ELEVATORS

• Movie elevators are always ready at that floor. But if the hero/heroine is being chased, elevator won't come.
• If hero OR villian takes an elevator, villain OR hero can beat it by taking stairs, even if the trip is 20 floors.
• Most elevator shafts and wires are clean and dust/grease free, and there's plenty of light so that the hero neither gets dirty nor needs a flashlight or some other equipment to see (Speed).
• When one character is pursuing another (good guy after bad or vice versa) and they reach the elevator just before it closes, they never stick their hand in the door so it will automatically open back up, nor do they press the call button to get the door to open.

ENVIRONMENT

• Thunder and lightning always happen at the same time.
• Storms start instantaneously: there's a crack of thunder and lightning, then heavy rain starts falling.
• Heavy rain causes no loss of long-distance visibility.
• Everything is blue at night-time.
• Caves always have flat floors, and it's never fully dark.
• There is always someone in the canal or the storm drain when the flood hits.
• The moon is always out at night (except for those cheaper movies where the sun is still out..).
• Full moon can occur for several nights in a row.
• Eclipses happen frequently, and without any warning.

EVIDENCE

• Incriminating evidence can be found either as photograph number four in a stack, or in the next to bottom drawer.
• Be sure to leave your important tapes, such as the one labelled "Incriminating evidence against Senator Smith showing him taking $24million in bribes and then fondling the drug lord's daughter" or your computer floppy disks labelled "All the nuclear launch codes are on here" where they can be easily found.
• All characters keep detailed newsclippings of important events in their lives, particularly those events that must be painful to recall, such as the loss of the character's immediate family due to their own negligence. NB: If the news report would have come out while the character was in jail or on the run, all the more reason for the character to have kept it intact.

FENCING/SWORDPLAY

• At some point in a duel, the hero and villain will cross swords at face level, allowing them to grip each other's weapon while making nasty/sarcastic comments before they break the clinch and continue fighting. (Why doesn't anyone just ram the sword guard into their opponent's face, stun him, and then finish him off?)
• If the hero and villain's swords cross at or below waist level, they will break the clinch, fall back, and pause -- despite the fact that a simple upthrust into the opponent's belly after the break would end the duel right there and then.
• If there is a candelabra, the villain will show how talented he is with a sword by cutting the candles and watching them fall over; the hero will do the same but the candles won't fall until _after_ the villain has made a comment about the hero's lack of fencing ability, at which point the hero will topple the cut candles, showing that he is more skilled than the villain because _his_ candles didn't fall over from the force of the cut.
• During a duel, the hero will jump or climb onto a table/bench/piano/platform that raises him above the villain. At that point, the villain will swipe at the hero's legs, which the hero avoids by jumping up in the air over the villain's blade. _Very_ rarely, the positions are reversed.
• Duels usually have one scene where the actors go out of frame and you watch their shadows fighting.
• If the villain wounds the hero in his sword arm, one of three things will happen:
  • hero becomes ambidextrous and fights with sword in other hand;
  • hero finds something else to defend himself with (tapestry, chain, Mossberg 12-gauge) that can be used with the other hand;
  • hero's girlfriend/sidekick comes up behind villain and impales him, thus saving hero.
• If hero is disarmed by villain, one of three things will happen:
  • villain will show a trace of honour and allow hero to get his sword;
  • hero will make mad dash/leap over or around villain to regain sword;
  • just when it looks like the end, hero's girlfriend/sidekick throws a sword to him, which he manages to grab easily (for the _best_ send-up of this concept, check out ARMY OF DARKNESS where Ash jumps in the air and his chainsaw magically clamps back onto his wrist -- it's beautifully shot and extremely funny!).
• If there are stairs, the hero will be forced up them backwards by the villain, at which point the hero will either leap to the ground or swing from a rope/chandelier/tapestry to get away.
• If there is a tapestry or chandelier, the hero will cut it loose and drop it on the villain's henchmen _unless_ the movie is a comedy, in which case the hero will drop it on his own men by accident.

