Research of top 50 horror movies ranks the best furniture to hide behind. Beds shown to be the worst hiding place. Doors and wardrobes offer the best chance of escape from crazed serial killers.
Surround yourself with as many doors and wardrobes, but avoid beds at all costs if you want to survive this Halloween – that’s the findings of an in-depth study of horror movies.
The analysis shows that beds are the most dangerous piece of furniture to hide behind with more people meeting a grizzly demise between the sheets than in any other setting. Surprisingly the next most deadly household item is bath tubs, followed by TV stands and tables.
The research by UK-based retailer The Furniture Market looked at 50 of the most popular horror movies to find which pieces of furniture are more likely to lead to your death and which will help you evade those crazed serial killers that are common in late October.
To do this, The Furniture Market created a ranking system to grade each furniture type and the potential chances of using it resulting in a gory end. The Chance-of-Death system = number of times furniture led to a protagonist escaping – number of times it led to a protagonist dying.
Being the favourite killing grounds of Freddy Kruger et al., saw the bed top the ranking by a clear distance, with some notable bedroom scenes throughout the Nightmare in Elm Street franchise and at some points even being responsible for the character’s demise as in the acupuncture scene in Final Destination 5.
At the other end of the rankings, the humble door emerged as the safest article to be around, such as when Sigourney Weaver uses one to finally rid herself of the alien in the title by the same. While the door accounted for the most total deaths across the films it was responsible for a far greater number of escapes to give it the lowest Chance-of-Death rating of -22.
Next safest is the wardrobe, and all the options it offers for hiding. It’s joined low down on the list by a varied mix of furniture, with cupboards (Rosemary’s Baby), bookshelves (Scream III), plant pots (Scream II) and even fridges (Scream) all used in the process of escape.
There is also a wide-range of furniture further up the rankings as baths (Psycho), TV stand (The Ring) and most notably a lilo (Jaws) accounting for the end of one character or another. The full rankings of The Most Dangerous Furniture in Horror Movies can be seen here. Images and table available to download here.
Robert Walters, Head of eCommerce at The Furniture Market , commented: “Furniture is synonymous with the horror movie genre. Not only are a lot of films watched from behind the sofa but as we can see many different items are used in escape attempts – be they successful or not.
“So with Halloween coming up we thought we’d find out which furniture is the best to hide behind and which really is not, and that is by far and away the bed.
“Hollywood tells us that if you’re being chased by a chainsaw wielding maniac in a leather mask then don’t seek refuge under the bed, instead get behind the nearest door or failing that hide in a wardrobe!”
Categorised in: Horror Movies
This post was written by Nadia Vella