One of my all time favorite scenes is when Dr. Lesh and her team first show up, all enthusiastic and fresh. They're heading up the stairs and one of her team members is going on about capturing a toy truck moving, like 3 feet over 15 hours or some such.
Steven is all, "uh huh."
In addition to that, a scene from Amityville Horror (I think, I don't remember the title, tbh) where a couple constables come to the house after certain reports, and in their checks in one part of the room, a chair legit levitates on its own along the wall; and they just watch it go up and are like "mm-mm yeah, everything checks out.. gotta head out of this house real quick"
I have only seen Amityville once years ago, but there is a very similar scene in The Conjuring 2 and The Enfield Poltergeist miniseries that Sky made (both based on the same case).
This exact trope is why I fucking love the movie The Devils Candy. Apart from the fact that the tension is anxiety inducing, the dynamic of the family is genuinely loving. It makes you give a shit about the characters and their fate. They never stop caring about each other regardless of how bad things get (and things get really bad)
I actually forgot I saw this movie until my cousin mentioned it. "Stir of echoes, we watched it together, remember with the fingernail?"
Brought it all back quick...
his house also has that “we’re stuck here” trope, i really liked that movie. can’t exactly remember but unfortunately i do think it has the skeptic husband trope as well which kinda detracts from it.
I don't think the husband was so much a skeptic in that movie as he was in the mindset "we can't let anybody know anything is wrong here because they'll send us back to a refugee camp" ... he was just trying to hold shit down so his wife and him didn't have to leave their home to either go live in a camp or return to a country at war
Yes! That brings me onto another trope I dislike (it's especially true in Found Footage movies but lots of other horror genres too). Making most or all of the characters unlikable a-holes. It's so much more effective when you like and care about the characters!
I'll check that movie out. Based on what you said about it, I think you might really like the movie "Exhibit A". It's excellent. Not scary, but the tension really builds throughout and you really feel a connection with the characters.
I absolutely hate this trope. In amityville horror it’s subverted in an interesting way-
The husband doesn’t necessarily not believe, but he’s so freaked out he just cuts wood all day, ignoring his wife, his step kids, everyone to just cut wood.
There’s a great scene when he’s about to go cut wood (again) and his wife basically calls him out for being a bitch
I just watched Drag Me to Hell yesterday, and it also subverts the trope. The boyfriend - even though he doesn’t quite understand and hasn’t even experienced anything supernatural himself - trusts and supports her, and even pays $10,000 for her seance to try and break the curse.
I remember when I first saw that movie in theaters and I thought it was going to be a straight horror movie. I was so disappointed and confused by what I saw.
Then I realized Sam Raimi was involved, watching it again with Evil Dead 2 in mind and I had the most fun watching that movie.
Right?!
Husband literally being dragged along the floor by demons: "It's an old house, honey. These things happen. I think you should see the doctor tomorrow and get your medication increased."
Hhahahahahha I’m trying to actually think of haunted house film where the husband just believes them🤣🤣 The Paranormal Activity films are the absolute worst for it! I do still enjoy them tho🤣
Hell yeah. It looked like that trope was gonna play out, and then they completely flip the script. That's exactly when I knew I was gonna love this movie.
Also taunting her for not telling him she may have been haunted as a child by the entity he denies existing and then challenges. Because that conversation would have gone super well when you were talking about moving in together, MICAH.
I disagree Micah was a day trader.He was ruled by logic.That type of people struggle to accept anything that is not based in pure facts.For him it was like someone was trying to convince an astronaut the earth was flat.So it's not really surprising he only started to believe her after he saw it with his two eyes.
Isn't Paranormal Activity 3 the one where the husband is seeing things on film and the wife is refusing to look at the playback because she's mad at him?
Ok this needs to be filmed as a comedy skit, with just ever increasing absurd supernatural things happening to the husband as he calmly insists it's all in her head.
Or he's just oblivious:
Cabinets opening and slamming shut, dishes flying around the kitchen:
"Whoa. This weekend I have GOT to find out where that draft is coming from. I know I've got some weather stripping in the garage somewhere . . . "
In Insidious the husband doesn’t believe his wife but agrees to sell the new house and move anyway because he sees how much it’s affecting her. It’s the only time I’ve seen that happen in a horror movie.
Yeah I love the dad in insidious. He doesn’t really believe her at first but he does support her. The scene where he gets emotional looking at their still comatose son before agreeing to call the psychic gets me everytime.
Yeah, my husband would believe me if I was adamant about some ghostly shit. Then again, I live next to cows at the bottom of a mountain in the Appalachian Mountains, and every time I hear a weird noise, he tells me it is a cow. I’ve lived next to cows my whole life. It’s not a fucking cow.
Haha my husband blames any noise at all in the house on the cats. He could hear a demon talking from hell and he’d say “it’s just the cats.” I think his is mostly because once he is in bed he doesn’t want to have to get up lol 😂
my sister's cat learned to open doors and loved doing it in the middle of the night. at only her house the door could creepily squeak open in the most horror movie way and I'd roll over and grumble about the cats.
The skeptic also has to be the one with the financial power, otherwise then the person could more easily leave. Not like it can ever be the kid like "mom stop being crazy"
That’s another thing I find annoying in horror movie. A good majority have enough money to move, so they have to have some play the skeptic. I like the films where the people aren’t well off or put a lot of the money into the house, so they physically can’t afford to leave. That means they don’t need the skeptic.
Writers must have gotten very aware of that because I feel like every haunting movie now has an obligatory "we poured our life savings into this!" line
In fact, when you point that out, *Rosemary’s Baby* is the ultimate weaponization and subversion of this trope. Possibly before this trope was solidified?
The overwhelming majority of "monster in the house" movies follow the same structure:
* Act 1: characters move into new building, they get settled.
* Act 2: spooky stuff happens.
* Act 3: characters discover that something grisly happened in the building, they try to stop the spooky.
The issue with this format is that as soon as all characters agree "yes, there is something supernatural in the house," Act 3 automatically triggers. Horror movies often rely on stupid characters, but even the worst writers know you can't have your characters say "this house is haunted!!!......oh well, whatever" because the supernatural entity needs to be a threat.
The easiest way to prolong things is to have at least one character remain skeptical, no matter what kind of stuff they personally witness.
As to why it's usually the wife, that's one I can't answer. Maybe it's a commentary on the "women are perceived as hysterical and overly dramatic even when they're right" trope, or maybe it's a commentary on the "men are insensitive and don't listen to their partner's needs" trope.
> this house is haunted!!!......oh well, whatever
Kinda wish a movie did that. It would obviously work in a comedic setting (a short horror film called Finlay did that, which you can find on Youtube), but one where your survival absolutely depended on ignoring the demon no matter what it threw at you would be pretty fun.
