10 classic songs that need to be used in horror movies
Artists contributing songs to a movie soundtrack has been nothing new. As far back as Elvis Presley, it was almost expected for rock and rollers to release songs in tandem with a movie rather than as a standalone single. Whereas most of those tracks may have been peppy and upbeat, the compositions from Black Sabbath and Nine Inch Nails are indebted to movies that are far more sinister.
Compared to traditional film scores, modern horror movies have relied on mostly stuttering effects and glitchy music as the main draw. Rather than focus on string sections or an orchestra, half of the greatest horror soundtracks of the past few years could easily fall under the category of sound design rather than any music.
If any horror movie were to use music as their backing tracks, any of these artists would be a surefire pick. Outside of their grotesque images, part of the appeal of their songs usually thrives on just how off-putting they can be, taking all the cleanliness of pop music and twisting it sideways so it sounds like the most foreboding music in the world.
Regardless of what the song’s subject was in the first place, each tune could quickly be morphed for the horror movie crowd, taking the building blocks of rock and roll and transforming them into the scariest piece of music that you’ve ever heard. Every good rock song tends to come from the writer’s soul, and there’s a good chance these artists had more than their fair share of demons inside them.
10 songs that need to be in horror movies:
10. ‘Gold Dust Woman’ – Fleetwood Mac
Before getting into the realm of horror, there are always different types of movies that have sparked terror in the hearts of filmgoers worldwide. Just like no one would play a party song in the background of a romantic love scene, no one would play the sound of a heavy rock song amid an alarming piece of film. Whereas most mainstream horror movies veer towards slasher films, ‘Gold Dust Woman’ caters to a psychological thriller.
Throughout the making of Rumours, every member of Fleetwood Mac were out of their mind on cocaine, leading to prolonged sessions as they tried to come down from their physical and emotional highs. Nursing a cold during recording, Stevie Nicks turned a performance for the ages on the final track, sounding like the incarnation of a witch casting a spell on whatever unsuspecting soul might be listening at the time.
Much like the song would imply, the tune caters to a more psychological horror frame of mind, perhaps centred around a mind-altering witch rather than a killer tearing someone limb from limb. The trope of movie monsters focuses on destroying everything in sight, but Nicks is looking to get inside the minds of her captives before taking everything away from them.
9. ‘Lullaby’ – The Cure
Of all the great bands to come out of the golden age of goth-rock, The Cure was by far the prettiest. Though artists like Bauhaus may have been able to conjure up real fear in the mind of the listener, no one else in the scene was going to write a song as earnest as ‘Friday I’m In Love’ or ‘Just Like Heaven’. Then again, Robert Smith could turn on a dime and become the sonic embodiment of dread.
Telling a tale about a human spider coming to eat him during the night, Smith is on the edge of his seat throughout ‘Lullaby’, practically trembling with fear as the monster comes in. Whereas the Spider-Man of films past may be a friendly webslinger, nothing is inviting about Smith’s interpretation, only asking for his prey to keep still as he begins to consume him whole.
When transferred to the film world, ‘Lullaby’ could easily be the soundtrack inside a killer’s mind, especially towards the song’s midsection where Smith instructs, “Don’t struggle” as the web ties ever tighter. Despite their penchant for the most dramatic pop songs to hit the airwaves, the menace inside this one track is enough for any hardened shock rocker to get chills.
8. ‘Spit Out the Bone’ – Metallica
In the modern age, artificial intelligence is the most famous enemy in films. As evidenced by the recent Mission Impossible instalment, the main threat behind AI comes from fear of the unknown, never realising when a program can gain sentience and start laying waste to the human race. If there were a battle between man and machine on film, Metallica would offer a pretty badass soundtrack.
Coming at the tail-end of their album Hardwired…to Self Destruct, ‘Spit Out the Bone’ may as well be a soundtrack to the long-lost 1990s action film that never got made. Complete with a story from the perspective of a world-conquering robot, Hetfield spits venom about overthrowing the generation of man and embracing what the planet has to offer for droids looking to make it a better place.
