Shingo Murakami of Play.com (via Huffington Post UK) looked at the films 10,000 people ranked as the scariest, then hooked up audiences to heart-rate monitors and played the scariest ones. The top-ranked movies were The Shining, The Exorcist, and A Nightmare on Elm Street, and more fascinating than that is what those scary movies do to your heart. They found viewer's heart rates increased by an average of 25.3 percent, and that's the same escalation you see with a bit of light exercise. Sounds promising for getting a workout without getting off the couch, but UCL's Dr. Ben Hanson says it might be more complicated than that. It's such an increase it's entirely possible for someone with a weakened heart or other cardiac condition to have a seriously adverse reaction to a horror movie, and that might end your Netflix night with a real horror.
