this is the movie Cat people and that was the world's first jump scare they've come a long way but jump scares continue to be a pivotal tool for filmmakers looking to shock Their audience we'll look at some of the most influential jump scares throughout all of Cinema to see how they evolved over time but for now let's get back to the olden days before cat people there had been some similar moments in films like the face reveal in 1925 silent film The Phantom of the Opera or this screeching coatu in 1941 Citizen Cane which according to Orson Wells actually wasn't intended to scare but instead to wake up an audience whose attention may have been drifting but cat people is the first to hit all the criteria of what we know as the modern jump scare one a build intention like this long quiet tracking shot two an audio queue which could be music or some diagetic sound like these screeching bus breaks three a play on audience expectations we expect a threat from behind her frame left and we expect it to be a villain or a monster but instead we get a bus from frame right clister are you riding with me or ain't it and finally four the director's intent to scare the audience this tried and true formula established in cat people led to jump scares becoming more more ubiquitous in horror films throughout the 40s and 50s Q Montage of early movie jump scares each follows the same pattern monster appears Q music scare audience see it's getting old already audiences eventually became Savvy to the point that jump scares were parody in comedies like this one in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein time for the director to get creative in 1958's hideous Sun demon the director cuts to the character's point of view shot for the scare making it feel as though the monster is coming straight for the audience this Innovative jump scare from Alfred Hitchcock Psycho is the first time a film's musical score is inextricably linked with the shock and horror of the [Music] moment the orchestral strings sting is jarring overwhelming totally out of context with the music that precedes it and of course it went on to become iconic and Unforgettable in 1965 repulsion introduced a new technique to the form the mirror reveal remember this moment because this technique is going to come up a lot in future [Music] films here in 1967's Wait Until Dark there are two Innovative things happening the first thing to notice is the kinetic movement of the villain as he literally leaps across the screen from the darkness this is going to pave the way for more visually arresting jump scares in the future the second and arguably bigger Innovation is the use of dramatic irony dramatic irony is a formal element of Storytelling where the audience knows and sees more than the protagonist does in this case the main character is blind so she experiences this jump scare in a non-visual way entirely different from how the movie goinging audience is experiencing it time cut 8 years forward Steven Spielberg masterfully plays with audience expectations and Jaws you are anticipating the titular shark to jump out and scare you instead we get this creepy dead body Spielberg was fully aware that by holding off on showing the monster aka the shark for as long as possible the tension and expectation just continues to grow it's all psychological you yell shark we've got a panic on our hands on the 4th of July jump scares have to continually evolve because if they stagnate and stay the same audiences will stop being scared thus the jump scare formula was once again stale and due for another Innovation imagine it's 1976 and you just finished the movie Carry credits are about to roll and you're collecting your belongings and preparing to throw away your popcorn when bam with this Brian dealma created the first final moments jump scare we can see this trend continued in Friday the 13th where the filmmakers trick the audience into thinking they are watching the actual closing shots of the [Music] [Applause] film only to be harshly interrupted by a jump scare another way the jump scare has been improved upon is by using other pre-existing film techniques here in the 1977 movie shock we see what's called a Texas switch to typically used to switch a stunt person with an actor seamlessly in a single shot but when a completely new person pops into frame it definitely works as a jump scare this jump scare in Halloween actually ends up being a fake out oh look fake outs are a jump scare staple creating a Czech hov's gun effect they provide a momentary release in tension but leave the eventual jump scare still on the table effectively creating more tension in the long run about 15 years after the first mirror jump scare we get this tweak to the format by now audiences expected something scary to be revealed in the reflection they did not however expect this the classic monster jump scare was also due for a modern facelift in 1979 alien brought it back in full force with this unique frenzied sequence as opposed to a slow build towards a loud sudden scare the repeated beeping of the monitor showing something coming towards our protagonist coupled with the desperate pleading of his friends for him to get away work our nerves up there's nothing to tip us off to exactly when the alien will appear and when it does we only get the faintest of terrifying glimpses