The Age of Screamers/Jumpscares - Did you beat the maze?

[Ad Lib Moaning]

From the beginning to the exorcist girl maze, and ending to the... whatever it ended with; Let talk about jumpscares.

Don't worry, it's a still image. No sudden pop-up here!

They were EVERYWHERE, you couldn't go two videos without one. You'd be a fool to not check the comments and skip through the video first, because it's probably going scare you half to death otherwise. Or games, how about those tic-tac-toe games? The mazes? Only to end with a piercing scream of 200 decibels and a face.

And then it moved on, to pictures that are thought to be still but you didn't know they are animated gifs, "hidden lyrics in this song if you play it backwards", or chain e-mails.

And it moved further on to "Look at this one closely", "Turn up your volume", etc. Even comments would lie to you. The constant dread grows with every link we click, and thus we grew more careful.

I feel as if screamers died off in like 2008-ish, and the Korean comic in 2011-ish (pleasantly) surprised me. It was nice in a way, forgetting that jumpscares still exist and nobody expected it from a comic. And, it died again.

But even then, I would rather have screamers stay dead not because they cause fear out of random, but because Letplayers purposely finding them and posting videos, going all "lol that's not scary at all!". Also, movies taking that formula and doing it wrong.

What are you guys thoughts about this sort of thing in general? Did you encountered any neat ones?

 

[Rumpled Foreskin]

0/10

You provided no jump scares. Lame.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

They inspired the age of jumpscares in movies so I fucking hate them.

 

[FierceBrosnan]

.gif you say?

 

[LofaSofa]

I know the argument against jumpscares is that they're more startling than scary. But being startled is just being scared, really fast. So I think jumpscares are a necessary evil and can be fun if done right.

 

[Rand /pol/]

Okay

 

[Nekromantik]

New I know the argument against jumpscares is that they're more startling than scary. But being startled is just being scared, really fast. So I think jumpscares are a necessary evil and can be fun if done right.

The key word here is if. They can be done right, but they lose their effectiveness if you see them every 5 minutes in a movie.

I remember one of the old rules of /x/ was, check the file type. That's how you didn't get caught by a jump scare. Good times.

 

[RG 448]

They work as a punishment for losing, like in Five Nights at Freddy’s, but otherwise they’re lazy and obnoxious.

 

[Judge Holden]

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The key word here is if. They can be done right, but they lose their effectiveness if you see them every 5 minutes in a movie.

I remember one of the old rules of /x/ was, check the file type. That's how you didn't get caught by a jump scare. Good times.

Yeah, when there is a proper setup for a jump scare (i.e it is utilized after the levels of dread and forboding is blown up the proverbial bubble and now all that is needed is a proverbial needle to pop it in the form of a jump scare) or it is used strategically in order to change the mood and tone of a story with little buildup it can be extremely effective at changing gears.

For the former strain of "good jump scares" there are many, a more recent example would be the "tall man" moment in It Follows in which the jump scare is not trumpeted out of nowhere to make a scene spoopy, but is the culmination of a whole bunch of freaky shit and a spike of the underlying tension of the movie.

One can also look at the axe murder scene in The Shining since that whole scene is dripping with tension since it is literally a character arriving to the hotel that unbenknownst to him (but very known to the audience) has a violent and insane psychopath with an axe lurking somewhere within and waiting for him, and in a somewhat similar note the scene in Alien where a character is stalking the xenomorph in the vents using the motion tracker only to realise he is himself being hunted now, right up until the xenomorph ambushes him.

As for the "comes out of nowhere relatively speaking but abruptly and violently shifts the gears in the story" then Psycho is the obvious choice for a good moment since this changes a story of "woman steals money and hides out in motel owned by eccentric nice guy" to "JESUS FUCK THE MAIN CHARACTER JUST GOT STABBED TO DEATH BY A SERIAL KILLER!" but even in movies which already start off as unabashed horror movies these moments can work, for example the chum scene in Jaws, or the moment in Texas Chain Saw Massacre where a character knocking on a neighbors door to try and get gas winds up having this happen to him, which is what sets the mood for the rest of the film

But yeah, these days its become the standard for any hack film maker, or any film dominated by hack execs to fill the thing with derivative crappy SCARECORD-BOO! moments since its assumed this will make the film popular with theatre goers

 

[Princess Peaches]

I was so disappointed when my brother promised that the highway jump scare vid had a giraffe in the background but it was actually a screamer.

 

[ZehnBoat]

I know the argument against jumpscares is that they're more startling than scary. But being startled is just being scared, really fast. So I think jumpscares are a necessary evil and can be fun if done right.

sort of agree
any piece of media should only have one jumpscare though
and it better be worth it

bioshock oddly enough has one of the best in games
and then infinite did it too but it fell on it's face

the second pirates of the caribbean movie had a decent one too
still scared the crap out of me despite the fact that it telegraphs it ahead of time

 

[Nekromantik]

But yeah, these days its become the standard for any hack film maker, or any film dominated by hack execs to fill the thing with derivative crappy SCARECORD-BOO! moments since its assumed this will make the film popular with theatre goers

Biggest problem with modern jump scares is they feel they need that loud music sting to go with it. It's basically the film holding up a sign to tell people, this is when you should be scared now, this is scary, wooooooooooooooooo!

Look at the clip from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It had no stupid loud music that tried to make it more scary, hell, it didn't have any music. If something jumps out and is scary it doesn't need any help. Leatherface is just fine on his own doing his thing. Not even haunted houses at Halloween are this stupid, and that's built on jump scares.

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[Ad Lib Moaning]

Biggest problem with modern jump scares is they feel they need that loud music sting to go with it. It's basically the film holding up a sign to tell people, this is when you should be scared now, this is scary, wooooooooooooooooo!

I always thought that sort of thing is edited in by other studio(s) or whatever that is not by the original staff/person. And the original staff/director/whatever couldn't do anything since its not their staff/studio.

I seen some modern scares that could be good, but there's always that bwooooom noise right before it happens or a loud chore during it.

Lights Out has a few scares that works without that noise (especially the scenes where the shade just creeps along on the background or that one scene where she's just writing on the floor and then turns her head to stare and then she's suddenly gone with no payoff) but they're dissappointely heralded by the bwooom noise. Even the creator himself said he doesn't like it, and his short films before that doesn't have it.

 

[Methylcellulose]

Still bothers me to this day that they put these screamers in little children's videos like Peppa Pig. Poor kids.

 

[Nekromantik]

I seen some modern scares that could be good, but there's always that bwooooom noise right before it happens or a loud chore during it.

It's one of the reasons I've started to watch less modern horror films. That loud boom noise jolts me out of the movie. It's like having someone right next to my head banging a pot. And how many times is the jumps scare going to be a cat. It's gotten to the point where I can pinpoint when one is coming up too.

 

[The Decimator]

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Not gonna lie, that actually made me jump

 

[UnsufficentBoobage]

I managed to look at that Korean comics end first (browser auto-scrolled to the down of each heavy page as it loaded, idk why), and "scare" part looks real funny if you scroll that shit up.

 

[R.A.E.L.]

I always fell for these things. Hate.

 

[NimertiS]

I was about 17 when an asshole sent me a video like this. I screamed in the middle of the night.

I fell for similar screamers, about 3 times, I hate them from my heart and I hate everyone who posted pictures of these.

 

[Nekromantik]

I just remembered the old JK cinema Urban Legends, had a few jump scares in them. I think they were made on flash back in the day. The website is long gone, but thankfully someone saved them on youtube.