The 1. 00 greatest horror soundtracks. Horror scores are for life, not just for Halloween. Get to know these 1. The range of music available on horror scores is similarly kaleidoscopic – funk, electro, EBM, folk, ambient and weirdo electronics have all been used to revolt, unsettle, or scare the LDs out of the unwitting viewer. ![]() Yes, you’re never too far away from a brooding analogue synth, but the subculture of horror soundtracks is immensely rich and full of surprises. You can see why people devote hundreds of hours – and thousands of dollars – to hoarding (and, increasingly, reissuing) this stuff. The following list runs the gamut from curios to blockbusters, from fan- assembled bootlegs to charting LPs. Cult classics and video nasties are amply represented: for every Carpenter and Craven flick, there’s a Surf Nazis Must Die or Slumber Party Massacre. Bear in mind however that this is a list of original soundtracks, which eliminates classics such as The Shining, The Exorcist and, err, The Return of the Living Dead. A history of jazz before 1930 offering RealAudio files, biographies, discographies, and filmography. After you've wiped all the makeup off your zombie actor friends, it's time for the real scarey part -- picking out music for your Horror flick. See how well critics are rating the Best Movies on Netflix of All Time. There have been direct references to the Star Wars series in more than 170 feature films, and in. There have been direct references to the Star Wars. It’s been a total labour of love, and special thanks are due to exemplary horror specialists Death Waltz Recording Company and One Way Static, whose assistance was invaluable in assembling this list. Readers of a nervous disposition – look away now. Stream the list as a single You. Tube playlist. Claudio Gizzi. Flesh for Frankenstein(1. AKA Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein – a grisly splatter- comedy directed by the great American nose- tweaker. Although cash was evidently tight (as an economising measure, they filmed 1. Blood for Dracula straight after using the same cast and sets), Flesh was filmed in primitive 3. D, and came with a score that’s much more affecting and hi- res than it really ought to be – a selection of rich, romantic compositions for orchestra, with pastoral segues and a touch of B- movie shonkiness for good measure. John Mc. Callum. Surf Nazis Must Die(1. Notorious Troma- affiliated genre flick Surf Nazis Must Die might not exactly live up to the promise of its brilliant title, but the soundtrack has aged surprisingly well. Finally released this year by Strange Disc, it’s a synth- led collection of trashy burners, with composer John Mc. The guy who did the creepy, menacing music for Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Tales From The Crypt, composed a creepy, menacing horror score for the. Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying. Callum tapping into his inner John Carpenter, albeit with an even lower budget. Cult trash nerds should be interested to know that Mc. Callum also penned the soundtrack to the bonkers late- night classic Miami Connection – get in. Jerry Goldsmith. Poltergeist(1. With his usual collaborator John Williams hard at work on the score for E. T. The Extra- Terrestrial, producer Steven Spielberg looked to Jerry Goldsmith to provide the accompaniment to Poltergeist. Sound Effects in SF and Horror Films," in Kongressbok ConFuse 96, the program booklet for the SF convention held in Linköping, Sweden, June. The Academy Award for Best Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by. Some of our great new horror movies look to the past for assistance, others resonate with bleak nihilism for our future. Goldsmith was riding high on the success of his scores for The Omen and Alien, and managed to capture Poltergeist’s tension between terror and innocence without aping familiar tropes. In contrast with many of the other horror scores of the era, Goldsmith didn’t use any synthesizers, instead using a musical saw, whistles and chimes to create an endearingly creepy atmosphere. Douglas Pipes. Trick R Treat(2. Comedy horror is notoriously tricky to pull off, so a pumpkinful of props to Douglas Pipes for managing the goofy/spooky balance so carefully. His score for cheeky four- in- one anthology Trick R Treat largely keeps a straight face, presenting stirring orchestral passages and shocker pastiche that’s just too overwrought to be taken seriously. There are winks too: heavy nods to Halloween, and an eerie running motif based around the “trick or treat” nursery rhyme. Richard Einhorn. Shock Waves(1. Einhorn studied with Vladimir Ussachevsky at the legendary Columbia Princeton Electronic Music centre, and it shows in his electroacoustic score for subaquatic Nazi romp Shock Waves. Full of sinister chirrups and oscillator trills, it has a distinctly academic chill, although some snarling synth work pitches for the gut. Einhorn would go on to score plenty more films, including nasties like The Prowler and Blood Rage, although he’s better known for Voices of Light, his alternative soundtrack for Dreyer’s 1. The Passion of Joan of Arc. Paul Ferris. Witchfinder General(1. Plenty of confusion surrounds the soundtrack to Michael Reeves’ cheapo exploitation flick – chances are if you saw the film in its VHS run then you’ll have heard the iffy replacement synthesizer score, which wasn’t a patch on the original. It’s surprisingly lavish stuff given the budget (the film apparently cost around . Stefano Mainetti. Zombi 3(1. 98. 