Hell, I’ll keep it going: I was in a viewing desert and saw The Reef, which I was sure I had heard of at some point, so I gave it a try. I didn’t make it through, but the first 2/3 has 3 or 4 really, really bad jump scares. The ones where you know it’s going to be a jump scare but it’s not the right time for a real scare so it’s going to be a fake scare, along with the musical sting and the camera switch, etc. etc. I searched and saw that generally Qt3 wasn’t a fan either, I’m firmly in that camp.
Ha ha, you saw The Reef. The sequel just came out, you know. You’re not gonna leave me hanging and NOT see the sequel, are you? :)
On an unrelated note, one of my favorite movies so far this year is a horror movie called What Josiah Saw, directed by Vincent Grashaw (he previously made a movie called And Then I Go, which I need to see now) and written by a newcomer named Robert Alan Dilts. The script and direction are both rich with some wonderfully textured Texas Gothic. There are even chapters with titles like “Eli and the Gypsies”. Who doesn’t want to see a movie called What Josiah Saw, with chapters that have names like “Eli and the Gypsies” and “The Ghost of Willow Road”? Right? Well, it gets my stamp of approval and it’s got a slot on my top ten so far.
Anyway, you can’t really discuss the specific jump scare and its implications without going deep into experience-destroying spoiler territory, but there’s an absolutely fascinating jump scare that consists entirely of an audio cue and an actor responding to it. There is literally no visual onscreen component. You get jump-scared, but you have no idea what the scare actually is! And even though it happens fairly early, the significance of the moment isn’t clear until far later in the movie.
As an inveterate jump-scare hater, I’m not saying it’s a good jump scare. But I am saying it’s a fascinating one!
Fathom events/TCM doing the 40th anniversary theater showings of one of the top jump scare movies in my list in a couple of weeks:
Ooh! I forgot about this one! It’s the classic cockatoo screech from Citizen Kane.
According to Peter Bogdanovich’s commentary, Welles told him he put the cockatoo there to wake the audience up during what he felt was a slow period. Cheap shot, Welles!
Did Orson Welles invent the jump scare?
Good question! I think the bus pulling up in 1942’s Cat People is the widely acknowledged first “jump scare” as it’s a thing that happens in the context of the scene. The bus pulls up from out of frame and makes the loud HISS as it stops. Classic! The cockatoo in 1941’s Citizen Kane is a “jump scare” in the sense that Welles literally intended it to scare people awake, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on in the scene. The bird just pops into frame over the actual transition.
What’s funny is that film students debated the meaning of this scene for a long time - IE it’s importance to the dialogue, the deeper intent of the director, etc. It’s possible Welles was just screwing with Bogdanovich, since he infamously refused to explain his films, but him putting it into the scene purely to wake people up also fits his impish nature.
Edit: I suppose the thing with jump scares is they kind of depend on sound, so a silent film jump scare probably isn’t possible.
On a really hairsplitting point, isn’t a ‘jump scare’ that turns out to be harmless a ‘cat scare’? As in the Night of the Demon and this scene also? I apologise for the pendantry of the last two sentences.
O Rly?
What can I say? It’s not the scene most scholars say is the first jump scare.
Plus, in my mind, I don’t think it’s a “jump scare” at all. Nothing jumps at the audience or pops out of frame. It’s not even a quick edit. It’s mean to be scary, but I think it just depends on the horror of the face reveal which was admittedly great makeup.
I’m not dying on a hill over it, but I think it does share a few characteristics. The quickness of the cut and reveal, particularly, plus the “unexpected” result when you were expecting just a normal face. (Predicated on having never learned the plot of Phantom, which is a dicey thing to assume, but maybe not back then.)
Not a jump scare, though.
I’d argue it’s the opposite of a jump scare. With a jump scare, you feel that something is going to happen. But the key thing about a jump scare is, you have no idea when that something is going to happen, because you’re not being shown everything that’s going on.
Here you know exactly what’s going on - she’s going to take off the mask, which inherently means learning something new - and the audience has a full, clear view of everything.
It’s just good old fashioned suspense: what’s behind the mask, exactly, and oh gosh why is she being slow taking it off?
(Note also that this is a case of the scare resulting from the direct, intentional action of the protagonist. Usually jump scares are things that happen to the protagonist. Before anyone asks, I don’t think the scare at the end of Psycho is a normal jump scare either, for the same reason. Though it has more things in common, namely a quicker, more shocking cut and a more unexpected result. And of course the famous music stinger.)
Even if you were watching it in 1925 I don’t know that the audience was necessarily expecting a normal face. People don’t normally wear masks while “at home” for kicks, after all, and by this point the Phantom has established himself as a genuine weirdo and not just a garden-variety kidnapper doing it for profit. Something unusual is up with the mask, which is why she’s so hesitant to take it off.
Also bear in mind people wearing masks to cover facial deformities were more common then than today, because plastic surgery was not as advanced. Both WWI vets scarred by the war and syphilis victims would often wear masks in public.
3 posts were merged into an existing topic: What Josiah Saw: the best Texas Gothic novel you’ll see all week!
Just leaving this here:
New Netflix horror series has more jump scares in the first episode than any in TV history (ladbible.com)
To save a click: that series is Flanagan’s The Midnight Club. This is terrible news, for me, because after Midnight Mass I was really looking forward his next thing.
Well, “most jump scares in a single episode of a series” is one of those bullshit marketing records Guinness has given out for decades. It’s nigh meaningless because those kinds of records are infamously created by marketing folks and not measured in any objective way. They slap a number up there, (21, in this case) write some puff PR and everyone gets a little boost in popularity, then the record is forgotten about and never contested by anyone ever again.
According to Flanagan in the Deadline article, the number of jump scares he put in that episode was a meta-joke. Obviously, Netflix saw an opportunity to get some free PR by partnering with Guinness.
Flanagan isn’t really a fan of jump scares, but decided he’d shut up those clamoring for more of them by going over the top in the new series.
“I thought, ‘We’re going to do all of them at once, and then if we do it right, a jump scare will be rendered meaningless for the rest of the series.’ It’ll just destroy it. Kill it finally until it’s dead, But that didn’t happen. They were like, ‘Great! More [scares]!'”
So, the movie Smile.
The main jump scare in the film was so, so effective for me. I jumped out of my seat in the movie theater and literally shouted “Holy fuck!” The one I’m referring to is where she’s listening to the recording, turning up the volume, relistening, and then the thing is right next to her. Obviously on the one hand I felt massively manipulated. I was actually leaning closer to the movie screen trying to hear better what was on the recording. It might have been something, maybe not. All of my attention focused on what I was hearing. And it was a total misdirect, the visual scare had nothing to do with that recording. But masterfully framed with the low-light vignette, great sound design, the expression on Sosie Bacon’s face, the giant headphones, slow zoom, everything calculated to pull your attention in. On the other hand, it worked both to highlight and release tension. I don’t know what it means to have “earned” a jump scare, but I was startled and made uneasy, and left more vulnerable to the sense of dread that pervades the rest of the film.
I’m kind of torn on that particular jump scare too. It’s the movie equivalent to being hit across the face with a frying pan: It’s definitely effective, but maybe a little unfair.