In a new study, The Conjuring and A Quiet Place Part II were labeled as some of the scariest movies ever made.
Released just in time for the spooky season, the "Science of Scare" project from Broadband Choices found that those two films landed safely within the Top 10 Scariest Movies, along with the likes of Hereditary, It Follows, Paranormal Activity, and Insidious, with the latter earning the title of "Best Jump Scare in Horror History" by causing an average 133 BPM among study participants. "Our scientific study tracked heart rates throughout some of the world's most iconic horror films, to study the science of scary, and find the undisputed scariest horror film of all time!" Broadband Choices said in a statement published by Bloody Disgusting.
Broadband Choices' statement explained, "We invited 250 'victims' to watch 40 of the world's scariest horror movies, including new entries to the genre from the past 18 months selected from Reddit recommendations (thanks r/horror) and critic's best-of lists."
The team's shortlist of movies also included the Top 30 films that charted in the group's 2020 Science of Scare Project, along with new entries and other movies that may have slipped through the cracks previously.
Participants in the study were fitted with heart rate monitors and tasked with watching 40 films in specially designed "screaming rooms" over the course of several weeks. Each watching session was overseen by medical and researcher supervision. The rankings of each film were determined by the recorded heart rate of the subjects, which was measured in BPM and compared to the average resting BPM of 64.
The honor of #1 Scariest Movie went to Host, which was written and directed by Rob Savage. The research team found, "Despite being shot in just 12 weeks and entirely through Zoom video conferencing, Host terrified our audiences in its short 56-minute runtime, increasing heart rates by an average of 24 BPM and pushing Sinister to second place." Other films that landed in the Top 30 included The Ring, It (2017), The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Exorcist, [REC], 28 Days Later, Candyman (2021), The Grudge, The Invisible Man, Poltergeist, Friday the 13th and Alien.
Additional findings gathered as part of the study included the fact that modern horror movies performed better than classic horror flicks, with just three movies released more than 20 years ago (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) landing in the Top 20.
The 2021 study also found 2016's Terrified to be the Scariest Foreign Language Horror Film, as well as marked the first time in the history of the study that The Exorcist has dropped out of the Top 20.
Source: Broadband Choices via Bloody Disgusting