FIGHTS

• If a character uses martial arts rather than a weapon, his opponents will always face him one-to-one. Spare bad guys may dance around the fight taunting our hero, but none will engage until his predecessor has been disposed of. And if it's an oriental martial arts film, they will fight in perfect one-two rhythm and form, hit-block-hit-block.
• Two guys or a bunch of guys go at it, repeatedly bashing each other in the face with massive blows, or hitting each other with chairs, sticks, refrigerators, whatever -- and they go one doing this, sometimes for minutes at a time.
• People can be rendered inoperative by bumping them on the head. Beware, though; after you have left the scene, this person will regain consciousness and be more determinted to attack you.
• Clasping your hands together and hitting the bad guy's back will also guarantee unconsciousness
• All fights taking place on the edge of a canyon, tall building, or other high place require at least one bad guy to get plugged by a bullet, arrow, or other missile weapon, causing to fall, but keeping him alive enough to hear his scream of terror echo as he plunges to his doom.
• Corollary: whenever someone falls off of a cliff or building, no matter how much damage they take beforehand, they scream, even if they were shot through the lungs twenty or thirty times, or were apparently unconscious.
• In the West, the favored hand-to-hand combat technique is to throw yourself prostrate on the other guy and hug him.
• When a villian is trying to murder someone with a knife, they'll often use just one hand. The victim meanwhile (usually a woman) is using both hands to restrain the villian's arm and keep the knife from stabbing her. But the murderer will NEVER simply use his other hand to take the knife and easily stab the victim. (see also Knives).

FOOD & EATING

• Pastries are always in plain pink boxes. When we see a plain pink box, we expected to know that the box contains donuts or cake or some related item.
• All movie mothers will prepare a breakfast, usually consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon, etc. Dad and the kids will invariably arrive at the table 30 seconds before Dad has to leave for the office and the kids have to catch the school bus. Each will have time only for a sip of coffee/juice and/or one bite of toast. There must be enough food left over in these homes to feed an emerging nation!

HELICOPTERS

• In movieland, there's an abundance of corrupt helicopter pilots. Villains have no problem renting a helicopter complete with pilot who doesn't mind shooting total strangers, or being shot at.
• When a helicopter is hit by a bullet or rocket, it'll explode immediately if it contains a villain, but if the hero is on board, it will loose power, smoke will come out of the doors, and it'll just reach the ground in time for the hero to get clear then duck just at the moment it explodes.
• People standing outside a running helicopter can always talk in normal or just slightly louder than normal voices.
• A pursued hero, with the bad guys just yards behind him, can jump into a shutdown helicopter, run through the twenty-five item startup checklist, engage and spin up the rotors, take off and be out of pistol range before the bad guys catch up.
• Bullets shot at a helicopter bounce off the fiberglass and aluminum "fuselage" components but make neat little holes through the plexiglas bubble.
• When a helicopter's engine dies, the main rotor immediately stops and the helicopter drops straight to the ground. If a bad guy is flying, the helicopter disappears in a ball of flame, but good-guy pilots just get out, dust themselves off, and walk away.
• When a turbine-powered Bell Jet Ranger helicopter is shot at, it's engine coughs and sputters, chugs along for a little while as the helo staggers through the air uncertainly, and then crashes using the good/bad pilot algorithm noted above.
• Every helicopter shutting down emits the chirp-chirp-chirp sound of the rubber drive belts disengaging, in spite of the fact that only the famous Bell 47G (the Mash chopper) actually makes this sound.
• Piston helicopters always start up with screaming turbine engine sounds.
• Rambo-style pilots can fly with one hand on the cyclic stick while the other fires an automatic weapon out the door. The helicopter automatically knows when to change altititude to fly over obstacles without the pilot worrying about that pesky collective pitch control.

