Thanks to Daily Gusto who read it at the BBC, we now know why Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” is the scariest movie ever.
I’m not disagreeing. But get this triumph of reason over intuition:
Mathemeticians have now concocted a formula to determine scariness to the nth degree . They treated themselves to a gore n horror movie fest and got their brains burned.
Here’s the formula:
SCARY MOVIE FORMULA
(es+u+cs+t) squared +s+ (tl+f)/2 + (a+dr+fs)/n
+ sin x – 1.
Where:
es = escalating music
u = the unknown
cs = chase scenes
t = sense of being trapped
s = shock
tl = true life
f = fantasy
a = character is alone
dr = in the dark
fs = film setting
n = number of people
sin = blood and guts
1 = stereotypes
I’d like to ad a little to that formula although I don’t have a clue where it goes. Call it vm = visual memory you’d like to erase but can’t — like that image of Nicholson axing through the door to murder Shelley Duval and the kid. Who can ever forget? Not only was it shocking (s) but it was funny (f) too, which is one reason the image above, “Here’s Georgy,” high in (t) (tl) (a) (sin) (dr), works so well. Thanks to billmon‘s archives for correctly spinning the current administration’s policies.
