Some of the best jump scare movies are the ones that have little going on in the frame for most of the time, allowing the viewer to effectively scare themselves with the power of their own imagination. But this doesn’t mean that the art of the jump scare is beneath great filmmakers, quite the opposite. The best jump scare movies demonstrate that horror masters throughout cinematic history have used the jump as a powerful tool to pull the audience deeper into their terrifying worlds, and while there are often cheap scares, the best ones are the scares that really take viewers by surprise.
The best jump scare movies are the ones that don’t feel cheap to the audience, building up each scenario carefully and methodically over long periods of time to earn the scare. Finding the best jump scare horror movies on places like Netflix is not an easy task, as it requires the film to be both crowd-pleasing in a broad sense and highly attentive to small details at the same time. However, when horror fans find the movies with the best jump scares, they provide something special that elevates the movie to another level.
In 2018, Hell Fest brought a throwback horror movie to the big screen, and it quickly joined the ranks of the best jump scare movies with an impressive 28 jump scares in its running time. The film focuses on a traveling theme park and a masked man known as “The Other” who lives there and kills people visiting the event. When a group of young adults heads out to the carnival, The Other starts to hunt them down, kill them, and leave some of them lying around as trophies.
This allowed the perfect chance for a lot of jump scares throughout the movie when dead bodies pop up out of nowhere, making the killer’s appearances often a surprise. Haunted houses and similar attractions are all built on jump scares with the participants never knowing what is around the next corner. The movie does a great job trying to replicate that feel.
Neil Marshall directed one of the best horror movies of the 2000s with The Descent. This was a hiking horror movie that started with a shocking moment that came as a jump scare when a car accident killed the main protagonist’s husband and daughter. The movie picks up a year later when she goes spelunking with her friends and ends up trapped in caverns where there are mutated creatures that start hunting the women down.
Being in a dark cavern with monsters hiding in the shadows, there was room for very effective jump scares, with a wide array of methods for delivering them. Likely the most famous jump scare is the moment the women begin to feel that there is something in the cave with them leading them to use a camera’s night vision which reveals one of the creatures standing beside them.
The Nun was a spinoff from The Conjuring universe, and it was popular enough that it warranted a sequel in 2023. The sequel explained how the new franchise was connected to The Conjuring and Lorraine Warren. However, the first Nun movie was a very effective example of a jump scare movie with 21 different jump scares in it. The movie had a young nun named Sister Irene who ends up face to face with an ancient evil demon named Valak who takes the form of a demonic nun.
The Nun was well-reviewed and provided horror fans with a scary film regardless of its connection to the overall Conjuring franchise. The franchise is known for its unnerving jump scares which create a sense of tension. The Nun features many memorable ones, including the very startling moment Sister Irene is exploring a tunnel. As she looks down one path, the camera follows her gaze and then returns to her to see a ghostly figure behind her. When she turns to see it, Valak attacks from beside her.
In the 1990s, slasher movies were going out of style, and those were possibly the bottom of the barrel when it came to jump-scare movies as far as doing them respectfully. However, in the 90s, there was one more new slasher icon that arrived before they died out and this was Candyman. The movie is based on an old legend similar to Bloody Mary where a person says the name of the demon three times in a mirror, and he comes to life and kills people.
While it is often assumed the element of surprise is how to make the most effective jump scare, anticipation actually plays a very important role. The audience can assume that when the characters start saying “Candyman” in the mirror, the killer will appear. However, one flashback to a Candyman victim shows how effectively these moments can be dragged out as a woman finally says the name the third time and then swiftly turns off the light only for his reflection to appear.
In 2023, a new horror movie hit theaters that was an immediate hit and might go down as a modern-day classic. This was Talk to Me, which followed a group of young friends who found an embalmed hand that they found out allows them to communicate with the dead if they grasp it. However, those who grasp it too long find themselves falling prey to the dead, who want to bring more to their side.
It doesn’t have nearly as many jumps as the best jump scare movies, but it has three of them total and one of the jumps is better than just about any other horror movie. The central “game” sets the stage for many of the best jump scares as the protagonist reluctantly participates for the first time, using the magic phrase, “talk to me” only for a corpse to be suddenly sitting in front of her. The movie was a huge success and Talk to Me 2 is in development.
It Follows is a high-concept horror movie that’s driven by very simple–yet very effective–scares. The premise is that a curse transmitted through sexual intercourse dooms a person to be followed for the rest of their lives by a slow-moving–but constantly pursuing–entity that will kill them when it catches up to them. Maika Monroe plays Jay, the young woman who is the latest target of the curse.
The best jump scare movies have a never-ending sense of unease to them and, like the main character, the audience never feels safe from this petrifying monster as it can take the form of anyone and appear at just about any moment. This tension builds to very memorable jump scares such as when Jay is hiding out in her friend’s room when a tall form of the entity suddenly emerges from the shadows, silently coming at her.
An experiment conducted in 2020 found that Sinister was the scariest horror movie of all time due to its ability to raise the heart rate of viewers, and it’s fairly easy to why that was the case. The plot sees an author discover a box of old home movies in the attic of his new house that show various gruesome murders. Through the horrific discovery, he begins to suspect that this is the work of a decades-long serial killer.
As the audience is forced to watch each of the movies with him and unravel the disturbing mystery behind them, it becomes impossible to look away from the pulse-pounding horror on display. One of the most jump scares in modern horror comes from one of the videos as the footage seems to be someone filming themselves mowing the lawn at night only for a bound person to appear on the lawn just as the mower goes over them.
Paranormal Activity is a memorable found-footage horror movie that helped to revitalize the genre nearly a decade after The Blair Witch Project. The first film centers on a young couple who are haunted by a supernatural presence in their home, and they set up cameras to document the phenomena with terrifying results. The popularity of the movie spawned a long-running franchise that continued to use a similar approach.
Showing only grainy home video footage might seem like it would minimize the impact of a horror movie. However, Paranormal Activity actually does the opposite as the audience is always looking out for the tiniest movement or listening out for the smallest noise right before the movie delivers a loud shock out of nowhere. There is a slow-burn build-up until the final night recorded by the family which is filled with memorable jump scares including the final image of a possessed woman lunging at the camera.
Brightburn is an intriguing blend of horror and superhero movies focusing on a young boy who comes to Earth from another planet and is raised by a kind couple. However, as the boy gets older, he begins to realize the extent of his powers and turns down a dark path. Exploring the idea of an evil Superman-type figure, Brightburn not only comes with an exciting and original premise, but it comes with a hefty collection of jump scares as well, not to mention one of the highest horror movie kill counts of all time.
The movie’s villain has no need for machetes, hatchets, or elaborate traps to bring the terror, all he needs is a well-aimed gaze. The quick speed of the killer kid makes for some sudden scares, including a scene of him intimidating a scared victim and then lunging at her at superspeed, taking the audience by surprise.