I did a super scientific study once where I monitored my heart rate while watching movies that were listed as being the scariest. The highest my heart rate went was during a scene in the movie Hereditary, where it went up to a whopping 85 bpm!
Yeah, I don’t get scared easily LMAO but the answer is Hereditary!
I’m not sure that’s a very good measure of fear, though.
If you showed me an average jump-scare-infused “horror” flick of the variety that gets tossed out by the film-making industry every five minutes or so, you’d see my blood pressure and heart rate spike each time, but five minutes after the end I’d likely not even be able to identify that film it was I’d watched.
On the other hand, The Thing (the John Carpenter version) keeps me feeling unsettled each time I think of it (and has the occasional starring role in my rare nightmares). During the movie, though? Maybe a blood pressure increase, and a slight increase in heart rate. But nothing compared to the jump-scare fodder.
The Thing (OG, of course) unreasonably scared me, so much so that while shivering during the blood test scene I was thinking to myself “This is literally all practical effects why am I so utterly terrified?”
The OG was from 1951. You mean the 1982 remake.
I had the 2011 reboot in mind :P
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Doesn’t look like it but no single other film shattered me as much as this one when I first saw it, well, in the 90s.
This was my answer too - this film really got under my skin in a way that most traditional scary films don’t, and Tim Robbins is riveting, as always. I was not prepared.
This was my answer too - this film really got under my skin in a way that most traditional scary films don’t, and Tim Robbins is riveting, as always. I was not prepared.
Neither was I. Would you have known younger me of back then it would not have come as surprise to say I was a little more than receptive to this movie. Watching it, I was absolutely terrified and shattered. Like you said, Time Robin was amazing as he often is.
