We have been waiting for weeks to see how our favorite classic, Halloween (1978) would hold up against the other three films in the FAB 4 competition. After all, doesn’t everyone know the story of Michael Myers terrorizing the tiny town of Haddonfield? Isn’t this movie wallpaper at every pumpkin carving session during the Halloween season? While our subject did admit to having caught bits and pieces of the film on TV we believed her sitting for the full feature focused in the dark would conjure a new viewing experience for the 1978 classic. Let’s see how she did.

Test Subject: Leah

Age : 33

Gender: Female

Fears: Clowns

Analysis:

As you can see Leah’s heart-rate slowly climbs within five minutes of the opening and then has a minor dip at 12:00 while a bit of backstory is established. Surprisingly Halloween’s jump scares still pack a punch compared to the other films in the competition as indicated by the peaks leading into the 50:00 mark. What’s interesting about seeing the graph for this film is we now have a visual representation of Leah’s tension escalating as she approaches the final thirty minutes. Her heart-beat ramps up at 51:00 and hovers around 90bpm throughout the finale.

Conclusion:

Halloween (1978) still brings the scares and burned 216 calories. The difference between this movie and the other classics we monitored was the amount of tension and suspense this film was able to create and most importantly sustain. This kept Leah’s heart racing at a high level. Halloween introduces a realistic psychopath that could actually exist in our daily life, a character who to this day still produces an anxiety and fear in viewers unlike any other.

Was this the scariest movie in our competition so far? As a matter of fact… it was.

Resting HR: 60 bpm

Walking HR: 80-85 bpm

Average HR during the film : 77.40 bpm

Peak HR: 93 bpm

Calories burned: 216