It’s Halloween! What better way to celebrate the importation of an American holiday than to sit down and watch some scary American movies? The CSIRO has been doing some science in prep for the big day, and now it knows which movie features the highest-frequency scream.
The CSIRO tested the movie screams at an acoustics research lab in Melbourne, sticking a few speakers in the room and measuring the pitch of the screams after they had been re-recorded.
Coming in at number three, surprisingly, is Arnie’s scream in Total Recall. YAAAAAARGHHH!!
Number two is the prolific scream of a mother watching her child being eaten in JAWS. Deliciously loud.
But neither of them could match up to the prolonged and high-pitched wail of the number one movie scream: the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
What’s your favourite scary movie?