20 Things Horror Movies NEED To Stop Doing
17. Cheap Jump Scares
Jump scares are one of the most common tropes of the horror genre - a loud noise blares out, either when the antagonist attacks a hapless victim or as a fake-out when a character is startled by, say, their pet cat.
Jump scares are a successful enough part of the studio horror movie formula that they're probably never going away - they can reliably get teenagers squealing and folk involuntarily launching their popcorn in the air, so by many estimations they're still effective to a certain subset of viewer.
And while jump scares can be great - The Exorcist III, anyone? - it's the overabundance of lazy, unmotivated jump scares that's the problem.
Startling the audience with a mere loud noise is about as low-effort as it gets in horror, and frankly, it's such a tired trope that many would be perfectly fine with it going away altogether.
Creative jump scares are few and far between because they require a lot of thought to subvert the audience's well-trod expectations. Otherwise, they often suggest a film that's not confident enough in its ability to unnerve you otherwise.