Ryne – Feel free to rant. I probably would too, especially when you stop to consider that Spielberg probably didn’t follow any rules when making ET or Poltergeist or Close Encounters…. all three are totally original (unless I am totally missing something) and all three are awesome movies without the predictability. Tell you teacher to grade that!! (And the car thing really is annoying – like sureeee its gonna start after you crashed it into a tree…)

I really feel that there are rules for every medium that need to be followed. I can’t speak for film, but in my creative writing classes, there are rules for your writing. If you’re creative and don’t follow them, you get scolded, told to correct them, and then lowered in grade. If we want to be creative, why can’t we change the way we make films/books/TV without being criticized for doing something new? Granted, we’d probably be disregarded as most avant-garde filmmakers are, because we don’t cater to expectations.

Haha sorry for the rant, but nice post. One of the things that gets me is the attempt to start the car 15 times, when it’s flooded or they know that the engine died.

b.) How come these people get the knife, or pitchfork, or cleaver, or whatever and they always think one blow to the killer’s gonna do it? “That’ll show him.” They’ll even put the weapon down right after and have moved on to checking their MySpace or doing laundry.

If there is some horrible thing running after you why the hell would you ever take your eyeballs off the ground in front of you. Put your head down, watch for pitfalls and RUN you morons, RUN!

If you hit a weird shadowy figure on the road that seems to have a claw for a hand with your car, drive a mile away and use a cell phone or On Star to summon assistance. Do not stop, get out of your car, and start looking for the squished person with an itty bitty flashlight with weak batteries.