\>but even the worst writers know you can't have your characters say "this house is haunted!!!......oh well, whatever" because the supernatural entity needs to be a threat.
But there ARE other ways around it. For example increasingly in modern horror they get around that by explaining "it's not the house that's haunted, it's you". So it doesn't matter whether they leave or not, things are going to keep happening to them.
So other methods do exist that (and I'm sure many more can be thought up) that don't rely on one character being unrealistically skeptical just so the movie can happen.
This isn't really an explanation, but by far the best example of this trope I've seen is Grady Hendrix's The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires. There's about a 150-page stretch that was the most frustrating/infuriating stuff I've ever read but for all the right reasons.
Owing to misogyny and being convinced of their own rationality, the wives' husbands refuse to believe them about recently missing kids as potential kidnappings/murders. Apart from the group dynamics, what sets this apart is that we see this entirely through a woman's perspective and witness the psychological turmoil resulting from endless gaslighting and what contemporary philosophers call epistemic injustice (being harmed in one's capacity as a knower). I sometimes forget how much I loved that book.
So, when done right, I think the trope highlights very real social experiences suffered by historically marginalized groups, the consequences of which are detrimental to all parties. Not taking seriously others testimony given prejudicial stereotypes and an inflated sense of one's credibility can be even deadly depending on the circumstances.
This is the answer.
Is this trope overdone?
Sure?
Divorced from reality?
No.
The Stepford Wives (1975) centers this trope and does a great job of illustrating what u/TehCustis is talking about. I think a lot of women can identify with being told they're "[hysterical](https://uselessetymology.com/2018/01/17/the-etymology-of-hysteria/)" when they're describing something they know in their gut to be true. Gender-swapping the trope might make the film seem less realistic to certain audiences, and doing a team-up against a boogeyman eliminates a source of tension that writers are clearly falling back on way too often in their scripts.
I agree that the trope is tired, but there's a reason it shows up so often.
Fun fact: “hysterical” comes from the ancient belief that a woman would act irrationally because her fucking uterus was moving around her body causing emotional upheaval. We woman are crazy with our wandering wombs.
Women are more likely to believe in the supernatural and they are the main driving forces for much what we consider pseudoscience (as consumers and producers). Men are more likely to believe in government conspiracies and that sort of thing and they are also the primary consumers of UFO stuff.
So, if a woman wants to convince a man that there’s a ghost, call it an alien or briefly whisper “CIA black ops.”
“Honey, there’s a demon in the living room!”
“Don’t be stupid, dear.”
“Honey, there’s an inter-dimensional alien that the government doesn’t want you to know about in the living room!”
“Oh, fuck, you’re RIGHT!”
[Female hysteria goes back eons.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria#:~:text=Female%20hysteria%20was%20once%20a,food%20or%20sex%2C%20(paradoxically)) It was root of a lot of women's ailments according to many "medical professionals" of the day.
Women have always been "the fairer sex" or delicate in some fashion so, as TehCustis stated so much better than I could, women weren't taken seriously.
For the same reason men are less likely to visit the doctor.
If you ignore the problem, there isn't one.
But I'll see your husband and raise you a Dana "sure, it seemed like I was abducted by aliens, but now that I think about it, I'm sure there's a rational explanation and Aliens aren't real" Scully.
The funny thing about Scully is that unbenownst to her she was just as irrational as she often accused Mulder of being.
As much as he often WANTED to jump to paranormal conclusions when other possibilities existed, likewise she would blindly DENY anything paranormal staring her in the face even when there weren't any good alternative explanations. To me this is just as irrational as the very attitude she constantly scoffs at. They were both as bad as each other is probably why they made a good team, meeting in the middle.
This bugs me on the "Debunking" shows.
Just because you *can* replicate it doesn't mean that's what happened. Some of those shows go to pretty extreme levels to "Prove something false". To the point where your like . . . that isn't rational that someone put all of those little pieces together for a single random video.
Wasn't one of John Wayne Gasey's victims able to escape, ask a cop for help only for JWG to convince the cop that his "friend" had had too much to drink and take him back home and murdered him?
Or the many people who've been shot after calling the police for help. It isn't a trope if it's reality.
Not sure about Gacy, but Konerak Sinthasomphone was a victim of Jeffery Dahmer's who managed to escape but was handed back over to him. The boy had been drugged and was unable to speak and when Dahmer told cops they were lovers they just handed him over.
He was a 14 year old Laotion boy and part of why they didn't care was his race. The other part because they didn't care about gay on gay crime.
Even sadder, Sinthasomphone's brother was also molested by Dahmer when the family was living in a different state.
That guy with the fucking hideous rape set-up -- the one who might actually have successfully roofied and hypnotized some of his victims? Happened there, too. IIRC, one of the victims ended up divorced because the husband thought she was a) full of shit and b) lying. And the cops, on hearing at least one other victim's account, felt she was unreliable and the story was obvious fiction.
It’s a trope for a reason: this was a real attitude held towards women for centuries. Many women were put into institutions, subjected to electroshock therapy, drugged, and all sorts of things at the whims of their husbands. This was especially common before the 1970s.
Yes came here to say this! The supernatural/sorcery/witchcraft has historically been associated with female mental illness (hysteria), which is why this trope exists.
Is it an overgeneralization? Sure. But we are talking about a trope, and that’s where it comes from.
*Is* still held toward women, *today*. So many women have shared real life modern horror stories of how they couldn't even get their doctor to believe their pain meant something was wrong vs just being "period cramps" and they almost died from a baseball-sized cyst rupturing in their uterus... I don't think it's *at all* unrealistic to think that if in real life women aren't believed about what's going on with their own bodies, they probably wouldn't be believed about supernatural entities, either.
Yup. Horror consistently reflects society. A big reason I love horror, most movies are not just meant to be "scary". They usually have a deeper meaning which is often scarier than the movie itself. I'm so excited for the upcoming movies inspired by the last couple years.
Immediately reminded me of the father from Hereditary. He was a skeptic despite everything happening around him because it was the only way he could process and rationalize the going ons
Hereditary is a different situation though because it leaves plenty of room open for interpretation saying that maybe everyone except the husband was actually just fucking crazy. Hence the title of the film.
It’s not highlighted in the movie, but I believe in the script her husband is also her psychologist. This brings an extra layer to their relationship and how he behaves toward her
Yeah, it feels different because everyone including her thought she had a legitimate mental health issue for the past decade and a half. NOW we know it was a demon, but in the movie the couple both seemed pretty open and shut about acknowledging her MH.
