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The first "jump scare" is generally credited to Wait Until Dark from 1967. While it's almost certainly not literally the first instance (like someone noted earlier, Psycho in 1960 has a couple moments that arguably fit the bill), it's sort of like how Halloween is generally considered the first "slasher movie" despite some earlier movies that you could also fit into the genre. It established the convention. Other important moments in jump scare history include the endings Carrie and Friday the 13th. The first "oh it's just a cat" jump scare I can recall is the beginning of Friday the 13th Part 2 (and yes, it was literally a jumping cat in that movie).
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Jul 22, 2015 18:23
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 00:30 |
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Scary scenes are subjective, what may be a "jumpsscare" for you could be just lovely movie techniques to others. So much doublespeak makes me want to buy a cane just so I can shake it in anger.
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Jul 22, 2015 19:04
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Basebf555 posted:Hmmm, people really do have different ideas about what jump scares are I guess. I always thought the "jump" in jump scare referred to the viewer physically jumping a little bit out of the seat. The jump in a jump scare is definitely something within the movie used to startle due to a sudden appearance. Psycho was not the first, but its use of jump scares is kind of what cemented them in film (stair scene with Hermann's screeching, and ESPECIALLY the mom's reveal). Compare the scares in Nosferatu/Dracula/Wolfman/etc. (slow reveals, flowing score when the evil appears) to the post Psycho years.
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Jul 22, 2015 19:06
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lizardman posted:
The first was Cat People of all things, I think, only reversed. Panther people were the villains, so a screech coming from something else was the "oh it was just a..."
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Jul 22, 2015 19:08
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Febreeze posted:Surprised we got this far and no one mentioned the birthday scene in Signs. This is my favorite jump scare too I think. I must have been 10 or 11 when I saw this in theaters and this scene made me LOSE MY poo poo. I think it works because it builds up the suspense a little bit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nvnk4cooxU Personally, I'm not really a fan of the jump scare. When it's done well, that's fine, but I think it's definitely an over used technique that's done wrong more often than it's done right. I like movies like It Follows that really build up suspense. When I watched that, I felt like the suspense had me really anticipating a jump scare as some kind of relief... but not getting that relief the tension just keeps building and building and for me it was truly horrifying. I think where movies are getting it wrong is the jump scares aren't providing relief to any real suspense or dread, it's just one jump scare after another with no feeling in between - and that's what makes them "cheap" Trollipop fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Jul 22, 2015 |
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Jul 22, 2015 19:28
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lizardman posted:The first "jump scare" is generally credited to Wait Until Dark from 1967. It was mentioned earlier in the thread that a jump scare is sometimes called a "Lewton Bus" because of this scene from Val Lewton's Cat People from 1942: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoXo8eeEdo0 I'm not sure who considers Halloween to be the first slasher either. People who never saw Black Christmas or Twitch of the Death Nerve or Texas Chainsaw Massacre or a whole slew of gialli I guess? Halloween was definitely a huge contributor, but it's not nearly the "first" or the film that established so many of the conventions that define those films. That's for a different thread though. There were also plenty of cat scares before F13 Part II. The Uncanny for example is basically a whole film filled with cat scares, although the cats are in fact the menace and not a distraction from actual menace!
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Jul 22, 2015 20:18
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Literal William Castle jumpscares that have a joy buzzer underneath your seat in the theater.
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Jul 22, 2015 20:20
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Literal William Castle jumpscares that have a joy buzzer underneath your seat in the theater.  House on Haunted Hill screenings also had plastic skeletons to hang on wires and slide above the audience.
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Jul 22, 2015 20:22
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Oh, I really was just writing from the top of my head with the Friday the 13th Part 2 example. Hell, not long after I remembered Alien had a cat scare two years earlier (again, it was just a cat). The slasher thing with Halloween and comparing it with Wait Until Dark, I've often heard of it being "the first" slasher, though I think it's understood to be shorthand for starting a convention/trend, it became a 'thing' in the general consciousness. "Oh, it's one of THOSE movies." The majority of slasher films that came out post-1978 were chasing Halloween, not anything that came before.
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Jul 22, 2015 20:28
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Carpenter didn't invent the conventions of slasher films, for me that credit goes to Bava. But Carpenter did hit on something when he set the movie on Halloween, and made the characters babysitters and little kids living in an idyllic suburban neighborhood. That stuff really struck a chord with audiences and for the most part Bava's characters are less innocent than the ones in Halloween. Also Bava's films would usually have some sort of an explanation for who the killer is and why he's doing what he's doing. Black Christmas and Halloween did away with all that and simplified things.
