Basic Trope: Something scary appears with no or very little warning.
- Straight: Alice walks through a quiet hallway in a haunted house in some backwoods. A monster suddenly bursts through the wall and gives a deafening roar, startling both her and the audience.
- Exaggerated:
- The monster's roar is loud enough for the audio to clip.
- The monster's roar is so loud that Alice's eardrums burst.
- There's a serene landscape shot halfway in the middle. Suddenly, an extremely loud jumpscare appears with no Foreshadowing.
- Downplayed: Alice walks through a quiet hallway and is slightly startled along with the audience when a cat suddenly jumps out from a hole in the walls.
- Justified: Like real-life animals roaring, the monster is trying to intimidate Alice into submission.
- Inverted: The background music is a suspenseful theme. When the monster shows up, it suddenly stops.
- Subverted: Alice walks through a creepy and quiet hallway and nothing happens.
- Double Subverted: But once she reaches the end of the hallway, then the monster jumps at her.
- Parodied:
- Alice is so startled that she shoots the monster out of reflex.
- The "monster" turns out to be something sillier.
- The monster is cued with "Jump"
- Van Halen's "Jump" plays when the monster jumps out
- Alice and Bob have just left the haunted house. Bob breaks the fourth wall by commenting on the lack of jumpscares during their adventure.Bob: We went through a whole haunted house and didn’t get jumpscared once? We must be extremely lu-Monster: RAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHH!
- After the jumpscare, the monster admits that's really his whole shtick and he can't do anything else, so he'll be leaving now. As he leaves, he tries to jump-scare Alice and the audience one last time... only to be met with Alice's unimpressed face. He apologizes under his breath and actually leaves.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice walks through a creepy and quiet hallway and nothing happens, but once she reaches the end of the hallway, the monster jumps at her. However, it turns out to be a painting that Alice happened to look at. Ominous music begins to play as she begins to walk up the dark stairway, but when the monster actually jumps at her, it suddenly stops.
- Averted: The monster is shown to be inside the wall before jumping out.
- Enforced: The creator wanted to scare their audience but was given a lower budget, so they decided to go with a jumpscare.
- Lampshaded: "Jesus Christ! Why did it have to do that?!"
- Invoked: Emperor Evulz, who kept the monster as a pet, orders it to jump at Alice when she's not expecting it because he knows it will scare her so bad, that she'll have a heart attack, and Evulz will finally be able to capture her.
- Exploited: Bob uses the monster's loud roar to locate Alice and rescue her.
- Defied: Alice checks the hallway for monsters and, when she sees none, launches several grenades into the hallway just to make sure, killing the monster.
- Discussed: "Be careful. A roaring monster might jump out at any moment."
- Conversed: "That jumpscare made me fall out of my sofa!"
- Implied: Bob sends Alice into the hallway and checks her heart rate on his phone. He suddenly hears a muffled roar coming from the hallway and Alice's heart rate suddenly rises.
Back to... uh... what was it again? Oh right, back to JUMP SCARE!!!
