Sinister Features Modern Horror's Most Effective Jump Scare

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

(Welcome to Scariest Scene Ever, a column dedicated to the most pulse-pounding moments in horror. In this edition: "Sinister" delivered the biggest jolt in modern horror with one doozy of a jump scare.)

If you've followed the filmmaking career of Scott Derrickson, you already understand that the director just gets horror. From his goosebump-inducing take on possession horror in "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" to the introduction of a brand-new boogeyman in "Sinister," Derrickson has proven adept at the art of scaring audiences. 

In fact, it was in "Sinister" (available on Blu-ray and DVD), which Derrickson co-wrote with C. Robert Cargill, that the director sharpened his horror craft by delivering unsettling imagery, foreboding atmosphere, a terrifying score for the ages, and a boogeyman made more tangible under the true crime lens. And it all built to the epic jump scare Derrickson unleashed on unsuspecting viewers. 

In "Sinister" (also available to purchase digitally), true crime author Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) is chasing the next big case for his new work in progress. He's upended the lives of his wife Tracy (Juliet Rylance) and kids Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario) and Ashley (Clare Foley), moving them into a new home in a new town so Ellison can research the disappearance of a girl. His family is none the wiser that their new home happens to be the site of a grisly murder connected to the missing child, and the local police aren't thrilled. 

When Ellison finds a box of Super 8 home videos in the attic, he realizes the murder he's researching might actually be the work of a serial killer still on the loose. By moving into that home, Ellison might have put his family in line as the killer's next targets.

The Oswalt family have one hard fast rule: Ellison keeps his true crime research behind the locked doors of his office so his children aren't exposed to the grisly photos and details he uncovers. It's a simple enough rule that becomes difficult to follow thanks to Ellison's discovery of that box of Super 8 footage in the attic. What begins as benign family gatherings on the film reels quickly gives way to terrifying snuff films, as each film's family is murdered in gruesome fashion by the unseen person wielding the camera. 

The more Ellison studies the tapes, the more his family seems to become affected by it. The creepy dread bleeds out into the lives of the Oswalts. The local Sheriff (Fred Dalton Thompson) has made it clear that Ellison's past work has painted police in an unsavory light, and he finds Ellison's choice of habitation to be in poor taste. 

In attempting to keep his family in the dark, Ellison doesn't have anyone else to turn to but Deputy So & So (James Ransone), an eager fan of his novels. Pouring over the footage, Ellison begins to notice strange symbols and an ominous figure in every single tape. That figure notices him, too, and it begins haunting the Oswalt family with the aid of five ghoulish ghost children. The proverbial clock is ticking as he and Deputy So & So race to solve the case.

Clocking in just past the halfway mark, at about one hour and three minutes in to the runtime, Ellison tries his hand at another Super 8 home video. All previous home videos played out in two mirrored halves: Happy, peaceful family moments are captured on film, and then it seamlessly transitions to their brutal demise. But this one, the second to last one in the batch, plays out differently.

The tape shows a voyeuristic camera peeking through the front window of a home. It briefly lingers on an oblivious mom, dad, and child watching television in their living room before entering a garage to retrieve the lawnmower. The entire screen becomes pitch black, save for the singular light of the camera focused on the lawnmower as its taken out onto the lawn in the middle of the night. 

The quiet becomes almost deafening as the mower rolls along, until its jarringly punctuated by piercing screams at the precise moment the mower rolls over one of the family member's heads. It's undeniably gruesome and startling, making both Ellison and the viewer react viscerally to the unexpected surprise and giving us one of the scariest movie scenes ever.

A jump scare, by definition, is a technique intended to scare audiences by surprising them with an abrupt image change that typically coincides with a music stinger or loud sound. It's a common tool in horror and often considered a basic building block of the genre. As such, it can be considered a lazy way to unnerve or get under the viewers skin. All style no substance, as it were. But a well-placed jump scare in a movie that doesn't rely on them? That can be pure magic. That's what makes this key scene in "Sinister" so effective. 

Derrickson purposely lulls the viewer into a sense of complacency before violently ripping the rug out from under them. Up until this fourth tape reveal, titled "Lawn Work '86," Derrickson created a reliable formula for the home videos: one-part comfort, and one-part horror filled with unsettling imagery set against an even more unnerving score. It's all made even more disconcerting with its grainy Super 8 aesthetic. 

"Sinister" has a few minor jump scares, but Derrickson was far more interested in creating a foreboding atmosphere. The further entrenched Ellison becomes in his research of this case, the more it starts to seep into his waking life. Ghostly children lurking in the background. The film's boogeyman, Bughuul, popping up more and more in photos and video. Even Ellison's children are affected in disturbing ways. This film is all about mounting dread. 

So, the moment "Lawn Work '86" starts to play, it's immediately clear something is off, or at least more off than normal. This one isn't like the others, which sets the viewer off-kilter. When Derrickson is sure the audience is at full attention, BAM! Misdirect success and pants-wetting achievement unlocked. 

"Sinister" contains one of the best jump scares in modern horror because Derrickson bided his time. It took well over half the movie to build it up. Then, he kept the viewer in the literal dark, their focus guided only by the light of the Super 8 camera, until that fateful screaming head popped up.

Director Scott Derrickson knows exactly why the lawnmower scene in "Sinister" works so well, and it shares something in common with a lot of other famously scary movie moments.

"It's time and motion. And what you don't see," as Derrickson explained to /Film regarding the lawnmower scene in 2022 The director went on to break down how the sequence unfolds and why it's so impactful for the viewer when the big moment finally hits:

"You see the lawnmower, it's very dark, you can't see anything around it. And it goes on for a long time, and you can just feel that something really bad is going to happen. And it's like you know it's coming, you know something's coming, you really don't know what. And when it does come, it's still very, very shocking. And I think that the power of that is not only in the duration of the build-up and then the shock of the body, the lawnmower tilting up and hitting the body, but it's what it immediately makes your imagination do. Because we don't show the body getting ravaged by the lawnmower, but you sure see it in your mind's eye. You can't help it."

This scene went a long way in making "Sinister" arguably one of the scariest movies ever made, at least by some measures. Continuing, Derrickson spoke a bit more broadly about what makes for an effective scare in the realm of horror and why this scene, in particular, is a great encapsulation of his thinking on the matter:

"There's something about the effectiveness of that scene that is the key to a lot of effective horror, which is how it plays on as a combination of sight and sound, what's on screen, what's in the soundtrack, because it's nothing but a very soft, menacing beat, piece of music that's playing — that's it, and the audience's imagination."

"What scares an audience more than anything is not what you put in front of their eyes, it's what you can put in your mind," Derrickson concluded.

If you'd like to know more about "Sinister," be sure to check out our 10th anniversary oral history on the terrifying horror movie, featuring interviews with Scott Derrickson and writer C. Robert Cargill, as well as key members of the crew who helped bring it to life.