In 2017, a list of the top 10 scariest movies on Netflix was released by the streaming service, showing that many of their viewers aren’t ready for the numerous scares offered up on demand. It’s interesting to note the movies deemed “too scary” to finish are kind of all over the place in terms of the genre. There are moody explorations of what it means to be a woman, run-of-the-mill ghost stories, and body horror that will make you shudder every time you look in the mirror. So it’s hard to say what freaked out audiences so much it made them switch back to binge-watching The Office for the 20th time.
Paul Tassi of Forbes managed to get viewing data from Netflix that showed viewers turning off around the 70% mark. The streaming service claims this is how they can tell the audience is too scared to finish the movie, as opposed to just turning it off because they were bored. Netflix believes that if someone sits through most of a horror movie, the only reason they’re not finishing it is because it’s too much for them. The truth is anyone’s guess, but it’s worth diving into to see what scenes are really affecting viewers.
