What’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen? If it’s not “Sinister”, then you’re WRONG. Because science just determined that it’s the ACTUAL scariest movie of all time.
“Sinister” stars ETHAN HAWKE as a true crime writer who moves into a house where a family was murdered and . . . stuff happens. It came out in 2012.
So how was this decided? Someone chose 50 horror movies, then had 50 people sit down and watch them all . . . and their heart rates were monitored the whole time.
Fifty movies isn’t exactly a comprehensive overview of the horror genre, but they chose them based on their ratings on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. And the list did include many of the supposedly scariest films of all time.
“Insidious” came in second. The test subjects reacted to both of the top movies with an average heart rate of 86 beats per minute. “Sinister” won for keeping their hearts pounding for the entire movie, while “Insidious” got the biggest jump scare.
(They didn’t identify the actual scene with the biggest jump scare, but it was probably this one.)
Here are the Top 20 scariest movies, and the average heart rates they generated:
1. (tie) “Sinister” and “Insidious”, 86 beats per minute.
3. “The Conjuring”, 85 bpm.
4. “Hereditary”, 83 bpm.
5. “Paranormal Activity”, 82 bpm.
6. “It Follows”, 81 bpm.
7. (tie) “The Conjuring 2” and “The Babadook”, 80 bpm.
9. (tie) “The Descent”, “The Visit”, and “The Ring”, 79 bpm.
12. (tie) “A Quiet Place” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, 78 bpm.
14. (tie) “Halloween”, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “28 Days Later”, and “The Exorcist”, 77 bpm.
18. “Hush”, 76 bpm.
19. “It”, 75 bpm.
20. “Scream”, 73 bpm.
It’s interesting that everything in the Top 10 came out within the last 20 years. THEN you start seeing more classic stuff.
It’s kind of amazing that legendary flicks like “Halloween”, “Chainsaw”, and “The Exorcist” don’t even make the Top 10, but tastes change. I mean, people were terrified of the old “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” movies when they first came out in the ’30s and ’40s.
Some other classic movies that appear further down the list include “The Omen”, “The Shining”, “Alien”, “The Thing”, and “Friday the 13th”.
