Has there ever been a horror movie where audiences actually screamed?

I was watching the movie Hitchcock (2012), and in this, scene,

It shows the audience actually scream when they see Psycho



However, did the audiences actually scream when they saw Psycho, or was this just done for drama's sake? But if they did actually scream that much, what are some other horror movies that had audiences literally screaming in the theater?

I'm confused by the question. People have screamed at every horror film, I'm sure. Especially most of the classics.

Old news, but I can’t resist pointing out someone even died during a horror film screening.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...and-body-goes/

Oh it's just whenever I went to horror movies in the theater, the audience never screamed all at once, as a whole. I've heard a gasp here and there from people, but never a full on major consensus scream together. So I was wondering if any horror movies have done that.

Pretty sure a) it really happens but b) there's also some dramatic license.

If you're with a crowd and there is a lot of buy in, you get much more dramatic reactions.

For example, when I saw Little Women there were a TON of people crying (audibly) at several parts. I saw 28 Days Later at a late-night showing and people were jumping and reacting at various parts.

A good audience is like an emotional echo chamber. You feel sad, then you realize the person next to you is sad, and that makes you more sad. Or you feel tension, then not only does something happen on screen, but someone next to your jumps or gasps.

I think it's unfortunate that a lot of people are embarrassed to display such emotions in public/semi-public. When you get a crowd where enough people react to what's happening on screen, it creates a sort of feedback loop. I have a family member who is easily startled, and watching horror movies with her is much more intense because something happens on screen and then on the couch to my right it's like "JESUS CHRIST! DID THAT KNIFE JUST GO THROUGH HER EYE?!?!?!?!" combined with a physical jump or reflex. Her reaction plus what's happening in the film add up to me having a more intense experience.

There's also something, I don't know, fun or freeing about just diving into the movie's world and letting yourself be scared. Frankly, it's very easy for me to turn off the part of me that would be scared. I do it by just creating some mental space between me and the film. I can sit in a theater and watch a movie and never react outwardly. But part of the fun of a theater (for better or worse) is that it is a shared experience.

I went to see Possession (1981) in the theater and my favorite aspect was a woman in the front row who had clearly been brought there by her boyfriend and had no idea what to expect. And around halfway through the film she goes, "What? Why? Why is this happening?!". It was such an authentic reaction to what was happening on screen.

Yeah, 60's, I don't recall which, but I do recall the audience screaming. There were several flix, I don't recall which, but I think they were from that series of Roger Corman/Vincent Price series of movies on a Poe theme. It really added to the melodrama of the movie.

This is a very interesting post. I haven’t thought about it, but it’s true that people nowadays are reluctant to display emotion at movies. When I watched ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ (2019) last August, the cinema was quite small, one of those vintage theatres, and we were all in stitches. I don’t know if I would have found it that funny if I was watching it alone. It was definitely the energy in the air.

I have two family members who react very strongly to horror, squeeze their eyes shut and say, ‘Oh my God’ etc. But in this case I don’t find it adds to my enjoyment of the film, it’s the opposite, if anything. I remember showing one of those family members some Almodóvar films. She did have a certain awareness of cinema. Her first husband showed her Truffaut and Fellini and Bertolucci, but nothing Spanish, and I thought she’d enjoy it. But the second thing we watched was ‘The Skin I Live In’ (2011), which in retrospect I realise wasn’t the best of choices. She was very disturbed by it and was mad at me for a few weeks after. It did affect my perception of the film for years to come. I both feel annoyed that I misjudged her mood when I think about it, and thrown out of the moment, I can’t seem to get back into that film and become immersed like before. Therefore, I think another thing that happens is you associate the atmosphere of the last time you watched it with the film itself.

I have seen various horror documentaries about the original Exorcist film. They claim back in the day people were actually being sick, passing out or screaming out of the cinema due to some of the images in the film.

I can say I have actually screamed at a jump scare in the cinema theatre. Don't remember which film it was but yeah I let out a scream and I was shocked that I reacted that way.

Absolutely. There's something wonderful about being on the same page as a group of people. It's like the difference between seeing a band you like and people dancing and having a good time versus when you look over and people are, like, checking Facebook in the middle of a song.

For me it works because she and I have really similar taste in films. So it's not all yelling and jump scares. We're also constantly commenting on imagery or dialogue we really like. (Disclaimer: we do this when we're at home, not in a theater. We aren't monsters.)

