11 haunted objects in film ranked by how dumb you’d have to be to mess with them
Okay, fair enough, you didn't think a random mirror was going to warp your perception of reality, but why would you mess with a book made of human skin?
Film Features Laine
For those of us who are smarter than Homer Simpson, horror movies have taught us a very important lesson: If anyone warns you against interacting with something because it’s cursed or haunted, just back away. Doesn’t matter if you believe in it or not. Just play it safe, and you won’t end up at the mercy of an evil puzzle box or a spirit you’ve literally invited into your body via a dismembered hand. But sometimes you don’t get a warning, or the haunted object seems innocuous enough that there’s no reason to suspect it. If we all ran around refusing to touch clothing buttons, none of us would be able to put on our pants in the morning. Then everyone would be constantly living in athleisure, and no one wants that.
Haunted objects are a trope in horror films, but some are easier to spot than others. You could be forgiven for not necessarily suspecting that a bed is going to eat you—but when multiple people have explicitly warned you not to enter that hotel room, Mike, and then you do it anyway, that one’s kinda on you, bud.
To celebrate this trope, we’ve put together a list of haunted objects in horror movies and ranked them according to how dumb you’d have to be to mess with them. And, to keep things organized according to horror logic, you won’t find any explicitly possessed objects on this list, like Chucky. Basically, if there’s a dude in there, it doesn’t count. Everything else is fair game.
25 Comments
if theres a puzzle box im gonna try and solve it. sure i might get sent to hell, but theres a equal chance i might get possessed by an ancient pharaoh that makes me good at games.
That’s great if you score a pharaoh who knows a game that inexplicably rules your world and every aspect of it. I’m not sure I’m willing to risk getting my skin flayed off erotically by fetish demons if the alternative is to merge with Parchee-Ra, Master of Parcheesi
Yeah but then you’d be ahead of like 99% of the population in that you’d understand the rules to Parcheesi. Worth it.
As long as he knows to summon Pot of Greed to draw three additional cards from the deck to his hand.
Doesn’t say it has to be horror films, so how about The One Ring? It’s terrifying in concept. The more you wear it, the more twisted and obsessed you become, and it could be used to control all these other rings people thought were beneficial. And when it’s finally destroyed it destroys a whole realm
In the same vein of non-horror cursed objects. Just avoid any old board game/retro video game you find hidden in the old house you are visiting.
Best scene from Death BedFYI that’s the Dad from Boy Meets World, William Russ.
Oh please you cannot let out the amount of wonderful cursed objects in the gradually crazier Amityville entries: a cursed mirror, a cursed clock (this one by the director of Hellraiser 2), a cursed dollhouse, a cursed LAMP!Also a warm shout out to Friday the 13th the series, Warehouse 13 (basically a brighter Friday the 13th the Series) and Poltergeist: the legacy.And to the Monkey’s Paw, now that we are on it.
That lamp was the scariest thing I saw when I was a kid
That lamp was 100% evil before it got anywhere near the Amityville ghost. Movie should have been about the demonic entity that clearly resided in the lamp and the Amityville demon having a friendly killing competition.
What if you accidentally look at the lamp through the oculus mirror?!?
Gotta admit- I fucking hate slideshows, but I loved this one. 🙂 I disagree with your placement of the Ouija board in the top ten at all; since those are things that we grow up messing with it stands to reason your guard might be lowered. I might mess with a Ouija board. But a disembodied corpse hand that seems to give people seizures? Fuck that noise.
1. Anything from the Cabin in the Woods basement, of course.
I mean, yeah, that’s what I was thinking the whole time, but I guess that kind of goes without saying, really.
Yeah that was pretty much the point, wasn’t it? Don’t screw with weird stuff in creepy basements.
I still to this day wonder about that spider-shaped amulet that’s briefly seen. I mean yeah duh, some kind of spider horror, but it would have been more creative than that, right? It’s almost more scary wondering what exactly would have happened.
I hate the term “edgelord”.
Oooh, look who’s being a contrarian ed–, you know, never mind.
Great list.
Slideshows are terrible, obviously, but with this new version of the “tell us your email” prompt, they just got worse. Well done, I guess.
Although this item isn’t cursed (just evil microchips), I just want a shout out to 1983’s “The Lift” for its AMAZING tag line: “Take the Stairs, Take the Stairs. For God’s Sake, Take the Stairs!!!”
How about Demon Seed (1977) about an evil “smart home” that starts to gets the hots for the housewife living in it? Probably better remembered for the Simpsons Treehouse segment parodying it.
That corpse hand that lets you communicate with the dead/tell the future/be possessed or whatever is more properly and completely called a GLORY hand, which I’ve always kinda liked. I don’t blame them for just calling it The Hand, but you know, it’s a glory hand. Don’t mess with no glory hand!!
The Monkees taught me to steer clear of the Monkey’s Paw first, but:
The statue of Pazuzu from The Exorcist doesn’t rate!?