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Jul 22, 2015 20:39
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Basebf555 posted:But Carpenter did hit on something when he set the movie on Halloween, and made the characters babysitters and little kids living in an idyllic suburban neighborhood. Sure, but what he hit on was copying Black Christmas.
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Jul 22, 2015 20:43
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Jumpscares are good, and I should know; I am one.
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Jul 22, 2015 20:46
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James Wan is just... just ok.
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Jul 22, 2015 20:47
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InfiniteZero posted:Sure, but what he hit on was copying Black Christmas. Its definitely a shame that Black Christmas doesn't ever get the attention it deserves, as demonstrated by me leaving it out of my last post. I'd still argue that college girls in a dorm over Christmas break isn't really the same as kids trick r treating on Halloween night in the suburbs. Its Carpenter letting his monster loose on the literal American Dream, Black Christmas had a more random feel to it, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just different. Carpenter totally ripped off a bunch of elements from Black Christmas though, no arguing that.
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Jul 22, 2015 20:49
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Halloween touches a nerve because of the same things that tie into Just World Fallacy. People like thinking that any effect they experience is from something they directly cause. It removes the fear of random chance being able to screw us over in an instance. That's also where the mentality of "they deserved it" with rape victims or people who were robbed, or the recent police killings comes from. As long as there is a direct cause and effect on the point of the victim that brought about their own demise, they can export it to people that don't handle things the same way they do, where they would be safe. Halloween breaks this completely. A normal kid, in a normal suburban home, kills his sister for no reason.A babysitter that randomly puts something in a door draws the killer's attention. It's just normal stuff that anyone does that draws death to them, and there's nothing you can do about it. It can affect the people in the audience, no matter who they are. The sequels and the remake screwed all of this up by adding a bunch of causes (she was his sister, that's why he chased her - he was in a cult - he was abused), but the original was extremely effective for this reason and that's why it had such an impact on people. If you look at many of the horror movies known as the most "disturbing," they generally share this any place, any time, can happen to anyone type of approach because they make people feel their own mortality.
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Jul 22, 2015 21:31
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If it wasn't for jump scares we'd never have PewDeePie and that would be a shame.
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Jul 22, 2015 21:38
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Darko posted:Halloween breaks this completely. A normal kid, in a normal suburban home, kills his sister for no reason.A babysitter that randomly puts something in a door draws the killer's attention. It's just normal stuff that anyone does that draws death to them, and there's nothing you can do about it. It can affect the people in the audience, no matter who they are. If it wasn't for those meddling Druids!
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Jul 22, 2015 22:29
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The best jump scare of all time is the bed scene at the end of Prince of Darkness. That hosed me up as a kid and still gets me now.
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Jul 22, 2015 22:43
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My favorite jump scare is when 007 attacks the British guy with bad teeth who is the bad guy.
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Jul 22, 2015 22:51
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Million Ghosts posted:The best jump scare of all time is the bed scene at the end of Prince of Darkness. That hosed me up as a kid and still gets me now. It's so stupid that it almost comes around for me. It comes only a few moments after another jump scare so it's always seemed silly to me.
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Jul 22, 2015 22:54
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I feel like the definition is being over-thought: a cheap jump scare is the cinematic equivalent of yelling, "BOO!" It has no substantive effect on the overall plot or lasting effect on the viewer, but golly gosh it was startling for a a moment. It's been too long since I've seen The Machinist, so I can't recall specific examples right now, but it goes without saying that any jump scares are of a higher quality. I do recall a scene on the spook house carnival ride that uses jump cuts to scary imagery, flashing lights, and something bad happens to a character that affects the rest of the movie. It starts with a slow buildup, Trevor is riding a corny haunted house ride with a young boy. The boy is creeped out by the ghouls and goblins, Trevor plays along with it for his sake but naturally isn't moved by any of it. The imagery becomes very adult, though, showing prostitution, a murder, and other scenes of real-world scariness that are completely inappropriate for a child. Trevor expresses his disapproval and tells the boy to cover his eyes, that's when flashing lights appear, the imagery gets more startling, then the kid starts foaming at the mouth and seizing. There are some scares as the camera jumps to various grotesque scenes, then jumps to the boy having a full-on seizure.
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Jul 22, 2015 23:06
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:It's so stupid that it almost comes around for me. It comes only a few moments after another jump scare so it's always seemed silly to me. That's why I dig it. It's like one of those stupid moments where a cat jumps outta the closet then the real scare happens, only it's all real scares.
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Jul 22, 2015 23:11
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lizardman posted:The first "jump scare" is generally credited to Wait Until Dark from 1967. I just re-watched Alien. There are a couple cat scares in that one.
