10 Most Shocking Jump Cuts In Film History

1. Alice's Cell Phone Footage - Lake Mungo

First things first - if you haven't seen this bone-shaking 2008 horror mockumentary yet, go watch it. Like, now.

Despite being produced for a pittance, Aussie horror flick Lake Mungo is one of the scariest films of the 21st century, revolving around a family struggling to come to terms with the drowning death of their daughter, Alice (Talia Zucker), while suspecting that her ghost may be haunting them.

The film has a palpably eerie mood throughout, largely thanks to clever editing and a convincing application of the mockumentary format, which makes its climactic reveal that much more terrifying.

At the end of the movie, Alice's phone is recovered from Lake Mungo by her family, and they view a blurry video clip which reveals she encountered a corpse-like doppelganger of herself foreshadowing her own impending demise.

Director Joel Anderson makes extremely shrewd use of his low budget here, using blurry phone footage to keep the doppelganger concealed until the camera is extremely close.

Better still, Anderson periodically trims frames out of the phone footage as the camera approaches, these cuts resembling "dropped frames," as was common on earlier mobile phone cameras due to technical limitations.

This results in several subtle but anxiety-inducing jump cuts moments before the doppelganger's face finally appears in horrifying close-up.

It's one of the primary reasons why the scene works so well, and why Lake Mungo continues to be one of the most acclaimed indie horror films of the 21st century.