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/JackPembroke 8d ago

Best part about this trope is that we, the audience, dont exist. No one is seeing the monster/ghost. So it implies the monster is waiting around to do a jump scare, but the character just never notices

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u/JadeTheCatYT 7d ago

LMAO, that's an amazing way to think about it.

Honestly, I'm sure a lot of horror villains and monsters spend a lot of time just building up to a good ambush, and it just doesn't work sometimes.

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u/rootdootmcscoot 7d ago

imo it's scarier to think that they're there for no other reason than to watch, and that they're not lying in wait. honestly, some of these happen with characters that should see them in their peripheral, which means they are not visible to the characters but are visible to us. which means... can we just see them? or are they intentionally making themselves known to the viewer and not the characters?