Today on TropeFest we're going to continue exploring the idea that horror movie characters are lacking in cognitive functionality by digging into a sub-trope that tvtropes.com calls "Curiosity Killed the Cast".
There's something about horror movies that, as I've said before, turns characters into gibbering idiots. They might not LOOK like gibbering idiots but gibbering idiots they are.
No one in their right mind goes looking for trouble. We just like to live our quiet lives and go about our business without a care in the world because we know that we aren't going to do something monumentally dumb.
Not in a horror movie.
Now, we've already covered doing stupid shit for doing stupid shit's sake but what about when we think we're going to learn something? We're all curious. It's how we discover things and grow as people. It's how we pick up silly little bits of trivia and how we find out how things work. It's how we release horrific demons who possess our sisters and make them puke blood all over our friends who then proceed to remove half of their face and... you get the point.
Wrapped in barbed wire for a REASON!
For as long as horror has been around, some smart-ass has been around to read the unprintable name of an elder god or send a crack team of military specialists in to investigate a situation. It's not that they don't expect trouble but they always seem so surprised when it shows up. And this, again, basically boils down to stupid primates in horror movies are stupid.
In this case, it's CLEARLY a matter of not being able to think things through to a logical conclusion. It's like people don't even notice that the wind kicks up and candles get blown out when they start reading the creepy book in the windowless attic. "Oh, hey. I no longer have light with which to read. Maybe I should STOP READING". And, really, if they're sending in a military team to investigate why there are only two civilians surviving the raid on the Umbrella Corporation and one of them is infected with the T-Virus, maybe someone should actually be aware of what the T-Virus does so a team of trained professionals isn't killed and eaten.
But, no. In a fit of Scooby-Doo-ness, this omnipresent asshole has to do SOMETHING that unleashes a Hell on earth.
Yes, Evy, I'm talking about you.
You stupid bitch.
It's understandable, of course, that without these people, there would be no movie but it's not like these people are tricked, coerced, or dragged, kicking and screaming, into making these silly life choices. (Unless there's Nazis involved... those guys kinda live for the apocalyptic tome-reading and ancient relic opening.) And it's not even always about actually learning something, it's doing really dumb shit like investigating the noise in the woods at night. No, children. No, you do not go traipsing about the woods at night. You stay in your cabin or by your campfire until the noisy thing goes away and you don't make a fucking sound or you get eaten by something large and horrible.
Pretty much the penultimate example of this sub-trope, as pictured above, is any one of the Evil Dead films. As psuedo-comedic as the original was (and actually comedic as ED2 and Army of Darkness were), those idiot kids would have been a hell of a lot better off if they had left the book covered in human skin alone, Cheryl (Mia in the remake) could have avoided vagina-widening, splinter-ridden tree-rape if she'd have just stayed indoors and, for serious, Professor Knowby knew better than to read that shit out loud and RECORD IT so that the experience could be repeated. In the remake, the book is wrapped in barbed wire and kept in a room filled with dozens of mummified cats. This is probably a clue that something isn't right.
So, yeah. If you find yourself in a creepy situation and you hear yourself saying to another person "You PROBABLY shouldn't be doing that/reading that/translating that/watching that/whatever," just do yourself a favor and stab the asshole who is obviously not listening to you in the throat. You'll save yourself a lot of stress headaches and probably save the world at the same time.