HEROES

• If the hero has a psychological/phsical problem which has prevented him from effectively dealing with problems, you can rest assured that this problem will disappear at an opportune time.
• The hero always misses the villan leaving the scene by seconds.
• Stripping to the waist makes the hero invulnerable.
• The hero will always be paired off with a female character. The sidekick never will.
• The hero's best friend/partner will usually be killed by the bad guys three days before retirement.
• The hero's new wife will be mowed down by 80 machine guns right after the wedding or during the honeymoon.
• Heroes can go without food or sleep, with no measurable drop in physical or mental faculties, for at least 72 hours.
• The hero will always have a small trickle of blood in the right corner of his mouth after a fight. His lip will never be split in the middle, and his upper lip will always be invulnerable. He will wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, then look at it. If his face displays any other injury, it will usually be a small abrasion on his right cheekbone. He will wear a band-aid on this for one day, after which it will be miraculously healed.
• The hero will always refuse the assistance of friends or medical personnel after a fight.
• If the hero gets into a second fight, his most injured body part will always be punched or kicked.
• A hero will show no pain even during the most terrific beating, yet he will wince if a women attempts to clean a facial wound.
• When a hero is paired with a weak sidekick, that sidekick will invariably save the hero's life at a crucial moment, or show remarkable proficiency with weapons in a key scene.
• If the hero is a white male and has an assistant/sidekick who is either not white or not male the assistant/sidekick will die, preferably in an act of heroic sacrifice.
• If the movie hero has a sidekick and he mentiones his family in the first two minutes of the film, the sidekick will surely be killed.
• The movie hero is (almost) always divorced, but he still has some contact with his ex-wife who tells him that she could not stay married to him because she loves him too much.

HOUSES

• People never answer the door until the doorbell or knocking has sounded at least three times.
• The hero lives in New York City working at some okay, but not particularly high-paying job, and yet he or she has a roomy apartment filled with nice stuff, generally with a good view, and sometimes a nice, romantic rooftop to go to.
• People never get out of the house when there is obvious danger there (ghosts, murderers).
• People who hear something weird outside will go OUT to look, even if they know there's a homicidal maniac on the loose.
• When someone's in bed and hears a sound outside, he'll get up and turn the lights on before looking out of a window, even if this usually guarantees that he'll never be able to see anything going on.
• When an intruder is in the house, the occupant will snuck along a wall with his back pressed to it tightly and his arms out a bit from his body, palms flat agaisnt the wall.
• When there's an intruder somewhere in the house, the thing that jumps at the heroine in the dark turns out to be her cat, even if it comes from places cats wouldn't be, like inside a cupboard! As soon as she relaxes, the killer will show up and strangle her.
• Any apartment in Paris will have a view of the Eiffel Tower.

INJURIES

• When the hero is knocked out, he won't get a concussion or brain damage. People hit on the head will not throw up.
• When a hero gets a bloody nose, he'll stop bleeding almost immediately.
• When a hero suffers through car chases and crashes, he never has to worry about unfelt spinal injury from impact.
• A slight blow to the head is usually enough to cause total amnesia
• Characters that get shot will never go into shock.
• The hero will always get shot in the shoulder, yet will be able to use his arm.
• A facial scars is likely to make you go insane and seek revenge for the rest of your life.
• If you lose a hand, it causes the stump of your arm to grow by six inches.
• A lost hand either comes crawling back, or a mad surgeon will replace it with one transplanted from an executed strangler.
• If a person gets shot they have plenty of time to tell all kinds of things except the most important information (like the name of the murderer).
• A person shot to death will immediately do just that - die. Their bodies do not flop and jerk around for a few minutes as the muscles contract involuntarily and sporadically as the brain dies a slow electro-chemical death (as with real gun-shot deaths).

KIDS/TEENAGERS

• A kid always knows more than an adult.
• A kid can fend for himself even if his parents have gone to Paris, leaving him with no food, electricity, heat, money, etc.
• No child can ever be killed...even if they're electrocuted on a high-voltage electric fence that could kill a dinosaur (Jurassic Park)
• Eight to ten-year-old kids are the best computer hackers on earth and can break into any system.
• Girls who can't find a date to the prom in high school films are usually the girls that, in most high schools, would have almost every teenage boy asking them.

