32 Days of Halloween XVII, Day 26
A History of Jump Scares
A Victorian Ghost Story
So here’s an interesting video about the history and evolution of jump scares. Two things before you watch, though: SPOILERS for a lot of movies if you haven’t seen them. Especially The Greatest Jump Scare of All Time, which if you don’t instantly know what I’m talking about, you probably haven’t seen the film. If you are well versed in horror, you’ll be fine. But if not, and you want to watch, be ready to pause if you find yourself in unfamiliar territory.
Also, he talks about the entire thing of Spielberg not showing Bruce the shark in Jaws because of some plan of suspense, when in reality Bruce the shark just was not functioning all that much. So some of it was indeed planned, but a lot of it was necessity. And now you know…the rest of the story.
Despite those two things, it’s actually a good overview of the cinematic tool and worth watching.
So English Heritage has a series of videos called The Victorian Way, which has actors re-enacting period things (a lot of recipes). Here, the gamekeeper “Mr. Barker” enlists the help of cook “Mrs. Crocombe” in telling a ghost story.
And for tonight’s feature, we have the 1981 film Scared the Death. Not to be confused with the much earlier Bela Lugosi flick. As a sidebar, I’m wondering what the stats would look like on “what bits of humans creatures most want.” I think you’re looking at number one as blood, number two as brains, and number three maybe…spinal fluid. Seriously. Obviously, regular zombies who just want to eat the whole human…I don’t think you can differentiate about a particular part. Anyway, what was I talking about? The film. Anyway. Guard your spines and enjoy.
