Why the "Old Man" Trope Needs to Die
I expect to see Ghostface with a walker soon...
In 2018, we were introduced to Old Man Michael Myers in Halloween. At the time, the concept was new and refreshing. We had a young Mikey in over six different movies, so seeing a more hardened old man was quite different.
Did it take inspiration from Logan doing so well? Probably.
But by 2022, the newly reinvented Halloween trilogy failed to impress anyone anymore. Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends were uninspired, and the “old man” gimmick wore off like tread on a runner’s sneaker.
Besides, Michael Myers being aged never meant anything to the plot. He still moved like a man in his 20s, strong as an ox and surviving anything you threw at him. Sure, they made him do things Myers would never do (sharing his evil with some dude in a cave was pretty weird, man) but for the most part, none of it mattered.
Laurie, on the other hand, suffered more from her age. But, to be honest, I don’t really care about seeing an older Laurie Strode either. As much as I love Jamie Lee Curtis, I preferred what Halloween: 20 Years Later did for the character more than what the trilogy had to offer.
By the end of it all, I was bored. Why did we have to age any of these characters when none of it actually mattered? Did we really need Laurie’s family for the plot? Did we actually need the town to be a part of the story?
Not really. It was all nostalgia bait.
Michael wasn’t the only one who suffered from the “old man” trope though.
The Beginning of… Aging?
Suddenly every iconic horror character needed to be aged and turned into a weird Logan rip-off.
Yuppie Mania
Here’s one that never happened.
So there’s this indie movie called American Psycho, I don’t know if you ever heard of it. It was made in 2000 and—who am I kidding? It’s a cult classic for a reason (and my favorite film).
So, you can imagine when they wanted to turn it into a series about an “older” Patrick taking on a “protégé” and—what? There’s no way this was a real idea.
Really? I mean come on. His entire personality is based around fitting in.
Jesus Christ, that completely goes against his entire character. Who came up with something that stupid? Thankfully, it seems as if it’s been axed before ever coming to light (probably by Bateman himself, no doubt).
But seriously, who comes up with that? If you want to continue a story, do something realistic. Follow Bateman as he makes a family. Let us see how he handles becoming a husband and a father while trying to handle his bloodthirst. He marries Jean, has a son, blah-blah-blah. It’s not that hard.
There’s more interesting concepts than whatever the hell that storyline was.
Okay, off that topic because I’ll get waaay too upset over it. So let’s move on to our homeboy, Leatherface.
Texas BBQ
Remember Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)? I mentioned it before when I talked about remakes, but it also suffers from “old man”-itis.
Leatherface (or Bubba or Thomas or… whatever the hell his name is now) was aged up significantly in this film. It was meant to also be a sequel to the original, copying the Halloween (2018) formula.
Actually, it’s a complete copycat.
Old man character? CHECK.
Old final girl comes back to try and finish the job? CHECK.
More brutal because of age? CHECK.
Random new characters we don’t care about? CHECK.
Completely changing plotlines and retconning events to fit the new narrative? DOUBLE CHECK!
Yeah, it’s pretty cut-and-dry. There’s not much to say about Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) here because I already talked about how awful it is and how it completely disrespects the original character once before. It seems like a lot of these old man trope concepts really like making out-of-character plots.
Ashy-Slashy
Okay, this one might come as unexpected.
Ash vs Evil Dead was a good show for what it was trying to do, but one has to also accept that it suffers from the same issues these other “old man” franchises do.
At least Ash’s age is actually relevant to the plot here. He’s not as flexible, fast, or as strong as he once was.
Plus, the new characters introduced into this show are interesting and a nice addition rather than boring side plots. Pablo is a great character with a super neat backstory to boot.
And while this all sounds good and dandy, Ash himself suffers from a bit of flanderization. For those of you who don’t know, “flanderization” means taking one trait from a character and making that their entire personality, stemming from The Simpsons character Flanders. You can learn more about it here.
See, Ash was made into… well, an idiot.
Granted, he was never the smartest person alive, but he certainly was never the level of idiocy he was given in Ash vs Evil Dead.
This is the same guy who made his very own robotic prosthetic hand in the Dark Ages—oh wait, that was retconned. Yeah… yeah let’s check that one off the “old man trope” list.
So they retconned how Ash got his hand. That’s fine, whatever. But that also means they completely retconned Army of Darkness (my favorite out of the franchise), so that means he also never made that really cool war machine.
Or, wait, was it retconned? Because they used footage from that movie in the show.
Yeah, it’s… kind of confusing. Better to pretend this is a sequel to Evil Dead 2 only. Or is it a sequel to Evil Dead? Or both? Or… better to not give myself a headache.
Also, I’m more of a fan of the Army of Darkness comic continuation of the series rather than Ash vs Evil Dead, considering it keeps Ash’s original personality from the films.
That’s not to say I don’t like Ash vs Evil Dead. It’s a funny show and I really love Pablo’s character, even if I may have some issues with it in general.
What’s Next?
Hopefully nothing because I really don’t want to see more old men trying to kill college kids.
I’m over the nostalgia bait.
I want fresh takes. I want new concepts. I don’t want to see Old Man Frank Zito still scalping women because he hasn’t moved on past his glory days.
We’ve already seen what happens when you keep milking the same franchise with the idea of age. Even before Halloween, we saw Psycho suffer from the tragic fate of the uninspired plot device.
Yeah, did you know Psycho has a sequel? Probably not.
Did you know Psycho has a third installment? How about a fourth? Yep, there’s four movies about Norman Bates, the ones mentioned focusing on Old Man Bates.
I can somewhat excuse the second one—it offers an interesting perspective of Norman actually trying to settle into a normal life after he was released from a mental institution. It sets up the idea of Norman trying to better his life and move on from his wretched mother, but he ultimately isn’t able to escape from his D.I.D. diagnosis.
The others, well… they’re certainly movies that exist.
I just want this trope to stop. It’s tiring and I’ve seen enough old man films outside of the horror genre as it is. Besides… Logan did it better.
Not the Bateman protege! Tragic!
Old Mike with a walker haha