KNIVES

• When you throw a knife, the blade will always be the first thing to hit the target
• unless you turn the knife around first.
• A competent knife thrower can work equally well with throwing knives, Swiss Army knives, butcher knives, table knives or swords.

LANGUAGE

• Even when depicted as foreigners (including aliens from outer space) all actors speak and understand a common language (usually English) unless the film's plot depends on a language barrier.

LIGHT

• A malfunctioning or burnt lightbulb usually means that someone is hiding in the room, ready to jump on our hero/heroine while he/she's busy hitting the switch or tapping the bulb.
• When someone lights a match in a dark old house (etc) and the single match has as much power as a 1000 watt bulb! Alternatively, they light a match, and then light an old oil lamp which has a vast amount of power.
• When people switch a light off, it will still be possible to see everything in the room, just in a slightly subdued/bluish colour...
• Lightbulbs blow up when:
  something psychic happens;
  someone opens the power box, rips out the biggest cable, and touches it to the rest of the stuff in there;
  If the lightbulbs are in a row, they blow in timed sequence.

LOCKS

• Any lock can be picked with a credit card or a paper clip. Any safe can be opened in a few minutes with a stethoscope or some high-tech equipment with lots of blinking lights.

MEDICAL

• More often than not, the best method to revive somebody after their heart has stopped, assuming that there has already been a lengthy attempt to revive them with CPR, those electric zapperthings, ect., is screaming at them something like:
  "You never backed away from everything in your life, now fight! Fight! FIIIIGHT!" or
  "You can't do this to me! I love you, goddammit!"

MEN

• When men drink whiskey, it is always in a shot glass, and they always drink it in one gulp. If they are wimps, they will gasp for air, then have a coughing fit. If they are macho, they will wince briefly, flashing clenched teeth.
• Men on rafts, jungles, deserts or other extended duty don't have to carry razors because their beards don't grow. Counterpoint: Unless they drink, in which case 3-day stubble appears in 3 hrs.

MIDDLE AGES

• Medieval peasants always have filthy faces, tangled hair, ragged clothing - and perfect, gleaming white teeth. (cf. Braveheart, any Robin Hood movie).
• If you are a princess, you always have a favorite lady in waiting, and you always send her to warn the hero of the evil king's intention just in time.
• Corollary: the lady in waiting is never quite as beautiful as the princess; however, she still always catches the eye of the hero's sidekick.
• In a swordfight, you can always parry behind your back, and you must always find a set of stairs to fight on so that the loser can roll down them and die at the bottom.
• Horses never get winded, throw a shoe, etc., until the pursuing sheriff is right behind the hero.
• Corollary: the wagon that breaks an axle or gets stuck in the creek is always the one carrying the king's entire treasury, which he totes around with him every time he goes gallivanting through bandit-infested countryside.

MINORITES

• Minorities such as Native Americans or Asians will always have some sort of mystical knowledge or inate fighting skill. For example, the Native American always knows the course of events to come from some sign in nature, and Asians are all born with Martial Arts skills they can use to battle the bad guys.

MONEY

• Gangster's Briefcases either contain weapons or banknotes. No one ever got coins at a robbery.
• Briefcases are designed to hold exactly three rows of banknotes. As if it had power by itself money likes to be sorted in nice packs and rows, even if it had been thrown into the briefcase ba a terrified casher at a bank.
• When you use a movie taxi don't ever give any change. Drivers won't know what to do with it. Just say "thank you" when you pay a bill, reach into your pocket without looking, take out whatever note is in it - it will just fit. (see also CABS)
• Same is true in restaurants. Checks are always designed to be 15 percent under the sum the male customer has in his hands first.

MONSTERS

• After fleeing a monster, you will want to call for help from a public phone within ten feet of where you last saw the monster.

