Scare easy ?
Then proceed with caution.
The first episode of the new Netflix series The Midnight Club has broken a world record for jump scares.
The show comes from co-creator Mike Flanagan, whose previous Netflix projects include The Haunting of Hill House, its follow-up The Haunting of Bly Manor, and 2021’s Midnight Mass. Flanagan also directed the adaptation of Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining, titled Doctor Sleep.
After the 10-episode show debuted on Friday (7 October), its first episode, “The Final Chapter”, has been named by the Guinness Book Of World Records as the single television episode with the most amount of jump scares. It clocks in 21 in rapid, borderline non-stop succession.
Flanagan told Deadline in a statement: “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]!’”
The irony being that Flanagan has been vocal about his hatred of the jump scare technique.
“My whole career I completely shit on jump scares as a concept, and I wanted to make sure it was pinned to me, too, as much as it is to the show, to Netflix, and all of us who have inflicted this on everyone,” said Flanagan in the same interview.
“Now, I have my name in the Guinness Book of World Records for jump scares, which means next time I get the note, I can say, ‘You know, as the current world record holder for jump scares, I don’t think we need one here.’”
The Midnight Club is based on the popular book series by Christopher Pike and focuses on terminally ill teens at a mysterious hospice, Brightcliffe Hospice Care for Teenagers. There, they form the titular club and meet every night to tell each other sinister stories. They also agree to a pact that whoever dies first will try to come back to tell the others if there is an afterlife. Think about it as the book club from hell, and as you can imagine, those sweet condemned raviolis didn’t think about it too long or hard – even a casual horror fan can tell you that with a set-up that ominous, none of this will end well.
What is a jump scare and why do they get such a bad rep?
Anyone who has ever seen a horror movie has experienced a jump scare.
It’s when something suddenly appears on screen, reaching out of nowhere to shock you. They are usually prefaced by quiet and then a sudden obnoxious sound effect that will have you jumping out of your seat. And perhaps your skin.
The momentarily effective tactic is good for a quick adrenaline rush, but it can’t be denied that the jump scare finds itself at the intersection between being startled and actually being scared.
Spoiler: it’s the tension-murdering former.
Jump scares are too often used for instant shock value and because so many recent horror films rely on them too heavily, they feel cheap, unearned and even predictable. This renders the scare as nothing more than a cattle prod tactic that too frequently bypasses character and plot within the film (or series), as well as the viewer’s sense of internal logic, as it works purely on reflexes and people’s startle response.
The moment ends up feeling like a get-out alternative when a filmmaker can’t come up with a more creative scare.
Still, as much as ubiquity in modern horror has given the jump scare a bad reputation, some horror movies know how to effectively use the technique to properly scare, as opposed to temporarily startle. Like all maligned tropes, there are some redeeming ones that show there is an art to perfecting a calibrated jump scare. Ultimately, and much like comedy, it comes down to the need for a proper set-up, timing, and a merited pay-off.
Here are a few examples of the ones that got it just right.
Cat People (1942)
Alice (Jane Randolph) has been flirting with her married coworker Oliver (Kent Smith). The snag…
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