Leah being a Friday the 13th virgin was the brave subject for our first classic in the Fab 4 Competition (Jason/Freddy/Michael/Leatherface) and her results were less than stellar. I attribute most of the low measurements to a lack of empathy for the main characters. Missing backstory from a weak script in this film kills much of the tension. Our subject didn’t care whether the kids survived or had an arrow shoved through their forehead which tends to put a damper on the fear meter. Most horror fans don’t go into a slasher expecting Oscar winning performances but I believe the youth of today expect more from their horror to get their blood pumping
Historical Analysis: Was overacting done on purpose back in the day? Was it the style of the time or did we simply not notice? Whatever the reason it didn’t help our case when attempting to scare the pants off our subject.
Wait… Speaking of pants is that Ted Mosby from How I met Your Mother in the shortie shorts? Nope.
Test Subject: Leah
Age : 35
Gender: Female
Fears: Snakes/Frogs/Pretty much any creature in Florida
Resting HR: 65 bpm
Walking HR: 75-80 bpm
ANALYSIS:
Leah started off with a fairly low resting heart-rate at 60bpm but she trended steadily toward peaks of 78-80bpm. As a millennial who has seen her share of modern horror movies, Leah was all too familiar with many of the conventional scare tactics and horror tropes. (Even though we all know this movie created many of them) This gave her an edge up on the innocent teens seeing the film for the first time in 1980. However, the scene near the twenty-five minute mark played on one of Leah’s primal fears and caused the first significant bump in the graph. (Think snakes) Her max heart-rate came close to the finale of the film reaching a respectable 91bpm. Not bad for a subject who kept waiting for Jason to appear because she was confident he was the hockey mask wearing, machete wielding killer in Friday the 13th. Wrong answer, Drew Barrymore.
Side note: Gore doesn’t get the heart-racing as much as the build-up just before the splatter.
CONCLUSION:
What’s most interesting about this F13 chart is it’s our first visible record of FearScale monitoring additional factors which can increase a person’s heart-rate other than being scared. Let us not forget what these classic slashers relied heavily upon… sex, which caused Leah’s heart-rate to climb around the thirty-six minute mark. (Even if it happened to be with Kevin Bacon.) Mmmm bacon, now that got my heart racing.
