About
“Horror Movie Logic” is an expression used to highlight the unrealistic or irrational events and behaviors portrayed in horror films. The phrase is often used mockingly, similar to both “video game logic” and “women logic”.
Origin
The earliest known use of the phrase “horror movie logic” online was in a review for the 1999 horror film The Blair Witch Project posted on the Wiccan blog Witchvox[1] on November 5th, 2000. In the review, a scene where it is revealed that the protagonists failed to back up their research is referred to as “horror movie logic”:
“With delicious horror movie logic, we learn they didn’t back up their research on the computer: their only copy now lies strewn around the forest floor.”
Spread
On March 5th, 2003, CHUD Forums[3] member billz used the phrase “horror movie logic” to describe moments in films where the viewer must suspend disbelief. On September 10th, 2009, the Internet humor site Cracked[5] published an article about dangerous predators, which suggested that termites operate on “horror movie logic” for being fooled by assassin bugs using termite corpses as bait. On October 25th, the Gawker Media science fiction blog io9[4] published an article mocking the Marvel Zombies comic for being riddled with “horror movie logic.” On October 19th, 2011, YouTuber stewdippin uploaded a video titled “Horror Movie Logic,” which listed several things he has learned to avoid based on watching horror movies (shown below).
On November 18th, an image macro was submitted to the /r/funny[7] subreddit, featuring a screen capture of the villain Michael Myers from the horror film series Halloween with the caption “No matter how fast you run / Michael Myers can run faster” (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained upwards of 2,400 up votes and 95 comments.
On August 26th, 2012, FunnyJunk[6] user oregamesss uploaded a rage comic mocking how characters in horror movies often split up when in danger (shown below, left). On December 14th, Redditor thevuvuselanist submitted an image macro titled “Horror Movie Logic” to the /r/funny[2] subreddit, which pointed out how characters in films often remove their IVs after waking up in a hospital bed (shown below, right). Within four months, the post received over 1,000 up votes and 35 comments.
Notable Examples
Search Interest
[Not available]
External References
[1]Witchvox – Blair Witch Review
[2]Reddit – horror movie logic
[3]CHUD Forums – Question about Samaras origin in The Ring
[4]io9 – 4 Reasons Why Zombies and Superheroes Dont Mix
[5]Cracked – Natures 6 Most Diabolical Predators
[6]FunnyJunk – Horror Movie Logic
[7]Reddit – I never understood how Michael Myers is able to do this