Regardless of the how and why, it's clear that bad guys are the guys who are reaping some major rewards in the afterlife: Unbound by flesh, nearly unstoppable in any meaningful way, and often so good at what they do, you cheer for them. Jason, Freddy, Chucky, Michael Myers, these are the characters you watch these movies for. If I'm watching Jason Takes Manhattan, I'm not doing so because I'm rooting for J.J., the lady that is so into playing her stupid guitar that she abandons her group to rock out alone. I'm rooting for Mr. Vorhees, who is going to eventually hit her over the head with the guitar so hard that her skull disappears into her spine. You follow those movies to see creative and unique murders played out on camera. The bad guy is the good guy. You want him to succeed and come back in a sequel and murderously succeed some more. The afterlife is where merciless killers finally get groupies. Moreso than the groupies that currently obsess over serial killers.

Why does Freddy Krueger want to kill you in your dreams? Revenge for being murdered? Well, he was a murderous pedophile in life, so the fact that he gets a second bite at the apple doesn't seem super just, but sure, whatever. He wants revenge. And he keeps getting it. He gets it 39 times. Is that the plan for all eternity, just getting revenge, ostensibly on people who never wronged him and probably aren't even related to the people who wronged him anymore? What's he doing while you're awake, just reading the paper? Jotting down pun ideas on a little notebook on his bedside table? "And then, when I kill him with a giant mop, I'll cackle 'Clean up on aisle three!' No, that's stupid. C'mon, Freddy. You gotta be a Dream Warrior, but you're writing like a Dream Child."

The ghosts in Poltergeist want Carol Anne because. That's the whole sentence. She had a bright lifeforce and they're dumbfucks who think "Hey, that looks nice!" Eerie medium Zelda Rubinstein says they haven't learned to move on. So what the fuck have they been doing this whole time, just sitting in the TV and possessing trees? That's asshole behavior and also smacks of someone who desperately needs an ethereal Xbox to stave off that douche boredom.

The dead who seek to make you dead could probably, very easily, kill you with a high degree of efficiency by getting a gun and shooting you while you're in a tequila blackout on the couch. But efficiency is for German factories, not unstoppable maniacs. Freddy Krueger didn't need to turn Johnny Depp into a blood fountain. Jason didn't need to fist a sauna rock into some guy's chest. But they did, because they're go-getters, and in his little shanty, next to his mom's severed head, Jason probably has a picture of a waterfall with the word "PERSEVERANCE" under it.

Spite and vindictiveness are the bread and butter of the dearly departed. Dying probably does make you pissy, so maybe that makes sense, but did you ever expect after you died that you'd have to strike a balance between ensuring you murder everyone you meet, and being a big enough dick to make these slashings memorable? And it's not just stabby killers. The ghost in The Conjuring plays a creepy clappy game with mom, the Poltergeist bastards possess that godforsaken clown doll, and that colorful goblin-like fellow in Insidious would probably leap out of your own asshole if it'd cause a good jump scare. Is any of that necessary? Hell no, it's just that the dead like the idea of torturing you because up yours, you life-filled meat bag. Up. Yours.

Even non-horror films that touch on the supernatural can't resist rules based on nothing that even borders on sense. Beetlejuice presents two ghosts bound to their house who can't really interact with the living world in any meaningful, non-calypso way. But then they start hanging out with a completely manic Michael Keaton with a snot-encrusted hairline who can turn your banister into a snake. But why? Why, goddamn it? Why is Beetlejuice free to do whatever he wants, but only if you say his name three times? I don't want Tim Burton to read the whole Handbook For The Recently Deceased to us, but maybe outline some key points about regulating a Phantom Michael Keaton.

Nearly every ghost has some kind of rules it has to follow. In Lights Out, it can't go into any light, Freddy can only hurt you when you're asleep, the ghosts in The Grudge have a grudge against logic and just kill anyone, seemingly anywhere at any time, despite apparently being rooted in a cursed house. Why did the cat have to be involved in that? How come the murdering husband got to come back and kill someone, too? It's the ghost equivalent of a hardcore match, except the steel chairs and tables are replaced with creaky doors and ultimately meaningless jump scares.

From a storytelling standpoint it makes sense that most ghost stories include a set of rules. If your undead creature has no rules, then the living are mighty fucked because dude is already dead, it's not like you can revoke his access to Amazon Prime or withhold dessert as some kind of punishment. He's just going to turn into vapor, slide up your ass and make you eat your family. That's hard to deal with.

Rules for ghosts would make a lot more sense if they applied all the time and with some kind of reasoned authority. Who's making these rules? How did Freddy end up in your dreams? Why is he there? And why does he just ignore that part of the mythology in A Nightmare On Elm Street 2? What dastardly video maven put together that goddamn tape for Samara in the first place? And does she seriously wait seven days to murder people because, as Rachel speculates with no evidence at all, that's how long the little monster survived in the well? Who gives a shit? What is she, Rain Man? Gotta watch Wapner on The People's Court every day at 6:00, and then kill everyone at 6:30?

Sequels shit on motives in horror. Jason has slashed his way through nine franchise films, a Vs. film, and a reboot. It's painfully obvious at this point, as painful as being forced into a sleeping bag and beaten against a tree, that his purpose is frequent bursts of mass murder. He's not punishing anyone specifically, and certainly not getting revenge for being killed several times, or his mom getting killed. At some point that pretense just slipped away and we have a really shitty goalie who likes to dismember folks.

And on the surface I guess that's fine, but remember that this is someone's eternity. Just wearing a fucking gross old jacket and a pair of probably stolen Danner boots in the woods until you hear someone close enough to necessitate a machete stabbing. Oh, and occasionally you raid a sporting goods store in a nearby town for a new hockey mask. You know, just in case the current hockey mask is getting a little too caked in the innards of teenagers.

If that's not existentially more terrifying than anything else in those films, nothing is.

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For more check out 6 Unspoken Rules Every Horror Movie Monster Always Follows and The Secret Thing All Horror Movies Are Really About.

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