MovieChat Forums > Hush (2016) Discussion > Why you should never risk your life for ...

Why you should never risk your life for a female that's a stranger.


I know a lot of you are either going to say "it's just a movie", or "you're not a real man", but hear me out. Most women won't react or care enough to help a stranger that's risked their lives for them. When the neighbor in this movie got stabbed and had the killer in a headlock, which basically incapacitated him for the time being, what did the lead girl do? She just sat down like an assh*le watching and thinking about herself. Now if the killer was on top of the neighbor stabbing him I'd understand that reaction, and yes I know this is a movie, but after seeing tons of white knights get their ass kicked in real life protecting "random girls" who just stand besides them looking shocked this is how I assume most females will react. Of course there are some tough chicks that probably will help out, but let's be honest, the majority wont.
Why risk your life for someone who doesn't care about you, or won't reciprocate the same actions if you were in their position?
Now if the female was your wife, or a family member, that's a completely different story. But I'd rather live and not be considered a "man", by idiots who would die to prove how tough they are, than die risking my life for someone who wouldn't help me out in the same situation.

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Did you expect her to run out and tackle him when she was injured and he had a knife?
The thing is though, he didn't know he was risking his life.
He just suspected that the dude was not a cop and that something was wrong.
I'm sure plenty of fellas would have just gotten the hell out of there but would the scene have been as good if that's what happened?

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He was in a headlock. How could she tackle him? All she had to do was bring a sharp object and plunge him with it. Like I said, it wasn't like the killer was on top of the neighbor, the neighbor was holding him in a choke. She was literally just sitting there watching the killer in a headlock for at least a long minute. Either way, that's not the point, that would not have been plausible since the movie would have just ended there.

He actually did know he was risking his life when he picked the rock up, I mean why would he attempt to hit someone with a rock unless he was certain that they were guilty? If the lead girl didnt bang on the door he wouldn't have died. The movie made it clear who had the upper hand, and that she was the cause of his death.

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Why risk your life for someone who doesn't care about you, or won't reciprocate the same actions if you were in their position?


1. Because it's the right thing to do. As simple as that. Not because the universe/God/life/karma will somehow reward you, but because of common sense: this could be me and if it was, i would like some help. Period.

2. Generosity is not generosity if one expects something in return.

3. I have no issue with the idea that men should protect women and children at all times and at all costs. I think this is even deeply rooted in the male brain and psychology and it's a good thing.

4. Empathy is a human feeling just as powerful as selfishness.


People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefsī²

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You have a unrealistic, arguably insane, idea of morality. Someone who will leave you to die, does not himself deserves help.

This is the idea behind many states banning organ donation to people who opt-out of organ donation. You owe a duty to society if society owes a duty to you.

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His suspicions also included the fate and safety of his girlfriend.

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He didn't risk his life for her. He didn't even know if she was there or even still alive. Plus, his life was at risk the moment he showed up. The killer wouldn't have just let him walk away. It was frustrating that she didn't take the opportunity he was trying to give her to act, but he was bleeding out fast and dead either way.

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I think you guys are missing the point. Let's say he clearly knew she was alive, and in there, her reaction would be the same. Also his life was at risk the moment he showed up, but the movie made it pretty clear that he was much stronger than the killer, and would have survived if she didnt distract him resulting in him getting stabbed.

It's just dumb in my opinion risking your life, or your health white knighting a female that wouldn't help you in the same situation even if they are not physically capable. Whether it's a guy beating up a girl in public, or if you see a female about to get murdered. Just call the police, and don't get involved, unless you value their lives/health over yours.

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Well, you have three users that don't understand your point.

Maybe try to clarify because all of these replies seem valid and applicable to what you continue to write.

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If you don't understand my point, I'm afraid you clearly have a very low comprehension level. I don't discriminate though, so I'll help you out.

"Let's say he clearly knew she was alive, and in there, her reaction would be the same. Also his life was at risk the moment he showed up, but the movie made it pretty clear that he was much stronger than the killer, and would have survived if she didnt distract him resulting in him getting stabbed."

