Scare score: how Gasper measures how scary a film is

The scare score is the number Gasper gives a film for how scary it was to you, out of 10 with one decimal, shown with skulls. It is the only number Gasper ranks, it is the half of Gasper that no other film app has, and it is the reason the app only does horror.

How it is set

You never type it. When you tap Rank on a film, you first answer "How scary was it?": Terrifying, Some scares, or Barely flinched. That gives the film its range: Terrifying scores run from 7.0 to 10, Some scares from 4.0 to 6.9, Barely flinched from 1.0 to 3.9. Then the app asks "Which was scarier?" and shows you two posters, the new film and one you already ranked with the same answer. Tap or drag toward the scarier one. Each answer narrows where the film sits, and after a handful of comparisons the film lands in your rankings.

The scare score is read off that position. A film near the top of your scariest list gets a number near 10. A film near the bottom gets a number near 1. Films in between get the decimals in between. Because the score is relative to everything else you have ranked, it only means something once you have ranked enough films to spread it out. Gasper needs 5 ranked films before it shows numbers at all; until then the number is blurred and the app says how many more to rank to unlock your scare scores.

Why it works this way

Ask someone to rate how scary a film was on a ten-point scale and you get a number pulled from the air, drifting with mood and memory. Ask the same person whether The Descent (2005) or Hereditary (2018) scared them more and you get an answer they can defend. Head-to-heads turn a vague feeling into a sequence of easy choices, and the number is a byproduct.

It also keeps "scary" separate from "loved". The score answers one question only. For the films you adore regardless of how they scored there is the heart, Loved, so a clumsy film that genuinely rattled you can carry a high scare score and no heart, and a comedy that never made you flinch can sit low and be hearted, without any contradiction.

In Gasper

Your scare score sits under "You" next to the Community Scare, the average of everyone who ranked the same film, on every film page. The gap between the two is what builds your Scare Tolerance, and the single widest gap becomes your Hottest Take. You can re-rank any film later; the new head-to-heads move it and the score updates. Nothing you type, including tags like Jump scares or Slow burn, changes the score. Only comparisons do.