Blessed with Suck/Film

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character repeats the same day over and over again, with no way to stop the cycle. At first he's confused, and then overjoyed, but soon he's depressed as anything because he has no life to look forward to. However, eventually he realizes that the unlimited time can be used to master any skill, prevent any and all mishaps that would otherwise occur during his single day, and, once he learns to truly care for her, win the heart of his love interest. Which, it turns out, breaks the spell and canonizes that last perfect day as the one that actually happened. Truly a blessing in sucky clothing.
  • In the Drew Barrymore film (and the later TV miniseries sequel) Firestarter, Charlie McGee inherits psychic powers from her parents who took part in a government experiment (they got lucky, most of the other patients went batshit insane). Her father got the ability to read minds and psychically "push" people to do or see what he wants them too, but it gives him pinprick brain hemorrhages to do so. Charlie doesn't have this problem, but her pyrokinesis (the ability to make fires by frowning) prohibits her from being close to anyone, due to control issues. To top it all off, the government agency that sponsored the experiment want to use her as a weapon.
    • Don't forget that according to the film, by the time Charlie hits puberty she'll be powerful enough to crack the world in half. If that ain't this trope, nothing is.
  • In X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes, the main character grants himself x-ray vision. While he obtains some benefits from it - including the ability to cheat at cards - his vision gradually increases in power until he can see through his own eyelids, through reality itself and into the swirling madness beyond.
    • That by itself is Nightmare Fuel. What cranks it to the next level is the deleted ending. At the very end of the movie, the protagonist rips out his eyes to save himself from the pain and suffering. The movie ends abruptly -- because the last line was deemed too horrific. What was cut? The protagonist, screaming out, "I CAN STILL SEE!"
  • In The Butterfly Effect the protagonist gains the power to go back in time and change key events in his childhood. But whatever he tries to fix he just ends up messing up his life and that of his friends even more. The Psychic Nosebleeds that follow shortly after changing the event aren't that nice either.
  • A major element of Matt Damon's character in Hereafter. He can read people's minds and/or communicate with their dead relatives by touching their hands. Cool, right? No. Imagine accidentally discovering the girl who you've been flirting with was sexually abused as a child by her father. Takes A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read to whole new levels.
  • In The Ring, Sadako Yamamura was born with extraordinary psychic abilities, which gave her clairvoyance, psychography, and astral projection that enabled her personality to endure after death and in the books, her abilities are powerful enough to allow her genetic manipulation of people and viruses. Her mother was also shown having similar abilities. Instead of fame and recognition, these powers led to both of them being scorned, driven away and persecuted by society, leading to Sadako's mother throwing herself into a volcano, and Sadako herself being killed and thrown down a well, where her spirit will linger forever.
    • The American Remake posits that Samara Morgan had the innate ability to imprint images and visions in the minds of other living things; unfortunately, the power manifested at birth, and she was never able to control it, leading both her mother and adoptive mother into complete madness.
  • Godzilla. It's his own radiation that ends up being the cause of his own death in one movie. Yes, we're talking about the SAME radiation that allows him to spew nuclear plasma and destroy his enemies.
  • Arguably the ruby slippers in the movie version of The Wizard of Oz. Sure, their magic is very powerful, but aside from the fact that Dorothy can't get rid of the blasted things, since they won't come off her feet as long as she's alive, she's also got a homicidal Wicked Witch of the West after her, determined to get the slippers at all costs. Thanks a lot, Glinda...
    • Well, to be fair to Glinda, the Wicked Witch of the West was going to kill Dorothy anyway, for dropping a house on her sister. Dorothy's wearing of the shoes was the only thing that prevented the Witch from killing her the moment she captured her so forcing Dorothy to wear them might have been a Necessary Evil. A better example of Blessed With Suck from The Wizard of Oz might be the Tin Man, whose body is nearly indestructible, but who can become rusty and immobilized in rainy weather. The Wicked Witch herself might have Blessed with Suck powers, since water destroys her magic and causes her to melt.
  • It's no fun being a Scanner, mostly because of all that Power Incontinence. Also, hearing the thoughts of everyone around you gets noisy and distracting.
  • How about Sky High? One of the main plot points involves how all the people with the awesome powers go into the Hero class, the What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway? characters are stuck as "sidekicks". Subverted by the handy Plot Tailored to the Party, which lets the sidekicks do their part and teach everyone a valuable lesson.
  • While Darkman is impervious to pain, he had to burn nearly to death to get that way, and to undergo a dubious surgical technique which left him subject to uncontrolled rage and mood swings. Plus, with no sense of pain, he can't even tell if he's injuring himself until he actually looks.
  • In the movie Death Becomes Her, two of the main characters take a potion that grants eternal life and youth. No, the suck doesn't involve Who Wants to Live Forever?, as most of the qualities of that trope are either ignored or handwaved(anyone who takes the potion is supposed to sever all human contact after so many years anyway, so as to avoid suspicion). The suck comes after both newly immortal characters try to kill each other, and find out that, while they won't die, their bodies will. From then on, they are stuck in their own broken corpses, having to utilize undertaking techniques just to keep themselves looking and moving like living people. By the end of the movie, even this isn't enough, as their bodies literally fall apart around them, leaving them spending what may very well be eternity as a pile of rotting body parts.
  • Basically the plot of Ella Enchanted. "Gift" of obedience indeed - thanks, Lucinda! /sarcasm.
  • Being sensitive to the Force in Star Wars isn't really fun at all. Yeah it comes with nifty psychic powers and super reflexes, but Force Users have to maintain strict control over their emotions, sometimes to the point of being The Stoic. Otherwise they run the risk of falling to the Dark Side of the Force, and while this also comes with nifty (and scary) powers, spending too much time on the Dark Side inevitably leads to the loss of friends and loved ones, insanity, and death.
  • In X-Men, the mutations created by Magneto's machine are stated to be fatal.
  • Those who take the Mark of the Beast in the Apocalypse film series are blessed with limited telekinetic and telepathic powers and can also receive miraculous healings, all at the cost of spending eternity in the Lake of Fire.
  • Since adults normally consider children one of life's greatest blessings, the parents in every single Evil Child movie are certainly Blessed with Suck - i.e. The Bad Seed, Orphan, The Omen, Rosemary's Baby, The Good Son, etc.
  • The protagonists from the Final Destination series (Alex Browning, Kimberly Corman, Wendy Christensen, Nick O'Bannon and Sam Lawton). The visions in regards to the impending disasters along with their own demise drives the plot of cheating Death. Either that, or Death is pretty sadistic or he is a sore loser.
  • The Paper Chase: Kevin has a photographic memory, which is absolutely useless for analyzing matters of law.
  • In The Invisible Man, the title character was born an albino, which causes public scorn, so he invents a drug ("monocane") that makes him invisible so nobody will see his deformity. It seems like a blessing at first, until he sees the side effects of such extreme social isolation, and it eventually becomes clear the drug has also driven him irrevocably insane.[1]
  1. This is only hinted at in the original film, but the sequel confirms that insanity is indeed a recognized side effect of monocane.