What Makes Horror Music Scary? A Brief History of Horror Movie Music | Reverb 

2:16 - did a double take when I thought he said Dracula was scored by James Brown! Lol. Brilliant film guys! Hats off.

These history videos are my favorite. You need to bring back the weekly ones.

i need a video on the origins of horror music as a whole. when did people start to create the notes and sohnds we attribute to horror. who were the first? how did they grow up? who inspired them? what inspired them? who was inspired by them? how long ago was this? pree 1700s? don’t know much about old classical so i’m really curious

What about Lalo Schifrin's score for the 1979 Amityville Horror? Utilizing a children's choir to represent playful innocence in contrast to the evil in the house. And the music also served as a character itself. It also won an Academy Award for best original motion picture score. This should have gotten at least an honorable mention-it is a far superior score than some of the others you mentioned and deserves its place as a truly scary masterpiece.

Horror movies got the best soundtracks in the film industry in my opinion.

Interesting video! I'd also add a nod to David Lynch's work, where new and repurposed soundtracks create some truly terrifying moments.

Whoever is responsible for those Reverb-Videos: you‘re (all) doing a great job. Just saying. Amazing work that gets better and better.

loved to see this. It is a bit rushed, we don't even hear a sample of the Disasterpiece score from It Follows, but still great to see. I suppose in a RU-vid world where now every video is WAY longer than it should be, I should be okay with a video being a little too short. Part 2 perhaps?

I was writing a Prequel for the Thing and this video helped me understand why these scores were so effective. Thank you 🙏

This was awesome! Good work reverb. More like this please

I have to say that the most frightening music I heard was not in the horror film, but in the screening of the novel "The Master and margarita". It was Woland Soundtrack.

For me, The Omen is still the peak of horror soundtracks

Yo! What about Tubular Bells?!?

Should've talked about the soundtrack for Hereditary!! Colin Stetson's work is genius

this one hell of a quality video

Thank you so much for including The Omen, by Jerry Goldsmith. Everybody forgets to include it when it invented the horror choir addition to movies which is still being re-used.

Really nicely done, folks. Don't be afraid to go even more in-depth. I'd love a lesson or two on this.

Absolutely fantastic video. Maybe you guys could do one on the creation of movie sound effects? I would love to hear how the sound from the grudge was made.

Pretty good for a brief overview and the theatrical production is a good touch. Good work. I would have liked to have heard more about what made these styles scary. I will echo other commenters by saying that this would be great as a full length documentary.

amazing job !!! i need something for explain to my college class about music in the horror films ! congratulations

I love this guys. Great idea for a video!!

Quality work as always.

Although they're not horror movies, Mulholland Drive and Under The Skin have very unsettling scores.

You've missed the iconic score to The Amityville Horror. That is by far, one of the scariest scores ever written!!

Great video. I'm definitely way more creeped out by the slow subtle stuff - those crawling strings like a thousand black widows running up your arms and the ambiance inducing atmospheric sounds. The Grudge had some good tracks and one even bought the whole album from was The Apparition.

Really good video. Of course, Horror soundtracks are a major subject to cover, so some things had to be glossed over. One can't forget about thr Theramin, which started use in the 1950's. Also, classical compositions such as House By The Cemetery and Candyman.

Awesome ! Two of my favourite things : horror and music !

This has to be one of the best things ive seen on RU-vid.

Really good video!

You need to add the original King Kong, it’s score was the first movie score composed to reflect the action and expand the story. All of these would not exist without King Kong

Great work. Really well done.

Excellent, recently seen John Carpenter live.

On Shining's "repurposed music", I thought Dies Irae would be mentioned.

One horror movie that used the soundtrack to great effect was John Carpenter's "Prince of Darkness." As things eerier and more threatening, a slow bass pulse built and built. It was low and slow enough that you barely heard it--but you FELT it, and subconsciously it made you feel progressively more uneasy. When I first saw that movie, I couldn't figure out what made it feel so freaky (the movie itself really wasn't all THAT scary) and it wasn't until I paid closer attention to the music that I figured it out.

Please please keep making videos like these!

I still have the Rosemary’s Baby soundtrack saved to my phone. Really chilling stuff.

Well done! That was a lot of fun.

Thanks. Awesome video.

This video was getting to be about halfway over and there was no mention of Goblin at all and I couldn't believe it. Even though it was small glad they were there. Any soundtrack by them is great

Awesome upload! I'm a producer and engineer and this video makes the creativity go off in my head!

That was awesome. Friggin sweet.

Hey man great work. I'm gonna play this in class on Thursday.

This was awesome content!!!

Oh another one is the score to Cold Creek Manor with those chilling moans/howls.

I wish that “This is Going to Hurt” and “She Never Sleeps” by Hans Zimmer would have made the list. Even “The Winter Soldier” by Henry Jackman is pretty creepy.

In TV, Dominic Frontiere made great scores for Outer Limits and The Invaders

man i loved the first two insidious movies

Nice work! Very interesting

The Omen numero Uno, special mention to the exorcist and shining😈

Awesome video!

I became a movie music composer, because I love creating cinematic music. There is nothing like it.

I think LFE stands for "Low Frequency Emitter", referring to the boom/bass channel in a surround mix. I've never heard of it referring to "low frequency effects".

