Movie Effects

One of the first scary movies I remember watching was The Shining , a 1980s psychological thriller based on a Steven King novel. I watched it with my best friend—we didn’t react too much during the movie, but it definitely left its mark.

Throughout the movie, the director, Stanley Kubric, made good use of excitation transfer, which involves arousing the viewer with different techniques before scenes to enhance a reaction. What made The Shining was the music. Whenever the young boy experiences trauma, all you hear is this heartbeat in the background.

I never realized how much this one feature impacted me until a few years ago. Around the time I saw the movie, I started having nightmares where all I heard was my heartbeat. Nothing really horrible even had to happen in the dream to make it horrifying. Every time I would wake up in a sweat.

After I learned in school about film techniques people use to captivate audiences, scary movies haven’t had too much of an effect on me, but I don’t think I’ll ever really forget that heartbeat.