"Jimmy! Jimmy, come back! I didn't mean to bite—"
"the girl doesn't do it and then after a while she goes to sleep. the next morning she wakes up and finds her boyfriend still not there. she gets out to check and man door hand hook car door."
Teenagers enjoy making out in cars. This is probably because they expect that no one will see them, and they won't see anyone. However, teenagers at Make-Out Point ironically tend to be the first witnesses of the alien invasion, or the zombie apocalypse, or the dead body at the bottom of the cliff. Quite often, they will be brutally murdered to show that the Monster of the Week means business. Why? Perhaps Rule of Funny. Perhaps they are considered Acceptable Targets. (Bonus if they get shot at.)
This is something of a Dead Horse Trope nowadays, considering that it is parodied more than it is used. Plus, health and safety prevents such things happening nowadays, with traffic regulation orders enforcing road signs such as "No motor vehicles" at the locations. Truth in Television — the Department for Transport have a fair few enforced at cliff-faces. Nevertheless, as you'll see under Real Life, this has happened, as a few serial killers have made it their preferred modus operandi.
Always involves a Make-Out Point and Auto Erotica, or at least teenagers contemplating such.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Advertising
- Used in an Italian advertisement about a snack of chocolate and puffled rice: the various puffled rice grains are attacked and "swallowed" by a Blob made of chocolate, and two of said grains are surprised in a parked car in a typical horror movie fashion.
Card Games
- Referenced in the now-defunct card game Hecatomb with the card Midnight Snack, which basically invokes this trope. "What monster can resist stopping to kill teenagers making out?"
Comic Books
- One Hellboy story has Hellboy waiting in a car with a female FBI agent for a "Goatman" reported to have scared several young couples, with the agent suggesting a more dynamic approach to attracting the monster. Fortunately he attacks just then, with Hellboy discreetly thanking the Goatman mid-battle for getting Hellboy out of an awkward situation.
Films— Animation
- Used for Gender-inverted parody in Monsters vs. Aliens. A couple making out in their car are the first to see the giant robot probe, but this time the chick is pushing for sex from the cowardly Jerk Jock. The chick decides to check it out, and the jock, not wanting to be left alone, reluctantly follows her, only to trip over a fence and sprain his ankle. As the woman carries her injured boyfriend, a giant eye appears in the sky and the couple shriek in terror.
- Parodied in Planet 51, where the teens are actually aliens.
Film — Live-Action
- In Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, two teenagers making out are among the first to see the giant Nancy approach town.
- In The Blob (1988), this trope is played with. The Jerk Jock has driven to a secluded spot and gotten his date drunk so he can have his way with her. He looks away for a minute, then begins to unbutton her blouse. When he reaches in, the Blob, who has eaten the girl from the far side (and the inside-out), out of his immediate view, grabs him and consumes him.
- A truly hilarious example occurs in the opening of the Syfy Channel Original Movie Boa vs. Python, where a guy is going down on his girlfriend in the back of a car when he's grabbed and eaten by the evil giant python. Not only does the girl not notice this, the snake then proceeds to continue where the guy left off much to the girl's approval before she finally figures out that she's about to be lunch.
- The first murder in Cherry Falls occurs at a makeout point by a waterfall.
- In The Creeping Terror, the giant centipede thing manages to sneak up on kids who are making out, and somehow convinces them to climb into its mouth. It later assaults an actual Make-Out Point, rolling a car down a hill.
- Dead Man Walking: The flashbacks depicting the murder of the teenage couple shows the two criminals approaching them while they're parked in his car.
- The Giant Gila Monster opens with the title character killing a pair of teens who were making out in a parked car on the edge of town. We later learn they were in the process of eloping.
- In Grindhouse, the fake trailer for Eli Roth's holiday-themed slasher movie Thanksgiving includes a scene of a woman going down on a guy in a parked car. When she reaches up to touch his face, she finds that his head has been cut off by the slasher!