I love this channel

I think the destructive drum smashes in Stranger Things, when the Demargorgon is around, are far more horror-like than the synth intro. The dread is compounded by this overtly loud and impatient drumming - which has been taken further and to great effect by horror franchises like The Conjuring. Subtlety has been overwrought by thunderous obviousness in sound in moments where there is almost nothing to see visually. I personally love that in modern horror music.

This video is fantastic.

Zodiac makes some interesting use of psychedelic songs of the 60s

Great video.

Great video

4:40 Jaws 2 uses the same motif however Jaws 3 and Jaws The Revenge are alittle different in music style as there isn't as much of the John Williams famous 2-note theme.

Tubular Bells from _The Exorcist?_

I don't think I've ever been scared by the music in a horror film. In many, it's a tiresome distraction at best. I don't need to be told 'this is scary!' by shrieking violins. I can only think of two instances in which the score enhanced the film: John Carpenter's 'The Thing', and Ridley Scott's 'Alien'. In both films, the music worked almost subliminally by setting a mood, rather than by double-underlining particular moments.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the Dies Irae. It was used in both the clips of The Omen and The Shining!

This is a good summary. It's also very, very similar to Peter Hutchings chapter on sound in horror in his book, "The Horror Film." Similar enough to require a source citation in the video, imo.

We NEEEED some "Synth Sounds Of..." for the John Carpenter scores. We neeeeed it!

Is there a good samaritan out there who's made a Spotify or Apple Music playlist for all the titles mentioned in this vid by any chance?

Child’s play score is underrated. Should be here as well

How did you guys get Pauley Shore to host this?

Oh man I love JOE

Damn, I wish this had been four times as long.

What? No mention of the Exorcist?! John Carpenter’s Halloween theme is, if not a blatant rip-off, at the very least a homage to Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells! C’mon guys, seriously?!

Where are the animations? Coraline's soundtrack for me is also extremely distinguish. It feels charismatic, angelic and at the same time weird with a sense of anxiety that is suffocating... It's marvelous!

Time: 1:50. Is that a music representing a villain? And maybe I missed it. But what movie is that from?

The Inventation soundtrack is so underrated

Ey why is Cavs from King GIzzard telling us about film score? Rad video BTW

Speaking of Joseph Bishara, The Conjuring deserved a mention in my opinion

Wow 🤩

Tubular Bells was not written for the Exorcist. William Friedkin just went through a bunch of records.originally commissioned Lalo Schifrin to do the score but didn't like the results. and they only used 2 minutes of Tubular Bells, but the rely scenery thing is mike was only 14 when he first starting writing it, but he Alien film got a great score

What about the killer clowns from outer space theme Which goes so very hard for so little reason

Cool to see phantasm as well as the goblins in there but where's the reanimator!?!?

Check out Black Angels from George Crumb,it was used in The Exorcist.Also Anton Webern's Five pieces for orchestra.It will scare you 😈

Horror films are usually not spooky because they're over the top, spookiness requires subtle ambiguity, the reason ghost stories are usually spooky is because you hardly ever see the ghost, it's a slow onset suspense. Like how the Exorcist theme 'Tubular Bells' is spooky and the movie is until the girl is possessed and than it's almost comedic. The slow drawn out pitch bends in the original Unsolved Mysteries theme is another good example of actually spooky music. "Horror", especially modern jump scare, is usually unsophisticated trash and not spooky. The jump scare has become overdone and cheap. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-y-dMimIr1pY.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CezFEDWth-c.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--dgicW1ioP0.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WXsrH3cuDMA.html

Damn this is as good as polyphonic

Awesome content!

amazing video but how could you forget tubular bells???

John Carpenter's Halloween is the BEST horror movie soundtrack

Personally thing think that movies would have a much more intimidating vibe if they used alot of dissonance or make music that doesn't sound like music at all to give that easy and disturbing effect

Dope

I feel like we've gotten too stuck on those synth drones and endlessly repeating arpeggios... I actually find it irritating.

'Warning! Some things may happen! You've been warned!!" ;-) ;-) (What's a spoiler warning good for if it doesn't mention the movies that are spoiled?)

Another great video regarding the origin of horror movies. Since you're interested in horror,I've stumbled upon a project: An upcoming zombie apocalypse movie by the name of H2Outbreak. Unlike the rest zombie films, this one will focus on actual facts and human psychology. You can visit their Kickstarter page and if you like it there is an opportunity to become a part of the team.

Yo, has anyone seen Sleepstalker? The movie is terribly cheesy but the soundtrack, a haunting lullaby in particular, is amazing!

Tubular Bells?

So you mentioned It Follows (I love that movie, but it's nowhere near on the same level as the others, at least in terms of how iconic it is), but you're just gonna skip over The Exorcist and IT (2017)?

Jaws... not TWO notes but THREE!

👍👍

4:12 lol what, you added that sound effect to it to make it seem scary, watch the original clip and it has no sting like that

No mention of the Theremin? Really??

Did I miss it or did you not talk about the exorcist? 👀

Who here also saw every jaws movie?

lol "noseferatew". It's nos like NOS, fer like fer, at like @ and tu like 2!