Many people look forward to the rush of adrenaline that comes with watching a horror movie, but very few pay attention to the lessons that they can learn from ghoulish storylines. Of course, horror movies reflect deeper truths about society, but some of the most important lessons are pretty straightforward. For example: Things NOT to do when living in a haunted house.
Haunted homeowners everywhere should use their favorite haunted house movie as a guide. The horror in these films normally comes from characters making very wrong decisions, clearly never having seen a horror movie themselves. Some of the devastation in haunted house flicks could be entirely prevented if the characters had read up on some common horror tropes.
Communicating With The Spirits
Movies like The Conjuring and Ouija both feature characters making the same mistake: They use a Ouija board. It should be common knowledge at this point that opening up communication with the spirit realm is a surefire way to get something evil to come through.
Host is another film that features a spirit communication session gone horribly wrong. In this case, one character jokes around by creating a fake spirit to communicate with during the session. This leads to the gruesome deaths of everyone involved. The moral of the story is to leave the talking boards and seances to the professionals.
Investigating The Noise
The poor decision to seek out the source of strange noises is a common theme in every horror movie. No spooky house film would be complete without a character waking up to a bang in the middle of the night and heading to the basement with a flashlight.
Curiosity killed the cat, and it does the same to most characters who venture to come face to face with a demonic threat. Most characters would be better off heading straight for the front door or calling an exorcist as soon as they hear something strange, especially if they are already aware of how haunted their home is.
Not Believing The Children
Sometimes, horror movie children are terrifying. Other times, their parents should pay closer attention to what they have to say. If a child claims that they speak with a spirit and the parents opt to believe that it is simply an imaginary friend, they might be ignoring a tell-tale sign of a haunted house.
One of the most infamous horror movie imaginary friends is Jodie from The Amityville Horror. Jodie, of course, is more than an imaginary friend. She is part of the reason that the home is so violently haunted. This serves as a reminder to parents to ask their child very careful questions upon hearing that they have a newfound and unseen companion.
Playing Hide And Seek
Hide and seek is probably a ghost's favorite game to use as a scare tactic. Countless haunted house films include a form of this game, including The Conjuring's iconic hide-and-clap game. Some horror films are even named for the game, like John Polson's Hide and Seek.
Horror films featuring a game of hide and seek are a great example of what not to do in a spirit-infested house. The kids in the house would be better off with a game of tag, or maybe a fun board game--And no, Ouija boards are not considered a fun board game in a violently haunted home.
Using A Baby Monitor
Insidious is a movie that is almost too scary to finish, and a scene with troubling whispers coming through a baby monitor is part of the reason why. This is not the only horror film that uses this spooky trope either. Many a fictional spirit have used baby monitors to give parents a fright.
Sure, baby monitors ensure that a child is safe and happy as they sleep. However, if parents simply opt not to use a baby monitor, then they will never have to hear anything terrifying come through it! In all seriousness, if someone's home is as haunted as a horror movie house, then they should probably just sleep in the same room as their child to keep them safe.
Not Asking The Realtor About The Home's Past
When deaths, especially violent ones, occur in a home on the market, the realtor is normally obligated to clue potential buyers in. In some cases, though, they are only required to tell them about deaths from the last few years.
If horror films are any indicator, then families should always make it a point to look into the history of the home that they are buying. This is especially the case for older houses. This could have saved quite a few characters from spirit-related stresses.
Leaving In The Middle Of The Night
All too often, horror movie families realize that there is something supernatural happening in their home far too late. Realizing late is better than not realizing at all, but sometimes, it means fleeing from their home in the middle of the night.
Leaving at night, when the ghosts are most active, often means that something will follow the family into the car, or even try to harm them on their way out. The best course of action is to buckle in until the morning, or maybe to see the signs sooner and leave a whole twelve hours earlier.
Blaming A Bad Dream
Especially when children see something scary happening in their home, the adults are quick to blame a bad dream. Naturally, in a film about ghosts, this is rarely the case. The nightmares are normally a very real experience.
Characters in haunted house films can be a little too quick to write off a child's experiences in the middle of the night. This is typically one of the first signs that something bad is happening, so parents should never ignore it, especially when it happens to them, too. For example, in You Should Have Left, Kevin Bacon's character would never have had an issue if he had left after his first bad dream. It would have saved the family from the sentiment in the film's title.
Buying A Creepy Doll
If someone sees a creepy doll of any kind, the last thing that they should do is take it into their home unless they are prepared to deal with the spiritual consequences. In Annabelle and Dead Silence, the families with haunted dolls were less-than-ready to deal with the violent possessions.
There is plenty of lore that speaks to dolls as a vessel for bodiless spirits. These legends are the source of inspiration for haunted doll films, and the films themselves should inspire real families to think twice before making their own house haunted by bringing a questionable Raggedy Ann or ventriloquist dummy home.
Letting The Father Get Lost In His Work
Fathers getting wrapped up in their profession is a common theme in haunted home horror films. Of course, The Shining is at the top of the list, with all work and no play making Jack into a dull boy. Sinister, Ethan Hawke's best horror movie, is another one. The true crime writer becomes so obsessed with the case that he is writing that he moves his family into the house that it happened in.
This is such a common characterization for horror movie fathers that even American Horror Story: Red Tide puts its own spin on it with Harry Gardner. Had the fathers in some horror films been a little more clear-headed, they may have noticed that something sour was going on in their families' homes.