When Should You Use Tension Instead of Cheap Thrills?

We all know how easy it is to lean on what I’ll call “cheap thrills.” You hit your audience with a jump scare, a sudden twist, a flashy reveal—and boom, you’ve got their attention. The problem is, it’s like dumping a bag of sugar into the pot: it spikes, then crashes.

Tension, though, is the slow burn that keeps people glued in place, leaning forward, waiting. That’s the craft move that turns quick reactions into lasting memory.

Here’s the kicker: most experts I talk to already know the difference in theory, but I think we underestimate just how much discipline tension demands compared to the low-hanging fruit of thrills.

Thrills are loud, tension is quiet—but the quiet is harder to pull off. The question isn’t whether you should use both, it’s whether you can tell when one has more staying power than the other.

Why Cheap Thrills Don’t Get You Very Far

Let’s be real—cheap thrills are tempting. They work fast, they get a rise out of people, and they look great in the short term. But if you’re designing for experts, for audiences who’ve seen it all, or for experiences that need to endure, thrills almost always fall short. They’re like fireworks: big bang, instant applause, and then nothing but smoke.

The psychology of thrills

Cheap thrills hook into our startle reflex and novelty bias. That’s why a sudden noise in a horror movie makes you jump even if you saw it coming, or why a surprise feature in an app might get a momentary “wow.” But the human brain is excellent at adapting. That same jump scare doesn’t work twice. That shiny UI animation? After a week, it’s just background noise. Thrills depend on shock, and shock wears thin fast.

The expert audience problem

Think about it: if you’re working in film, game design, or UX, your audience has already been conditioned. Hardcore gamers? They’ve fought the boss battles, they’ve seen the cinematic explosions. Horror buffs? They know when the music drops out, something’s about to pop. Designers? They’ve tapped through every flashy onboarding flow in existence. When you rely on cheap thrills for these people, you’re playing a game of diminishing returns. You’ve got to keep upping the dosage, which is creatively unsustainable.

An example from horror

Let’s take horror as a case study. A cheap thrill is the cat suddenly leaping out of the closet. It’ll work—people jump. But do they leave the theater thinking about that moment? Probably not. Compare that to something like Hereditary, where Ari Aster lets tension crawl under your skin for entire scenes. He shows you something unsettling but doesn’t cut away. You sit there, squirming, because you know something’s wrong but you’re not sure when or how it will hit. That tension builds a lingering discomfort that lasts way longer than a single jump scare ever could.

Why creators fall back on thrills

I get why people reach for thrills. They’re quick wins. They test well in focus groups. They’re easy to explain to stakeholders: “This is the part where the monster crashes through the window.” They can even be fun to craft—like candy for the creator as much as the consumer. But here’s the truth: cheap thrills are often a sign of fear behind the scenes. Fear that the audience will get bored if you don’t spike their adrenaline. Fear that tension won’t land. Fear that the quiet space will be mistaken for nothing happening.

The stakes in UX and design

Let’s zoom out beyond film. In UX, thrills might look like excessive micro-interactions, fireworks in the interface, or gamified dopamine hits. They’re delightful—at first. But if your product’s entire engagement strategy is “keep feeding the user confetti,” it collapses fast. Compare that with tension in UX, which might be the careful reveal of information. Think about how Duolingo uses streak pressure: it’s not thrilling, it’s tense. Every day you wonder if you’ll keep the streak alive. That’s tension at work in design, and it’s far stickier than fireworks.

The craft of restraint

Here’s the thing that separates real craft from quick tricks: restraint. Anybody can crank up the volume, flash bright colors, or throw in another jump scare. It takes mastery to hold back, to trust that anticipation is more powerful than instant gratification. Hitchcock famously said, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” That’s a filmmaker who understood that once you deliver the explosion, the tension’s gone. The genius lies in delaying it.

Why thrills don’t scale

Another reason thrills fail long-term is scalability. If your brand, story, or experience is built on shock, then you’ve trapped yourself. Every next iteration has to be bigger, louder, crazier. But audiences build tolerance fast. It’s the same problem as clickbait headlines: they only work until people realize the trick. Tension, on the other hand, can scale indefinitely because it feeds on depth, not escalation. You can layer tension in dialogue, pacing, visual cues, stakes—it doesn’t need to scream to be effective.

