10 Horror Movies That Would Be Totally Different If Characters Had Cell Phones – Screen Rant

In the world of horror, one small change can change everything. How would cell phones impact some of these horror classics?

The horror movie genre has mastered the atmosphere of true, heart-pounding terror. In the classic scene familiar to most audiences, the protagonist flounders about in the dark, only half-aware they're being watched. Just beyond the edge of sight, something truly terrible waits for them, preparing to strike. The protagonist is all alone, stranded, an easy victim. But then...they pull out their cell phone. Between the flashlight feature and the ability to call for help, they haveregained some power,easing the tension.

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By adding a phone to an otherwisestandard horrorscene, everything is thrown out of wack. Both horror movies and cellphones are great, but sometimes it's better that the two are kept apart.

Scream opens on a young woman receiving repeated calls on her home home phone. First the caller pretends to have a wrong number, then he flirts, before escalating to threaten her and even describe her house. She switches from a land line to a portable phone, walkingthrough the house while still tethered to it.Theterrorescalates as thecaller murders her boyfriend, bound just outside.

The intensity of the scene requires that the girl holds a portable phone, as she needs to move about the house, but a cell phone would never work, as the fear comes from the girl feeling trapped and helpless in her own home, unable to flee.

This story follows the Hess family, who lives on a farm that becomes the subject ofunexplained crop circles. As can be expected, not long after the crop circles appear, so do aliens.

One reason the film is so scary is that the Hesses are cut off from the world. Living on their remote farm, no one can come to save them when thealiens come for them. But if the father of the family could just open a phone to call for help, the sense of isolation would disappear.

This Oscar-winning classic is one of therare horrormovies to use no supernatural elements. Insteaditdeals witha series of savage murders committed by the serial killer known as Buffalo Bill, and on the relationship between a young FBI cadet Clarice Starling and thegenius cannibal Hannibal Lecter.

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Just before theend of the film, Clarice enters Buffalo Bill's home, despite her boss thinking he's cornered Bill half a country away. Here, a phone would change the whole scene, as Clarice could call for backup.Additionally, there is an incredibly tensemomentwhere Clarice pursues Bill through the black of a basement with the lights turned out. Too bad she didn't have the flashlight app of a phone.

Another horror film with no supernatural elements, Psychoremains one of the best-known of Hitchcock's works. It opens following Marion Crane, a young womanwho commits a robbery, flees, and stays at a hotel, where she is murdered by Norman Bates, the hotel's proprietor. Batessuffers from dissociative identity disorder, which manifests as the murderous tendencies of his abusive mother.

It is unrealistic to expect a film from 1960 to havemodern phones, but had Marion possessed a smart phone, she could have just looked up a different hotel to stay at when Bates began to get creepy. Also, the GPS on a modern mobile phone would make finding her corpse a lot easier.

Written and directed byRob Zombie, this bizarre cult classic exploits the trope of a group of young people who stumble upon the house where a killer lives. The young adults pick up a hitch hiker named Baby who invites them to stay at her home, resulting in a splatterpunkcarnival ofgratuitous ceremonial murder.

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If any of thefilm's protagonists was in possession of a cell phone, they couldcheck online and see that Baby is a felon with a record--not exactly someone to spend the night with. They also could hypothetically call for help when Baby's family revealed themselves to bedangerous costumed psychopaths.

The Blair Witch Project is another cult classic, in thiscase stylized as a documentary despite being completely fictional. Two kids venture through the woods pursuing legends of the titular Blair Witch, filming the experience using shaky cam. And honestly, the film could be shot entirely the same using camera phones.

So what would be different ifthis wasshotusing phones? Well, camera phones areviewed by many as less respectable, part ofan over-indulgent selfie culture. Here, the changes would not be with the movie itself, but how viewer biases impacted its reception.

While the 2002 version of TheRing is used in this example, the 1998 Japanese release of the film could probably apply just as much as something that cell phones would dramatically alter.

The Ring deals with a video cassette featuring the murderous ghost-child Samara (or Sadako in the original Japanese). Anyone whowatches the video gets a call, telling them they will die in seven days. The only way to avoidthis fate is to make a copy of the tape. Now, imagine someone making a copy with their smart phone and uploading it to YouTube. That isfarmorefrightening.

When Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) takes a job as the winter caretaker ofan old hotel that closesdowndue to heavy snows, he moves into the place with his wife and son. It quickly becomes apparent that the hotel is haunted. Worse, they are cut off from the outside world, driving Jack to a murderousfrenzy.

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But one thing is great for reconnecting with the outside world: a cell phone. While it would do nothing to stop the ghosts, amobile phonewouldallow Jackto stay connected to humanity,and would give his wife and son a way to call for help if they still needed it.

The brilliance of The Thing is that the monster is a shapeshifter, capable of assuming the form of anyone and replacing them. As the movie takes place at an Antarctic research center, there are not a lot of cell towers.

However, if the Antarctic research crew all managed to somehow be on a group call with one another while they were under threat, it seems unlikely that the "thing" they go up against could pick them off without the others knowing.

The Lost Boys is a great examination of vampires as a metaphor forwayward youth. The angsty teenage protagonists are groping in the dark as they struggle with coming of age--easy prey for the real predators of the night. The vamps even look and act like rebellious 80s teens.

Any remake of this film would put thevampsat a disadvantage. Teens can spot the newest phones, and it's hard to imagine brooding bloodsucking immortals can tell an iPhone from a flip phone. New technology would be the final nail in their coffin.

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Theo Kogod is a freelance writer. While working as an English teacher in Japan, he helped found the magazine 3 Feet Left as its Resident Writer. Since then, he's written for various online publications, including CBR, Screen Rant, and The Comics Vault. His published fiction includes the prose superhero story "Typical Heroes" released by Diabolical Plots and the sci-fi story "Antediluvian" in the anthology A Flash of Silver-Green. He currently lives in North Carolina with his spouse, two adorable cats, and an ever-growing book-hoard.

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10 Horror Movies That Would Be Totally Different If Characters Had Cell Phones - Screen Rant