Storyteller’s Rulebook #36: ...But Creature Features Make Sense

I talked yesterday about how nobody would actually try to fight back if they were in an actual thriller-type situation. In real life, everybody calls the police. Every time.

But the irony here is that supernatural-jeopardy movies are actually more realistic than normal thrillers. In the real world, no one has ever been attacked by a supernatural monster, but it’s easy to imagine that, if you were, you might respond by trying to kill the monster yourself. In this case, it makes no sense to call the police—they actually wouldn’t believe you. And in most supernatural horror movies, only the hero knows how to kill the monster anyway. It just makes sense to take care of it yourself.

So if you want to make your thriller more realistic, add a supernatural element. Wait-- Huh? This is an example of how believability isn’t the same thing as realism. As a classmate once said: “Just because we accept that Superman can fly, doesn’t mean that we’ll accept it when he turns on the TV and they just happen to be showing the news story he wants to see.”