and then static also bonus fake out here it's a cat time for the introduction of yet another Trope in American Werewolf in London we see one of the first instances of a character waking up from a nightmare only to discover he's still in the nightmare this is common place now but was extraordinarily effective at the time ladies and gentlemen this then paved the way for many of the jump scares in a Nightmare on Elm Street I'm crazy after Q the Freddy montage [Applause] [Music] [Applause] it's all over wake up Jesus some of the most effective jump scares happen while the audience's guard is down Friday the 13th Part Two uses a brilliant distraction to throw us off adorable puppy with a cute bow Jason Vorhees is crashing through a window another way to defy expectations have the human body do something a body doesn't normally do in John Carpenter's astral horror the thing we see a man whose chest is hit with defibrillators do this by going against logic you can create really effective jump scares like this one from 1985's Day of the Dead where a bunch of hands break through concrete walls and jump scares are not only reserved for adults peewee's big adventure gave us another reality defying jump scare and one of the only if not the only clation jump scare with large Marge great staging and lighting can also heighten the Fright levels of a jump scare in 1986 Texas Chainsaw Maser to audiences might have been expecting the bad guy to be standing there [Music] but to have him fullon charging towards the camera the moment the lights come up provided an extra level of surprise here we have another disturbing dream leading to a character being startled awake only to find the real jump scare in the bed next to them and you guessed it that was a dream too or was it Halloween 4 combines both classic misdirection and defying logic to give us this jump scare tension builds as we anticipate Mike Myers leaping out from the closet only for him to grab her leg from under the bed this scare is only in service of the real jump scare immediately after when she opens the door to find Michael Myers impossibly waiting for her right there Q the 9s considered one of the best of all time this jump scare in The Exorcist 3 happens during a long wide static shot in a hospital hallway the shot almost lulls the audience to sleep as people go about their routines a warden walks in the back a nurse goes in and out of a room checking to make sure the lights are off everyday ordinary activities no music plays nothing moves in the foreground this shot holds for more than 35 seconds an incredibly long time for a static shot and then by going against convention filmmakers find new ways to expand how to make a jump scare really work that's exactly what is done in 1992's Candyman here we would expect a scare reveal in the mirror's reflection instead we get the scare coming through the medicine cabinet Jurassic Park gave us no time to prepare for this jump scare the push in on a smiling character in a triumphant moment is enough to tell the audience to let their guard down however briefly but that's when the Raptors Always Get You clever girl David Fincher in a way turned the jump scare on its head in 19957 pun intended what's in the box while a common jump scare involves the reveal that someone is dead or Undead vure built a jump scare out of the terrifying realization that this corpse looking man was actually still alive he's alive he's alive in the mid99s a movie franchise came along to turn all horror tropes on their head while still honoring the genre that movie was scream as a meta Love Letter to horror movies of course scream is going to feature a lot of jump scares in fact Ghost Face may be the horror villain with the most jump scares in any single franchise cue that scream Montage he's going to try and kill me we'll be safe if we stick together won't we of course why we scream being being a meta commentary on horror movies and their tropes it of course utilizes meta jump scares to fake out terrorize and thrill its audience sorry sorry oh my God Randy I thought you were dead I probably should be I never thought I'd be so happy to be a virgin traditionally the target of a jump scare is the protagonist or good guy Robert zamus turned this on his head by jump scaring the bad guy here Harrison Ford's character the antagonist looks like he's finally got our protagonist right where he wants her only for the ghost of a former victim of his to appear and scare him as special effects evolved it meant that CGI was on a crash course with the jump scare here in The Fellowship of the Ring kindly old Bilbo baggin's face suddenly morphs into a sharp tooth crazy eyed monster right before our eyes it was sent to the local news Bureau there and sent to us via satellite just a few minutes in 2002's signs ight Shyamalan had this very fresh take on the jump scare maybe it works because both the protagonist and the audience are watching the same screen together in anticipation connecting us deeper to the protagonist's terror maybe it's because a newscaster literally tells us it's coming that makes the shock of it pay off so well or maybe it's that it's rewound replayed and freeze framed immediately after the initial scare that makes it that much more haunting Jan The Grudge took a place we all think of as the safest under under the covers