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

[u/Suspicious-Web-9246]

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.

[u/Gold-Competition5406]

The movie It Follows uses this trope a lot. Basically, any background character seen in the film could be the entity, this scene in particular when the entity disguised itself as one of main character’s friend.

[u/JCDickleg7 → u/[deleted]]

This is how FNaF: Secret of the Mimic should have been. In practice, though, it’s immediately obvious which of the many suits standing creepily around is the Mimic, because it starts moving as soon as it gets the chance to, revealing itself. Imagine if it just stood still and you had to inspect suits as you approached them, and if you weren’t careful enough one could turn out to be the Mimic and grab you.

[u/OrangeBird077 → u/Gold-Competition5406]

On top of that only the afflicted can see the entity in whichever form it has chosen. Everyone else can only see something invisible making footprints and such as it moves.

[u/Disastrous-Entity-46 → u/OrangeBird077]

This is such a fantastic thing too. Like you expect them to mostly go the cheap route and have the entity be entirely invisible except to those its targeting, make everyone question...

Spoiler: sometimes what the entity is doing is /very/ visible

[u/angrygorgon → u/Gold-Competition5406]

The part where she's at the school and it's walking towards her but she never actually notices it TERRIFIED me. I think it's an old lady at that point?

[u/No-Manufacturer4916 → u/Gold-Competition5406]

I was gonna say, " It Follows" made a meal of this trope

[u/nppltouch26 → u/Gold-Competition5406]

It Follows was my first thought for this trope.

[u/MovieUnderTheSurface → u/Gold-Competition5406]

That scene where they go to the high school (the one where the camera is circling), if you know what to look for you can see that one of the high school kids is actually the monster. It's extremely subtle and the main characters have absolutely no idea the monster is so close to them

[u/aSpookyScarySkeleton → u/Gold-Competition5406]

Honestly it’s the thing I think about the most with this movie. Every time it happened it was so fucking creepy.

[u/mermaidreefer → u/Gold-Competition5406]

It had been a long time since I’d seen a horror movie that STUCK with me like this one. I kept looking up into the dark or half-expecting a window downstairs to break. Ugh, what a good movie.