Here is the best example of this cliche. I dare you to watch it and not piss your pants.
I was supposed to retire tomorrow. Guess I picked the wrong day to give up smoking, heroin and hookers.
Whenever somebody being stalked by a killer is shown in the dark basement, or warehouse, or funhouse or whatever, and they are backing slowly away, looking wildly side to side, they will always back right into the killer. It’s like 100%. If you can’t see what’s behind the protagonist, the killer is behind them.
There’s also a variation on the OP’s cliche in which any secondary character who is knocked out and presumed dead or out of commission will always pop up just in time to save the protagonist (usually in the scene where you hear a gunshot, see the killer fall with a look of surprise, and then see the protagonists, friend/little sister/happy-go-lucky partner/chubby, but jolly neighbor holding a smoking pistol in trembling hands). This character is usually portrayed as someone who has been heretofore timid and passive, often pacifist and opposed to violence. After shooting the killer, this character will utter some kind of grim and pithy one liner, usually containing a profanity, and usually a callback to something that has been said before in the movie. I’ve seen so many movies, I can spot this character the first time he/she appears in the film. Anyone who has a line like, “shooting him won’t solve anything, John,” will be the one who shoots the killer.
I’m imagining Ripley tossing handfuls of baking soda in the Alien’s face.
How many times do we have to see this one:
Hero/Heroine is investigating a weird noise or something that they though they saw out of the corner of their eye…music cues tell us that tension is mounting! Camera switches to over-the-shoulder shot from behind the Hero/Heroine…and a hand comes suddenly into the frame to grasp the shoulder, along with a big sound “pop!”
And of course it’s *always *just the Hero/Heroine’s friend, coming to tell them that there’s no one there or they’re ready to go or something. (who the hell approaches a jumpy friend with the stealth of a ninja only to slap them on the shoulder to announce their presence? WHO??) Once, just ONCE, I’d like that hand that comes into the frame to belong to the psycho killer and the next shot you see is of a machete descending toward the Hero/Heroine’s stupid head.
My favorite reference to that: “I did it thirty-five minutes ago.”
I’m noticing that a lot of these are present in one of my favorite movies to rewatch on a rainy day, Die Hard.
Baddie not quite dead? Check.
Baddie hanging perilously from heroes grip? Check.
Sidekick killing baddie at last second from out of nowhere, thus completing moral journey? Check.
I wonder if this is because Die Hard was such a successful movie that subsequent movies aped it, or was Die Hard just a fun romp through action movie cliche land? Whatever the answer, I will watch it the next time I see it when flipping through the channels.
BBEG and Heroes have more HP than mooks.
One of the things that really irked me about Anna and the King (with Chow Yun-fat and Jodie Foster) was that before the king turned his back on the bad guy, he mouthed the tired old cliche about how “I’m not going to kill you, 'cause you having to live with yourself will be punishment enough.” Not only is that extremely silly on the face of it, but if you are an autocratic ruler the last thing you ever, ever, EVER want to do is let a known enemy go free to nurse his resentment and plot his revenge.
I’m on board with this.
When the good guy manages to beat the bad guy, the good girl often says “Thank goodness that’s all over. Now we’re finally safe.”
Sheesh.
:rolleyes:
The good guy should take the good girl to movies more often. 
The villain with the most common sense was Scott Evil (son of Doctor):
Dr. Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
[guard starts dipping mechanism]
Dr. Evil: Close the tank!
Scott Evil: Wait, aren’t you even going to watch them? They could get away!
Dr. Evil: No no no, I’m going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I’m just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?
Scott Evil: I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I’ll get it, I’ll come back down here, BOOM, I’ll blow their brains out!
Quite often Our Hero will have a Geeky Sidekick, who just happens to be a whiz with computers.
After gaining entry into secure CIA / NASA / KGB systems - yep, there’s a 10 min job alright -Geeky Sidekick will be able to manipulate a satellite to zoom in on whatever Our Hero wishes ti view, or enhance a photo to pin-sharp resolution based on nothing more than a CCTV reflection from a car’s bonnet. All from the back of a van with a domestic satellite dish on top.
Also, if Our Hero is ever covertly downloading files from a Bad Guy’s computer the download is timed to finish mere seconds before someone walks in.
And for once; can the car just fucking start!
Bad Guy chases Good Girl. She makes her way to the car, fumbles around with the keys, manages to get them in the ignition and guess what? The fuck’n car wont start!
Gee, big surprize there. :rolleyes:
MODERATOR NOTES:
Bryan Ekers has provided a link to a YouTube fragment. It has been brought to our attention that this process is, in fact, a probably copyright violation. I have therefore removed the link, pending discussion amongst the legal staff that sets board policy. We hope to have a decision, and potentially a policy change on links, soon.
Bryan: there is no warning on this, you provided a link and we’ve always said that we don’t check links, we assume that links are to places with the legal rights to the material. So, your action is in line with current rules, no problem. If the rules change for future, we don’t go backwards.
IANAL, but it is copyright infringement, not to provide or make a copy, but to say, “Over here is a video clip for which I have no knowledge of its legal status”?
In other words, if I tell a friend the name of a website where he can download pirated songs, then I am guilty of copyright infringement? I see a slippery slope here…
What? No one’s mentioned the “slow walk away from the explosion.”
Anytime the cool guy has to blow something up, it seems like he sets off the explosion as he walks casually, calmly away from it. Here’s a small example from The Marine at about 35 seconds in.
Someone ought to do a parody where someone doing this gets hit in the back of the head with a chunck of flying debris.
Lampshaded in DC’s Hitman series: a vampire threatens our antihero, who calmly pulls out a twelve-gauge shotgun and chops him off at the knees.
It’s been brought to my attention that “cliche”. “trope” and “meme” have different meanings. I’d post an explanatory Youtube clip, but . . . you know . . .
Interesting given that once I explicitly asked about the policy for YouTube clips in ATMB and was told it was okay.