How It Works

Welcome to The G.A.S.P. Factor!  Based on the same style of movie reviewing as our sister site, The G.O.R.E. Score, we use a system that we hope will allow anyone who reads these reviews to easily discover what a reviewed item does better/worse/differently than other horror and sci-fi films. This system rates the movie on four distinct levels, allowing readers who are seeking to find/avoid particular details of horror and sci-fi cinema to easily identify the specific area they want to know about:

When you average the scores from the four individual categories (adding them and dividing them by 40), you get what we call the “Total Score.” Now, it’s important to note that the Total Score is NOT an exact indicator of how “good” or “bad” the reviewed item is, it’s simply an average of the four different categories. That having been said, the Total Score of a movie usually means that it falls into one of four ranges that indicate how enjoyable the film may be to the average consumer, what we like to call the “Verdict.” The four different ranges are:

Items that Score this high are usually the “cream of the crop” in terms of well-constructed and highly-enjoyable films for the average viewer. Movies in this range should be actively sought out by the horror or sci-fi lover, and you shouldn’t be disappointed when you do get the time to experience the movie in question.

Items that Score in this range usually have many redeeming qualities to them, and can please a lot of the people a lot of the time. While some fans may find more to love in this category than others, odds are good that the movies in this area will give you at least some sort of satisfaction, and are usually very safe to seek out.

This is the area where things can start to get, well, iffy. Many of the films that fall in this range of Scores have some value and enjoyment deficiencies for a lot of people. It’s not all bad, though: many times items that fall in this range can be enjoyed by certain people, but they simply may not be the “safest” bet for most people.

You will usually find the worst of the worst in this category. Items that fall in this range have obviously scored very low in most (if not all) of the four categories, and as a result the movies may not hold a lot of entertainment value for the average viewer. Those who actively seek out “bad,” retro, or “camp” films may find some value here, but most people are best advised to steer clear of items in this range if you can.

Hopefully this system will be helpful to anyone looking to focus on a specific aspect of a given film, or anyone who simply wants to know specific details about a movie without having to sit through tons of critic-rhetoric about “Why I Loved/Hated This Thing.”

As always, feedback to reviews is welcomed and appreciated! And if there are any specific films you would like to see reviewed, feel free to post them here and our writing staff will do what they can to make it happen. Thank you, and we hope you enjoy the G.A.S.P. Factor!