The Failure of Jump Scares
Ouija (2014) For many years jump scares have been used as a tactic in horror, and when well executed a perfectly used jump scare can be the most memorable and effective scene in a wonderfully frightening film. However, this is not usually the case. Rather than carefully executing jump scares with precision and intense scares, they're wasted on useless instances meant to make the audience flinch or feel momentarily startled rather than deeply frightened. For example, how many horror movies have you seen where a character looks at something ominous, only to be violently startled by a friend jumping up from behind them yelling "hello" as a sound added in post production rings in loudly to make the audience flinch? It's a tactic which wastes the audience's tension on release rather than providing further tension, and it's a tactic which makes for cheap horror movies which end up being more irritating than they are truly frightening. Take, for example, hor...