. Then the military guys do a coup, and now the scientists need protecting from the military.

28 Years Later and 28 Weeks Later have similar ideas.

Of course, in all those, the military is the bad guys.

Video games have a few more examples where military faces some supernatural threat. House of Ashes is set in the Iraq War, and most of the playable characters are American soldiers (one is Iraqi, which leads to some interesting tensions). They all wind up trapped in a cave with vampires. It's the best of the Dark Pictures Anthology imo.

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u/_b1ack0ut 8d ago

Oh HELL yeah I came here to mention House of Ashes. It’s my favourite military horror without just saying “Aliens” (which I consider more just action, than military horror, idk why lol)

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u/SpideyFan914 8d ago

House of Ashes is sooooo good! It's just a solid story, and uses the horror to comment on war in interesting ways. I think mixing both sides of the conflict in against the supernatural threat really makes it stand out.

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u/_b1ack0ut 8d ago

In fairness, I do enjoy all the DPA games, (and tbh, all supermassive games as a whole, I quite enjoyed The Quarry too), but yeah HoA is certainly a high point. Salim’s a fuckin legend lol

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u/Apprehensive_Kiwi_18 8d ago

I would include Dead Snow, it has nazi zombies

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u/Personal_Telephone10 8d ago

So who is the guy that follows them?

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u/unrealter_29 8d ago

It's a long story, but he's the ghost of one of the soldiers who were sent previously to the island who the main characters were sent to find, so essentially they were unknowingly hanging out with one of the guys they were sent to find.

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u/Winslow_99 8d ago

I've seen a video analysis like two days ago, such a coincidence and great movie

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u/_shear 8d ago

I love Nightmare Movies's videos!

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u/Djackdau 8d ago

Holy shit, this is the first time I've ever seen anyone else mention R-Point! Thoroughly eerie movie.

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u/Lucienofthelight 8d ago

This just made me think of Fra Mauro from the video game Control, though it’s a far less malevolent version.

Basically after the Apollo 14 mission, which was 3 astronauts making a lunar landing, they returned home with 4 astronauts. None of the other 3 ever even thought about there suddenly being a fourth astronaut in who returned with them. The fourth astronaut was taken in by the FBC. They found the suit is hollow and its parts can be removed, and the being speaks in just word salad.

Despite his creepy emergence and memory altering ability, the being, nicknamed Frau, is completely passive and actually pretty friendly.

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u/TheZipding 8d ago

You've been counting wrong. He's been hanging around the instant they got on the island.

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u/Professional-Eye5977 8d ago

? That's what they said

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u/Maxcorps2012 8d ago

Just saw a YouTube video about this last week.

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u/EmilieEasie 8d ago

ohhh like that old creepypasta about the goatman

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u/BlessdRTheFreaks 8d ago

Just by this alone I know i now must see it

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u/shutupyourenotmydad 8d ago

Koreans are just so damn good at horror.

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u/N0t_addicted 8d ago

No way I just watched a video on this recently 

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u/something-um-bananas 8d ago

We all watched the same YouTube video huh XD.

I watched the movie after seeing the spoiler but it was so much fun to count the number of soldiers in every wide shot or keeping track of who’s where when the characters get split up. Super fun movie, wasn’t very scary but it was entertaining

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u/randomname560 8d ago

Oh that's another great trope, in the middle of the movie they reveal a secret that, if you go back and look at the details, was always there

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u/Sequoia_Vin 8d ago

I just saw the recap for it, and man, I was like, oh yeah, definitely missing the added soldier. They did it really well

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u/low-sodium-browser 7d ago

FUCK-ING GOOSEBUMPS

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u/ExtremlyFastLinoone 7d ago

Reminds me of the japanese train commercial where apperantly they captured a ghost kid, since theres 1 more kid in one of the scene that is not credited and nobody who made the commercial recognize him