7 Best Horror Movie Soundtracks
An often under-appreciated, yet vital aspect of the horror movie is the soundtrack or score. Without it, how would we know if a character was about to be attacked or if a room is hiding some invisible evil? If a horror movie does it right, a well written score can become as memorable and frightening as the main villain. Throughout the years certain horror movies have become as well known for their score as they have for the film itself.
These seven films are just a few of the very best:
7. Theme from Jaws (1975)
Never have two notes signaled such destruction. Is Stephen Spielberg’s 1975 summer blockbuster Jaws a horror movie? The debate will likely continue to rage on and on. However the movie is categorized, one thing is sure: Many folks left the theater with a fear of the water. The shark itself, constructed of foam and other low-grade special effect materials, could certainly have been made to look a tad more realistic. Thankfully, with John Williams’ brilliant score, this man-eating menace seemed all the more frightening. Unique in the fact that it was comprised of only two alternating notes, E and F, it is a tuba that welcomes the titular character Jaws whenever he enters the scene… forever making tubas as scary as deep, dark water.
6. Theme from 28 Days Later (2002)
Danny Boyle’s post-apocalyptic masterpiece approached the zombie sub-genre in such a unique manner that the movie inspired its resurrection. Instead of slow-moving dullards, the zombies in this film chased down their prey like rabid dogs… fast rabid dogs. The desolate landscape of a once thriving London was enhanced with John Murphy’s score. The orchestral work starts out faint but builds slowly until it reaches a sort of orchestral climax that enhances the kind of edge-of-your-seat scares that this film is known for.
5. The Woman soundtrack (2011)
It would seem that everything Lucky McKee touches turns to gold. After his 2002 sleeper hit May, he returned to the horror genre with a vengeance with The Woman, a violent and shocking story of an everyday family man who decides to kidnap and “civilize” a woman he finds in the woods… with disastrous results. One of the film’s most unique qualities, aside from just being all around amazing, is McKee’s choice of using Sean Spillane to create one of the best horror soundtracks of all time. Unlike most horror movie scores, Spillane has created an album that can stand on its own outside of the movie and leaves people wondering why this guy’s name hasn’t been seen at the top of various music charts. While some have argued that having a soundtrack so good can take away from the movie, each song seamlessly fits into the scenes of the film. Since the movie does all the heavy lifting when it comes to scares, the soundtrack is able to just be amazing in and of itself.