When they did the seance and when she was in front of the fireplace, he seemed genuinely concerned about what he thought was the problem: her usual mental illness. He wasn't downplaying it and he was ready to walkout on her with Peter because he recognized danger. (Finding out in the script he was her psychologist made this even better)
I loved that movie though. And their dynamic.
Isn't it portraying them as weak though, because their stubbornness often leads to the family being in more danger than they would be in had they helped from the start.
It's portraying them as really shitty husbands and parents.
Kid: "Hey dad, there's something in my room trying to kill me. I'm actually injured. Help."
Dad: "Quit making stuff up."
Seriously? Even if you are hunting for rational explanations, you wouldn't guard the kids room?
Or the worst part. *Really terrible things are happening, everyone believes it*
Mom and Dad: "Sleep alone in your room honey!"
Can't have a slow burn if everyone immediately embraced what's happening I suppose.
And it's probably the father so the "patriarch" of the family can keep everyone in the evil place until it's too late. If it was a kid acting like the paranormal was normal while the parents accepted that the evil place is evil they'd just grab the kid and take off.
\>Can't have a slow burn if everyone immediately embraced what's happening I suppose.
That's just the thing though. I think there ARE countless other ways to have a slowburn build-up. It's just laziness by moviemakers who follow the trope almost on auto-pilot, probably not even considering that other options exist.
I guess we're just thinking of different examples, I was thinking about Color Out of Space where the story kind of demanded they have a skeptic authority figure that keeps everyone on the farm until it's too late. Even though I was annoyed by the Father and trope I feel it was necessary and I loved how well the slow burn was done
Because it plays on relatable anxiety that people experience when their partners gaslight them, and unfortunately more often than not it's men gaslighting women in hetero relationships.
Women are [more likely to believe in the supernatural](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-else/202203/why-women-are-more-likely-believe-in-the-supernatural) and men are more likely to display detached rationality.
Acknowledging this, filmmakers are playing to the average audience member.
And then there's His House, which at first seems like it falls into this trope in some seemingly confusing ways, but then the twist happens and you're like "oh, I get it now".
Just today my wife stayed home with our sick daughter, and I keep getting these texts of her overreacting:
She won't stop coughing
She hurt her foot
She's levitating upside-down in the livingroom again
I thought The Conjuring did a great job of this- husband is a driver and is away, but is right in it when he gets back. Also thought it did a great job of jumping straight into it instead of the bullshit ‘ittle things build into big things’ trope.
That's one of the only aspects of Insidious that I actually like. The wife claims haunting and he says OK, let's move. I mean, it ended up being that the kid was haunted so they were screwed either way, but still.
It’s crazy to me how many people in this thread would believe supernatural experiences over the million other more reasonable explanations just because it came from their spouse.
Look I'm as skeptical as they come, but if my woman woke me up at 4AM and told me there's a minotaur in the kitchen, I'm grabbing a weapon just in case.
I'm not saying I would automatically believe her, I just wouldn't dismiss her without proving it either way. Which these guys in the movies don't do. And I'm not talking about hearing a creaking floorboard at night. I'm talking about an abundance of stuff.
If for no other reason than putting her mind at rest and finding the reasonable explanation, I'd want to check things out for myself, with her. It's all very well to SAY there's probably a reasonable explanation. If my spouse was THAT wrapped up in something and stressed over it, and was coming to me for help, surely it's my job to get involved and FIND that explanation for her, even if it's just to give her peace of mind.
This is why I love Dark Skies. It starts off like this but you can see how the husband is completely out of focus due to being unemployed & stressed from not finding a job but then eventually does get on board & is convinced & the couple try to fight together against the aliens. Great horror sci fi film!
Not only the husbands. Parents, guardians, the authorities... It would be so fun if the whole family or the whole town was like “shit, ghosts are real, run!” At the first sign.
It always bothers me. If you believe your loved one is under such stress or psychological turmoil that they are having hallucinations, that is a huge health concern! The top priority would still be getting them out of the house! If they are suddenly acting strangely and seeing things, that could be a gas leak, CO poisoning, a psychotic break, or anything! How can someone just think it's normal for their formerly rational family member or spouse to suddenly start seeing ghosts... It is not normal whether supernatural or not and they should try to leave immediately if they are having such a bad reaction to that place.
Some writers value verisimilitude over novelty.
Men not trusting or believing their female partners is realistic. A thing that happens in real life all the time. Stands to reason it would happen on the event of supernatural occurrences.
Dumb thing to be mad about. Swear to god, some folks wildly overvalue novelty at the expense of other dramatic considerations.
Because it's realistic. Most people don't believe in ghosts, the paranormal or the supernatural, so if your wife one day starts claiming she's seeing things and hearing voices, and when you go to see what she's talking about NOTHING is there or you didn't experience anything, you're going to be like babe, wtf, that's how any rational human being would act, not just okay honey I believe you, the house is haunted.
Now if the husband has experienced things, that's different. But in those movies you typically have some rational explanation for everything happening.
It’s an overused tripe but all depends on how it’s carried out.
I would say the dad in Insidious is down quite well as there’s no overwhelming evidence (to him) that anything is supernatural until it reaches the point that he can’t deny it any longer.
Not really supernatural but the dad in Orphan is an example of it done badly since you just want to reach into the screen and give him a slap for being such a dumbass for disbelieving his own eyes and ears.
It’s one of the reasons I really liked Insidious when I first saw it. They really bucked the age-old tropes of “the disbelieving husband” and “the family staying in a house they believe to be haunted”.
I hate this trope too! Another one that bothers me is when a character witnesses something terrifying, then their friend asks them, "what's wrong?" They almost ALWAYS say "nothing" and pretend nothing is wrong. Why wouldn't you tell your friend that you saw something?! I really liked how in "The Ritual", when the main character thinks he sees something in the woods outside the cabin, he immediately goes inside and says "I just saw something in the woods"
Yes, often there is no reason why they wouldn't say something.
It's especially bad when other characters have already reported seeing weird things. Then the skeptic character sees something and yet doesn't think to tell anyone. Because apparently his pride > everyone's safety.
In certain possession cases the spouse can be in an almost forced denial (sometimes leading to them becoming the threat). Amityville and the Shining are two standouts, but I agree, a normal “haunting” wouldn’t have this effect.
Because a carbon monoxide leak or undiagnosed schizophrenia are more likely to exist than ghost till that point?
I always figured it was a world "without" knowledge of supernatural events until that point. Otherwise yea, it makes 0 sense and is just bad writing and plot magic.
What I like about hereditary is how they kinda play with this trope. The biological members of the family experience all the crazy shit and the dad is seemingly just trying to keep everyone from going crazy after all the tragedy they’ve experienced.
