Top 9 Beautiful Horror Scores

A while ago I read a very interesting post on Day of Woman and I was shocked that I never thought of this myself, since I love horror soundtracks. That post was BJ-C’s most beautiful horror movie scores. Considering that a whopping 48% of my iTunes library is nothing but horror scores, I was shocked when I realized that I never did a top 10 on them. I’ve been saying to a lot of people that horror movies have some of the best and possibly the most beautiful scores in film. So, I decided to compile a list of beautiful harmonies that were used in horror movies. Some of the scores I wanted to use were already mentioned so I decided to pick scores that people wouldn’t think were beautiful, but really they were.

9) Main Title – House on Haunted Hill – Don Davis

This is really the only true horror sounding one I have. I guess the reason why this is so beautiful is simply because of the organ music. It’s very operatic and mixed with the violins and string instruments give it a Phantom of the Opera feel. It’s very somber but at the same time very catch and I can’t help but feel like I’m listening to an old silent horror flick.

8) Mae’s Theme – Tangerine Dream – Near Dark

Already sounding like it comes straight out of the 80’s, this beautiful synth piece from Near Dark is very reminiscent of old-school sounding noir romance flicks. It’s simply hypnotic with its striking composition that evokes feelings of remorseful love and passion. It’s almost cosmic in a way; the way the score is so smooth and tranquil. I could just picture myself driving on a lonely highway in the dead of night listening to this.

7) Floating Minds – The Ring – Hans Zimmer

Only available on the stand-alone Ring soundtrack.

I love Hans Zimmer and he created some of the best scores I’ve ever listening to (Driving Miss Daisy being one of them) but this track on The Ring soundtrack is different. It’s unbelievably sad but at the same time it feels touching as though it brings you and your loved ones close. Perhaps it’s the heartrending string segments that are very reminiscent of Itzhak Perlman or the saddening harmonious piano, but regardless… it certainly doesn’t sound like something from a horror movie.

6) Main Theme – Krzysztof Komeda – Rosemary’s Baby

With its haunting and almost serenading vocalization, and its surreal acoustic guitar, this theme is probably one of the creepiest tracks in my library because its meant to be a beautiful composition but comes off as being uncomfortable yet sweet. I’m sure that’s its intentions but the fact still stands. It’s a twisted lullaby that suggests surrendering yourself to the dark beauties of nightmares. It foreshadows the pain and sympathy that lies ahead of the film.

5) Theme – Pino Donaggio – Carrie

Definitely sounding like it came out of the 70’s, this is probably one of my favorite Donaggio scores. It’s absolutely beautiful and calming as it reminds me of really happy summer days back when I was younger. The way the violins and horns just stir up the senses and bring a sense of soothing peace to my ears. It’s strange that such a pleasant-sounding score comes from one of the saddest horror movies out there and you can definitely hear the sadness in the track. It’s very subtle but if you listen to the horns, it previews sad things to come.

4) Particle Magazine – Howard Shore – The Fly

This one always stood out to me because it makes me feel like I am in a quiet coffee shop in the city, watching all the people walk in and go by. Like most of the others, it still has this overwhelming feeling of sadness and sympathy but it’s very tranquil and nerve calming. You could just imagine yourself watching everybody pass by and wondering what their lives may be or where they are going. That’s exactly the type of feeling that I get when I listen to this a feeling of quiet, seldom observation of the world around me.

3) Come To Me – Brad Fiedel – Fright Night

Next to The Terminator, this is one of Fiedel’s greatest scores and probably one his most underrated compositions. I’ve mentioned this track every time I bring up the sexuality that is presented in Fright Night and how the score is almost intoxicating as you listen to it. With its low bass synth, raw guitar rifts and its wailing saxophone, it makes for a sexually arousing yet powerful track. It’s another one of those types of songs that you could listen to while you’re driving down a lonely highway in the dead of night. How the track is composed is very genius because it starts off low and gradually builds up to a climax, then when it reaches its peak you can hear that guitar wailing as the track slowly comes down. It’s almost haunting as it lures you into a state of relaxation. It’s really quite magical.

