ScareScore, a new start-up company, wants to quantify your fear at the movies and location-based attractions
One of the best aspects of watching horror movies is seeing them in a packed theater and noticing people's reactions, including when they jump or turn away. Now, a new start-up company called ScareScore wants to actually measure and quantify how audiences physically respond to movies and other adrenaline-fueled experiences in real-time.
Here's how ScareScore works
The idea behind ScareScore is that your body is the review. ScareScore will launch at major film festivals and location-based entertainment experiences across North America this Halloween season. ScareScore connects with the smartwatch, or another wearable device that users already own. It then measures physiological signals, including heart rate, heart rate variability, and movement. This establishes an individual baseline to transform real-time reactions into a personalized ScareScore.
As a result, ScareScore reveals the actual biometric signals behind an audience's experience and measures how their body reacts in real-time to a horror movie or other adrenaline-fueled experiences, such as haunted attractions. Fans can then share and compare their scores, compete with friends, and see how their reactions stack up against other audience members.
Additionally, for filmmakers, studios, festivals, and theme park operators, the platform will provide a new way to understand real-time audience engagement, including not only how an audience responded, but when they responded, beyond the typical surveys or self-reported opinions.
To that point, Chris Anastas, Founder and CEO of Scarescore said, "Entertainment has spent more than a century asking audiences what they thought after an experience was over." He continued, "We believe there is another incredibly valuable signal sitting right in front of us: what their bodies were doing while they experienced it."
ScareScore's History
Anastas founded the company with horror movie producer JP Ouellette. They combined their backgrounds in tech, entertainment, film production, immersive theater attractions, and audience engagement. Though horror is the starting point, the platform is meant to extend to all genres and various entertainment experiences, including theatrically released films, streaming, theme parks, and immersive, location-based entertainment.
Along with the company's first public activations that will begin during the 2026 Halloween season, ScareScore will also introduce the Biometric Awards, recognizing films and entertainment experiences based on real-time physiological signals that reveal the intensity of audiences' physiological and emotional responses.
Meanwhile, film festivals, location-based entertainment, and technology partners will be announced soon. For more information about ScareScore, visit the company's website.
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