The second offering for our chronophobia experiment (Triangle(2009) being the first) was the 2007 Spanish film Los Cronocrimenes or Timecrimes. Nacho Vigalondo wrote, directed and starred in this twisted low budget thriller which IMDB has categorized as horror/sci-fi. Were there enough horrific moments to affect our subject’s heart rate or did the complex time traveling scenario have her mind wandering?

Joining in the fear we had one of our favorite horror pages on Instagram @niks.horror.flix record results of her own. Equipped with a stopwatch she timed the film rating scenes that made her feel anxious, scared or uncomfortable using a scale from 60-100 (60 being the lowest). Let’s find out how her results compared to our subject’s actual heart rate scale.

SYNOPSIS:

A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.

Test Subject: Leah & Nikki

Gender: Female

Fears: Chronophobia

Resting HR: 62-65 bpm

Walking HR: 80-85 bpm

FEARSCALE ANALYSIS: (Red Line)

The lack of heart pounding moments left little to be analyzed. There were, however, a few key moments during the film in which we recorded a heart rate over our subject’s resting average. A fairly intense scene within the first fifteen minutes brought on her peak of 72bpm but once the twist was revealed the film became more interesting and less threatening. At 47:00, another mild shock arrived to jolt our subject but once again she settled into the mystery of the movie.

NIKS.HORROR.FLIX ANALYSIS: (Black Line)

10:29.41 – (65) Felt a slight increase in heart rate.
11:10.54 –  (70) Mildly tense.
15:21.07 –  (60) More confused than stressed. What is this building? A house? A Doctor’s office? A restaurant? And, why the hell is the music so loud?
19:38.42 – (72)  I’m stressed.
21:16.94 –  (73) Still feeling stressed.
57:16.71 –  (62) Heartbroken.

NIKS.HORROR.FLIX CONCLUSION:

Timecrimes is definitely more thriller than horror. Personally, it’s almost impossible for me to be scared when time travel is involved. I go into ultra-critical mode of every move made. All I’m trying to do is piece together how action in this time frame would affect the outcome of that time frame and around and around my brain goes. It never fails, in the end I figure out nothing and I’m left answerless, drained, and nursing a headache. If time travel and thrillers are your jam then give this one a go, but whatever you do, don’t watch with the dubbing on. Commit to the subtitles; you’ll thank me.

FEARSCALE CONCLUSION:

Timecrimes affected our subject’s heart rate much like a classic horror movie from the 1930’s. In fact, the film falls between The Wolfman (1941) and The Invisible Man (1933) on our all-time scary leaderboard. From the creepy soundtrack to the the drab colors, the film resembled an old-fashioned monster movie rather than a modern heart racing thriller. The intriguing time travel mystery had her puzzling over the plot, luckily she didn’t miss a subtitle or she would have been lost.

Timecrimes was a captivating movie which worked hard to follow the rules of time travel and delivered surprises to the audience. Unfortunately it failed to create the physiological reactions in our subjects to be considered a scary movie. A big thank you to Nikki for joining in on the monitoring and proving once again that FearScale has the most terrifyingly accurate results on the interwebs! Go follow her fantastic instagram page for all things horror and movies @niks.horror.flix.

Timecrimes: Burns an average of 87 Calories

How many Fear Calories did you burn watching Timecrimes? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook