Best Horrors

[Susan]

While burning a cd with horror music on it, i realized I dont often give enough credit to the composers of the score in horror movies. When I think of some of the scariest and greatest horror movies, it really seems that without the signature music, the movie would not have the same effect. Imagine Michael meyers trying to look menacing to the tune of "Who are the people in your neighborhood?" ;-)

[kriegerg69]

It's well-known that John Carpenter wasn't satisfied with his early cut of HALLOWEEN, saying something to the effect of "It didn't work".....until he added his music in, and then he says it made all the difference.

There was some special I recorded off tv many years ago (some kind of horror/Halloween special in October), and they did something neat.....they showed clips from a few horror films WITHOUT playing the sound, and the scenes simply weren't scary at all. They then showed the clips with goofy music dubbed in, and the scenes were suddenly like something out of a Three Stooges short!

Susan wrote:

> While burning a cd with horror music on it, i realized I dont
> often give enough credit to the composers of the score in
> horror movies. When I think of some of the scariest and
> greatest horror movies, it really seems that without the
> signature music, the movie would not have the same effect.
> Imagine Michael meyers trying to look menacing to the tune of
> "Who are the people in your neighborhood?" ;-)

[Scott]

No doublt music is vital towards creating atmosphere like in any genre, but best horror music is of coarse the one from the movie you mentioned HALLOWEEN and the intense dizzy hacking sounds of PSYCHO.

Ocassionally a film that might have been better if they added some music. Sometimes the horror music is just to generic to help.

[Mr. Hockstatter]

I'm always amazed at how many movies use Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D minor.  Truly the scariest piece of music ever written, and Bach wrote everything for the glory of God.

[Scott]

Mr. Hockstatter said:

> Truly the scariest piece of music ever written, and Bach wrote everything for the glory of God.

I understand were Bach may have been coming from. Some people understand these things better as they are more honest.

[dean]

How'd the CD go Susan?  What ended up making it on the cd?

Movie soundtracks are sorely underappreciated.  I am a huge fan of soundtracks, so I guess I'm a bit passionate about the whole thing.

Personally I find that creepy toybox music works the best in a horror film.

I recently made a short film about an evil toy clown which wouldn't have been half as good if it wasn't for the wierd toybox bell-style music that I made to go with it!

[odinn7]

The worst kind is the music that has kids in it, such as Amityville (sp?) Horror. Something about kids doing background music for horror movies gets to me.

[Fearless Freep]

Think about Star Wars without John Williams' score.  Just about every scene is set off perfectly with the music.

I agree with odinn7 that a lot of horror movies effectively use children singing children's songs, or variatons, and it's really creppy.  Think of "Nightmare On Elm Street"

[The Ghoul]

True, movie soundtracks don't get a lot of attention these days. Back in the late 1970's movie music scores came in triple album sets! Those days are long gone but it's not too hard to find a soundtrack or music score to your favorite movie. A freebie place many people over look is their local library. Go to the CD collection and I will bet you'll find dozens of movie soundtracks. For free to copy. Some rare CD's in genre collections like horror movie classic music. Great to have on a long commute!!