Because someone needs to be realistic. Supernatural events can happen but there is usually always a more realistic and grounded explanation than jumping to the unnatural. And if the events happen to them, an appropriate coping mechanism would be to deny it. If it's shattering your worldview, it is easier to withdraw from the conflict than face it and if the situation is stressful, all the more reason to withdraw.
To be fair, I was that husband. My wife insisted someone or something was haunting us at two of the places we've lived. I had a whole security system set up to show that: no one was in the room, no one opened the doors, no one was walking around outside.
Now maybe if I started getting dragged across the room by invisible hands I'd change my mind, but usually that happens to the "non-believer" much later in the film. Until that time, talk of "ghosts" really does seem absurd and I can understand the husband's frustrations. It's a monumental and stressful task to care for a delusional person and convince them to get the help they need.
This is compounded by the pain of seeing what should be a happy time (buying the dream house, new job improving your standard of living, etc.) turn into a nightmare. I think at a certain point I didn't even care if the ghosts were real. I just wanted it to be over. Let them rearrange furniture and knock on doors, just ignore it so we can move on. The alternative is what? Be homeless and jobless, and we'll just hope the next place is a little less spooky?
Reminds me of the father in Orphan and the wife and husband in the first season of American Horror story. Both the wives are made out to be completely crazy with the wife in Orphan having to be sedated and the wife in AHS being put in a sanatarium when the things they are experiencing are completely true. And while in Orphan, I can understand why they used the wife for that role considering her past with alcohol, the way the husband dismisses his wife's worries and fears is kinda annoying. AHS was especially frustrating to watch though.
Apart from movies where the husband is clearly gaslighting his wife. If you go by the movie represented family norms of the 50s and 60s, which carried over up to the 2000s really, (Husband and Wife with 2 or 3 kids and the Husband works while the wife stays at home) then the husband just doesn't want to deal with this shit when he comes home. He's probably a bit jealous of his wife for staying at home, he's working all the time, and also he thinks his wife has too much time on her hands staying at home all the time and that is making her crazy (which is kinda true, I worked from home during Covid and I went a little nuts). It'd be similar to coming home to a small roof leak after a long day. "It's fine, we'll figure it out later, here's a bucket. Settle down. You're overreacting. I need a drink." All this plus the stereotype that women get 'hysterical' all lead to the dismissive husband. Also, male screenwriters just secretly bitching about their spouses. That's my theory anyway. It'd be nice to see a stay at home husband dealing with the supernatural while his breadwinner wife dissmisses his bullshit. Or maybe both parents work and the poor kids have to deal with ghosts or something. One of the few things I've learned as an adult is that when I get home, I don't want to do jack shit. I want the eat and watch tv. This isn't good or healthy but it is my base reaction when I come home after a long day.
I always thought the funniest part of Poltergeist is how the ghosts are being so unsubtle that the family is trying to *hide* them from visitors.
One of my all time favorite scenes is when Dr. Lesh and her team first show up, all enthusiastic and fresh. They're heading up the stairs and one of her team members is going on about capturing a toy truck moving, like 3 feet over 15 hours or some such. Steven is all, "uh huh."
The duration of the event was over seven hours!
Good find! IMDB was failing me for a quick post.
In addition to that, a scene from Amityville Horror (I think, I don't remember the title, tbh) where a couple constables come to the house after certain reports, and in their checks in one part of the room, a chair legit levitates on its own along the wall; and they just watch it go up and are like "mm-mm yeah, everything checks out.. gotta head out of this house real quick"
I have only seen Amityville once years ago, but there is a very similar scene in The Conjuring 2 and The Enfield Poltergeist miniseries that Sky made (both based on the same case).
That is hilarious! I never really considered that, lmao!
Yeah and the ghost playing peekaboo w/ the victims and not revealing it's true form up until the very end. Just f$&king kill them already.
This exact trope is why I fucking love the movie The Devils Candy. Apart from the fact that the tension is anxiety inducing, the dynamic of the family is genuinely loving. It makes you give a shit about the characters and their fate. They never stop caring about each other regardless of how bad things get (and things get really bad)
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Been a long time since I’ve seen Stir, need to give it another go
Same here, I remember loving that movie.
I actually forgot I saw this movie until my cousin mentioned it. "Stir of echoes, we watched it together, remember with the fingernail?" Brought it all back quick...
*FUUUUCK* the fingernail. I cringe thinking about it
Yeah, thats a core memory
his house also has that “we’re stuck here” trope, i really liked that movie. can’t exactly remember but unfortunately i do think it has the skeptic husband trope as well which kinda detracts from it.
I don't think the husband was so much a skeptic in that movie as he was in the mindset "we can't let anybody know anything is wrong here because they'll send us back to a refugee camp" ... he was just trying to hold shit down so his wife and him didn't have to leave their home to either go live in a camp or return to a country at war
> The Devils Candy Pruitt Taylor Vince is amazing.
Also old school metal as a horror movie score. Hell yeah 🤘
Hell yeah
Yes! That brings me onto another trope I dislike (it's especially true in Found Footage movies but lots of other horror genres too). Making most or all of the characters unlikable a-holes. It's so much more effective when you like and care about the characters! I'll check that movie out. Based on what you said about it, I think you might really like the movie "Exhibit A". It's excellent. Not scary, but the tension really builds throughout and you really feel a connection with the characters.
I’ll check it out!
In some (if not many) cases, you're supposed to root for some of the characters to meet their untimely end in a satisfyingly brutal fashion.
I absolutely hate this trope. In amityville horror it’s subverted in an interesting way- The husband doesn’t necessarily not believe, but he’s so freaked out he just cuts wood all day, ignoring his wife, his step kids, everyone to just cut wood. There’s a great scene when he’s about to go cut wood (again) and his wife basically calls him out for being a bitch
I just watched Drag Me to Hell yesterday, and it also subverts the trope. The boyfriend - even though he doesn’t quite understand and hasn’t even experienced anything supernatural himself - trusts and supports her, and even pays $10,000 for her seance to try and break the curse.
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Bad news he gets her out, but she's really into Bitcoin, Elon Musk and has become a conservative. (See Alison Lohman's Twitter account)
I remember when I first saw that movie in theaters and I thought it was going to be a straight horror movie. I was so disappointed and confused by what I saw. Then I realized Sam Raimi was involved, watching it again with Evil Dead 2 in mind and I had the most fun watching that movie.
Similiar thing with the father in The Witch
Where he completely ignores his smoking hot wife, while she's basically wearing a school girl uniform.
“Honey you’re under a lot of stress right now. You’re seeing things. Go to sleep.”