"It's just dumb in my opinion risking your life, or your health white knighting a female that wouldn't help you in the same situation even if they are not physically capable. Whether it's a guy beating up a girl in public, or if you see a female about to get murdered. Just call the police, and don't get involved, unless you value their lives/health over yours."

I can't tell if you're trolling, didn't bother to read, or if you just generally struggle at comprehending. I made my point pretty clear in that response. If you want me to break it down more simply for you, feel free to ask šŸ˜‰.

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Thanks, but no thanks. Learn to express your points and questions better. I've been doing just fine on this board for over 5 years. Maybe it will require you more than just 9 months. Or maybe you're just hopeless.

(Ignored.)

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It's not my fault that you have the comprehension level of an elementary school student.

Btw, I find it hilarious how badly you want the last word. And the fact that you edited your post to add something after you wrote that you put me on ignore, just proves how sad you are.

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Yup, going to call you out as being the dumbass here. The OP is very clear on his point. Those who refuse to help do not deserve help. What is so difficult to understand there?

You are in the wrong. Although he was rather rude, I admit.

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I understand what you are saying, just not your point.
Would you have preferred it if she had just ran out and helped the neighbor, they both overpower him, call the police and the film ends?

It was of course her fault that he was stabbed, yeah.
I don't think anyone is denying that.
Arguably it is dumb to risk your life and help a stranger, sure.
I'm just not sure how else you would have preferred it to pan out?

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I'm not saying that I had a problem with the ending. The movie overall was pretty mediocre, and if she ran out and saved the neighbor it would have made it worse. Also the movie got your typical female reaction on point, so I think they did a good job in making the movie more realistic. Most females would just watch instead of helping out.

My point is simply, in my opinion females in general will not do anything to help you after they get you in a predicament where you're about to get badly hurt or killed. My bar/club days are long past, but while I watched this movie, and I watched the main lead girl just watch her neighbor slowly bleed out while he had the killer in a headlock, it just brought back memories of watching white knights getting their ass beaten and females just looking shocked or shouting to stop but not physically attempting to do anything. Like I said, I'm clearly stereotyping, but from my own experience this happens 100% of the time. Now if you mess with a girls boyfriend, or family that's a whole different story. I've seen girls go crazy and attack guys that try to defend them from their boyfriends beating them up.


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Of course, I can't deny that happens.
BUT there are a lot of guys who are just as useless lol.
I have known certain men to be just as pathetic.

Have you ever seen a hidden camera show called "Scare Tactics"?
Basically, people set up their friends to have the sh!t scared out of them.
There was one episode where some young people where driving at night, down a quiet road in the middle of nowhere.
The one who had been set up, had no idea they were being filmed (hence it being a hidden camera show lol) and people from the crew, dressed up as a gang of vampires and attacked their car.
This victim who had been set up, who was with his girlfriend, obviously got scared and believed they were genuinely being attacked.
So, they stop the car and what does the guy do?
He flees and leaves his woman behind to die lol.
It was pretty funny.....Anyway, I'm sure you understand my point.

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Dude, why are you so obsessed with 'white knights'?

Most bar fights are started by men. I have no idea why you think women are responsible for this, other than you're a sexist who blames women for everything.

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His point is precisely that men shouldn't start bar fights (over women). Essentially, that men should never help a woman in distress, whether she asks for it or not.

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"Most females would just watch instead of helping out."

Well...You've never met ME lol. My ass'd be out there pretty quickly!

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Maybe in a bit more of an original way that wasn't utterly predictable?.

Guy going in to a deadly confrontation gets "distracted" because the writers needed a way for him to die and couldn't think of a remotely interesting one. Because we need the final girl despite being deaf, injured and physically outmatched to heroically kill the bad guy at the end because none of this has ever been seen in a movie before and it isn't completely played out, predictable and boring.

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And this ONLY pertains to women, how exactly?

At best, you're frustrated with how a movie played out, I get it.

At worst, your statement comes across as just plain sexist.

