Spooky season is here, and thrill seekers are watching countless hours of horror films to celebrate – but a new study finds not all scary movies are created equal.
A new project fitted participants with heart rate monitors as they watched special screenings, allowing researchers to see which flicks increase fear and excitement.
The team found the scariest scene is shown in ‘Insidious’ and the most horrifying film of all time is ‘Sinister.’
While the study does not note what portion of Insidious got people’s hearts racing, it is likely the ‘Demon in the Corner’ scene.
While the study does not note what portion of Insidious got people’s hearts racing, it is likely the ‘Demon in the Corner’ scene
The findings are part of the Science of Scare Project, which has compiled the scariest movies over the past four years.
The testing group includes 250 participants fitted with heart rate monitors that monitor their vitals during each movie.
This year’s experiment scored on heart rate and heart rate variance.
The first measures beats per minute, while the latter calculates beats in milliseconds.
‘With heart rate (BPM), the higher the number, the faster the movie got our audiences’ blood pumping, an indicator of excitement and fear as part of your fight or flight instinct,’ the Science of Scare Project shared.
‘On the other hand, heart rate variance (HRV) measures the time in between each beat of your heart.
A new project fitted participants with heart rate monitors as they watched special screenings, allowing researchers to see which flicks increase fear and excitement. Pictured are the top 10 and heart rate measurements collected
‘The lower the heart rate variance, the more stressed our audience members became, a good indicator of slow-burn fear and dread.’
The team then combined both scores to create a Science of Scare score out of 100.
‘For comparison, Shrek holds a ‘Scare Score’ of three out of 100,’ they shared.
Using these measurements, project heads found Scott Derrickson’s 2012 supernatural horror Sinister is the scariest movie ever made.
The film follows true-crime writer Ellison Oswald, played by Ethan Hawke, who is in a slump after not creating a best seller in more than a decade.
He’s decided to write about the unsolved killing of a seemingly ordinary family.
The youngest child was abducted, never to be seen again, and the other four, including mom and dad, were hanged from a tree in the back garden.
The project heads found Scott Derrickson’s 2012 supernatural horror Sinister is the scariest movie ever made
Ill-advisedly, Ellison does more than research his new project. He moves his own family into the house where the murders took place.
He discovers a box up there containing home movies and a Super 8 projector.
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When he plays the innocuously named reels, he finds they are snuff movies chronicling the murders of five families over the past 50 years.
On a mission to solve the case, Ellison believes the horrifying acts were the doings of a serial killer.
But he and his family soon discover something sinister behind the murders.
‘Our audience experienced a 34 percent uplift in heart rate when watching the movie, from 64 bpm up to 86 bpm across the movie, with the film’s scariest moment sending hearts pounding to 131 bpm,’ according to project researchers.
‘HRV dropped by 21 percent among viewers, the second lowest of any film on the list, indicating a perfect balance of startling moments and slow burn scare.’
Both combined to give Sinister a scare score of 96 out of 100.
While Insidious ranked fourth scariest, the researchers found the 2010 film had the highest spike overall.
This means the movie includes the scariest scene in horror movie history.
The story of Insidious centers on a married couple whose boy inexplicably enters a comatose state and becomes a vessel for various demonic entities in an astral plane.
The red demon with hooves and claws is the evil creature trying to Dalton, played by Ty Simpkins, who is in a coma.
During the scariest scene, the boy’s grandmother tells his parents about how she heard a terrible voice coming from his room that told her it wanted Dalton.
Lorraine Lambert (Barbara Hershey) tells her son, Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), and his wife, Renai Lambert (Rose Byrne), the story, and in a moment, the red demon appears over Josh’s shoulder.
