Scary movies have different effects on everyone. As scariness is linked with physical symptoms, a study created by scientists reveals which movies are considered the scariest ones of all time. Fair warning, the top-ranked results alone are shocking.
Watching a scary movie can make your heart race, cause shakiness, and trigger anxious breathlessness. Men’s Journal shared the fourth annual report from broadbandchoices Science of Scare Project which revealed the top 50 scariest movies of all time. Researchers gave 250 participants heart monitors that recorded their reactions while they watched hundreds of scary movies. These scores were based on a person’s heart rate, heart rate variance, and assigned a “scare score” out of 100.
This time around, the winner of the scariest movie of all time is…Sinister with a score of 96. The Ethan Hawke-led horror film first made it to the top spot of this study back in 2020. After experiencing defeat for the past two years, it’s surprising this top-rated movie of 2012 made a comeback this year. Researchers disclosed in a statement the chill factor this particular horror film had on its audience.
“Our audience experienced a 34 percent uplift in heart rate when watching [Sinister], from 64 BPM up to 86 BPM across the movie, with the film’s scariest moment sending hearts pounding to 131 BPM.”
Ethan Hawke played a struggling true-crime author who discovers in his new house startling footage of a family murder. When the old footage hints that a supernatural force was at play, this puts him and his family in danger. The study’s results found the movie to be “a perfect balance of startling moments and slow-burn scares.”
What other horror films ranked?
For two years in a row from 2021-2022, the indie horror flick Host was in first place in the Science of Scare Project study. This year, however, Host dropped down to second place. Another unexpected twist showed that lower-budget, direct-to-streaming projects had a more chilling effect on audiences than well-known legacy ones.
The Fantasia Film Festival premiere film Skinamarink made it to third place, followed by Insidious. For the James Wan horror film, audiences experienced a BPM spike higher than all of the top 50 movies, rising to 133 with a resting heart rate of 64. This means Insidious featured the most frightening scene that any audience saw out of all of the movies they watched.
With a BPM spike of 132, The Conjuring made it to fifth place, followed by Hereditary, Smile, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Hell House LLC, and Talk to Me. Further down the list were classic horror movies that audiences loved generations ago, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at 23rd place, followed by 25th place’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween at 26th place, and The Exorcist at number 32. It’s hard to believe that The Nun 2 proved to be scarier than The Exorcist in 28th place.
This generation of audiences clearly freaks out at relatable elements in this techno-centric world, like found footage absurdities. Psychos with masks or supernatural possessions just aren’t scaring people the same way as they did 50 years ago.
