Of course I’m referring to everyone’s least favorite character in horror films, Skeptical guy. A werewolf just ripped three of his sexy coed friends to pieces, he just still doesn’t believe in hocus pocus. Skeptical guy seems to be a crutch for the Paranormal Activity franchise. Because I guess if both characters acknowledged the haunting early on, it’d get a lot more difficult to write. Because it’s harder to figure out how people would realistically deal with paranormal activity, and much easier to have Skeptical guy call his girlfriend silly.
Ha-ha Marge, now quit fooling around!
Every horror film seems to use Skeptical guy in the same way. He’s the guy in the beginning of the movie who keeps asking his friends stop messing around. “Come on, I don’t have time for games!” And then the first scare of the movie always, and I mean always, is a cat or a practical joke or a mannequin. I don’t know why. It’s just a rule.
But more perplexing, is that every manly main character starts out skeptical. From Indiana Jones to Jack from Lost. Even if this makes no sense. In Temple of Doom (the first movie in the series chronologically), Indie recites an incantation to cause the sacred stones to ignite. But then a few years later he doesn’t believe in magic, or anything silly like that. Or how about Jack. After seeing polar bears on an island, time travel, his dead father, a smoke monster, and a man who can’t be killed, he will still chastise other characters for believing in mystical aspects of the island.
You’re just trying to trick me.
What is the purpose of Skeptical guy? Maybe to ease the audience into the spooky stuff? But we know what we’re seeing when we buy a ticket to Paranormal Activity 3. To make them easier to relate to? I think we’d all appreciate a protagonist who didn’t doubt the obvious monster lurking for three seasons. Dramatic irony is good and all, but usually we want our hero to be on top of things. Let Bumbling Older Out of Touch Man be the skeptical one.