I am a highly emotional film viewer. Not in the sense that I'm always getting worked up, but in the sense that much of my appreciation for a film comes from how I feel while watching it. When I see a film in the theater, it almost always gets a higher score than when I later watch it on the TV. I think of it as the "theater bump." Something about that setting just adds to the enjoyment of a film. I've been told (in very condescending terms, lol) that this is the "wrong" way to rate films and that I should be more "objective". Eh. I know exactly what you mean about building a sort of emotional association with something. It's like if you get a bad meal at a restaurant. The next time you go in you have this automatic memory of the food poisoning you got.

It's also true that sometimes the people we love don't love the art that we love, and that doesn't feel good. I tend to watch a lot of horror movies, and my tolerance for on-screen violence is much higher than most of the people I know. It's tricky to gauge sometimes when something will be too much for someone else, and it doesn't feel good when you get it wrong.

People scream during the most ridiculous, unscary horror movies, so yeah.

I was with someone who had a really bad panic attack during Snowpiercer (the scene early on where and we ended up just leaving the theater.

Also, I suffer from positional vertigo (ie I can get really dizzy if my head is tilted at a certain angle), and I think that the combination of craning your neck up at a screen and the effect of surround sound can make certain people more vulnerable to a physical response to something shocking or upsetting on screen.

Back in 2002/2003, a friend of mine from Germany told me about Gaspar Noe' "Irréversible" and how it was reported that people walked out of the theatre while seeing it. Not because it was a bad film but due to a specific scene in the film. I had no problems when I watched it on DVD. I guess some people just can't handle certain things.

Each person has their own reasons, but sometimes it's just a choice not to have disturbing images in the mind. I don't find it enriching, personally, so I mostly avoid it, even though I feel like I can handle it.

For me, the delineation is between something disturbing in service of something higher, or just for the shock value of it. If I think it's the latter, I'm not interested.

I took this girl I was dating at the time to see The Woman in Black. She actually jumped and may have exclaimed “oh my god!” At one of their jump scenes.
I couldn’t stop laughing at her. I had to make it up to her afterwards of course.
It’s funny that I remember her reaction more then I do of the film itself.

Exactly. Even with ‘Irreversible’, I think the reaction is partly due to the fact the scene in question is 9 minutes long and feels completely gratuitous. I had no problem watching it, but as with some other Noe films e.g. ‘I Stand Alone’ (1998), it does feel like he’s doing it just for the sake of it. That can disturb one on its own, because you begin to wonder about the director’s intentions.

Many years ago I wouldn’t watch anything unless it was a blood soaked twisted Asian horror. Now it just doesn’t interest me. I’d rather watch a classic film noir. This may psychologically be something to do with becoming a parent which has changed my views. Some of those films do push things to the limits. Sorry if the subject has gone slightly off track but the mood just hit me for this one.

Even in the service of something higher, I think that as an audience member everyone has the right to safeguard their own mental wellness.

I have never watched Earthlings. I care passionately about animal rights, and the film features a ton of footage of real animal cruelty. I think that the purpose is good. People should understand what is done every day to sentient, feeling, living things in the name of making money. But I personally know that watching such footage would make me deeply depressed.

I can completely understand why someone would want to pass on a long sequence of sexual violence, or of torture. And I honestly see both sides of the argument. On one hand, if you portray something like rape as just a quick shot of a woman going "No!" and then you fade to black, you're erasing the reality of such an attack, and how 9 minutes can feel like an eternity. On the other hand, there's a certain point where exposure to graphic or upsetting content doesn't produce empathy so much as it produces an emotional shut-down and a depressing feeling of powerlessness.

Then there's the additional question of why someone is watching a movie. If you're interested in escapism after a long day's work, you probably don't want to watch a realistic depiction of a drug overdose or of someone being beaten. I have a relatively high tolerance for on-screen violence and gore, but I never judge someone for having less of a tolerance. I know where my own lines are drawn, why wouldn't I respect the place that someone else draws theirs?

FWIW, I understand the context of the scene in Irreversible and I think it's very thoughtful, and it's probably one of the first examples I think of of a scene that's disturbing for a good reason. But reasonable people can disagree on which things qualify or not, to be sure.