The fact of the matter is, as the audience, we have the benefit of seeing and hearing the exchange between the Man and John. We, as the audience, know he has a rock in his hand. We know he's waiting to strike.

How is Maddie supposed to know this? She doesn't have a close-up if his hands is the rock. She doesn't know he's got the situation under control. Maybe she was trying to save him by warning him about the Man.

Lotta ways to interpret these events, but yeah, glad you went with "women are cowards and not worth saving." Classy move.

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Well most men won't risk their lives or health for another random male. When males see another random guy getting the sh*t kicked out of him they'll walk away and not get involved, or try and break it up if it's a non-threatening looking situation. If it's some huge dude, trust me most guys will not get involved to even break it up. But when it's a female that's getting abused, suddenly men become courageous and want to prove something regardless of who they're facing.
And yes I know I'm stereotyping, which is why I said from my experience I'm assuming this is how most females will react. I'm not stating it as a fact. I'm not calling them cowards either way, I'm saying that they usually don't react, and would definitely not help you in that situation. Not risking your life or health for a stranger doesn't make you a coward.
The lead girl CLEARLY saw that the man was in a headlock. She just sat there for at least a good minute having flashbacks and what not. Instead of helping the man she got killed(yes even if it was an accident, and if she was UNAWARE, she got him killed), she just sat there.

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Firs of all it seems like you hate women not the movie. So maybe go to a therapist and talk about it. Second of all, she wasn't a stranger. He clearly knew her and they were friends. The girlfriend in the beginning of the movie told Maddie that her boyfriend would be home in an hour and they could hangout together. I'm assuming not for the first time. Third of all, the boyfriend didn't know his girlfriend was killed. He saw her earring on the floor and took action for his girlfriend and Maddie. Fourth of all, he was way bigger and stronger than the killer and probably knew he could take him and was going to use the rock. Yes my sister and I were both yelling at the screen that she didn't go out and help him when he had the killer in a headlock. We're both young women and know we'd never let that happen and would've grabbed one of the nifty knives in the kitchen she seemed to forget about and stab him. It was her fault he got stabbed but most likely by accident. I don't think she knew he had the rock otherwise it would've been horrible timing to knock on the glass. Obviously they wrote it this way to add more time to the movie. In most scary movies, the story and victim's actions are not completely realistic because the movie would be over in the first 10 minutes. You seem to use it as fact and for your own conjecture. You see a movie with a man making a mistake and "oh it's just a movie with bad writing", you see a woman making a mistake and it fits your ideology that all women are this way. It's a movie believe it or not. But that doesn't mean in any way that "ALL" women are like that. Yes you're right, you are most definitely stereotyping and are being majorly sexist. Your experiences do not equal fact. And unless you've seen the exact same results 100% of the time for 1,000 situations, don't even try to argue that crap. Like I said I think your problem is with 'females' as you've so eloquently put it in every comment. I in fact think the boyfriend made a couple dumb mistakes. When he found his home empty without any text or message from his girlfriend, his guard should've already gone up. Then when he walks to the neighbor's house (without taking his car might I add) and sees the lights off he shouldve expected something was off. Especially considering her car was in the driveway! Then he sees that message on the glass and a random guy with a flashlight, no badge, a tattoo on his neck and he STILL looks dumbfounded. Not until his girlfriend's earring drop does he grab the damn rock. But hey, I don't have problems with male so I immediately label it as bad writing and go on about my day. I don't assume that all men are oblivious.

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to cut the boyfriend some slack, he couldn't really see the guy when the guy had a flashlight in his face. he was most likely suspecting the guy shortly after and didn't want to give it away, since he didn't know what weapons the guy might've had. it was when the earring drops that his suspicions are 100% confirmed.

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Then why did he take his eyes of him? Pure dumbass move. If you need to check something out you keep the other guy in vision while you do it. Not complicated.
You don't completely take your eye off some guy who you already suspect because that's why you picked up a rock. His own stupidity got him killed, not the chick making a noise.

