The research we need in the lead up to Halloween.

According to a new study from broadband providers BroadbandChoices’ called the ‘Science of Scare’ Scott Derrickson’s 2012 film ‘Sinister’ is the scariest horror movie of all time. They reached their conclusion by monitoring the heart rates of participants who watched 120 of IMDB’s top-rated scary films.

On the ‘Science of Scare’ web page the creators said that they watched “each movie in 5.1 surround sound” and a panel of “50 people consumed over 120 hours of the best horror movies, each fitted with a heart rate monitor to measure which movies got their blood pumping the most to find the ultimate horror movie and crown the king of fright night.”

The study’s results showed that for the most part classics proved less frightening than their contemporary counterparts. The regular resting heart rate is said to be around 62bpm, however, throughout the duration of the films heart rates of participants averaged out at 80bpm.

Researchers discovered that whilst watching ‘Sinister’ the average heart rate of those watching was 86bpm. It increased to highs of 131bpm during some of the jump scares.

The creator of the study Daniel Clifford said, “With more people than ever facing a Halloween at home, our Science of Scare study was designed to help people find the most scientifically scary films ever made, to save them the time of searching through thousands of titles across streaming services like Amazon, Netflix and Shudder.”

‘Sinister’ sees Ethan Hawke star as Ellison Oswalt, a true-crime author. As he moves into a new home he discovers gruesome footage on a super 8mm camera and inadvertently becomes the next target of a demon. Despite only having a $3 million budget ‘Sinister’ grossed $82.5 million worldwide.

Other films that appeared in the top 10 include cult classic ‘Hereditary’, ‘The Badadook’ and Insidious which placed a close second.

View the full study here.

Watch the trailer for ‘Sinister’ here: