Cool Horror Videos: AITH Knocks Out Horror Cliches: Jump Scare edition!

By Eric Walkuski

Posted 11 years ago

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Hey gang, it’s time for another installment of our popular video column, “AITH Knocks Out Horror Cliches”! Today’s edition looks at perhaps the most common horror movie cliche of all: the jump scare!

Yes, practically every horror flick – at least in the last few decades – has at least one loud jolt meant to make the audience collectively hop out of its seat. Sometimes it works beautifully, sometimes it falls flat. The best directors in the genre today know how to maximize the effect (think James Wan) without it seeming cheap… but let’s face it, most of the time, it is a cheap trick, utilized by people who don’t know how to scare us any other way.

About the Author

Eric Walkuski

Film Critic

10,340 Articles Published

Favorite Movies: Jaws, Star Wars Trilogy, Aliens, Citizen Kane, The Third Man, Dawn read more of the Dead ('78), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ('74), Fargo, Miller's Crossing, Reservoir Dogs, The Manchurian Candidate ('62), Taxi Driver, Back to the Future, Stand by Me, Shaun of the Dead, Boogie Nights, La Dolce Vita, 12 Angry Men, The Birds, Touch of Evil

Likes: Film, Beer (who the hell DOESN'T around here?!), writing, NY Mets, read more The Jets, Girls who love film AND beer (at the same time), Jazz, Deadwood, The Wire, The Office, The Twilight Zone, Cormac McCarthy, Graham Greene, Stephen King, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Scorsese, Spielberg, Halloween season, Marvel movies, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Ash vs Evil Dead, Game of Thrones, Edgar Allen Poe, Mother Nature

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