Bloodcurdling means so horrifying it makes you go cold. A bloodcurdling scream, bloodcurdling tales, a bloodcurdling sight.
It nearly always goes with scream or shriek. The image comes from an old theory of the body in which fear thickened the blood, and though the physiology was wrong the feeling it named is real enough — fright does move blood away from the skin.
1adjectivebloodcurdlingSo horrifying it makes you go cold.
“The film opens with a bloodcurdling howl from somewhere deep in the forest.”
bloodcurdling is a quality of horror.