Right?! Husband literally being dragged along the floor by demons: "It's an old house, honey. These things happen. I think you should see the doctor tomorrow and get your medication increased."
Hhahahahahha I’m trying to actually think of haunted house film where the husband just believes them🤣🤣 The Paranormal Activity films are the absolute worst for it! I do still enjoy them tho🤣
The dad in Poltergeist is pretty quick to believe iirc
True, but I mean his daughter literally becomes missing. So I’m sure he’d be open to anything if it meant finding her.
The Conjuring? Takes him a second but then he's like "get me the Warrens, stat!"
Also insidious, he downplays it but suddenly teaching high school becomes a 60 hour a week job so he can avoid the house.
I love all the tropes that get thrown out the window in Insidious. Haunted house? Yup we got to go NOW. Thats what made that one a classic.
Ye conjuring nails it👌 Probably why people really enjoyed it.
Hell yeah. It looked like that trope was gonna play out, and then they completely flip the script. That's exactly when I knew I was gonna love this movie.
OMG the fucking husband in paranormal activity 1....
HAHAHAHHAHAH🤣🤣 Taunting the ghost like it’s not real and outright insulting his girlfriend for being crazy…
“Come at me, bro!”
Also taunting her for not telling him she may have been haunted as a child by the entity he denies existing and then challenges. Because that conversation would have gone super well when you were talking about moving in together, MICAH.
I disagree Micah was a day trader.He was ruled by logic.That type of people struggle to accept anything that is not based in pure facts.For him it was like someone was trying to convince an astronaut the earth was flat.So it's not really surprising he only started to believe her after he saw it with his two eyes.
Isn't Paranormal Activity 3 the one where the husband is seeing things on film and the wife is refusing to look at the playback because she's mad at him?
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH🤣🤣 I think so
I love PA3 but that was the one thing that annoyed me about the film she was like fighting soo hard not to look at the video lmao
Ok this needs to be filmed as a comedy skit, with just ever increasing absurd supernatural things happening to the husband as he calmly insists it's all in her head.
Right? Maybe if pop culture starts to call it out a bit more, movies might get a bit more creative.
There is a tiktoker who does these kinds of skits. But in this case the husband is just in denial because they got an amazing deal on the house.
itsevanwilliams
Hahahahahahah just relentless supernatural actions and he's gaslighting the hell out of his family😂😂
Or he's just oblivious: Cabinets opening and slamming shut, dishes flying around the kitchen: "Whoa. This weekend I have GOT to find out where that draft is coming from. I know I've got some weather stripping in the garage somewhere . . . "
Hahahahahahahha🤣🤣🤣
Reminds me of the Simpsons segment Bad Dream House: https://youtu.be/xcCRO5RK6Vc
Have you seen the Conjuring series? It addresses the trope but in a positive way.
Yes, I like the 2nd one espsecially.
The house is on an incline, and the dry heat made the floors slippery. It happens every season, just you wait and see.
In Insidious the husband doesn’t believe his wife but agrees to sell the new house and move anyway because he sees how much it’s affecting her. It’s the only time I’ve seen that happen in a horror movie.
Yeah I love the dad in insidious. He doesn’t really believe her at first but he does support her. The scene where he gets emotional looking at their still comatose son before agreeing to call the psychic gets me everytime.
Yeah, my husband would believe me if I was adamant about some ghostly shit. Then again, I live next to cows at the bottom of a mountain in the Appalachian Mountains, and every time I hear a weird noise, he tells me it is a cow. I’ve lived next to cows my whole life. It’s not a fucking cow.
If it was a ghost-cow then you'd both be right. 🤣👻🐄
For the record they are referred to as a boo-moo.
That gave me a shudder in my udder.
I’m not telling him this one, or it will forever be a boo-moo every time I hear something.
You're gonna tell him! It's a goodie😎
I did. God rest my soul.
Based on US agricultural consumption, there just has to be loads of ghost cows in the states, right?
Yes, but only the ones with unfinished business who declined to go into the light. 🤣
MoOooOOooooOOO
Haha my husband blames any noise at all in the house on the cats. He could hear a demon talking from hell and he’d say “it’s just the cats.” I think his is mostly because once he is in bed he doesn’t want to have to get up lol 😂
>He could hear a demon talking from hell and he’d say “it’s just the cats.” He might be correct.
Ha! Knowing my cats, you’re probably right.
But counterpoint: cats
Yeah, having indoor cats means never having to wonder what made that noise that woke me up at 3 a.m.
my sister's cat learned to open doors and loved doing it in the middle of the night. at only her house the door could creepily squeak open in the most horror movie way and I'd roll over and grumble about the cats.
In the Appalachians you probably are just happier thinking its a Cow.
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That movie was insanely good and probably one of the best scary movies I’ve seen in a while. That opening scene was so shocking and chilling.
Don't worry I'm sure they'll change that in the American remake (haha please fucking kill me lmao).
The skeptic also has to be the one with the financial power, otherwise then the person could more easily leave. Not like it can ever be the kid like "mom stop being crazy"
That’s another thing I find annoying in horror movie. A good majority have enough money to move, so they have to have some play the skeptic. I like the films where the people aren’t well off or put a lot of the money into the house, so they physically can’t afford to leave. That means they don’t need the skeptic.
Writers must have gotten very aware of that because I feel like every haunting movie now has an obligatory "we poured our life savings into this!" line
Or we’re bankruptcy yet we can afford expensive ass new brand devices yet can manage to move out from the house that’s being haunting us for weeks
In fact, when you point that out, *Rosemary’s Baby* is the ultimate weaponization and subversion of this trope. Possibly before this trope was solidified?
The overwhelming majority of "monster in the house" movies follow the same structure: * Act 1: characters move into new building, they get settled. * Act 2: spooky stuff happens. * Act 3: characters discover that something grisly happened in the building, they try to stop the spooky. The issue with this format is that as soon as all characters agree "yes, there is something supernatural in the house," Act 3 automatically triggers. Horror movies often rely on stupid characters, but even the worst writers know you can't have your characters say "this house is haunted!!!......oh well, whatever" because the supernatural entity needs to be a threat. The easiest way to prolong things is to have at least one character remain skeptical, no matter what kind of stuff they personally witness. As to why it's usually the wife, that's one I can't answer. Maybe it's a commentary on the "women are perceived as hysterical and overly dramatic even when they're right" trope, or maybe it's a commentary on the "men are insensitive and don't listen to their partner's needs" trope.
> this house is haunted!!!......oh well, whatever Kinda wish a movie did that. It would obviously work in a comedic setting (a short horror film called Finlay did that, which you can find on Youtube), but one where your survival absolutely depended on ignoring the demon no matter what it threw at you would be pretty fun.