MOTORCYCLES

• Motorcycle engines in movies can inexplicably change from 4-stroke Otto cycle to 2-stroke cycle operation.
• Motorcycles usually change from Harley Davidson choppers when engaged in highway operations to Yamaha Dirt bikes when operated off-road (as in "Then Came Bronson"). Police Harleys will morph into Triumph Bonnevilles when operating in tight quarters (on the ship in "Magnum Force").

MUSIC

• Many musical instruments - especially wind instruments and accordions - can be played without moving the fingers.
• Native musicians are highly skilled, and can make simple instrumental bands sound like a full light orchestra.

NIGHTMARES

• Any person waking from a nightmare will sit bolt upright ("boing!") in bed. Instead of just lying there going "eeewww!" as most of us do.

PHONES

• All phone numbers begin with 555.
• People speaking on the phone never introduce themselves, and never ever say "good-bye" at the end of a conversation.
• A ringing phone is usually picked up within 3 seconds.
• Don't give the person on the other end of the phone time to say what they have to.
• You also never have to look up a phone number, for anyone.
• When a phone line is broken or someone hangs up unexpectedly, communication channels can be restored by frantically beating the cradle and saying "Hello? Hello?".
• Always knock over the phone if it wakes you up. If you are expecting a call, make sure that you pull the covers up completely over your head so that knocking it over becomes easier. All houses have phones next to the bed.
• There's a dial tone to be heard on A's phone immediately after B has hung up on his/her end.
• The Movie Telephone Time Vortex.
  How often have you seen something like this:
  Phone rings. Hero/Heroine picks it up. "Hello. Yes. O.k. Right. Thanks, Goodbye." (Total elapsed time on phone: 5 seconds.)
  Hero/Heroine turns to other character: "That was John. He says that the Marilyn left for the lawyer's office about an hour ago, and she should have been there by now. He's called the lawyer's office but Marilyn apparently never got there. He also called Bill's, thinking she'd stop by there, but Bill hasn't seen her. John says he's going to call Anne, as Marilyn said she and Ann were going to go shopping sometime today. If she's not at Anne's, he's going to call the police. He suggests that we drive over to Mario's and check with him as to whether or not Marilyn told Wally about the statue. However, he thinks this is unlikely as Marilyn doesn't trust Wally, she only trusts us and Fransisco. John also suggests we try to get in touch with Fransisco . . . ."
• On the subject of phones, how about variations of the Bob Newhart-style conversation where we only get to hear one side of the conversation, as in: Marilyn hasn't shown up at the lawyer's office yet? (PAUSE) And you already called Bill's? (PAUSE) What did he say? (PAUSE) He hasn't seen her either. (PAUSE) So, John's getting nervous? (PAUSE) He's going to call the police...
  If I'm not mistaken, the conversation must have gone like this:
  "Marilyn hasn't shown up at the lawyer's office yet."
  "Marilyn hasn't shown up at the lawyer's office yet?"
  "No, and I've already called Bill's."
  "And you already called Bill's?"
  "Yes."
  "What did he say?"
  "He hasn't seen her either."
  "He hasn't seen her either."
  "John's getting pretty nervous about this."
  "So, John's getting nervous?"
  "Yes, he's going to call the police."
  "He's going to call the police..."
  
• When phone-calls are traced you can see a map on the screen with a beam closing in on the caller, and the caller always knows how long he can talk before he has to hang up to not be traced down. He always manages to say everything perfectly timed for 2 minutes.
• Video-phones display pictures of the callers looking straight into the camera. The camera must be in the middle of their screen, in other words.
• If the hero tries to call someone he needs urgently he won't need more than three rings to know that he/she is not there.
• If someone wants to call the hero, he/she will let the phone ring forever before hanging up, expecially if the caller does not know that the hero has to fight his way to the phone through a bunch of bad guys.
• A person is placing a phone call to a company, such as "Sports Illustrated." The phone at the other end is picked up, and the person PLACING the call says, "Hello, Sports Illustrated?", as if they are checking to make sure they called the right place.
  What this means is that at a major company, someone is answering the phone with "hello" and that's it! Not, "hello, Sports Illustrated, can I help you?" or anything like that, just "Hello!"

