I made the point in my review that the jumpscare is the horror equivalent of the fart joke in comedy.
And none of this does anything to make me or that roomful of cinemagoers engaged with the plot or the creeping existential dread that horror is supposed to create. Similarly, the jumpscare in FNAF is also the point when you necessarily lose all interest in the game, because it’s the point that you get killed.
I think I heard it said in a review of Paranormal Activity by the excellent Red Letter Media people that the whole audience were tense and silent when the build-up was in full swing, but the moment after the jumpscare was over, everyone in the room would immediately relax and lose interest in the film. I don’t do that if I’ve been seeing it coming the whole way, then I just get annoyed at it for drawing itself out. I’ve played plenty of horror games that had jumpscares that I didn’t see coming, but my usual response after extracting my head from the ceiling was to go “Ah, shucks, ya got me” and then continue. Surely the whole point is that a jumpscare is sudden and unexpected. And isn’t it the case that if the anticipation exists, and therefore we have predicted that a jumpscare is going to happen, then the jumpscare has failed before it even started? It’s just the anticipation that I can’t stand. I like the adrenaline rush and the excitement and danger that comes of there suddenly being a monster that I must quickly adapt into my worldview. Games like FNAF and films like the Paranormal Activity movies are almost nothing but jumpscare.īut when we say that something is ‘nothing but jumpscare’, what we mean is that it’s ‘nothing but anticipation’, because a jumpscare is by its nature a very very brief thing. I get all tensed up, can’t focus on the story or anything else, and overall don’t find the experience pleasant, so I don’t seek it out. This may surprise those of you who are used to my demeanor as suave and phlegmatic as a well-paid butler, but I’m a rather jittery person at times, often a bag of nerves about one thing or another, and I can’t stand the anticipation when I’m fairly certain a game or film is setting up a jumpscare. And if they want to take as a victory that I have absolutely no interest in playing it any further, then they’re welcome to it. So, I noticed a fairly predictable response to my statements on Five Nights At Freddy’s a lot of the people who support the game were chalking it up as a win that it was just too scary even for someone who usually enjoys survival horror games.