As it is with real life, the world of film is populated by millions, perhaps billions, of different universes. Some are one-offs, small, contained worlds that exist for a single moment while others are large, daring worlds that take risks and captivate fans all over the world.
Yet, among all the different worlds and universes, there's a few that don't make sense. Take the worlds of horror for example. On the surface, these universes seem as if they make sense but once fans get into the horrific realities, they soon find themselves in a state of confusion instead of terror.
The Ring
The very idea that a cursed videotape (remember those?) will send a creepy little girl crawling out of a well on someone's television and into that unlucky viewer's home to literally scare them to death is ridiculous on so many levels. But somehow, the American remake of Ringu titled The Ring becomes even more convoluted while remaining one of the best PG-13 horror movies ever made.
The very fact that people keep watching the cursed tape despite evidence that previous viewers died is inconceivable. Yes, it's a horror movie and yes, the deaths are off-handedly explained as urban legends but at least one person would make the connection, right? Also, how exactly did the bleak events of The Ring lead up to the brainless Rings?
Friday The 13th
When the title Friday The 13th passes through someone's mind, gory, brutal kills are brought to light, sending fear down audiences' spines. At least for the first two films, that is. After that, the franchise takes an unfortunate dive into the unbelievable and downright bonkers.
In horror, killers die and come back all the time. Yet, despite the fact that Jason Voorhees got shot, blown up, stabbed, drowned, electrocuted, dismembered, and even burned up in space, he somehow always returns from the grave. This is always done through vague and unexplainable means that never make sense. Case in point: telekinesis in Part VII. As a result, what little suspension of disbelief viewers were willing to give Friday the 13th is quickly demolished before Jason even kills anyone.
It (2017 & 2019)
While the idea of a demonic clown isn't that difficult to grasp, there's a lot more to the small town of Derry, Maine and the being known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown aka It -- an unfathomable evil beyond human comprehension -- that raises a few eyebrows. Specifically, how is it that an all-powerful demon can be beaten by insults?
Even though the jeers have a metaphorical and deeper meaning to them (i.e. the Losers Club conquered their childhood fears), it's still confusing as to why It would shrink into a tiny, deformed baby-thing after hearing a few mean names. This -- along with many other things like the true extent of Pennywise's powers and why Derry seems complicit or callous towards Its generations-long murder spree -- just don't add up. However, this didn't stop It from becoming one of the highest-grossing horror movies in the last ten years.
Army Of Darkness
By all accounts, The Evil Dead franchise is well done. The first two films have been hailed as some of the greatest of all time and yet when Army Of Darkness came out, it raised more questions than expected.
As seen at the end of Evil Dead 2, Ash Williams (who's now more of an action hero than a survivor) is transported to the Middle Ages. This out of nowhere and bizarre switch from supernatural horror to a borderline dark fantasy/comedy took a while for audiences to adjust to. Arguably, Evil Dead fans only appreciated this shift decades after Army Of Darkness came out.
Alien
Over the years, multiple films have earned the rank of "Greatest Of All Time." Among these lies the film where no one can hear you scream: Alien. As the Alien franchise grew over the years, though, confusion began to emerge in what was once a simple spacebound horror story.
Certain elements -- such as the strange black goo seen in the prequel Prometheus and Ridley carrying an alien queen in Alien 3 inside her -- boggled the mind but none were as confusing as this: how was it that in the years between Prometheus and Alien, absolutely no one encountered the Xenomorphs? Good luck to anyone trying to make sense of the Xenomorphs' mythos!
Jaws
Amidst the sea of horror and scary movies, there lies another subset: thrillers. While not exactly "horror" movies by traditional standards, thrillers can evoke the same feel and suspense of horror. One such example is the Jaws franchise, a series that spun out of control and had some of the worst horror sequels ever made.
While the intentions behind the worst mayor in history is more than enough cause for concern, the real confusion lies behind the shark's connection to the Brody family. It's never explained if the sharks seen across sequels are actually third cousins or something, but most of them seem to have it out for Martin Brody's family. This is literally the plot of Jaws: The Revenge, where a pissed off shark hunts down Martin's widow to avenge the murdered shark from the original Jaws.
The Original Child’s Play
The concept of killer dolls has been done quite a number of times, with some becoming the best and others becoming a walking bad joke. This trend can be attributed to one of the movies that started it all: Child's Play.
When the demonic doll Chucky began his six-film and a reboot rampage, several questions were brought to light. A serial killer putting his soul in a doll pale in comparison to how in the world a doll has the strength to pull off all the over the top kills seen across the movies, let alone survive all that damage he took. Voodoo magic or none, Chucky should've ended up in a landfill before the first sequel was even greenlit.
Final Destination
Despite most horror movies beginning as products of suspense, modern-day Hollywood somehow thought the more gore, the scarier a film. Final Destination, one of the goriest and brutal series of the New Millennium, demonstrates this in inconceivable fashion.
A few kills spurned by random objects falling at the right time as an inescapable embodiment of Death itself can make a bit of sense. Yet, as the series wore on, some of the kills (that are admittedly the best of the series) became far too over the top, to the point of impossibility -- invisible Grim Reaper or none. Is Death a fan of Rube Goldberg machines or what?
The Cabin In The Woods
The mere concept of horror monsters is already unbelievable. Sure, a few of them such as Jigsaw, Hannibal Lecter, and even Ghostface are relatively realistic. But dive into some of the more supernatural monsters such as the dream-raiding Freddy Krueger or any Universal Monster, and the questions pop up. The fantastic yet somewhat confusing horror-comedy The Cabin In The Woods only exacerbates this.
Here, a global clandestine organization somehow managed to wrangle many deadly monsters, ghosts, and things going bump in the horror movie night into one facility for the sole purpose of engineering the brutal deaths of random teenagers. Why? To appease the Old Gods, of course. Audiences are left with more questions than answers, despite having a great horror movie ending.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Imagine this: A man's walking home late one night when he's suddenly hit by a passing car that assumes he's dead. The riders then dump the still alive body to hide their crime. Instead of going to the police and being perfectly in the right, however, the man decides to psychologically torture the passengers one year later.
This is exactly what happens in I Know What You Did Last Summer, and none of it makes any sense. From the killer's motivation to the leaps of logic that the focal teens make to the fact that the series spawned two sequels, the reasons that drove these actions and decisions will forever be a mystery.