The lesson for experts

So here’s where I think the expert conversation needs to shift. It’s not about abandoning thrills altogether—they absolutely have their place. But if you’re serious about impact, you’ve got to recognize when you’re leaning on them as a shortcut instead of pushing the tension further.

Audiences aren’t craving more shocks; they’re craving experiences that stay with them after the initial hit fades. And that’s where tension wins every single time.

The uncomfortable truth is this: thrills can make you look clever, but tension makes you look like a master. And mastery is what experts—your peers, your audience, your collaborators—are always watching for.

The Anatomy of Real Tension

If cheap thrills are fireworks, then tension is the slow, steady hum of electricity under the floorboards—you might not see it, but you feel it, and it changes everything. What makes tension so much more enduring is that it’s multidimensional. It’s not just about waiting for something to happen; it’s about living in the space where possibilities exist, where consequences loom, and where the unknown has weight. That’s why tension resonates so much deeper than a quick jolt. Let’s break down the mechanics.

Time

Tension thrives on pacing. Not “slow pacing” necessarily, but deliberate pacing. You can stretch a moment until it’s unbearable, or you can cut off something just before it resolves. This is why a scene where a character walks down a hallway with no music can sometimes be scarier than the monster itself. The clock in our heads becomes the real antagonist.

One of my favorite examples is in No Country for Old Men, where Anton Chigurh walks into the gas station. Nothing explodes. No one screams. Instead, the conversation creeps along with the weight of a gun that hasn’t even been drawn yet. The whole scene is tension distilled into timing: you know something could happen at any second, but the script keeps pushing it off. That’s mastery.

Stakes

Without stakes, tension collapses. You can delay and tease all you want, but if the outcome doesn’t matter, the audience won’t care. Stakes don’t always have to be “life or death.” In design, the stakes might be whether someone loses their progress, their streak, or their status. In narrative, it might be whether a character admits a secret or stays silent. The point is: tension only works if the audience has skin in the game.

This is why Game of Thrones (at least in its early seasons) worked so well. When Ned Stark’s life hung in the balance, it wasn’t just about whether he lived or died—it was about honor, politics, family, justice. Multiple layers of stakes turned every quiet moment into a ticking bomb.

Ambiguity

Ambiguity is different from confusion. Confusion makes people check out, but ambiguity makes them lean in. It’s that delicious feeling of “I think I know what’s going on, but do I really?” Ambiguity keeps tension alive because it prevents resolution.

Think of David Lynch. In Mulholland Drive, half the scenes feel slightly off—dialogue is stilted, shots linger a little too long, expressions don’t quite match the words. That ambiguity makes every scene hum with tension. You’re unsettled, not because of a loud noise or a twist, but because your brain can’t quite file it away neatly.

Restraint

Restraint is probably the hardest part for creators, because it feels like doing less. But restraint is really about choosing not to cash in too early. The scariest monster is the one you don’t see. The most powerful feature is the one you reveal only when the user needs it most. The suspense isn’t in the thing itself; it’s in holding it back.

Jaws is the classic case: the shark barely appears on screen for the first half of the film. Spielberg was forced into restraint because of technical failures, but that restraint became the source of the film’s legendary tension.

Payoff balance

Of course, tension without payoff is cruelty. You can’t build anticipation forever; you have to cash in at the right time. The art lies in how much you reveal versus how much you leave hanging. Too much reveal, and you kill the mystery. Too little, and you frustrate the audience.

This is where craft separates itself from formula. In Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan was a master of balance. He’d stretch a storyline to the breaking point, then give just enough resolution to satisfy, while leaving new questions open. That’s how tension keeps rolling forward without exhausting itself.

Tension in design and storytelling side by side

Here’s a quick way to see the parallel:

• In film, tension is the sound of a creaking floorboard before the door opens.
• In UX, tension is the tiny “typing…” bubble in your messaging app before a reply arrives.
• In games, tension is the slow reload animation while enemies close in.
• In writing, tension is the sentence that cuts off before the answer.

