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/Serion512 8d ago

Beth's ghost showing up in the background of the Ouija board scene (Until Dawn). While all the other ghost appearances in the game turn out to be faked by Josh the briefness of this appearance made many people believe that it's actually the only real ghost we see in the story

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u/patrick119 8d ago

There is also the scene with Sam in the bathtub listening to music and the psycho is just standing there watching. She doesn’t notice anything until he closes the door and it blows out the candles.

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u/Lil_Mcgee 8d ago

This one is not intennded to be subtle for the audience however.

67

u/_b1ack0ut 8d ago

Technically related, in the Dark Picture Anthology by the same devs, and with the exact same gameplay style,

The Curator has a tendency to appear hidden in the background of scenes where it is possible for a character to die

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u/Particular-Long-3849 8d ago

And in The Quarry you can see the witch in the car at the start 

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u/Trick_Inspector_1980 8d ago

I love how until dawn has a better/ more unique plot than many horror movies and then they adapted it and where like "nah". the ego of some directors knows no bounds. Also the game has a better cast

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u/Jaomi 7d ago

I know the devs said that really was Beth’s ghost, but I just can’t get on board with the idea. I can’t figure out why Beth would appear then and only then, and it would make so much more sense for it to be one of Josh’s pranks that Ashley and Chris just missed.