POLICE

• Police Captains/lieutenants are always angry at their star detective and yell at him, threatening suspension if he doesn't drop the case.
• Corollary: it is only _after_ the detective has been suspended that he can properly crack the case.
• Many police chiefs are in constant contact with their city's mayor who will often "chew their ass" about a single criminal investigation out of the thousands going on in a city. (note: See "I Married an Axe Murderer" for a hilarious send-up of the "mean chief" cliche.)
• The police will never question the hero, even if he kills lots of bad guys
• The cops never show up during massive gun battles in city streets that involve bystanders and exploding cars. After the fact, you might just a siren in the distance.
• More murders always happen during the investigation of the first one. The last living suspect is the murderer.
• Most homicide detectives are brooding, near-crazed loners, most likely divorced or widowed, borderline alcoholics. Of course, there are more respectable-looking detectives, but they are inept and not nearly as tough as their mentally-troubled colleagues.
• Many detectives are recruited directly from the police academy, therefore accounting for youthful "seasoned detectives" (see "Speed," "Kuffs," "Stakeout").

PREGNANCY & CHILDBIRTH

• The fact that a woman is pregnant or the fact that she notes her pregnancy is introduced by a scene where you hear the woman vomit.
• Whenever a woman announces to her husband/boyfriend that she's pregnant, it comes as a complete surprise to him, whether pleasantly or otherwise.
• No one is in labor for hours and hours... they pop out babies in a matter of minutes.
• No one is ever offered an epidural or medication, everyone uses lamaze (pant method), but they often scream at & demean those around them.
• Most babies are born clean, with perfectly shaped heads and dry hair
• All movie babies are born HUGE, usually the size of the average two month old.
• Women who give birth are perfectly made up afterwards

PRISON

• In jail, there must be a brutal guard and an evil scheming warden.
• Inside a prison there is always a boss among the convicts. Usually he's black, blind and crippled surrounded by tough black musclemen, and he is the one the white hero has to see to get something.
• In a prison or a gymm, when someone is about to be threatened, it usally takes place when the subject is on his back pumping iron and the bar is lowered onto his neck thus reshaping the windpipe and driving some point home.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT

• Time will stand still when when the hero is in the presence of a company logo.
• When a character picks up a bottle of whiskey or a pack of cigarettes, the label will always be clearly visible.
• If the producers find no company to invest into the picture, strange things happen to the world: gas stations have no brand names visible, stars use no-name airlines (they often crash!), all smokers use silver cases for their cigarettes.

RADIO, TV & VIDEO

• A character turns on the radio just in time to hear a special announcement or some important news item. Then turns the radio off.
  ex.:
  CLICK
  "Three escaped lunatics have been spotted in . blah blah blah."
  CLICK
  
• The phone rings. Caller says, "You better check out what's on the news on Channel 13". He turns on channel 13 and gets the report from the beginning.
• All televisions show cowboy-and-indian chase scenes a large proportion of the time.
• All VCRs in films are always cued up exactly to the portion of tape you want to show someone.
• You will always be able to backwind the tape *precisely* to the beginning of the segment you want to see again.
• Whenever anyone scans through a videotape or audio tape on home equipment you can hear the audio portion of the tape being fast forwarded or rewound.
• Freeze frame is flawless.
• Whenever someone reviews surveliance video taken from a preceeding scene, the camera angle is never high above the actors, it's right up close, and looks _a lot_ like the angle the film camera used when shooting the picture. Aditionally, the audio is always crisp and clear, there's no background noise, because all security cameras come equiped with boom mikes.

ROPES

• When people are tied up in the movies, which is usually loosely and incompetently, they can't escape without finding some convenient device to burn or cut through the ropes.
• Corollary 1: There is always a convenient device at hand.
• Corollary 2: If the method involves burning the ropes, the person's hands will be tied at least a foot apart.

Next pagePrevious pageTop of the listIndex of Vertigo's homepage

This page maintained by [email protected]