Our 13 favorite TV jump scares

Gear up for gasps courtesy of Twin Peaks, The Walking Dead, all things Mike Flanagan, and more

By Saloni Gajjar, Emma Keates, Matt Schimkowitz, Cindy White | October 23, 2023 | 3:00pm

TV Lists Saloni Gajjar

From left: Stranger Things (Netflix); Twin Peaks (Showtime); The Haunting Of Hill House (Netflix) Graphic: Karl Gustafson

Jump scares are an essential part of any horror TV show. They can range from being genuinely terrifying to somewhat comical, and the truly great ones are usually unforgettable, causing you to almost stop breathing when they hit. So, to celebrate the spooky season, A.V. Club staffers decided to sound off on their favorite jump scares throughout TV history. Here are our picks, covering frights from the ’60s to today, running in chronological order.

The Twilight Zone: Robert sees a gremlin (season 5, episode 3)

The Twilight Zone (Classic): Nightmare At 20,000 Feet - There’s A Man Out There

“Nightmare At 20,000 Feet” is a classic episode. The show, of course, excelled at playing twisted mind games and delving into psychological horror. So it was always nice when there was a real jump scare to catch you off guard, a feat this season-five episode accomplished beautifully. William Shatner plays Robert Wilson, who is flying on an airplane with his wife, but only he seems to be aware of a tiny little fact: There’s a gremlin outside the window. No one else can spot him, so is Robert just losing his mind? The episode unwinds the truth slowly, but the jump scare comes when Robert gets up close to the window to peer out, and the creature is also pressed up against it from the outside. It definitely, decades after originally airing, caused a young me to forgot to breathe. [Saloni Gajjar]

Tales From The Dark Side: The goblin trick-or-treater (season 2, episode 5)

Halloween Candy Part 2

Some jump scares stay with you, even if they’re not particularly scary. Sometimes, you see a movie on HBO as a child only to discover that movie was Troll 2. In the case of Tales From The Dark Side’s “Halloween Candy,” the creepy sense of foreboding and the ticking of a grandfather clock is enough to evoke those childhood fears. Directed by horror icon Tom Savini, “Halloween Night” remains burned in my memory since I caught it on the SYFY channel back when it was called SciFi. It really is a simple scare, too, in which a Halloween curmudgeon tries to shoo a persistent trick-or-treater from his porch, only to discover the costumed child is more of a goblin. But when the curmudgeon peers through his Venetian blinds and two glowing eyes gaze back, I can still feel the fear that gripped me as a kid. By today’s standards, it’s pretty silly stuff that nevertheless still hits. Maybe I’m just afraid of goblins. [Matt Schimkowitz]

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Twin Peaks: Maddy sees Bob (season 2, episode 2)

Twin Peaks - Maddy Sees Bob / Cooper Dreams of Owls

I like to think (or delude myself into thinking) that I have a high threshold for horror. For the most part, I enjoy the genre and I’m rarely scared of anything on screen. However, I can’t shake , the best horror show to exist, in my opinion. ’s stunning drama mixes supernatural, suspense, and spookiness in huge amounts. And the one scene that has left an imprint on me comes at the end of season two’s second outing. In “Coma,” the jump scare is a slow burn, thanks to Maddy’s (Sheryl Lee) terrifying vision of Killer Bob (Frank Sila). What makes it hit hard is how unexpected it is, especially after the episode tries to dig into Maddy’s fragile state of mind. Left alone in the living room, she sees Bob craftily enter, wearing the most sinister smile, and approach her while hopping over the couch. He’s close enough that their faces can touch, but the knowledge that no one else sees him makes it worse. Lynch, who directed the hour, uses Silva’s close-up in a way to make the audience feel Bob is about to transcend the camera and attack them. The jump scare works because of the actors’ tremendous expressions, too. [Saloni Gajjar]

Twin Peaks: Bob consumes Earle’s body (season 2, episode 22)