Compared to the millions of action films of this ilk that more than likely star Arnold Schwarzenegger, this would be a dystopian tale, looking back on where humanity went wrong as the last human survivors on Earth are finally given the death blow by murderous robots. The premise may have seemed more than a little bit far-fetched just 20 years ago, but considering how music is getting a hand from AI, the message of this Metallica track rings more true today than ever before.
7. ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ – Wham!
Considering the title of this list involves the word ‘horror’, there’s no real reason for Wham! to be on a list like this. Since George Michael and Andrew Ridgely were known for the most glittery pop music of the 1980s, songs like ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’ feel like they should be a part of a generic romantic comedy or family movie. While it would work just fine in that context, placing it at the right time in a horror movie would make things all the more unsettling.
For every great horror film, there is usually a scene towards the end of the movie which showcases the most disturbing images one could imagine. Even though a killer of that calibre is expected to listen to the most grizzly metal anyone’s ever heard, hearing Michael’s chipper voice blaring out over the speakers would be far more unsettling if just for the shock factor alone.
Never mind that the song doesn’t fit with the scene, the fact that the killer in question would be listening to a catchy pop song takes their murderous habits to a different level of nastiness, as if it’s just another day at the office for them. This gag may have worked flawlessly with Huey Lewis and the News in American Psycho, but having an audience watch a killer get humanised makes them feel like anyone else in that theatre is one wrong decision away from snapping.
6. ‘Heroin’ – The Velvet Underground
In horror movies, the frights can come in all shapes and sizes. From the barbaric villains that want to lay waste to the protagonist to the cold and calculated killer that silently stalks their prey, every character has struggled to outrun those demons on their back. Like all great stories, though, a person’s own worst enemy can be themselves as well.
While The Velvet Underground may have been the most unqualified band to become legends in the late 1960s, Lou Reed’s odes to the slimy side of New York City are perfect for a sinister film. Although ‘Venus in Furs’ may be the ideal soundtrack to a demented sex dungeon, à la Pulp Fiction, ‘Heroin’ does a better job at putting the listener in the mindset of a drug addict reaching an unnatural high.
Rather than talk about the wonders of the opiate, Reed ramps up the dosage of the drug to an overdose instrumentally, going from the euphoric high one can imagine to having a sudden fear that the druggie will see the face of God if they’re not careful. Although horror movies benefit from characters making poor decisions, this would be geared towards films like Requiem for a Dream, as the audience waits for these lost souls to lose their battle with drugs.
5. ‘Helter Skelter’ – The Beatles
The entire goal of The Beatles‘ music was about bringing joy into the world. Even though each of the Fab Four had a separate agenda when creating their masterpieces, their songs were designed to make the world a better place, always bringing a smile to fans’ faces across each album. Since most of The White Album consisted of a hodgepodge of genres, it was only a matter of time before darkness began creeping in.
Inspired by a playground slide, Paul McCartney’s attempt to outdo The Who in writing the heaviest rock song ever begat ‘Helter Skelter’, sounding like the destruction of society in just a few minutes. While a certain radical named Manson took McCartney’s screams in the wrong direction, hearing them in the context of a horror movie would be the ideal soundtrack for a chase scene.
As the characters do everything they can to outrun whatever demonic force is chasing them down, hearing McCartney’s anguished screams of “look out, here she comes” would be the icing on the cake, especially towards the end of the song where the band continue to jam giving way to Ringo Starr’s scream about getting blisters on his fingers. The lyrics may be a little on the nose for horror, but sometimes, the most obvious choice is the correct choice.
4. ‘Climbing Up the Walls’ – Radiohead
Much of Radiohead’s magnum opus, OK Computer, is about fear. Beyond the sad anthems that Thom Yorke put together so effortlessly, the fear that came with the new millennium and the rise of technology cast a dark omen over what the future of rock would look like later down the line. Although tracks like ‘Paranoid Android’ hinted at what that dark future could be, ‘Climbing Up the Walls’ is the flash-forward that everyone feared.