- In Hobgoblins, one of the characters drives to Make-Out Point with a hallucination woman created by the hobgoblins. He doesn't seem too perturbed when she gets out and tries to shove his car over the cliff.
- Invasion of the Saucer Men and its remake The Eye Creatures have the hero and heroine run over one of the monsters on their way there; by the end, they have to enlist the other "teens" to drive over and high-beam the photophobic Creatures to death with their cars' headlights.
- The first place the Killer Klowns in Killer Klowns from Outer Space go to so they can harvest humans for their blood is the teenage make-out spot. When the heroes later inspect the place, they find only cars full of cotton candy and a pair of glasses.
- King Cobra (1999): The cobra-rattlesnake eats two teenagers who were making out in the woods.
- In the first of The Lost Boys movies, the teens at make-out point are the first victims of the titular vampires.
- The infamous "Disco Boy Scene" in Maniac! (1980) has the killer targeting a couple (including the film's head of special effects, Tom Savini) at such a location.
- Subverted in Manos: The Hands of Fate. Two teenagers continually making out in a car get continually harassed by a couple of police officers who apparently have nothing better to do. Then one of the cops hears a gunshot off in the distance, coming from the house where the protagonists are in danger and the two step forward, flashlights raised, listening... and then promptly decide that It's Probably Nothing and go back to what they were doing. The next morning, the teens are still making out.
- Night of the Creeps opens with two aliens racing to keep an experiment from being released by a third member of the crew. The seemingly possessed third alien shoots the canister into space where it crashes to Earth. Nearby, a college man takes his date to a parking spot when they see a falling star and investigate. It lands in the path of an escaped criminally insane mental patient. As his date is attacked by the axe-wielding maniac, the boy finds the canister, from which a small slug-like thing jumps out and into his mouth.
- The entire premise of Nowhere, in which space aliens are slowly invading earth, but all the characters are pansexual teenagers who are too busy having sex and getting high to notice.
- Python: The python's first set of victims is a lesbian-bisexual couple who were out "camping". In fact, the latter was apparently the town bicycle.
- Parodied in the first Scary Movie, where a news crew correctly expects the killer to make his next move at one of these places. The victim-to-be is clearly more excited to be on the news than scared, and the killer himself is simply irritated that the reporters are bothering him while he's trying to do his job.
- In Seven Psychopaths, Tom Waits' character tells a story of how he and his ex-girlfriend used to "go around the country killin' people who go around the country killin' people". We get a montage of their past antics, including invoking this trope to lead the Texarkana Moonlight Murderer (see below under Real Life) into a trap.
- In The Town That Dreaded Sundown, the first three attacks by the Phantom are on couple parked in secluded 'Lover's Lane' locations. Truth in Television as the film is based on the Real Life Texarkana Moonlight Murders.
- The teenage couple in the opening scene of Zodiac arrive at such a place, only to be shot by the Serial Killer.
Literature
- Referenced and parodied in How to Survive a Horror Movie. Contrary to popular belief, Sex Signals Death isn't a universal truism in horror films. Rather, it's having sex in a car that will get you killed.
- Narrowly averted in Red, White and Blood, third book in the President's Vampire series; a couple of teens narrowly avoid being killed by the Boogeyman thanks to Cade intervening in the nick of time.
- Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark includes a retelling of the Hook Hand legend, described below under Mythology and Folklore.
Live-Action TV
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- "Phases": Xander and Cordelia are making out in her car when a werewolf attacks them. The following night Buffy and Giles are searching for the werewolf and Giles suggests knocking on a few car windows and asking if anyone's seen the creature. Buffy gives him a derisory look. "Giles, no-one's seen anything."
- "All the Way". Dawn and a school friend sneak out of the house to canoodle with a couple of boys, only for the guys to turn out to be vampires. The Scoobies track them down only to find themselves surrounded by carloads of teenaged vampires.
