Chart of the day: How Hollywood became hooked on the 'jump scare'

Updated

Are we becoming harder to scare or are movie makers getting lazier?

We've all seen the "jump scare" cliche: the unexpected figure in bathroom mirrors or the movement behind a drafty curtain that turns out to be a cat.

The trope consists of an abrupt shift in image or movement, usually accompanied with sudden, booming audio. Its sole intention is to physically startle an audience.

Critics see its overuse in modern horror as a measure of lazy filmmaking. Master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock wasn't a fan. "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it," he pontificated.

Data collected from the Where's The Jump? website shows the average jump scare per film in this decade has tripled since the 1960s. While there are celebrated exceptions to the rule, like Toni Collette's latest movie, Hereditary, the number of movies employing frequent cheap scares has also increased decade-on-decade.

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Topics: horror-films, film-movies, thriller-films, drama

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