Eight Movies Where Characters Make Really Bad Decisions

I think every one of us has had that moment, where you are sitting in front of the big screen or your television at home, watching a movie and, during parts of it, just start shouting at the characters to make SMARTER decisions. Or you roll your eyes so hard they disappear to the back of your head. I feel the wrong decision from time to time is acceptable, after all, we can’t expect our movie characters to be infallible. But these movies are just on a whole other level of bad decision-making.

#8: Truth or Dare: What Happens When You Give in to Peer Pressure

You meet a cute stranger at a bar, he suggests going to hang out at an abandoned church site, the normal thing is to say yes, right? Of course not! That doesn’t sound even remotely normal. The point is nobody wanted to go, but no one stood their ground; they got pulled into a situation they didn’t want to be in.

Even how this entire thing started is asinine. How does one deal with a rapey priest? Call on a demon. I’m sure that will turn out just fine. And is it the norm on spring break to act like a moron and desecrate a church? Being in Singapore during Hungry Ghost Month is enough to scare me from doing anything like that. Non-believer or not, don’t mess with things you might not understand.

Need I even mention how, at the end, instead of doing the right thing and just letting the game end with the both of them, Lucy Hale’s character decides to invite more people into it through the internet? So much for all her charity work at the beginning.

#7: A Quiet Place: A Lesson on the Need for Better Parenting

This is a hard one for me, because I actually like A Quiet Place. It was well-acted and I enjoyed the unique premise of the movie. The problem for me came after, when you start to deconstruct the movie and discover that a lot of things don’t make sense.

Think about it, you are in a dystopian world, where creatures attack you if they hear you, so why would it be a wise decision to let your children walk behind you? I am not even going to go on too much about the sister’s decision to give her brother back the plane, when the batteries are RIGHT THERE. Children have poor impulse control, so don’t even leave the thing lying around; it’s not like it takes a rocket scientist to put batteries in a toy.

Secondly, how does one even have sex in such circumstances? How quiet is the sex? Is that even possible? Well, they survived that, so I guess it is. I don’t understand why they would even do it, and with no protection, or maybe the protection failed, who knows at this point. I get that the baby is in a way a symbolic representation for the child they lost, but bringing a screaming, crying baby into a world that does not allow for that seems like bad parenting at this point.

#6: Frozen: Where the Greatest Horror is … a Ski-Lift

I am not referring to the animated cartoon (though there are some bad decisions made — I’m looking at you Anna). This is a thriller/horror-ish movie where the characters are stuck on a ski lift. How they got there is the result of one bad decision after the other. First, one of the main guy characters invites his girlfriend on a trip he usually takes with his friend. Next, they bribe their way into going on the slopes, and I don’t get how that’s a better deal if you had to bribe the dude with 200 dollars (but I stay in a country with no snow, so what do I know). Then we discover the girlfriend doesn’t ski, so instead of getting a proper experience, she kind of ruins things for them.

She tries to redeem herself by suggesting they go out again later, and decides to FOLLOW them again. Why would you insert yourself AGAIN when it would culminate in the SAME result? They get there, hear the news that the ski-lifts are going to stop running soon, and also that no one is going to be working over the weekend. At this point, I would just call it a day. Go back indoors and try to make the best of a horrible day.

They insist on going up, she flirts with the ski-lift guy so he would let them on, and as predicted, they go on the ski-lift, and it stops when they are still on it. They deserve everything they get at this point.

#5: Justice League: When Heroes Get Insecure

We can’t stop the evil bad guy, what do we do? I know! Let’s try to resurrect a dead guy, even though we have two demi-gods on the team, using alien technology as well as an otherworldly power source. I mean, nothing bad ever happens, everything worked out fine when Lex did something similar in the previous movie.

And Batman’s plan B was Lois Lane? He’s lucky Superman managed to come back to himself, otherwise they would have had two bad guys on their hands instead of one.

#4: 28 Weeks Later: Educate Yourself on How Viruses Work

You are living in a world barely holding on after a zombie virus turned things topsy-turvy. Your wife, whom you left for dead, turns up alive. Your impulse upon seeing her, is to kiss her. I won’t even let my brother be near me when he has the flu. It is a human moment, but an incredibly stupid one, that leads to numerous other fatalities.

Generally, I want to root for the survival of children, but the ones in this movie honestly make it so difficult. Sneaking out of the safe zone to get a memento of their mom, breaking quarantine and endangering others, all for sentimentality. It seems that the pervading sentiment in the movie is that choices for love always end up leading to something worse happening.

#3: 47 Meters Down: Know Your Limits as a Tourist

The best way to prove to your husband he made the wrong choice leaving you, is to go into a cage and descend into the open sea to shark watch. Let’s not forget that how you got there is based on the recommendation of two men you just met, and how this entire venture does not seem above board. I am not adverse to adventurous things mind you, I did para-glide in Thailand, but the lack of questions about safety procedures is just really foolhardy. But I guess without their irrational decision, we might not have a movie, which might have been a good thing considering how not very decent it was.

#2: The Twilight Saga: Hormone-Fueled Stupidity

I can’t believe it has been 10 years since The Twilight Saga, a series that is the amalgamation of my bad choices — choosing to read the entire book series as well as watch all the movies. My teenage self is a person I will never understand.

Forgetting the badly fleshed out narrative, what angers me most about the series is the utter stupidity of the characters, mostly Bella. She suspects this guy is a vampire, yet follows him into a forest. She knows he is a vampire, and that her blood sings for him, yet wants to be with him? I could never safely sleep beside someone who doesn’t need sleep and intensely craves my blood. I know Bella and Edward shippers will come for me, but I don’t care. If she had to choose anyone, she should have chosen Jacob, who was the best character until the last movie made him into an involuntary pedophile.

Not only does she choose the vampire, they sleep with each other while she is still human! He is a supernatural being with unfathomable strength, and sex is an activity when one can ermm … lose control. I don’t understand why this girl doesn’t value her own life more.

#1: Life: When Scientists/Astronauts are Ill-Equipped for Space

This movie, despite the star-studded cast, with the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, couldn’t save itself. This is due in part to the poor decision-making of the characters. Firstly, one of the characters decides to shock the alien thing they are growing onboard. Why would you do that? I don’t think that should be a go-to move from a scientist. Then when it breaks his hand and gets loose, they decide to break quarantine and rescue him? And why is the pod not more secure that the alien can escape from some vent?! What is the point of even having a containment space at this point? They seem very unprepared to be dealing with alien life. Let’s hope NASA has a better grip on things.

Thanks for reading!  Do you have any movies you would add to the list?  Comment down below!

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