Why is it during doomsday scenerio's people always make stupid decisions?

Whether its zombie invasion, or mayan prophecy people always make crazy decisions in the doomsday movies. Slight spoilers, I just got back from seeing that darkest day movie, the one with the light energy beings that attack earth. It just amazes me how the cast of the movies are always fated to do stupid things to get themselves or the crew dead or put into danger. I understand they want to make some suspense in the movie but do it another way instead of being dumb. I would list specific examples in this movie but I dont want to give it away for those who have not seen it yet. Just once I want someone to make a movie such that a person makes a logical choice in a doomsday scenerio and still die instead of choosing the most obviously wrong choice and dying. To me doing this makes it feel more hopeless that there is nothing you can do to win.

Eh... Often the most logical thing to do would be to find a hole in the ground and pull it in after you. The smartest decisions are often the most boring.

Because it is a movie.

Because people are dumb, panicky animals.

because horror movie characters are always stupid and people don't know how to write anymore where you have smart characters and smart villains that have to act and react to each other instead of ''OMGFLAILMONSTERSAAAHHHHH*DIE*"

I dunno, I think the crew from Alien was fairly smart given the circumstances... Well except for that whole breaking of quarantine thing, and they made a big deal about how stupid it was (of course it was done on purpose, but they didn't know that at the time).

Oh look at me. I'm a teen girl with a smoking hot body and just came out of the shower and is now wearing a baby doll nighty.

Oh I hear a noise in the basement.

click - click - click

Oh the basement light seems burned out.

I'll go down anyway to take a quick peek.

Yea, people do dumb things in monster/horror movies ALL THE TIME. It's expected.

Because then the general movie going audience would be all "Booooring"

Because you could take out the "during doomsday scenerio's [sic]" and the question would still work. That's why.

Take the zombie setup. THere is always one fool who is endangers the group because their loved one got bit by a zombie yet they do not want to let them go. If I were the leader of a group during that type of issue, I would not be afraid to bust a cap in the person as soon as they get bit by the zombie. No need in waiting till they turn. Kill them now or you can stay them with and share your brains with them but we wont be taking them with us. There is never a person in the movies that do this. The closest thing is always that one arogant character who does something that gets themself killed in one of the worst possible ways. Its always like that. Why cant they be the one to be smart for once. It just irks my nerves because its way too predictable now. You can pretty much know in the opening 5 minutes of the movie who is going to live and who is going to die because its been done to death so much. Maybe I need to be a movie writer some day.

The really sad part is, when there IS a smart guy in the group trying to implement a plan that has a chance of working, the rest ostracize him and cut him off - they don't want to hear common sense.

The much sadder part is, the exact same thing happens in real life.

In my experience, brains tend to shut down in moments of crisis. I had an experience where someone had a heart attack in front of me, and I was the only one who reacted. I had to yell at people to get them to do anything.

So, in other words, horror movies may be truer than you would believe.

Heh, I remember studying this in my university causes. Believe it or not, Common Sense(tm) is considered a special skill assigned to the hero characters in these movies (ie the ones who live to the end and actually use their brains). Special talents are generally specifically written for the character who has exactly the right skillset, personality and level-headedness to deal with the scenario at hand.

Perfect examples of this are Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies, virtually any 80's action movie (Rambo, et al) where the character is 'the best trained in x,y,z situations', and the survivors of disaster movies. These movie universes are littered with whole populations of ridiculously stupid people (on purpose) so that the 'special skill' of Common Sense can save the day.

This has started to be done away with, mind you. The zenith of this occurs in 2012 where John Cusack essentially has the Lucky special skill instead of Common Sense, as he careers from set piece to set piece, 'luckily' meeting talking heads that send him to the next CGI spectacular.

But never ever expect disaster/apocalypse films to be populated by regular people. Only the principal cast matters; the rest are collateral.


S.

Because the attraction of horror movies is more to see Darwinism in action than the movies plot.

Well now, in all fairness to the writers of those movies, people really do tend to do stupid things when faced with a situation that overwhelms the senses. The human body actually goes into a kind of sensory lock akin to tunnel vision when the heart rate goes over a certain threshold in stressful situations. The ones that can avoid that sensory lock are the ones that prepare for and practice procedures specifically for those kinds of situations. This is why armed forces and police practice forced entry procedures. It's why firefighters practice entering burning buildings.

For anybody that is interested in that kind of thing, there is a book titled Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell that goes into depth about this phenomenon.

I agree with some of the posts, and it does apply to horror movies as well.......most people just are unable to react to extreme situations.

My favorite trend breaker is from the movie "The People Under The Stairs". Most people would stand their and wet their pants when trapped in a locked house with an insane couple and their dog that has a taste for human flesh. The main character in the movie, however, does everything that I wish people in horror movies would do, the main one being USING COMMON SENSE. And a lot of improvised weapons.

And the main character was a 12 year old kid.