The 'And I Must Scream' Horror Trope, Explained

gamerant.com:

There are several horror tropes that are present in so many movies and TV shows, but fans might not know the exact name for them. That's certainly true of the «And I Must Scream» trope.

While it might sound like this trope is about characters who are about to yell a whole lot, that's not actually what it's about. Exploring the «And I Must Scream» horror trope is fun as there are so many great examples of how much scarier using this trope can make the story that it's placed in.

The 'Nothing Is Scarier' Horror Trope, Explained

According to TV Tropes, the «And I Must Scream» horror trope means that characters are still alive but they can't speak or move. This includes the trope «Fate Worse Than Death» as they can't talk and they can't leave. The website explains that sometimes, evil characters have this problem when they're sent to Hell/the afterlife as this is their punishment for the way that they acted when they were human/alive.

There are several nostalgic '90s horror TV shows and while The Haunting Hour is from the 2010s, it has the same feeling, which makes sense the show is based on the 2007 movie The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It, which was adapted from R.L. Stine's book. The season 2 episode «Pumpkinhead» feels watching the best slasher movies to get into the Halloween spirit as it's about two characters, Allie (Kacey Rohl) and Scott (Liam James), who suffer a terrible fate as creatures put pumpkins where their heads are. This comes up again in the season 4 episode «Return of the Pumpkinheads» when Karen (Freya Tingley) starts living at the farm where children became pumpkinhead zombies.

The «And I Must Scream» trope is used perfectly in these two episodes. The characters are unable to yell, talk, or move. This