10 Subtle Tricks Horror Movies Use To Scare You

10. Intentional Continuity Errors

This one is truly insidious, mainly because lazy directors can pull it off by accident and seem like veritable horror geniuses after the fact.

For most films, continuity errors are minor missteps at best and slightly embarrassing mistakes at worst. Most viewers scarcely even notice a minor error, and of the few who do, very few audience members would say that an inconsistent background ruined their cinema experience.

But from some horror filmmakers, continuity errors can become a mind game they can play on unsuspecting viewers.

This may be as simple as a chair appearing and disappearing in the background between shots, a tiny minor detail which only obsessive re-watcher would be able to single out but which the viewer is subconsciously able to perceive without devoting their focus to it. This leaves them with an ineffable sense that something is "off", a vague feeling the director has subtly slipped in.

Or it could be as elaborate as cinematic master Stanley Kubrick's approach when filming the Overlook Hotel sets for The Shining. The legendary director made it clear through camerawork that the hotel was a geometric impossibility with overlapping floors and dead ends everywhere, but the effect on moviegoers was disorientation and a mild headf*** feeling.