Horror movies are always good for demonstrating our occasionally incorrect behavior. Many times, the behavior in question is pretty clearly ill-advised, but the fact that performing such actions often results in the character's grisly (and occasionally inventive) death tends to acc-en-tu-ate the negative consequences a little more strenuously.
Most horror fans already devised their own list of no-no behaviors long before Scream came along and made self-referential horror films the bane of the '90s. Obviously, you don't have sex, or get drunk, or get separated from the group, or camp on unhallowed ground. You get the idea.
To this list, I'd like to add a few things I picked up from The Grudge, Takashi Shimizu's remake of his own earlier film, Ju-On. The premise of the film is that anytime someone dies in the grip of extreme rage, a curse is created that attaches itself to the place of death. This curse lingers and infects anyone who comes in contact with it. As it's a remake of a Japanese horror film, there's understandably less explicit sex and smart-aleckness, but it still managed to give me a few add-ons for my own list (minor spoilers follow):
1) Never work late. Two characters in the film are picked off specifically because they're the only ones left in their particular buildings after everyone else has left. Maybe this is more of a problem in Japan, where I understand people work longer hours than us lazy American, but it's definitely something to chew on for you young go-getters.
2) In fact, don't live in Japan at all. While rich in culture and history, the place is also infested with malign spirits and ghosts. If a police detective (like the one in the film) started talking to me about Japanese legends as if they were accepted fact, I think I'd be on the first plane back to Houston, where the only infestations I have to worry about are the six-legged kind. Which are easily squished.
3) After this movie and The Ring, I'm not sure why anybody in Japan ever watches a videotape. Japanese spirits have ably demonstrated their ability to disobey the laws of time and energy, why couldn't they use the VHS medium to continue their dirty work? Japan has always been at the forefront of technology innovations, and now I think I know why: to get rid of film entirely.
i like your comment about not living in Japan at all.
^&^