The Cell Phone Conundrum

There used to be a time when horror movies just had to take place in the middle of nowhere and the audience had nothing to say about their inability to call for help. Now that everyone has a cell phone, there is almost a requirement for someone to pull one out at some point and either break it, lose it, or make the obligatory, "crap no service!" If it's not said somewhere in the film that the cell phone is useless or even that they just forgot it that day, the audience is going to leave saying the people are stupid for not calling 911 or even sending a text of, "SOS evil killer after me. At abandoned mansion. Hurry." Rather than the more standard complaints of "they shouldn't have split up" or "maybe they shouldn't have gone into the abandoned cabin." And as a film maker you can't have that.

In older horror movies, it's a pretty simple case of establishing no hope. Now it has to be established that there's no way out, no phone, no cell phone, and no wi-fi. The only thing dying more than the people is the damn cell phones. Horror movies are now homages to crappy cell service. Otherwise the audience would be face palming way more than the obligatory horror movie amount.

The fact that everyone has a cell phone does limit the amount of miscommunication related situations available in films. The fact that I have a computer in my pocket more advanced than the first space shuttle, kind of puts a damper on conflict.

In high school, I didn't have a cell phone and neither did my parents. There were all sorts of ridiculous misunderstandings, getting mixed up, and getting forgotten going on. Had my parents just had one indestructible Nokia, doing things would have been far easier. (To be fair we did have one shared family cell phone.) It's a lot harder to be forgotten when you can call someone and ask, "hey where the heck are you?" This state of constant communication really makes it harder to find conflict. (Maybe that's why there are so many stupid arguments online.)

Seriously just think of a show and add cell phones. Changes things doesn't it? Can you just imagine how much easier it would be? Hell there's a damn good chance there'd be a lower death rate, less miscommunication, and who knows what else. Really puts a damper on screenwriter laziness, doesn't it?