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Jul 22, 2015 23:18
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Tenzarin posted:It is more of a trend of really lovely movies using to make them appear as a horror movie. IE Lady in Black, The Conjuring, The Oculus. So by your definition, jump scares are only really jump scares if they occur in movies you don't like or you think the scare is "cheap"?
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Jul 23, 2015 00:51
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I think a great example of what is almost objectively bad jump scaring is the first Resident Evil, where the jump scare chord as around 4x louder than whatever startling that is happening on screen is supposed to be, and horribly timed as well. There are a lot of, "ULTRA LOUD CHORD...half a second, zombie head slowly appears into frame" in there to the point where I don't even know what was happening. It's almost like the composer and director were on two different pages there, or the studio asked him to add more scares or something to a finished movie.
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Jul 23, 2015 01:24
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The best jump scare is when you forgot to log into the forums and you try to go to a thread that's behind the paywall.
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Jul 23, 2015 06:18
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mysterious frankie posted:Jumpscares are good, and I should know; I am one. AH!
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Jul 23, 2015 11:19
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lizardman posted:Friday the 13th. I've seen this movie ten times like everybody else on Earth. I love horror and am not easily frightened or startled by it these days. I rewatched it this past winter and that loving scene made me jump again. I also bought The Exorcist 3 for that hallway scene pretty much.
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Jul 23, 2015 16:33
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Zombies' Downfall posted:I also bought The Exorcist 3 for that hallway scene pretty much. There are plenty of George C. Scott scenes that make it worth it besides just the hallway scene. I feel like it would be redundant to post the carp scene again in this forum, but yea. Its a tasty fish.
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Jul 23, 2015 16:36
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Just watched Insidious 3 which could be fairly described as absolute horseshit interspersed with jump scares that almost felt mandatory every however many minutes. They still made me flinch, and thus were the only portion of the movie to have any impact on me in any way. I'm pro jump scare and don't think they *hurt* any movie. They just don't help out a lovely one very much.
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Jul 23, 2015 19:41
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I'll be back when you least expect it... but you also kind of expect it... but expecting it makes it more tense leading up to when it actually happens... but also you don... you know what? Just... booOOOoooOOoooo.
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Jul 23, 2015 21:00
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Slugworth posted:I'm pro jump scare and don't think they *hurt* any movie. But they clearly do.
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Jul 24, 2015 02:00
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I like a well crafted jump scare but then you have movies like Silent Hill Revelation that is just jump scare after jump scare to the point of it fatiguing you and you no longer finding anything scary just boring.I like a well crafted jump scare but then you have movies like Silent Hill Revelation that is just jump scare after jump scare to the point of it fatiguing you and you no longer finding anything scary just boring.
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Jul 24, 2015 16:36
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My position is that a jump scare is a tool, and it should be used sparingly. If you have a jump scare relatively early on, and it's not a dumb one like a chair falling over with a musical sting but something genuinely creepy happening suddenly, it'll make people more nervous for the rest of the film, dreading what's around the corner more. Same principle applies to video games, most of the best horror games have one or two jump scares early on then just draw out the tension for the rest of the experience. Making a film that relies primarily on jump scares is just garbage, though.
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Jul 25, 2015 01:48
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WeAreTheRomans posted:Good jumpscares: I'd put something like this in the same category. Not a horror movie, but the whole scene comes out of nowhere... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqxV06v-t5A
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Jul 25, 2015 06:37
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I'm actually watching the first Alien film while thinking of this thread. It's funny how everyone seems to demonize jump scares and "it was only a cat!" scares when one of the greatest horror films of all time has both of those in spades (and even the "I'm going to go back, risking my life for my pet" trope nerds hate so much). I guess it boils down to what the rest of the film has which is great atmosphere, spectacular set designs, believable acting, patient editing and above all else cinematography that makes you go "what the gently caress...is THAT?!" when you see the Xenomorph.
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Jul 25, 2015 21:54
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The movie came out in 1979.
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Jul 25, 2015 21:56
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Best scene in the film that illustrates the sweat and grime of living on the frontier of civilization but is otherwise miserable with a miserable ending, it's just misery all the way down.. I was stunned by both surprise events in that scene.
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Jul 25, 2015 22:03
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I don't think I've seen anyone mention The Babadook yet but I think it had a really good dynamic of buildup and release without relying too much on jumpscares for the payoffs.
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Jul 25, 2015 23:06
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Groovelord Neato posted:The movie came out in 1979. The classics prove old tricks work when done right.
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Jul 27, 2015 06:51
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