Although a track like ‘No Surprises’ could make for a cruel sense of irony in the right circumstances, ‘Climbing Up the Walls’ is already designed to be a film score, down to the jarring string sections in the background. Looking to move past the traditional song structures, Jonny Greenwood’s attempts to push the strings in the mix lead to a sound design that feels like the instruments are screaming.
By the time Yorke comes to the end of the song, screaming for the audience to open up their skull so that he can find his way in, the audience would be losing their minds in their seats, trying to come to grips with whatever mental carnage had taken place onscreen. It’s easy to get scared at the moment about the monsters on screen, but ‘Climbing Up the Walls’ reminds the audience that the greatest fear of all lives inside one’s mind.
3. ‘Angry Chair’ – Alice in Chains
Before Alice in Chains made the album Dirt, Layne Staley was already on a slow train down to Hell. Getting hooked on heroin throughout the sessions, half of the band’s magnum opus revolves around Staley’s drug use, cloaking the drug slang with odes to a woman who keeps bringing him down. If every song acts as a different level into the underworld, ‘Angry Chair’ captures the moment Staley reaches Dante’s Inferno.
Having been through the sad laments of tracks like ‘Down in a Hole’ and ‘Rain When I Die’, ‘Angry Chair’ is the point of no return, complete with a guitar riff that would make even Tony Iommi shudder in fear. Considering the massive repercussions of falling for drugs and sinking further, Staley crying out that a little boy made a mistake is the biggest understatement in 1990s rock.
Even when the bridge provides a swirling break from the horrific dirge, Staley still sounds on the edge of sanity, as if this is just the calm section in the eye of the storm. Any horror movie would be proud to have a metal band as their soundtrack, but who needs any film storyline when the band is going through a horrorshow in real time?
2. ‘Closer’ – Nine Inch Nails
For most of the 1990s, rock musicians started to get in touch with their darker emotions. In the wake of Kurt Cobain’s authentic approach to rock, bands with a grizzly agenda began to make inroads into the mainstream, painting a layer of black paint over the neon-coloured hair metal bands. Although grunge may have been the king of dark lyrical themes at the time, Trent Reznor showed every one of his peers that they were still barely scratching the surface.
Creating the ultimate anthem of lust, Reznor created the least sexy song imaginable on ‘Closer’. Placed in the middle of the story of The Downward Spiral, this captures Reznor at one of his most immoral points, only looking to use his sexual partners for the sickest of deeds, saying that he wants to resort to animalistic tendencies to get what he wants.
In the context of a film, this could easily be the soundtrack to one of the most heinous criminals in the world, lacking all moral compass and looking to use their prey as just a pawn in their game to please themselves. Most rock musicians could make music for generic movie murderers, but ‘Closer’ is the sound occurring inside the mind of Buffalo Bill.
1. ‘Black Sabbath’ – Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath has always been a cornerstone of heavy music ever since the idea was brought up. Rehearsing across the street from a movie theatre, the genesis of Sabbath’s style came from them watching different horror movies, lifting their name from a macabre film from the time starring Boris Karloff. While most bands would ease listeners into the tense music, Sabbath was not messing around on their namesake track.
Inspired by a real-life demonic encounter that Geezer Butler experienced before the band got signed, Ozzy Osbourne shrieks in agony as he recalls a moment where a spirit points a finger at him before leading him down to Hell. Compared to the usual bluesy shuffle, Osbourne’s vocals practically tell a horror story by themselves, veering more towards sound design than music when he cries out for someone to help him.
The key to the song’s power is the dreaded tritone riff from Tony Iommi, keeping the listener on edge throughout the song before the demon starts his journey down the road to Hell with a rollicking blues shuffle. While every horror movie protagonist might think they can outrun the danger surrounding them, ‘Black Sabbath’ is a song that tells you that help isn’t on the way.
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