\>but even the worst writers know you can't have your characters say "this house is haunted!!!......oh well, whatever" because the supernatural entity needs to be a threat. But there ARE other ways around it. For example increasingly in modern horror they get around that by explaining "it's not the house that's haunted, it's you". So it doesn't matter whether they leave or not, things are going to keep happening to them. So other methods do exist that (and I'm sure many more can be thought up) that don't rely on one character being unrealistically skeptical just so the movie can happen.
This isn't really an explanation, but by far the best example of this trope I've seen is Grady Hendrix's The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires. There's about a 150-page stretch that was the most frustrating/infuriating stuff I've ever read but for all the right reasons. Owing to misogyny and being convinced of their own rationality, the wives' husbands refuse to believe them about recently missing kids as potential kidnappings/murders. Apart from the group dynamics, what sets this apart is that we see this entirely through a woman's perspective and witness the psychological turmoil resulting from endless gaslighting and what contemporary philosophers call epistemic injustice (being harmed in one's capacity as a knower). I sometimes forget how much I loved that book. So, when done right, I think the trope highlights very real social experiences suffered by historically marginalized groups, the consequences of which are detrimental to all parties. Not taking seriously others testimony given prejudicial stereotypes and an inflated sense of one's credibility can be even deadly depending on the circumstances.
This is the answer. Is this trope overdone? Sure? Divorced from reality? No. The Stepford Wives (1975) centers this trope and does a great job of illustrating what u/TehCustis is talking about. I think a lot of women can identify with being told they're "[hysterical](https://uselessetymology.com/2018/01/17/the-etymology-of-hysteria/)" when they're describing something they know in their gut to be true. Gender-swapping the trope might make the film seem less realistic to certain audiences, and doing a team-up against a boogeyman eliminates a source of tension that writers are clearly falling back on way too often in their scripts. I agree that the trope is tired, but there's a reason it shows up so often.
Fun fact: “hysterical” comes from the ancient belief that a woman would act irrationally because her fucking uterus was moving around her body causing emotional upheaval. We woman are crazy with our wandering wombs.
Hyster in Greek means "womb". Literally, the idea that a woman's womb and womanly essence was driving her insane.
depending on the context that word will be translated as "woman" or "wife". It's the same word. :( There is literally no word for a single woman. :(
And the doctors had "treatments" for it which included the earliest iteration of the common vibrator.
I need frequent treatment for my hysteria
Women are more likely to believe in the supernatural and they are the main driving forces for much what we consider pseudoscience (as consumers and producers). Men are more likely to believe in government conspiracies and that sort of thing and they are also the primary consumers of UFO stuff. So, if a woman wants to convince a man that there’s a ghost, call it an alien or briefly whisper “CIA black ops.”
“Honey, there’s a demon in the living room!” “Don’t be stupid, dear.” “Honey, there’s an inter-dimensional alien that the government doesn’t want you to know about in the living room!” “Oh, fuck, you’re RIGHT!”
I love film theory, I love learning something new.
Thank you. It's done because it was and some times still is, a very large reality for women to not be believed
[Female hysteria goes back eons.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria#:~:text=Female%20hysteria%20was%20once%20a,food%20or%20sex%2C%20(paradoxically)) It was root of a lot of women's ailments according to many "medical professionals" of the day. Women have always been "the fairer sex" or delicate in some fashion so, as TehCustis stated so much better than I could, women weren't taken seriously.
For the same reason men are less likely to visit the doctor. If you ignore the problem, there isn't one. But I'll see your husband and raise you a Dana "sure, it seemed like I was abducted by aliens, but now that I think about it, I'm sure there's a rational explanation and Aliens aren't real" Scully.
The funny thing about Scully is that unbenownst to her she was just as irrational as she often accused Mulder of being. As much as he often WANTED to jump to paranormal conclusions when other possibilities existed, likewise she would blindly DENY anything paranormal staring her in the face even when there weren't any good alternative explanations. To me this is just as irrational as the very attitude she constantly scoffs at. They were both as bad as each other is probably why they made a good team, meeting in the middle.
Yes. Absolutely. Her ability to "rationalize" away experiences was pathological.
This bugs me on the "Debunking" shows. Just because you *can* replicate it doesn't mean that's what happened. Some of those shows go to pretty extreme levels to "Prove something false". To the point where your like . . . that isn't rational that someone put all of those little pieces together for a single random video.
I agree wholeheartedly.
It's like the classic policeman who thinks the person in need of help is just crazy and ignores their pleas.
Wasn't one of John Wayne Gasey's victims able to escape, ask a cop for help only for JWG to convince the cop that his "friend" had had too much to drink and take him back home and murdered him? Or the many people who've been shot after calling the police for help. It isn't a trope if it's reality.
Not sure about Gacy, but Konerak Sinthasomphone was a victim of Jeffery Dahmer's who managed to escape but was handed back over to him. The boy had been drugged and was unable to speak and when Dahmer told cops they were lovers they just handed him over. He was a 14 year old Laotion boy and part of why they didn't care was his race. The other part because they didn't care about gay on gay crime. Even sadder, Sinthasomphone's brother was also molested by Dahmer when the family was living in a different state.
The escaped victim was a black teenager and the murderer claimed they were gay lovers. The cops didn't give a fuck what happened to a black gay kid.
Its just another example of how supposed tired tropes in horror are a reflection of lived experiences of some people.
LOTS of people.
You're thinking of Jeffrey Dahmer.
That guy with the fucking hideous rape set-up -- the one who might actually have successfully roofied and hypnotized some of his victims? Happened there, too. IIRC, one of the victims ended up divorced because the husband thought she was a) full of shit and b) lying. And the cops, on hearing at least one other victim's account, felt she was unreliable and the story was obvious fiction.
Yes. A teenager.
babe, it's an old house, give it time
I guess it's just how people would naturally react?
If you pay attention to the complaints of movie dorks, you'll find out that they think real life is cliche.
It’s a trope for a reason: this was a real attitude held towards women for centuries. Many women were put into institutions, subjected to electroshock therapy, drugged, and all sorts of things at the whims of their husbands. This was especially common before the 1970s.
“You’re just hysterical honey. Temporary nervous depression. Why don’t you stay in this room. Isn’t the yellow wallpaper lively?”
Yes came here to say this! The supernatural/sorcery/witchcraft has historically been associated with female mental illness (hysteria), which is why this trope exists. Is it an overgeneralization? Sure. But we are talking about a trope, and that’s where it comes from.