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I completely agree, that scene and the one where she's on the roof and steals the crossbow REALLY hurt this movie for me. She just needed to use the arrow to stab him as he was climbing up, it wouldn't have killed him but could have done some damage to give her an advantage later. But yeah the completely missed opportunity for her to go stab the guy in the chest while he was defenseless in a headlock was infuriating.

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exactly lol...
she had two almost 100 % opportunities to get rid of the psycho - first on the rooftop, when all she had to do was stab the *beep* in the neck and he would just bleed to death soon on top of falling down from the ledge as well.
the second one being is obviously the choke hold situation, when all she had to do was to stab the killer or bash his head in with a stone...

that's why movies like this very rarely pull off theses situations realistically and most of the time you just spend your time scratching your head or smiling sarcastically at the retarded actions of the protagonists.

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Yeah agreed. The problem I have with these sorts of movies, is in the vast majority of them, the "hero" that we are supposed to root for becomes completely unlikable because despite always seeming to escape harm they make several boneheaded decisions or just flat out act like cowards whilst everyone else is trying to help them, this gets everyone else killed only to survive themselves at the end and it feels more unfair that they survived than anything else.
Slasher movie heroines are like that kid when you were growing up that was always the one instigating the group to do dumb *beep* but were never the one that got hurt and they just run away when something happens while one of the others ends up going to the hospital.

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Slasher movie heroines are like that kid when you were growing up that was always the one instigating the group to do dumb *beep* but were never the one that got hurt and they just run away when something happens while one of the others ends up going to the hospital.


In what way does Maddie instigate anything?

She is attacked in her own home simply because some psycho stumbles across her (in the course of killing the neighbor) and decides to treat her like a plaything. I hope that no one in this thread is suggesting that she intentionally distracts the neighbor so that he can be stabbed. I think that she sees the neighbor but not the killer and tries to get his attention to get him inside with her.

I understand why people are frustrated that she didn't rush out (on her bad leg) to help the neighbor guy. But here's why I don't mind it: if Maddie had rushed out and then been grabbed/stabbed/attacked by the killer, there would be a slew of threads on here like "Why didn't that stupid b*tch run when the neighbor guy told her to?!?!?!?!"; "He had the killer down, why didn't she take the chance to go for help????", and so on. If you are a character in a horror movie (especially a woman) you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I know plenty of women who will rush into danger, including watching my own mother run out of our house to try to help a young man who had just been shot to death by men who were still around on our block.

And regarding the whole bar fight situation, here is a quick take on that:

1) If you are a man and a woman is able to "make" you fight another person, you are a loser and you are dating a loser.

2) There isn't a reverse phenomenon of men who get women to fight over them in bars, but there are plenty of men who will use supposed slights/flirtations with their female companions to get into fights with other men.

3) Judging all "females" (and sidenote to several of the men in this thread: when you use "female" as a noun it makes you sound like a total psycho) by the behavior of women in bars is absurd. If I generalized the behavior of all men based mainly on what I saw in bars, it would be a pretty unflattering portrait.

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after seeing tons of white knights get their ass kicked in real life protecting "random girls" who just stand besides them looking shocked this is how I assume most females will react.


Tons? Really? You've really seen tons of men trying to save the lives of women or are you talking men slapping their dicks around in a bar, something which ordinarily is pretty shocking to most women given the way men, especially drunk men, tend to escalate to violence. For some reason I suspect the latter.

BTW, you got it right in your first sentence. It IS just a movie. Didn't anyone ever teach you that insight into the human psyche isn't gleaned from films?

"Nothing is more ill bred than trying to steal the affections of someone else's dog."

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Tons? Really? You've really seen tons of men trying to save the lives of women or are you talking men slapping their dicks around in a bar, something which ordinarily is pretty shocking to most women given the way men, especially drunk men, tend to escalate to violence. For some reason I suspect the latter.


LMAO! Very well put!

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You can argue he put his life on the line for the neighbor he doesn't really know but he seen his girlfriends jewelry on the floor drop from the guys pocket. It's safe to assume he felt this guy did something to his girl

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So don't be a hero. Just don't expect a hero's welcome. Especially if you express this opinion to your friends and family, instead od us strangers. But that would take guts.

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