It is easy to recount some of the very things that made you jump during a standard 90-minute horror movie. The genre is notorious for getting its thrills off of its audience’s screams and scares. However, horror television is tasked with a slightly harder notion of a perfectly placed jump scare. Being that episodes are an hour or so in retrospect, timing is everything. Mike Flanagan, Ryan Murphy, and even the Duffer Brothers have the horror market in check, as far as streaming and television go. From Flanagan’s The Midnight Club to Murphy’s American Horror Story: Murder House, here are the best jump scares in a horror TV show, ranked.
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6 The Old Woman — The Midnight Club
Netflix
Flanagan’s new Netflix series The Midnight Club vibrates on a different frequency than his other works. The series is based on a Christopher Pike novel of the same name, and tells not one but many stories. The kids at Brightcliffe Hospice are all destined to die, but each night, they gather around the fire to share scary stories that, more often than not, reveal truths about their deepest selves. The Midnight Club breaks away from the family drama and long Flanagan-infused epilogues, and tells a story more centered on acceptance and friendship. That’s not to say that the series is completely stricken of ghosts. The kids of Brightcliffe, Ilonka (played by Iman Benson) specifically, is haunted by a terrifyingly ghostly old woman who likes to appear in dark corners. The series is currently earning praise by NPR for breaking the record of most jump scares in a single episode — 21.
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5 Violet in the Crawl Space — American Horror Story: Murder House
FX
American Horror Story’s first season premiered in 2011 and was entitled Murder House. The season focused on the Harmon family, who move to Los Angeles after suffering some family traumas. The Harmons are excited about their fresh start, but are soon plagued by the very real, unknown ghosts who also reside in their freshly renovated home. One of the unpleasant perks of dying on the grounds of the “murder house” is that the souls can never leave. Each of the Harmons meet their untimely end, however, Violet (played by Taissa Farmiga) most certainly has the most unpleasant death. The scene isn’t exactly a “jump scare” in the traditional sense, but certainly has the power to make your skin jump. Violet believes that she attempted suicide and survived, but she learns from Tate (played by Evan Peters) that she was actually successful, and he hid her body in the crawl space. The scene revealing Violet is particularly jarring, and there hasn’t been a season of the show since that can capture that amount of unease.
4 Possessed Woman — Ash vs Evil Dead
Starz
Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead has long been regarded as one of the most frightening movies of the 1980s. The film was shot in a cabin in Michigan, where the crew faced treacherous climate conditions during production. The film has three direct sequels and a remake that came out in 2013, with a new installment planned for 2023 that will be entitled Evil Dead Rise. In between, a horror-comedy TV show featuring Bruce Campbell as Ash premiered on Starz in 2015, and if you are unfamiliar with the Deadites, you are in for a treat. Ash vs Evil Dead is jam packed with comedy and jump scares from the makeup alone. Deadites and their milky white eyes will have you thinking of them for days.
3 The Man in the Mirror — The Haunting of Bly Manor
Flanagan’s The Haunting of Bly Manor is filled with ghosts, both seen and unseen. The miniseries is based on the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Dani Clayton, played by Victoria Pedretti, a young au pair, takes a job opportunity located on a remote estate on the countryside. Soon after her arrival, she begins to notice that the grounds are loaded with ghosts, but it also seems that she brought one of her own with her. The first reveal of the man with the glowing eyes serves as a small jump scare mainly due to Dani’s shrill scream. However, as the story unfolds, the man is revealed to be Eddie O’Mara (played by Roby Attal), Dani’s ex-fiance who was killed in car accident. Dani blames herself for Eddie’s death because he only got out of the car to retreat from an argument they were having. Like most of Flanagan’s ghosts, Eddie is a representation of Dani’s guilt that she carried with her since Eddie’s death.
2 Human Spider — Black Mirror, “Playtest”
Black Mirror has been compared to a modern day Twilight Zone, implementing technology as the key source of the series’ sci-fi. Season three’s second epidote entitled “Playtest” will stick with you long after you’ve watched it. It will cement itself into your core and have you question exactly what your deepest fears are. Cooper (played by Wyatt Russell) is an American travel enthusiast who gets stuck in London after his bank account is hacked and his savings account is drained. For money, Cooper agrees to be a volunteer for an augmented reality gaming experiment, and agrees to test out a horror game that generates your greatest fears. One of the scariest elements of the episode, aside from the incredibly grim ending, is the spider with the human face that pops out at Cooper unexpectedly.
1 The Bent Neck Lady — The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House is easily one of the scariest horror tv shows you can stream on Netflix. Flanagan’s family drama packs a heavy punch when it comes to ghosts and jarring images, as it draws reference to a novel by the same name. The miniseries splits the story between modern times and flashbacks, showing the now-adults as children during the years they spent living in a haunted house. It is clear that each one of them grew up with a great deal of trauma to trudge through, however, the one who seems to be the most visually haunted is the youngest, Eleanor (played by Pedretti). Eleanor is plagued with images, both in her childhood and adult life, of a woman with a bent, twisted neck. One of the biggest jump scares in the first season comes when Eleanor wakes up on the couch and the woman is hovering over her. The reveal of whom the woman is, is almost more terrifying than the image itself.
