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Question about a certain horror trope

Started by Fuzzy Necromancer, June 10, 2010, 10:01:28 PM

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Fuzzy Necromancer

Any horror fan is familiar with the Body Fall. Somebody has a light scare, or a false alarm, and then YAAAGGH a dead body falls out of a closet, or a tree, or whatnot, and slumps  against them like a drunken friend.

It's also true that in horror films, sometimes dead bodies become animate, what with zombies, vampires, ghosts, and other necrotic entities running amok.

What I'm wondering is, have these concepts ever been combined? You know, protag goes through a forest, webbing-covered corpse falls on them, they freak out, calm down, then it grabs them by the leg and starts groaning. It seems like an almost inevitable combination and a great way to ride the roller-coaster of suspense-building, scare, and release, but I can' t bring to mind anywhere that it's been employed.
Love doesn't hurt. It kills.

"Where there's smoke, there's a smoke-making machine."

Relaxing Dragon

You mean, like, the body would fall into their arm, scream ensues, then it wakes up and does what the undead do? I actually feel like I've seen that before, but I can't for the life of me remember where (or even if I've actually seen it at all).

At any rate, it's a tricky thing to combine. There wouldn't be much good reason for the body to wait for a certain time to reanimate (they're working on flimsy enough premise as it is), let alone for a person freaked out by it to hang around near it (or even keep holding it) long enough to come back. Almost seems like something from a horror/comedy than a straight horror (but I've got a dark sense of humor like that).