The Lynchian Jumpscare

-Spikima Movies: David Lynch – How To Do A Jumpscare-

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Adam Stevenson1 week ago (edited) As Hitchcock said – suspense works when the audience knows something is coming. The scare in MD [„Mulholland Drive“] is all about the suspense of knowing that something is coming, but not knowing exactly what we’re going to see – just the vague description the guy gives of the dream – so the audience, the entire time during the build-up, is imagining their own version of a scary face – and Lynch’s editing is so meticulously timed that you never know when it’s coming – and when it finally does, it’s not someone jumping out suddenly – which is what we’re expecting – but a smooth gliding movement and a non-descript make-up job on the face that allows us to put our own face we’ve been imagining ONTO that face in a way, which makes it more about what we’re afraid of and what was in our imagination than the face that was actually there. If you pause the face – it’s NOT that frightening-looking – it’s not pretty or anything – but it’s our memory of the face we imagined that makes the scene work. In other words, it’s a jump scare – but unlike one that comes out of nowhere, it’s the suspense and the audience themselves who make it work. And that’s why Lynch is brilliant.

Yes.