Buffy: Didn't anyone come here just to make out? [two human teenagers raise their hands] Awww... that's sweet. Run.
- One of the books revisits this point, again at night and again, horrible monster attack and death. Stop going out at night, people!
- The Fringe episode "The Man From The Other Side" begins with two teens getting stoned in a car (presumably before or after making out) who quickly have their identities stolen by interdimensional shapeshifters.
- Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "...The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding", Lestat de Lioncourt and Claudia drive to a lover's lane to hunt for humans who are in a state of arousal. In Lestat's estimation, they're a special treat because no blood is sweeter than young people who are swollen with passion. Claudia's fangs rip into one man's neck so savagely that his arterial spray splashes across the windshield of his car, his blood nearly covering the entire surface of the glass. Lestat murders a couple that was parked further ahead off-screen, and when the screaming girlfriend of Claudia's victim runs to Lestat to warn him of the danger, he kills her, too.
Woman: There's something back there, something evil!
Lestat: Ah, yes. She's with me. (dips the woman in The V-J Day Kiss pose and then drains her dry) - Parodied in the Saturday Night Live skit "Attack Of The Masturbating Zombies" where the canoodling couple is merely interrupted by the zombies in question, rather than being assaulted by them, and their reaction isn't of fear, but of disgust at what they're doing (especially considering the implication that they're doing this because they're turned on by watching the kids kiss).
Boy: It's zombies!
Girl: Zombies?
Boy: Yeah! And they're masturbating!
Girl: EWWWWWW! - In Smallville, Jimmy and Chloe are making out at the relevant location before a Poison Ivy Expy kills someone.
- Supernatural uses this trope a lot, but it's an Invoked Trope the episode "Monster Movie" where the shapeshifting Monster of the Week is a fan of monster movies.
"Anna-Marie, there aren't any wolves in Pennsylvania." (Wolf Man pulls him out of the car)
- Also an Invoked Trope in "Freeks and Geeks" when a pair of hunters posing as a teen couple use it to lure a monster.
- The X-Files. Happens in the episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space", though it's not actually clear whether their attackers were really aliens.
Music
- The Garth Brooks song "The Night Will Only Know" has two married people (as in married to other people) witnessing a murder during their night of passion in the backseat. The murderer gets off scot-free because the lovers can't reveal what they know about the murder without also revealing their affair, resulting in the victim's death being ruled a suicide.
- They Might Be Giants have a song called "The Summer Breeze", where the narrator's cousin told him a scary story of this sort, with the twist that the killer was the car itself. We're also told that the car is missing its door handle, evoking the Hook Hand legend (see below under Mythology and Folklore).
Mythology and Folklore
- The famous "Hook Hand" urban legend. The best-known version has a young couple making out in a parked car when an Emergency Broadcast on the radio informs them that a homicidal maniac with a hook for a hand has escaped from the local insane asylum. Scared, they decide to call it a night and drive home, but the car appears to be snagged on something. The boyfriend floors the gas pedal and they're able to break free and go home... but when he drops his girlfriend off at her house, they notice a hook hanging from the car door.
- There's another version where the car runs out of gas, and the boyfriend goes to the nearest garage to buy some more. As the girl waits for him, she hears the above news bulletin, and decides to lock all the car doors. Later that night, she hears something trying to open the door, but it's too dark and foggy to see what, so she leaves it locked. In the morning she finds her dead boyfriend clinging to the door handle, the hook still embedded in his back.
- A very clumsy retelling of the above resulted in the meme-tastic Man Door Hand Hook Car Door
◊.
- The Bunny Man urban legend from Fairfax County, Virginia, and the surrounding area, tells of a man in a rabbit suit, terrorizing couples with an axe.
- Similiar to the above is the Goatman legend, describing a sort of satyr-like creature, also wielding an axe, who gets up to all sorts of trouble, including terrorizing randy young people. This legend is fairly widespread across the United States, with the best-known regional variants in Maryland, Kentucky (the Pope Lick Monster), and Texas (the Lake Worth Monster). In some versions, he Was Once a Man, a Mad Scientist who used himself as a guinea pig and mutated himself into a monster, and is now resentful and jealous of everyone who is still human.
