5 Times Horror Characters Were Surprisingly Smart 

There’s quite a disappointing tendency that horror characters are often presented as naive and not clever enough to fight against their rivals and evil creatures, which eventually kill them.

However, some protagonists break this unspoken canon and apply some intelligent and creative forces to avoid the defeat, here are 5 of them.

1. The Shining (1980)

The hero of the Stephen King ’s movie adaptation, little Danny, displayed unimaginably quick thinking in such a dangerous situation when his father went wild.

He escaped the hotel, where he and his mother were tormented, and found a refugee outside, cleverly retracing his steps on the snow-covered ground, so that he remained unfound

2. Train to Busan (2016)

Being considered one of the best zombie horrors, it presents some clever character decisions too.

In particular, one guy in a train notices that zombies are attracted to movements, so that he blocks their view of what’s happening inside with a water bottle which he splashes over the door windows and then covers them with a newspaper.

3. The Thing (1982)

The 1980’s classic horror, telling a story of a research team in Antarctica who is tormented by an alien, assuming the appearance of its victim, presents quite an obvious, but, nevertheless, genius solution to the problem.

MacReady, its main character, devised the hot wire to the blood test to see who was who, and this helped to win over the evil.

4. Get Out (2017)

Jordan Peele's impressive directorial debut is a great example of “clever” horror, but one scene, showing us the main character Chris’ intelligence, stands out most. He realizes he can block the hypnotic trigger caused by his crazy opponents if he won’t hear them, and he manages to do that by plugging his ears with cotton stuffing from the armchair.

5. Aliens (1986)

Given the original plan not working out, the franchise’s main brain Ellen Ripley, insisted they "take off and nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" and it was the best way out of the situation, which emphasized the heroine’s strong spirit.