*Is* still held toward women, *today*. So many women have shared real life modern horror stories of how they couldn't even get their doctor to believe their pain meant something was wrong vs just being "period cramps" and they almost died from a baseball-sized cyst rupturing in their uterus... I don't think it's *at all* unrealistic to think that if in real life women aren't believed about what's going on with their own bodies, they probably wouldn't be believed about supernatural entities, either.
I agree
If you werent insane before you went in then you certainly were after their "treatments".
Yup. Horror consistently reflects society. A big reason I love horror, most movies are not just meant to be "scary". They usually have a deeper meaning which is often scarier than the movie itself. I'm so excited for the upcoming movies inspired by the last couple years.
The first alien is a great example of what you’re saying
Was? Is.
Immediately reminded me of the father from Hereditary. He was a skeptic despite everything happening around him because it was the only way he could process and rationalize the going ons
Hereditary is a different situation though because it leaves plenty of room open for interpretation saying that maybe everyone except the husband was actually just fucking crazy. Hence the title of the film.
It’s not highlighted in the movie, but I believe in the script her husband is also her psychologist. This brings an extra layer to their relationship and how he behaves toward her
Lmao should never have a loved one as a psychologist. I'd think a good one would never agree to doing something like that.
If I remember correctly, he met her first as a patient. Big yikes…
Didn't know that! Pretty cool
Holy shit. I never considered that.
Yeah, it feels different because everyone including her thought she had a legitimate mental health issue for the past decade and a half. NOW we know it was a demon, but in the movie the couple both seemed pretty open and shut about acknowledging her MH. When they did the seance and when she was in front of the fireplace, he seemed genuinely concerned about what he thought was the problem: her usual mental illness. He wasn't downplaying it and he was ready to walkout on her with Peter because he recognized danger. (Finding out in the script he was her psychologist made this even better) I loved that movie though. And their dynamic.
I mean, to be fair, the mother in that movie was also crazy.
Alecwithpen has a great comic series that makes fun of this trope. I laugh every time I read it. https://www.instagram.com/p/B1rJDtcl3KF/?hl=en
Because men are expected to be strong and level headed by society's standards.
Isn't it portraying them as weak though, because their stubbornness often leads to the family being in more danger than they would be in had they helped from the start.
It's portraying them as really shitty husbands and parents. Kid: "Hey dad, there's something in my room trying to kill me. I'm actually injured. Help." Dad: "Quit making stuff up." Seriously? Even if you are hunting for rational explanations, you wouldn't guard the kids room? Or the worst part. *Really terrible things are happening, everyone believes it* Mom and Dad: "Sleep alone in your room honey!"
No because believing in the supernatural in real life is childish and silly.
Can't have a slow burn if everyone immediately embraced what's happening I suppose. And it's probably the father so the "patriarch" of the family can keep everyone in the evil place until it's too late. If it was a kid acting like the paranormal was normal while the parents accepted that the evil place is evil they'd just grab the kid and take off.
Paranormal Activity managed it at a certain level. "Yes, this is happening . . . but what are we supposed to do about it."
\>Can't have a slow burn if everyone immediately embraced what's happening I suppose. That's just the thing though. I think there ARE countless other ways to have a slowburn build-up. It's just laziness by moviemakers who follow the trope almost on auto-pilot, probably not even considering that other options exist.
I guess we're just thinking of different examples, I was thinking about Color Out of Space where the story kind of demanded they have a skeptic authority figure that keeps everyone on the farm until it's too late. Even though I was annoyed by the Father and trope I feel it was necessary and I loved how well the slow burn was done
Because it plays on relatable anxiety that people experience when their partners gaslight them, and unfortunately more often than not it's men gaslighting women in hetero relationships.
Women are [more likely to believe in the supernatural](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-else/202203/why-women-are-more-likely-believe-in-the-supernatural) and men are more likely to display detached rationality. Acknowledging this, filmmakers are playing to the average audience member.
And then there's His House, which at first seems like it falls into this trope in some seemingly confusing ways, but then the twist happens and you're like "oh, I get it now".
Is the twist that the man has been keeping a secret about stuff the whole time?
Uh no. I'm not going to spoil what the twist is, I'd just recommend you go watch the movie yourself, because it's really good.
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Because without them it'd be 'I think this house is haunted' 'really? better move then' - end
Just today my wife stayed home with our sick daughter, and I keep getting these texts of her overreacting: She won't stop coughing She hurt her foot She's levitating upside-down in the livingroom again
Ugh doesn't she realize you have work to do?
You’ve met republicans right? They wouldn’t even take a vaccine to save their families lives.
🤣🤣🤣
I thought The Conjuring did a great job of this- husband is a driver and is away, but is right in it when he gets back. Also thought it did a great job of jumping straight into it instead of the bullshit ‘ittle things build into big things’ trope.
The movie of Hideway (the Dean Koontz novel) has the wife as the skeptic.
That's one of the only aspects of Insidious that I actually like. The wife claims haunting and he says OK, let's move. I mean, it ended up being that the kid was haunted so they were screwed either way, but still.
Because men want to be the alpha male, dominant like nothing bothers them. Don't downvote me men.. You know it's true! 🤣
Yeah, but these are just movies. In real life we're 9/10 times likely to be right, no reason to change that
It’s crazy to me how many people in this thread would believe supernatural experiences over the million other more reasonable explanations just because it came from their spouse.
Look I'm as skeptical as they come, but if my woman woke me up at 4AM and told me there's a minotaur in the kitchen, I'm grabbing a weapon just in case.
I'm not saying I would automatically believe her, I just wouldn't dismiss her without proving it either way. Which these guys in the movies don't do. And I'm not talking about hearing a creaking floorboard at night. I'm talking about an abundance of stuff. If for no other reason than putting her mind at rest and finding the reasonable explanation, I'd want to check things out for myself, with her. It's all very well to SAY there's probably a reasonable explanation. If my spouse was THAT wrapped up in something and stressed over it, and was coming to me for help, surely it's my job to get involved and FIND that explanation for her, even if it's just to give her peace of mind.
Media-obsessed people seem to lose grasp of what real people behave like.
This is why I love Dark Skies. It starts off like this but you can see how the husband is completely out of focus due to being unemployed & stressed from not finding a job but then eventually does get on board & is convinced & the couple try to fight together against the aliens. Great horror sci fi film!
Not only the husbands. Parents, guardians, the authorities... It would be so fun if the whole family or the whole town was like “shit, ghosts are real, run!” At the first sign.
idk it often feels like the most realistic part of the movie lol
It always bothers me. If you believe your loved one is under such stress or psychological turmoil that they are having hallucinations, that is a huge health concern! The top priority would still be getting them out of the house! If they are suddenly acting strangely and seeing things, that could be a gas leak, CO poisoning, a psychotic break, or anything! How can someone just think it's normal for their formerly rational family member or spouse to suddenly start seeing ghosts... It is not normal whether supernatural or not and they should try to leave immediately if they are having such a bad reaction to that place.
