Halloween: What horror movie is considered the ‘jumpiest’ in cinema, and how to handle jumpscares?

• Time to pop a video nasty in the VCR this Halloween season, but spare a thought for the faint of heart.
• With more and more movies embracing the ideas of ‘jumpscares,’ some of those frayed nerves might need prior warning.
• Here’s ten movies that according to research are the “jumpiest’ to watch this Halloween, and how to handle the dreaded jumpscare.

Who doesn’t like a good horror movie? With Halloween only hours away as of writing, a lot of you would quite happily tell me “no - I hate horror movies. I hate to be scared.”

While the level of gratuitous gore seems to be veering into the realms of ‘splatstick,’ by virtue of the popularity Terrifer 3 has experienced thanks to its practical effects and buckets of gore, it would seem that the worst experience watching a horror movie is instead a ‘jumpscare’.

What is a jumpscare, some of you may ask? Imagine minding your own business in your everyday life, quietly getting on with a task, when someone decides from out of nowhere to yell “boo” in your face. 

It's a disarming feature in horror movies that seems to have made quite the return in recent years, employed not only by the traditional slasher genre but has also cropped up in folk horror and even the odd comedy-horror.

But it can be all too much for some people with a weak constitution for surprises. So this Halloween, perhaps avoid the following ten movies as SkyCity Online Casinos compiled their list of the ‘jumpiest’ horror movies in cinema. 

The science part

In order to create their list, SkyCity Online Casino gathered data from the top 45 horror film list from IMDB and recorded the number of times ‘jump’ and ‘jumpscare’ were used in their user reviews. 

The researchers then compared this to the total number of reviews and created a percentage which left them with the ‘jumpiest’ horror films in the world.

What horror movie is considered the ‘jumpiest’ in cinema?

It’s a clear winner, and someone who is a bit of an auteur when it comes to modern cinematic jumps; James Wan’s The Conjuring tops the list, with a 33% ‘jump’ rating according to SkyCity Online Casino. 

Taking second place on their list is Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, with a 25% ‘jump’ rating (and rightfully so), while the 2007 film The Orphanage came in third with a ‘jump’ rating of 21%.

Surprisingly, the Spanish found footage horror [REC] was only seventh on the list, despite from personal experience being in a room of men who all asked their partners to collect them from the cinema after its screening - me included.

Is there a way to handle jumpscares in movies?

There’s a couple of techniques you can employ to avoid having a dreaded panic attack or much worse.

Lowering the volume is a great technique, limiting the inevitable loud noise that accompanies jumpscares, therefore reducing the impact of the scene. There is also narrowing your field of view, by adopting the tried and tested “squinting at the screen” technique or covering the part of the screen you think the jumpscare will take place within.

Then there is the current trend of “Second Screaming,” where viewers either read spoilers or watch recaps ahead of the films or follow the IMDB Parental Guide on their phone in hand while watching the film.

Then there is one other option - just rolling with the jumpscares and repeating to yourself “it’s only a movie. It’s only a movie.”

Do you agree with the list of the ‘jumpiest’ horror movies in cinema? Do you have your own method of handling jumpscares? Let us know your thoughts on this study by leaving a comment down below.