What Teen Horror Movies Teach Us

With the release of a new teen horror movie, Prom Night, I thought it would be a good time to address the many amazing lessons one learns when watching this amazing sub-genre. There are quite a few things you can learn that, in the event that a serial killer, a friend to whom you may have done an unspeakable harm, or any crazy person wielding a weapon is chasing you, you can implement and maybe save yourself from death.

These things may all seem simple enough, but as illustrated by these smart characters in the movies, anyone can become a blundering idiot and lose all common sense. So here’s my list of invaluable tools:

1. Don’t open and close a medicine cabinet. You never know who will appear in that mirror behind you in a split second’s time. You may think you can tell if someone is entering the bathroom and creeping up behind you, but you never know.
2. Don’t back up into a closet. Or for that matter, don’t walk backwards anywhere. The killer is always going to be at the end of that path. I mean, if you walk forward, you probably won’t be walking in the serial killer’s direction now, will you?
3. Don’t take a shower in a creepy house. If weird things are going on in a strange place, your best bet is to NOT get naked and start lathering up alone in a small space where you don’t have any room to maneuver.
4. Don’t split up if you’re down to just you and one other person. If you two stay together, you have someone to fight off the killer as he/she goes after you. Or at least someone there to scream helplessly as the killer proceeds to…you know, kill you.

And finally….

1. Don’t be a supporting character or black. Those are the people who always die throughout the movie. If you’re a main character, you will be saved to be killed last, and by that time, usually an hour and a half after the killings have started, the cops will finally show up and save you.