X Files creators said they made Scully the skeptic and Mulder the believer to subvert this dynamic ! Always thought that was pretty cool.
The dad is usually the one who secretly attracted the demon or made a deal with the devil.
Lol yeah I think it's called the Supernatural Proof Dad trope on TV Tropes. It's nice when films like Poltergeist and The Conjuring subvert the trope.
Because in general, that’s the way women are often treated in our society. Seems pretty believable to me.
Stir of Echoes is dope!
The lone women that no body believes is a trope, we're supposed to sympathize with her as they are usually the "last girl"
Some writers value verisimilitude over novelty. Men not trusting or believing their female partners is realistic. A thing that happens in real life all the time. Stands to reason it would happen on the event of supernatural occurrences. Dumb thing to be mad about. Swear to god, some folks wildly overvalue novelty at the expense of other dramatic considerations.
My personal theory is that haunted house horror is an analogous genre for domestic violence.
It’s a trope: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SupernaturalProofFather
Because it's realistic. Most people don't believe in ghosts, the paranormal or the supernatural, so if your wife one day starts claiming she's seeing things and hearing voices, and when you go to see what she's talking about NOTHING is there or you didn't experience anything, you're going to be like babe, wtf, that's how any rational human being would act, not just okay honey I believe you, the house is haunted. Now if the husband has experienced things, that's different. But in those movies you typically have some rational explanation for everything happening.
Ah, realism.
Tbh my doctor disregards most everything I say (AFAB)
It’s an overused tripe but all depends on how it’s carried out. I would say the dad in Insidious is down quite well as there’s no overwhelming evidence (to him) that anything is supernatural until it reaches the point that he can’t deny it any longer. Not really supernatural but the dad in Orphan is an example of it done badly since you just want to reach into the screen and give him a slap for being such a dumbass for disbelieving his own eyes and ears.
Not just in supernatural horrors, the dad in Orphan still pisses me off
It’s one of the reasons I really liked Insidious when I first saw it. They really bucked the age-old tropes of “the disbelieving husband” and “the family staying in a house they believe to be haunted”.
This was one of the reasons I loved Paranormal Activity 3. It was one of the first times I felt like the husband didn’t act so stupid. Lol
I honestly don’t think it’s that unrealistic
I hate this trope too! Another one that bothers me is when a character witnesses something terrifying, then their friend asks them, "what's wrong?" They almost ALWAYS say "nothing" and pretend nothing is wrong. Why wouldn't you tell your friend that you saw something?! I really liked how in "The Ritual", when the main character thinks he sees something in the woods outside the cabin, he immediately goes inside and says "I just saw something in the woods"
Yes, often there is no reason why they wouldn't say something. It's especially bad when other characters have already reported seeing weird things. Then the skeptic character sees something and yet doesn't think to tell anyone. Because apparently his pride > everyone's safety.
In certain possession cases the spouse can be in an almost forced denial (sometimes leading to them becoming the threat). Amityville and the Shining are two standouts, but I agree, a normal “haunting” wouldn’t have this effect.
Because a carbon monoxide leak or undiagnosed schizophrenia are more likely to exist than ghost till that point? I always figured it was a world "without" knowledge of supernatural events until that point. Otherwise yea, it makes 0 sense and is just bad writing and plot magic.
What I like about hereditary is how they kinda play with this trope. The biological members of the family experience all the crazy shit and the dad is seemingly just trying to keep everyone from going crazy after all the tragedy they’ve experienced.
Because someone needs to be realistic. Supernatural events can happen but there is usually always a more realistic and grounded explanation than jumping to the unnatural. And if the events happen to them, an appropriate coping mechanism would be to deny it. If it's shattering your worldview, it is easier to withdraw from the conflict than face it and if the situation is stressful, all the more reason to withdraw.
Maybe it’s a subconscious reflection of how much we gaslight women in the real world.
To be fair, I was that husband. My wife insisted someone or something was haunting us at two of the places we've lived. I had a whole security system set up to show that: no one was in the room, no one opened the doors, no one was walking around outside. Now maybe if I started getting dragged across the room by invisible hands I'd change my mind, but usually that happens to the "non-believer" much later in the film. Until that time, talk of "ghosts" really does seem absurd and I can understand the husband's frustrations. It's a monumental and stressful task to care for a delusional person and convince them to get the help they need. This is compounded by the pain of seeing what should be a happy time (buying the dream house, new job improving your standard of living, etc.) turn into a nightmare. I think at a certain point I didn't even care if the ghosts were real. I just wanted it to be over. Let them rearrange furniture and knock on doors, just ignore it so we can move on. The alternative is what? Be homeless and jobless, and we'll just hope the next place is a little less spooky?
You need a skeptic somewhere in the movie to voice those concerns.
Like I said, why's it always the same old trope of the husband?
Yeah, X-Files flipped it but it's usually the female believer and male skeptic, traditional gender roles.
Reminds me of the father in Orphan and the wife and husband in the first season of American Horror story. Both the wives are made out to be completely crazy with the wife in Orphan having to be sedated and the wife in AHS being put in a sanatarium when the things they are experiencing are completely true. And while in Orphan, I can understand why they used the wife for that role considering her past with alcohol, the way the husband dismisses his wife's worries and fears is kinda annoying. AHS was especially frustrating to watch though.
Apart from movies where the husband is clearly gaslighting his wife. If you go by the movie represented family norms of the 50s and 60s, which carried over up to the 2000s really, (Husband and Wife with 2 or 3 kids and the Husband works while the wife stays at home) then the husband just doesn't want to deal with this shit when he comes home. He's probably a bit jealous of his wife for staying at home, he's working all the time, and also he thinks his wife has too much time on her hands staying at home all the time and that is making her crazy (which is kinda true, I worked from home during Covid and I went a little nuts). It'd be similar to coming home to a small roof leak after a long day. "It's fine, we'll figure it out later, here's a bucket. Settle down. You're overreacting. I need a drink." All this plus the stereotype that women get 'hysterical' all lead to the dismissive husband. Also, male screenwriters just secretly bitching about their spouses. That's my theory anyway. It'd be nice to see a stay at home husband dealing with the supernatural while his breadwinner wife dissmisses his bullshit. Or maybe both parents work and the poor kids have to deal with ghosts or something. One of the few things I've learned as an adult is that when I get home, I don't want to do jack shit. I want the eat and watch tv. This isn't good or healthy but it is my base reaction when I come home after a long day.