ScareScore Launches Biometric Platform That Turns Audience Fear Into a Score
Whether the heading may be pleasing to read or not, the horror genre seems to be having another monster year (no pun intended). To this point, domestic horror ticket sales have reached about $1.166 billion (as of Q3 2026), topping all of 2017’s tally.
Moreover, the National Retail Federation (NRF) also expects Halloween spending to hit $13.5 billion this year, with 42% of the individuals surveyed planning to watch scary movies as part of their activity roster. Despite this, the way the industry judges whether a scare actually landed hasn’t changed much, relying mostly on exit polls, star ratings or reviews written after the credits roll.
Amidst this, ScareScore has announced the launch of its biometric entertainment platform that measures how audiences physically react to movies and adrenaline-filled experiences as they happen.
What is ScareScore?
ScareScore connects to any smartwatch or wearable, allowing it to read a user’s heart rate, heart-rate variability and general movement patterns. To elaborate:
● It first sets an individual baseline reading for each user.
● The platform then turns real-time reactions into a personalized ScareScore.
Since plenty of people already have the hardware (with a Pew Research Center survey conducted in February found that 37% of U.S. adults own a smartwatch), it does not ask users how scared they were once an activity has concluded but rather shows them how their bodies were behaving while the action was unfolding.
Subsequently, fans can share and compare scores, compete with friends and see how their reactions stack up against other audiences on what the company calls the “1st Global Human Scoreboard.”
What Studios and Venues Get Out of It
For filmmakers, studios, festivals and theme park operators, the clear USP seems to be data itself. And since the reactions are time-coded, the platform shows not only how an audience responded but when, moment by moment. That’s a different kind of signal from traditional surveys, ratings and self-reported opinion. On the development, 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. We believe there is another incredibly valuable signal sitting right in front of us: what their bodies were doing while they experienced it.”
It also bears mentioning that Anastas is a technologist who started ScareScore alongside JP Ouellette, a popular horror film producer. Between the two of them, they seem to share a solid base spanning technology, entertainment, film production, immersive theater attractions and audience engagement.
Horror First, Everything Else Later
Per the founders, horror was picked as the starting point for Scarescore since audience reactions to it are immediate, visceral and easy to measure. The platform, however, is designed to extend to a number of different genres and scale across domains such as:
● Theatrical releases
● Streaming
● Theme parks
● Immersive, location-based entertainment.
The first public activations are set for this year’s Halloween season, including select film festival screenings and location-based experiences across North America. Participants will watch a movie or go through an attraction as intended, then discover their personal biometric score afterward.
Lastly, ScareScore will also be introducing something called the ‘Biometric Awards,’ which will recognize films and entertainment experiences based on real-time physiological signals that reveal how intensely audiences responded, psychologically and emotionally. Additional film festival, location-based entertainment and technology partners are expected to be announced soon. Interesting week ahead!