- Similiarly, there are reports of Sasquatch scaring people this way.
- Another story, often conflated with the Hook story, has a couple realize they're out of gas. The boyfriend leaves to get gas, advising the girlfriend to hide in the backseat. During the night, she hears a repetitive noise, but remains hidden until the police show up with a megaphone asking anyone in the car to get out, walk toward them, and not look back. The girlfriend can't resist looking back, and sees the source of the noise: her dead boyfriend and/or his killer. (One classic version has the boyfriend suspended from a tree above the car, his fingernails scraping the roof as he sways back and forth. Versions with the killer usually have him banging something – a weapon or the boyfriend's severed head – on the roof of the car.)
- The first reported encounter with The Mothman had him startling two couples who were on a double date in the secluded area around an abandoned ammo dump. Once they saw him and tried to drive away, he supposedly chased after their car.
Video Games
- Subtly parodied in Destroy All Humans!. Near the starting point of one of the levels is a Make Out Point with two cars, windows steamed over and rocking back and forth. Naturally, you can do whatever you'd like to them at this point, such as telekinetically toss the cars off the cliff, or blow them up with a raygun. Might be considered an inversion as well, since here you're playing the alien sneaking up on the occupied teenagers.
Web Comics
- In the Bad Machinery side-story "THAT", a teen couple are attacked at the local make-out point by a giant killer moth.
- In the 'K I T T E N' arc of Sluggy Freelance. Smit and Cindy chat in the car while getting away from the rest of the campers for some alone time, and discuss this trope right before it's played straight.
Western Animation
- Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: "Monsters, Get Real" has Krumm scaring some teens about to make out in their car.
- The Family Guy episode Peternormal Activity has Peter and the guys pitch various ideas for a horror movie. Peter's idea is a monster cat that attacks and kills teenagers in their cars at Makeout Point.
- An animated series called Freaky Stories, given it was based on animated portrayals of various Urban Legends, naturally had one episode based on the classic "Hook Handed Killer" legend. In this case, it was a very catchy — and creepy — musical episode.
- Happens in Futurama, "Fear of a Bot Planet", in a robot horror film the characters are watching. The boy robot assures the girl robot that humans will never come to their defenseless little town, and it's perfectly safe to let their guard down, even for a second. Then a "human" appears and tears his head off.
- Spoofed in the Shrek Christmas Special Shrek the Halls, where Gingy's recollection of the story of Christmas is of him and his girlfriend sitting in a car when they are attacked by Santa Claus, who eats the girlfriend.
Donkey: That is the stupidest story I have ever heard. You know that's not how it goes.
Gingy: YOU WEREN'T THERE! - The Simpsons: In the episode "Principal Charming", we catch a scene from Space Mutants V: The Land Down Under, where an Australian couple's car is attacked by one of the space mutants.
- In an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, the EVIL group (Every Villain Is...Lemons?) goes to Make-Out Reef and shines a flashlight into the boats to disturb the couples... and one guy kissing a pillow.
Squidward: Ah, Make-Out Reef. Good times, good times.
- There's a scene in an episode of Teen Titans where Robin is chasing a villain on his motorcycle and said chase ends up bouncing off the car of a couple making out.
Real Life
- The Zodiac Killer killed several of his victims in Make-Out Points.
- The Monster of Florence did as well.
- The first three attacks by the 'Phantom Killer' in Texarkana were on couples parked in isolated spots to make out.
- In August 2002, teenagers Jacqueline Marris and Tamara Brooks were abducted from such a place by criminal Roy Ratliff while parked with their respective boyfriends. They endured a night of terror that included him raping them both and finally ended with the cops shooting him dead within minutes of when he would have likely killed them as well.