8)The film itself might be mostly worth avoiding – it’s a hack- up of material shot by Lucio Fulci and Bruno Mattei at different times – but Stefano Mainetti’s Zombi 3 score is way better than it rightly should be. Not only did he contribute the requisite collection of eerie synth- led pulses and themes, but he actually wrote a few real songs which are worryingly enjoyable in a chugging, hair- metal kind of way. Joseph Loduca. The Evil Dead(1. Like just about every aspect of The Evil Dead’s famously gruelling production, Lo. Duca’s first score was a haphazard blag job: the jazz- trained composer had no scoring training, and little ear for horror (“Sam would tell me to listen to a score by Bernard Herrmann. I would comment that it resembled a Stravinsky piece to me.”) The gamble came good: Lo. Duca’s score is a subtle collection of synth- assisted compositions for stings, and bought him the sort of breakout every composer crosses their fingers for. Subsequent work includes Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess – and, of course, numerous Evil Dead sequels. Lalo Schifrin. The Amityville Horror(1. After Schifrin’s score for 1. The Exorcist was rejected – “one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life” – he kept away from horror films, returning to the genre with 1. The Manitou, and going on to produce this, a landmark work in his huge canon. It’s a world away from his funk’n’jazz- coloured calling cards – a grand exercise in brassy atonality and nerve- jangling volume. Certainly the finest horror score from the soundtrack majordomo. Danny Elfman. Nightbreed(1. From Tim Burton’s toytown gothic to the Simpsons theme tune, you tend to know what you’re getting with Elfman: sweetened (and, often, over- sugared) pomp. Nightbreed – Clive Barker’s prosthetics- heavy cult fantasy- horror – is a fine example of Elfman’s compositional peacocking coming good, full as it is of colour and melodic flair. Not a schmaltz- free zone by any means, but when said film looks like a GWAR convention, that’s more than okay. Fabio Frizzi. Zombie Flesh Eaters(1. Italian horror don Fabio Frizzi’s score for Lucio Fulci’s Zombie Flesh Eaters (or Zombi 2, depending on where you’re located) isn’t quite as memorable as his masterpiece City of the Living Dead, but it’s still well worthy of a look, with the main theme standing as one of the best things he ever penned. It’s typically jaunty, plasticky stuff, with a fat drum machine pulsing through Frizzi’s triumphant, brassy selection of leads. Mads Heldtberg, Jasper Kee, Kyle Mc. Kinnon. You’re Next(2. It’s befuddling to us why Mads Heldtberg, Jasper Lee and Kyle Mc. Kinnon’s refreshing score to recent horror smash You’re Next still hasn’t been released. Unlike many contemporary composers, Heldtberg and friends avoided the obvious canned strings and scares you’d usually expect in favor of electronics and a pleasing nod to the horror films of the 7. Percussive and at times deliciously bizarre, Heldtberg even manages to evoke the ghosts of acid house with the spooky, repetitive synth sequences. Paul Giovanni and Magnet. The Wicker Man(1. Co- ordinated by New York playwright and actor Paul Giovanni, the score for the much- loved 1. Performed by Magnet (n. A hand for the indefatigable Jonny Trunk, who finally gave this a proper release back in 1. Nico Fidenco. Zombi Holocaust(1. Way better than it quite rightly should be, Zombi Holocaust is embarrassingly enjoyable trash, and its musical accompaniment from Nico Fidenco is all the right kinds of sleazy. Fidenco mashes together exotica and the all- important creeping electronic drones to land on a collection of tracks that end up being surprisingly complex. It shouldn’t be a big surprise that Fidenco’s regular gig was dropping cues for cheapo Italian porno flicks. Joseph Bishara. The Conjuring(2. A stand- out contemporary talent, Joseph Bishara has been responsible for a string of successful post- 2. Insidious. The Conjuring OST is a dysphoric set of dark ambient drift and pointed sound design, with a strong industrial literacy – Diamanda Galas features, and Xenakis and Einsturzende Neubatuen are namechecked as influences. Biashara isn’t the type to remain cloistered in the studio either – rather brilliantly, he’s played demons in both Insidious and The Conjuring. Chu Ishikawa. Tetsuo II: Body Hammer(1. If you’re going to make a cyberpunk fantasia with extended bodybuilding sequences, you’re not going to drop Aimee Mann a call, are you? Chu Ishikawa’s pummelling industrial score is the perfect match for Shinya Tsukamoto cult technohorror, playing like an amped- up Nitzer Ebb with added blast beats. Ishikawa’s soundtrack to the first Tetsuo film is great too, but this one really goes for broke – an HVDC cable straight to the adrenal glands. Tindersticks. Trouble Every Day(2. The Nottingham group are essentially French director Claire Denis’ house band, having scored seven films for her since the mid- 1. Erotic horror Trouble Every Day, obviously, isn’t a full- on beasties’n’guts affair, but these richly orchestrated, folk- inflected tracks – and particularly those featuring Stuart Staples’ orotund voice – add reservoirs of feeling to the film. According to Denis, Tindersticks’ score offers a “mutilated kind of romance. Gino Marinuzzi Jr. Planet of the Vampires(1. This absolute belter from composer and electronic innovator Gino Marinuzzi Jr. The 2. 5 Best Horror Films of the Aughts . That the halcyon days of horror are directly proportional to the index of actual human suffering. If that's so, the entire world has spent the last decade counting down the few remaining seconds left on the Doomsday Clock. While the few years leading up to Y2. K brought with them a set of snarky, masturbatorily meta slasher movies that ensured audiences not only felt superior to the movies they were raised on, but also absolved them of any sense of socio- political obligation, the dozens and dozens of new horror classics that have swarmed out of every corner of the globe since then (not unlike the teeming cockroaches that burst out of E. G. Marshall's chest at the climax of Creepshow) seemed to impress upon us all that the biggest nightmare of all wasn't that the world would end, but that we'd have to continue living on in the colossal mess we've cultivated. Or, worse, that we'd have to continue cultivating a culture of killing. It's both too glib and too jingoistic to suggest that 9/1. William Castle, Roger Corman, and the Crypt Keeper combined. Though the instantaneously repulsive spectacle in lower Manhattan and the deadening slow- mo retaliation certainly primed the world to absorb a whole lotta hurt, the new millennial horror paid forth brutalism in a multicultural banquet of carnage, grue, and dread. Some of our great new horror movies look to the past for assistance, others resonate with bleak nihilism for our future. Want stone proof the aughts sucked? Recue the blunt climax to the most diverting movie in our entire list of the 2.
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