The Shining really is the scariest horror film ever: Heart rate monitors reveal the most terrifying movie moments of all time

The Shining's 'Here's Johnny' scene is the most horrific movie moment

It made pulses jump by 28.21% beats per minute faster during tests

Scenes from the Exorcist and A Nightmare on Elm Street also in top three



What makes a film scary divides opinion - some people prefer tense psychological thrillers, while others want jumpy, edge-of-their seat emotional rollercoasters.

In an attempt to put an end to this debate, Japanese-owned website Rakuten's Play.com asked people to vote on which horror films they considered to be the most terrifying.



They then wired a selection of viewers up to heart monitors and tracked changes in their pulse to determine exactly which of the top movie moments got their hearts racing the most.

The winner was the iconic 'Here's Johnny' scene from 1980 film The Shining, which made pulses race and jump by 28.21 per cent.



The Shining, and its 'Here's Johnny' scene made pulses race the most, making them jump by 28.21 per cent

A Nightmare on Elm Street had the greatest physical effect overall, increasing audience members’ heart rates by 26.8 per cent on average, but the poll results combined with the individual scariest scene scores put The Shining on top.



During September 10,000 Rakuten’s Play.com customers voted for the scariest horror films of all time, with Stanley Kubrick's classic The Shining coming out on top.



The 1973 religious thriller The Exorcist came second, while Wes Craven's original Nightmare on Elm Street from 1984 was in third place.



To identify the scariest scenes and scariest film overall, Rakuten’s Play.com analysed spikes in heart rates during each screening.

The scariest scene was calculated by identifying the percentage increases in individual audience members’ heart rates during spikes that occurred at the same time.



These were compared to each member’s average heart rate during each film to calculate the percentage increase in heart rates of each spike. These percentage increases were then added together and compared with other spikes to find the highest percentage increase of each individual scene.

Across all three films, the average heart rates increased by 25.3 per cent up to 100.1bpm (beats per minute).



TOP SCARIEST FILMS OF ALL TIME AND THE TOP SCARIEST SCENES

Top 10 scariest films voted by Play.com users • The Shining (1980) • The Exorcist (1973) • A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) • Ring (aka Ringu) (1998) • Alien (1979) • The Silence of the Lambs (1990) • Poltergeist (1982) • Insidious (2010) • Halloween (1978) • Saw (2004) Top three scariest moments from each film The Shining • 'Here’s Johnny' scene – 28.21% increase in average heart rate • Twin girls scene ('Come and Play') – 23.10% increase in average heart rate • 'Red Rum' scene – 21.00% increase in average heart rate Nightmare on Elm Street • 'Fight Fire with Fire' (where Nancy Thompson brings Freddy Krueger into the real world from her dream) – 26.70% increase in average heart rate • 'No Way Out' (where Johnny Depp’s character, Glen Lantz, is murdered by Freddy and his bedroom fills with blood) – 26.24% increase in average heart rate • 'A Bloody Mess' (where Tina Gray is murdered by Freddy in front of her boyfriend Rod Lane) – 26.20% increase in average heart rate The Exorcist • 'Attic noises' (where Christine MacNeil investigates a strange noise in her attic) – 24.80% increase in average heart rate • 'Take me!' (Father Karras is possessed and sacrifices himself) – 23.66% increase in average heart rate • 'I cast you out' (the initial exorcism attempt by Father Karras and Father Merrin) – 18.33% increase in average heart rate

The Exorcist's 'Attic noises' scene, where Christine MacNeil investigates a strange noise in her attic, caused a 24.8% increase in average heart rate

HOW DID THE RESEARCH IDENTIFY THE SCARIEST SCENES?

To identify the scariest scenes and scariest film overall, Rakuten’s Play.com analysed spikes in heart rates during each screening. The scariest scene was calculated by identifying the percentage increases in individual audience members’ heart rates during spikes that occurred at the same time.

These were compared to each member’s average heart rate during each film to calculate the percentage increase in heart rates of each spike. These percentage increases were then added together and compared with other spikes to find the highest percentage increase of each individual scene. The scariest film was calculated by identifying the top three spikes in each audience member’s heart rate during each film. The percentage increase of each spike was calculated by comparing it to each audience member’s average heart rate throughout each film.

These were added together and divided by the number of audience members being monitored, to give an overall average increase.

The peak average increases across each of the three films were at 101.8bpm for A Nightmare on Elm Street, 101.6bpm for The Shining and 96.8bpm for The Exorcist.



Several scenes from A Nightmare on Elm Street were close behind The Shining's top spot, including the gruesome murder scenes of Johnny Depp’s character, Glen Lantz, (26.24 per cent increase) and Tina Gray (26.20 per cent increase).

The moment lead character Freddy Krueger, played by Robert Englund, is brought into the real world from Nancy Thompson’s dream sequence saw a 26.7 per cent increase.



'It’s interesting to see just how close the top three films’ scare ratings were:' Shingo Murakami, managing director of Rakuten’s Play.com told MailOnline.



Taking the overall average increase of 100.1bpm (25.3 per cent), the top three horror films just pushed audience heart rate’s into the light exercise zone by 3.1bpm.

Target heart rate for ‘light exercise’ calculated as 50-85 per cent of peak heart rate, based on the age of each audience member, as defined by the American Heart Organisation.

As part of the screening, audience members were asked what they considered frightened them the most. The response was typically spiders, snakes, ghosts, death and being buried alive.