[Movies] Ghosts, spirits etc Why are they always so bad?

[Noomz]

I can't help but wonder why in all movies I've seen, from what I can recall, ghosts, spirits, apparitions and whatnot are almost exclussively evil, malevolent or harmfull. And I ask myself: why? I mean they can't ALL be bad. Infact, why would they be bad? They're spirits of the diseased. What motivates them to go around being dicks to everyone? Most of the time, the reasons are rather petty and shortsighted.

Are there any movies out there were the dead aren't vengeful?

[Khaza-R]

There's always Casper

[grandpab]

The ghost in How High wasn't a bad guy.

[hellhamster]

Because they belong by default to a movie genre that caters to consumers who watch horror. Horror genre + ghosts = evil ghosts is the easiest sort of script you can write, and people interested in horror are gonna watch it regardless of quality or lack of a unique script. Therefore, everyone copy pastas the same script over and over again because it's easy and cheap, and shit will sell anyway.

[Rixis]

Sixth Sense? The Others? The aforementioned Casper.

[Khaza-R]

There's also "The Frighteners", "Beetle Juice", "The Canterville Ghost" and quite a few more.

The common trope with ghosts is that they have to be tormented souls in order to still be lingering around on earth. Otherwise they would have passed on. So the majority of them are going to be antagonistic in films.

[icausewipes]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099750/...nm_flmg_act_39 - Denzel
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0821640/ - Greatest male role model ever

[derpkitteh]

it always seems like the monstery, evil looking things are bad guys. i'd like for once for the rotted, evil looking ghost, to be good and trying to save the family of the house from the truly evil ghost that looks just as bad.

[Noomz]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099750/...nm_flmg_act_39 - Denzel
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0821640/ - Greatest male role model ever

Those aren't serious movies. Is there no movie out there that's serious, like an actual horror, where there are GOOD ghosts or monsters?

[Rixis]

The point of horror movies is to have a character who's scared witless, almost certain to die, is chased/haunted by monsters and ghouls and whatever and against all the odds survives.

How do you write that part for a ghost/monster?

Or do we have like, a faction of good creatures and a faction of bad creatures and the good ones help protect the character(s) from the bad ones.

Vampires are monsters, go watch Twilight

[Powerogue]

Not sure what you're talking about.

[the game]

Probably because most of the movies with those things in it are horror flicks. Wouldn't be a very good horror flick if the spirit wasn't evil or insane.

[Blueobelisk]

Because the movie would be boring if some supernatural entity we couldn't explain with science is nice to us.

[Strakha]

Movies appeal to the lowest common denominator. Why complicate a plot when you can just recycle the plot from a movie from 50 years ago?

People don't go to see these movies to be bewildered by facts or any kind of nuanced plot, they just want to see the stereotypes they are used to and suspend their belief of reality for 2 hours or so.

[Grummgug]

Morgan Freeman wasn't evil when he played God.
John Travolta in Michael.
Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda in Star Wars films.
Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey - Bill and Ted were spirits and were good guys.

[Strakha]

Morgan Freeman wasn't evil when he played God.
John Travolta in Michael.
Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda in Star Wars films.
Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey - Bill and Ted were spirits and were good guys.

patrick swayze in ghost was debately evil, i mean he did kill people and terrorize them. but he was also charming as hell.

[Simulacrum]

Ghosts can't be good. If they were, you could exploit them for good the same way they're exploited for evil.

Imagine. Every single time someone dies, you just revive them as a ghost (or they revive themselves, I dunno). What mother wouldn't want to keep hanging around to protect her child? What soldier wouldn't stay to protect his comrades? If ghosts aren't driven totally insane or evil as a result of being a ghost, everyone would want to come back as a ghost.

I'd give it a generation or two before the world was populated entirely by ghosts.

Having them all be such evil monsters that nobody wants to generate them, and everyone who sees them immediately wants to destroy them, is the only way you can get away with having the concept.

At least without your setting accepting ghosts as a normal part of everyday life.

That could be a cool setting, though.

[Shinzai]

The reason for ghosts and spirits generally, or largely being bad/evil in film is simple; it follows the precedent set by age-old mythologies, folk-lore and religious beliefs.

Most spirits and other such entities that linger on in the physical world only remain in our world as they have had trouble parting from it. It's almost always been insinuated, or suggested that areas of 'paranormal activity', or with muddy/bad atmospheres are areas where something bad has happened; such as someone has been murdered or committed suicide, or an area of mass dead, such as a graveyard.

People have told tales about the dead and vengeful spirits, loved ones reaching from beyond the grave and so on, for as long as we've had recorded history. Even primitives have believed in spirituality to an extent and have almost always believed that spiritual beings must be placated, worshipped or sacrificed to, to avoid angering them.