A video of a family left terrified by an unexpected visitor while watching a crime documentary on television has gone viral on TikTok.
The clip was shared by @carlyjakob and has received more than 4.9 million views since it was first shared back in late October 2023. A caption shared with the post reads: "Pov [point of view]: surprising your family from college while they're watching a murder documentary."
The footage begins with a view of some stairs inside a home, before the camera is led past a couple of rooms, heading towards a living room where a television is turned on.
As the camera enters the living room, a voice is heard saying, "So what's for dinner?" before screaming is heard in the background.
A man and woman are sitting on a couch opposite the television, and the woman shouts "No!" towards the camera.
Another woman is shown sitting on the floor against a refrigerator while holding her hands to her chest as the clip ends with laughter heard in the background.
Over half of adults in the U.S. were reported to be at least "somewhat interested" in the true-crime entertainment genre, according to a 2019 survey by CivicScience, a consumer analytics platform.
Twenty-eight percent were reported to watch true-crime content "every now and then," while 12 percent watch "very often" and 9 percent are "interested but haven't yet started watching," the survey found.
Netflix was reported to be the most-popular platform for the genre, with 22 percent saying they watch true crime on the streaming service, according to the data from CivicScience.
The top five favorite documentary genres named by respondents included true crime (18.5 percent), in a 2021 survey by the Arts Management and Technology Laboratory (AMT Lab). This is a research center of Carnegie Mellon University's Master of Arts Management program. True crime was topped by historical (23.3 percent) and followed by cultural/societal (12.7 percent), biographical (12 percent), and music (8.2 percent).
"While historical documentaries received the greatest percentage, when asked to name their favorite documentary in recent times, seven out of 11 names selected most often were in the true-crime genre," the AMT Lab report said.
Younger age groups had a "strong preference" for true-crime documentaries, but "very little interest" in music, biographical or historical subjects. The opposite was true for older people surveyed, who appeared to enjoy historical, biographical and music documentaries the most, the AMT Lab survey found.
'The Screams of Terror'
Several users on TikTok were amused by the latest viral clip, with @lizard.444 writing, "the screams of terror."
Deviant_Machine_900 posted: "Those are screams of sheer Terror and I'm living for it."
LindseyRenee commented: "I react the same way when my children ask about dinner."
Connieag4 wrote: "I need to know what they were watching for them to react that way."
User halo_facts asked: "why did everyone think they were about to die."
User angie simply posted: "Too good."
Kalob Gossett added: "I just know Mom's heart stopped for a second."
User biankapetrossian 🇦🇲 wrote: "They Literally Had Every Light On and Still Got Scared."
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Soo Kim is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. She covers various lifestyle stories, specializing in travel and health.
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