What all these examples share is the manipulation of anticipation. That’s the real engine of tension. It’s not about tricks, it’s about controlling attention, pacing, and emotional investment.

And the kicker? Audiences might not always consciously notice it, but they’ll feel it. That’s why tension lasts, while cheap thrills fade the second the lights come back on.

When Tension Beats Thrills

So how do you actually decide when to use tension instead of cheap thrills? This is where the conversation gets practical. Because honestly, I’m not saying thrills are useless—they absolutely have their place. But when you’re crafting experiences that need to resonate with experts, critics, or seasoned audiences, tension is often the smarter tool.

When longevity matters

If the impact needs to outlive the moment, tension wins. Take the ending of The Sopranos. No explosions, no dramatic monologue. Just a fade to black. That tension has kept people arguing for over a decade. Could a sudden shootout have shocked the audience more in the moment? Sure. But would we still be talking about it now? Probably not.

In design, think about how Apple reveals products. They don’t just announce features. They build entire keynotes around tension—slow reveals, pauses before the price drops, carefully orchestrated anticipation. That sticks way more than if they just blasted a list of specs upfront.

When the audience is seasoned

For beginners, cheap thrills might be enough—they’re new to the game. But seasoned audiences? They’re harder to impress. Horror fans have seen every trick. Power users of software can smell gimmicks. Expert-level players in games know when you’re padding difficulty with jump scares or over-the-top set pieces.

That’s when tension becomes your best friend. It respects the intelligence of the audience. It signals: “I know you’ve seen the easy stuff. Let me show you I can still hold you without resorting to gimmicks.”

When emotional resonance matters

Thrills grab attention, but tension builds connection. Thrills live in the body (a jump, a gasp). Tension lives in the mind (questions, anticipation, fear of loss). If your goal is to create a lasting emotional mark, tension’s the tool you reach for.

Take The Last of Us video game. Yes, it has intense action sequences (thrills), but the real gut punches come from the tension—the long silences, the lingering danger, the moral ambiguity. That’s why people still talk about it as one of the greatest storytelling achievements in games.

A few quick rules of thumb

Here’s how I’d personally decide between thrills and tension:

• If I want the audience to talk about it tomorrow, I can use a thrill.
• If I want them to talk about it ten years from now, I build tension.
• If I’m dealing with a novice audience, thrills might be fine.
• If I’m dealing with experts, tension shows respect for their intelligence.
• If my project is disposable fun, thrills are enough.
• If my project is meant to endure, tension is essential.

Case study crossover: horror vs design

Let’s make this even clearer with a side-by-side.

• Horror movie: A monster jumps out (thrill) vs. a door creaks open slowly, revealing nothing (tension).
• UX app: A bright confetti animation after a task (thrill) vs. a progress bar that fills with a slow, deliberate tick, pushing you to watch (tension).
• Game design: A sudden explosion in a boss fight (thrill) vs. watching your health bar tick down while you scramble to heal (tension).

See the pattern? Thrills spike. Tension stretches. And stretching is where depth lives.

Why this matters for experts

Experts don’t just want to be entertained—they want to be impressed. They want to feel like you’re working on their level, not pandering to the lowest common denominator. Tension is the technique that proves you’ve thought beyond gimmicks. It’s not the easy choice, but it’s the one that sets your work apart in a field crowded with quick jolts and loud tricks.

The truth? Cheap thrills will always get applause. But tension? Tension earns respect.

Before You Leave..

Here’s the simplest way I can put it: thrills are like caffeine. They’ll wake your audience up, maybe even give them a jolt of excitement. But tension? Tension is like gravity. It holds them in place. It shapes the entire experience.

And if you’re serious about crafting work that lasts—whether that’s a film, a game, a product, or a story—you’ll learn when to put the fireworks away and trust the slow burn instead. Because in the long run, that’s what people remember. That’s what keeps them coming back. That’s what makes you more than clever—it makes you unforgettable.