of our bed and made it so nowhere is safe from a jump scare also great mirror scare and then the ring shocked audiences with an unexpected edit her face this jump scare doesn't come from anywhere within the context of the scene instead it appears to be a sudden vivid memory of one of the characters implemented with a jolting out ofthe blue cut away to this terrifying [Music] face not every jump scare works this one Falls flat partially because the audience was familiar with these tropes also the actors don't have a very big reaction once the creeper is revealed he just kind of hangs there there's no escalation in Terror and the scene stops surprising us the hell does it want the Blair Witch Project ushered in a new genre of horror the found footage film and with it a new style of jump scares The Descent may have perfected it in 2005 with cutaways to POV night vision camera shots while characters are lost deep in a system of caves the handheld shots put the audience squarely in the center of the character's panic and when it pans over to reveal a terrifying creature behind one of them we feel like we are right there in danger with them following that Trend in 2007 we get another up close and personal scare from the POV of a character using a camera and light to explore an attic taking their time scanning a full 360° we're still not prepared when this boy's face pops up screaming at us perhaps the most unexpected jump scares come in nonh horror films like this one in 2008's the Dark Knight when a Batman Effigy slams into a skyscraper window out of nowhere cu the non horror jump scare Montage it's 2010 Paranormal Activity 2 employs security camera style footage to up the realism making it that much more effective when before our eyes with seamless practical effects the house cabinet simultaneously burst open possibly an homage to the six cense pce plays a big role in how we feel about a jump scare Insidious director James Wan employed a simple shot reverse shot format of characters talking at a table unconsciously relaxing the audience into the flow of the conversation so when we cut back to Patrick Wilson's character and a terrifying demon is just over his shoulder we are not ready for it Sinister takes the found footage jump scare and switches it up putting us in the POV of the antagonist as opposed to our main character holding the camera as as he creeps around he watches people through the windows the muted audio makes us subconsciously let our guard down so when the lawnmower suddenly runs over the face of a man accompanied by an otherworldly scream audiences were jolted awake as the webcam became a more commonly used communication tool there was bound to be a found footage jump scare utilizing this technology here in VHS we have two people speaking over the internet and from the darkness behind one comes the ghostly image of a child rushing into the room and slamming the door 2014's the Baba duuke played with how the monster actually moves to implement a jump scare when the protagonist removes the covers to look up the ceiling she is shocked to see the Baba du but the jump scare comes when it flies at her in a single straight stop motion way we don't see it getting closer it just is closer and closer and closer in The Conjuring we get a jump scare from what is typically not the source of anyone's fear A Pair of Hands clapping it follows director David Robert Mitchell built tension by continually delaying gratification in a series of fake outs each time the protagonist opens the door we're expecting something terrifying to leap at her with a loud scream and burst of music but instead she finds her concerned friends everything's okay so when the creepy tall figure slowly and quietly emerges from the Shadows behind her friend the payoff is huge Tony in 2015 Hell House LLC added a new layer to the jump scare when knowledge the audience learns later makes the initial jump scare even more frightening here character is startled by what he thinks is his friend Tony in a creepy clown mask he then walks away and discovers Tony sitting in another room right what the are you doing if Tony's there who's in the clown [Music] costume in it chapter 1 as the kids watch the projector speed up we can see what's coming the slow reveal of the face of Pennywise in the photo being projected what we don't expect is his humongous craze face to actually pop out the projector screen and now we're in The [Music] 2020s 2020s Invisible Man employs a unique way of revealing a jump scare instead of Lights coming up or a door opening or something popping out of a hiding place our protagonist dumps a can of paint down some attic stairs exposing the Invisible Man is just inches from her face in 2022 smile we have no reason to have our guard up at all as this out of focused but completely normal looking character approaches the protagonist sitting in her car in broad daylight so when the head defies all physics and comes into view in the window even seasoned horror veterans were caught off guard for decades jump scares have had audiences leaping out of their seats it has bled into every part of Pop Culture even reaching video games and music videos who will be the next innovator to build upon the formula and how will they do it the only thing we can say with certainty is no one will see it coming it's a cat Cut to credits