Twin Peaks - Doppelgänger’s chase in the Black Lodge

Twin Peaks again! The series’ season-two finale is a funhouse mirror version of the show. No coffee, no donuts, just Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) tip-toeing around the Black Lodge for a dialogue-free half-hour of horror. However, one particular scare has always stood out: when Cooper faces his former partner Windom Earle (Kenneth Welsh). Subsumed by the dark forces of the Lodge, Earle is nothing more than Bob’s puppet when Dale confronts him in the Red Room. For a show that’s not big on jump scares, director David Lynch stages a shocker against the strobe lights and chevrons. Bob conjures an unnatural, backward-moving fire atop Earle’s head and is sucked into his body, stealing his minion’s soul and leaving an empty husk behind. It’s one of the most surprising and unsettling images on Twin Peaks and is still, all these years later, a difficult watch. [Matt Schimkowitz]

The X-Files: Leonard attacks Scully (season 4, episode 12)

The X Files - Scully Fights Leonard Betts (4x12)

Of the handful of episodes that fit comfortably into the thriller genre, “Leonard Betts” is widely regarded as one of the most significant, not just for the ingenious concept behind its monster of the week, but for the life-changing news he delivers to Scully (Gillian Anderson) in the climax. Paul McCrane guest stars as “Leonard” (not his real name), a guy who is literally made of cancer and needs to collect cancerous tissue from others in order to survive. There are quite a few creepy moments throughout the episode—at one point his severed head comes back to life just as Scully’s about to examine it—leading up to a scene near the end when she’s searching what appears to be an empty ambulance. Leonard suddenly pops out and pins her inside, telling her, “I’m sorry, but you’ve got something I need.” It’s a devastating reveal at a moment when we’re least expecting it. An emotional jump scare, if you will. [Cindy White]

The Walking Dead: Rick kills the zombie girl (season 1, episode 1)

Opening Scene The Walking Dead Season 1 Episode 1

Say what you will about but there’s no denying that the AMC drama has one hell of a pilot. Mostly featuring Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) on a post-coma journey to find his family, “Days Gone By” revels in its depiction of how overrun the country is with zombies, a.k.a. “walkers.” We see that immediately when the episode opens and Rick, dressed in his sheriff outfit, tries to save a young girl who is wandering alone. That little girl turns out to be a walker, and he is forced to shoot her. It’s a jump scare introduction to the world TWD is, ahem, fleshing out. [Saloni Gajjar]

Penny Dreadful: Frankenstein’s arrival (season 1, episode 1)

Penny Dreadful | Episode 101 “Birth of Proteus” | Autopsy of a Scene

In its first two episodes, gothic-lit pastiche seems to take a radical approach to the story of Victor Frankenstein and his hideous progeny—that is, by making the progeny in question not so hideous at all. Dear, doomed Proteus is essentially a wide-eyed baby that his creator is more than happy to take on as a son of sorts, an obvious and drastic change from the original Mary Shelley novel. But if you were wondering where the story could possibly go from there, have no fear … or maybe a lot of fear. (This is a list of jump scares, after all.) In a shocking moment at the end of episode two, the reanimated corpse we’ve come to love is torn asunder as an act of vengeance by the actual hideous progeny, born first and cast aside by his creator. Ah, there’s the Frankenstein we know. [Emma Keates]

Stranger Things: The Demogorgon snatches Barb (season 1, episode 2)

Barb is taken by the Demogorgan | Stranger Things 1 Scene

Despite only appearing in a few episodes in the first season of , the character of Barb (Shannon Purser) made such an impression on fans that her early demise sparked a rallying cry: “Justice for Barb!” Whether you felt the movement was warranted or overblown, it’s hard to deny the impact of her last few moments on this plane. After Nancy (Natalia Dyer) drags her to a party at Steve’s (Joe Keery) house and she cuts her hand open while trying to shotgun a beer, Barb mopes by the pool while everyone else is inside having fun. Sitting alone on the diving board, dripping blood into the water, she may as well be wearing a sign that says, “Come and get me, monster.” The lights go out—always a bad sign in Stranger Things—and a creature suddenly whips across the screen. Though we do see her again in the Upside Down, that’s pretty much it for poor Barb. [Cindy White]

The Haunting Of Hill House: Nell’s ghost scares Theo and Shirley in the car (episode 8)

