What makes the "weeping angels" in Dr. Who so terrifying?

[The_Butterfly_s_Ghost]

@Just_Asking_Questions

And all they do is move you in time? While annoying, not exactly very menacing. They are the politest baddies ever.

I think the moving in time thing is done very very well in that episode and far more effective than simply having the victims die.

The protagonist loses two friends in the episode: first her closest friend - she vanishes and while the protagonist is looking for her, she gets a letter from the friend, written years ago, the friend being long dead.
After that there’s a potential love interest. They flirt, exchange numbers and the next time she sees him, he’s an old man dying in a hospital.

Sure, for the victims it’s a “nicer” fate than getting killed, but for the protagonist - who most people identify with - it’s dreadful! It plays on our fears of losing someone close who was just there right next to us a moment ago. And knowing that the victims knew they would have to live their life without ever being able to contact their loved ones makes a much better story than having the victims die.

[dstarfire]

@chorpler

Oh, yeah, Miller, it’s like the trope where the kid sees something potentially scary across the room, hides under the blanket, waits a bit, peeks out, and IT’S RIGHT THERE TWO INCHES AWAY AS SCARY MUSIC BLARES!

Yes. this is exactly that same sort of thing. Glance away for a moment, suddenly it’s a halved the distance between you. The light flickers for a moment and it’s right in front of your face.

@Little_Nemo

There’s a trope in Chinese vampire mythology that vampires are blind and deaf. They cannot perceive people by seeing or hearing. But they can sense people’s breath. They can track you down by your breathing and kill you. So you’re undetectable to a vampire and completely safe in their presence - but only as long as you don’t breathe.

It’s the same basic idea; a powerful supernatural being that has a vulnerability. But the defense can only be maintained a short amount of time. This adds a sense of dread to the normal horror.

Yes, that speaks to the same fear as the weeping angels. That tiny shred of hope. If some invulnerable superpowerful being wants you dead, then you shrug, wince, or tense, and accept your fate.

Maybe it’s the fact that your fate is decided not by this supernatural being, but by your own weakness and frailty. The alien being is hard to understand and hard to relate to, but most people, I imagine, are constantly worried (at some level) that their weakness will cause all their happiness to come crashing down.

@Miller

Wasn’t there something about them being indestructible in their non-mobile form? Otherwise, a sledgehammer would work just as well.

I think a big part of the scare factor comes from never actually seeing them as active monsters. Stephen King once said that the scariest thing is the door with a monster behind it, that you never open - because nothing a movie can show you will ever be as a scary as the monster you imagined might be behind it. It’s the same principle that’s cited as the explanation for Jaws massive success - you almost never actually see the shark, which makes the shark way scarier than any animatronic fish could ever hope to be. With the Angels, you just see still statues - then you blink, and they’re closer, but you never see them move. I think that space where they suddenly become living, breathing creatures, but you can never see it happen, is a big part of the horror factor.

Yes. While stationary they’re in some weird “quantum-locked” state (whatever that means) where they’re indestructible.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that they tend to “hunt” in packs. So there’s always one just … BEHIND YOU.

And then the somebody arrives with a letter written 50-60 years ago from the person that’s just disappeared, with instructions to deliver it here at this exact date and time.

[Dendarii_Dame]

@Little_Nemo

There’s a trope in Chinese vampire mythology that vampires are blind and deaf. They cannot perceive people by seeing or hearing. But they can sense people’s breath. They can track you down by your breathing and kill you. So you’re undetectable to a vampire and completely safe in their presence - but only as long as you don’t breathe.

It’s the same basic idea; a powerful supernatural being that has a vulnerability. But the defense can only be maintained a short amount of time. This adds a sense of dread to the normal horror.

There was an episode of Doctor Who in which he and his companion had to hold their breaths; I think because they were pretending to be robots.

The line “They’re faster than you can imagine” makes me wonder if anyone’s done a crossover of the Weeping Angels vs. The Flash.

[BigT]

@Alessan

Of course, you can also just wink alternate eyes. You’d look like a weirdo, but you’d be safe.

I actually tried that after that episode first aired. I found I couldn’t sustain it. There was still this feeling that I needed to blink, and it took too much mental energy to keep not doing it. I always wound up blinking within about five minutes.

[hogarth]

@Alessan

You really have to watch it from beginning to end. It’s the perfect SF time travel short story.

I did start watching it from the beginning, but I lost interest.

(Also, the angels are people in “living statue” costumes).

I stand corrected – cheesy costumes, not cheesy props.

[Darren_Garrison]

It was said that they are ordinary statues when frozen. You can’t be both an ordinary statue and C4/sledgehammer-proof.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@dstarfire

One of the most terrifying baddies in the Dr. Who series (to me, at least) is the weeping angels.

What is it that makes them so terrifying? I think maybe it’s how well they speak to a primal fear of the unseen so well. However, many villains and threats in fiction have used that angle over the years and none were as scary as the angels.

It’s not the unseen, it’s the inevitable.

They are terrifying because once you’ve seen them, you know that you will soon lose the game.

[aceplace57]

The Doctor can usually talk his way out of most dangerous situations. Talking gives him time to think of a solution and react.

That doesn’t work with weeping angels. He’s never successfully communicated with them. That freaks him out.

Getting separated from the Tardis is the Doctors achilles heel. He’s stuck if The Weeping Angels send him back in time without it.

[Machine_Elf]

@PatrickLondon

It plays to childhood anxieties about what happens when you can no longer see something you saw before. It’s the dark side of the whole “He’s BEHIND you” routine in pantomime.

Sort of like Robbie’s clown in the 1982 movie Poltergeist. Robbie’s in bed, and can see the big stuffed clown doll sitting in the chair on the other side of the room. Robbie rests his eyes for a minute, then looks again, and the clown is no longer in the chair. :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

[aceplace57]

It is difficult to effectively write WA episodes. Since they don’t talk and other characters can’t interact with them.

Blink is a masterpiece.

It’s interesting Steven Moffat reused the same gimmick with The Silence. You can see them, but you instantly forget after looking away.