The Haunting of Hill House E08 CAR JUMPSCARE

In , nothing is as alarming as the ghost of Nell (Victoria Pedretti) popping up from the backseat to creep out her two sisters, Theo (Kate Siegel) and Shirley (Elisabeth Reaser). Nell’s spirit wants them to stop fighting over whether Theo had an affair with Shirley’s husband (she did not) and focus on, you know, the real issues plaguing them. It’s not a particularly horrifying jump scare, but—as is the trope’s style—it comes out of nowhere and is easily one of ’s most effective ones. [Saloni Gajjar]

Evil: The curious case of a disappearing teen girl (season 1, episode 5)

Evil Season 1 First Look | Rotten Tomatoes TV

Robert and Michelle King’s is a fun take on horror tropes: exorcisms, demons, heaven and hell, curses, and whatnot. The show tackles it all through its three leads: priest David Acosta (Mike Colter), forensic psychologist Dr. Kristen (Katja Herbers), and skeptic contractor Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi). And the show delivers plenty of jump scares, largely via the creature named George. But the series’ most notable scare comes in season one’s “October 31,” a.k.a. the first time I realized the Kings are not messing around. On Halloween, Kristen’s four young and loud daughters are being supervised by their grandmother. However, she’s quite negligent, so the girls get distracted by a new masked friend named Brenda. Now, Brenda’s face is never revealed, but she successfully convinces them to go to the graveyard. She also tells them plenty of freaky stories about her disfigured parents. The real jump scare comes when the girls try to point her out, but she fades away and disappears right at that moment. Was she real? Was she a figment of their imagination? Those are questions that Evil tackles in one way or another in every episode. [Saloni Gajjar]

The Haunting Of Bly Manor: The Lady of the Lake kills Peter (episode 5)

The Haunting of Bly Manor 2x05 - Peter’s Death

If Hill House was relatively low on real jump scares, Flanagan’s next, is even lower. It’s more of a tragic meditation on grief and how closely it stays with you, no matter how much time has passed. Yet, it still took me by total surprise when episode five revealed how Peter Quint (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) died. It comes out of nowhere (duh!), but in the larger scheme of the show, also makes sense with how the Lady Of The Lake (Kate Siegel) operated. She would gut anything in her path as she roamed Bly Manor at night—a fact we only learn later. However, in this case, Peter unfortunately happens to be standing right in front of her as he tells Flora and Miles to go back to bed. And then bam! The ghost grabs him by the throat as they watch in shock, dragging him to his death. [Saloni Gajjar]

Midnight Mass: The “angel” attacks Riley (episode 4)

Midnight Mass The Angel Jump Scare

It’s not like I wasn’t expecting Father Paul Hill’s (Hamish Linklater) nefarious angel to kill people. makes it clear that the creature Paul is harboring is about to do serious harm to Crockett Island residents at some point. But I did not expect series lead Riley (Zach Gilford) to pay the price—and especially not in the manner that he does. Riley, after realizing the town’s new pastor has been lying to them little by little, goes to confront him at night. The timing is terrible because he witnesses Paul and the angel in the church, and the latter is busy shedding its wings. He’s left with his mouth hanging open, and we are too when the being hurriedly flies over to Riley and essentially infects him. This all sets the stage for Midnight Mass’ remaining three increasingly jarring episodes. [Saloni Gajjar]

Servant: Julian finds the rotting corpse of his nephew (season 3, episode 3)

Servant — Official Trailer | Apple TV+

The jump scares in the M. Night Shyamalan-produced are less straight-up scary and more disturbing. The show follows Dorothy Turner (Lauren Ambrose), who is unable to cope with the death of her toddler, so her family brings her a fake baby so she thinks it’s her actual son. That alone is creepy. Enter their new nanny, Leanne (Nell Tiger Free), who is definitely harboring secrets and belongs to a dangerous cult. Servant is WTF-inducing, usually because of the doll, the antics of Leanne and her uncle George, and even Sean Turner’s cooking (peeling an eel when it’s alive?! Why?). Yet, nothing is worse than Dorothy’s brother, Julian (Rupert Grint), walking into the house after not reaching his sister for days. What he finds isn’t just a scary; it’s gross and tragic: the rotting corpse of his nephew. [Saloni Gajjar]