2) Carol Anne’s Theme – Jerry Goldsmith – Poltergeist

In the same vain as the theme from Rosemary’s Baby, this wonderfully yet goosebumps-giving track always makes me smile for some reason. With what sounds like an all children choir and the use of violins the track reminds me of good old days of television when shows like Leave it Beaver and Father Knows Best were on. I think that’s the main intention was to give this track an overwhelming feeling of childhood innocents but at the same time make it seem a little awkward. Midway into the song, the choir stops so that the violin solo could play and it’s one of the most beautiful sounding things I’ve ever heard. On a personal level, it reminded me of the summer days of my childhood when I use to play with my friends. It certainly doesn’t sound like something that belongs in a horror movie.

1) Main Theme – Riz Ortolani – Cannibal Holocaust

I chose this song because it had the most amount of playbacks in all my horror soundtrack collections with a total of 253 playbacks. I haven’t heard the score in a while so I was a little shocked to find out that I listened to that track that many times and when I pressed play and was suddenly reminded of why I love it. It is probably the most beautiful compositions to ever be in a horror movie for several reasons. It’s such a happy sounding track and makes you want to get up and have a good time but there’s something different about it. Though it may evoke feelings of happiness and playfulness, it also gives me this feeling of remorse and total awe. It does a wonderful job of keeping the feelings happy but you can’t shake this feeling like something awful is going to happen. The score draws me into a false sense of security as I blindly follow thinking that everything will be alright, but at the same time I want to be shocked. If there has to be a reason for me to collect horror soundtracks, let this song speak for all the rest.

Top 15 Horror Movies of the Decade

To cut this short, here is my Top 15 Horror Movies of the Decade. Not really happy with this list but it’s as close to what I can find.

1. The Mist – This is my all time favorite movie of the decade because it was one of the best adapted Stephen King books since Shawshank Redemption or It. Darabont creates an extremely tenses atmosphere and keeps you on the edge of you seat as to what will happen next. The amazing performances by the cast fuels the story and it makes you feel for the characters when something happens. Marcia Gay Harden did a fantastic job of portraying the crazy Mrs. Carmody and the scenes when the Army guy gets hauled off and thrown outside had to have been one of the most powerful scenes in the whole movie and perhaps the entire decade. There is lots of gore, lost of creature effects and the ending of this movie will make you stunned long after the movie is over.

2. Trick ‘r Treat – I am obsessed with this movie. I didn’t really take that much into the praise but when I saw the trailer it blew my mind away and when I finally saw it all I could do was walk out of the theater stunned! The movie owes a lot to Creepshow and Halloween and it owes even more to the traditions of Halloween. It has great scares, great stories and everything ties in beautifully. There is new age horror and old school horror. The atmosphere was very cartoony but also very dark, which is something that a lot of horror movies this decade lacked… a tone and atmosphere to go with the scares. It was an overall great achievement in originality and pure horror fun.

3. The Descent – I have never felt so claustrophobic in my life as I was watching The Descent. This was a great and truly horrifying horror movie that takes place in a cave, the one place that you cannot escape mutants. Now this movie has the definition of tenseness, anticipation and true horror and almost at every turn you are just waiting for something to happen and waiting for something to jump out. This movie fucks with your head and the doesn’t offer any kind of sympathy for it’s audience. Technically, it was beautifully shot for being inside a cave most of the time, the lighting was very critical to the movie and the makeup was astonishing. It just goes to show you that there are still good stories out there.

4. Cloverfield – This makes my list because it was the first movie that I followed the viral marketing from the preview on Transformers, to the fake Alpha site, to Slusho, to Taragato, to the oilrig incident all the way up to the actual movie. It was a fun ride and never in my life have I been so excited and thrilled over a movie then when I saw Cloverfield. This movie does something that avoids all the cliché monster gimmicks and tells the story from the civilian point of view. This avoids being like Godzilla and passes all those cliché plot devices. It was all done on handheld camera and it was America’s response to 9/11 much like how Godzilla was Japan’s response to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

5. Drag Me To Hell – A triumphant return of classic, funny, balls out horror for Sam and Ted Raimi. This movie combined witty humor to gross and over the top humor with classic horror and jump-out scares. It was fun, original and it kept me enthralled in its story. You can easily tell that this somewhat like the Evil Dead series considering all the references it makes towards the films.

6. Dawn of the Dead – Out of all the remakes that came out this decade I think this one has to be one of the best because it’s made with the greatest respects to Romero’s original movie. It stays within the mall, it keeps the consumerism theme and it really plays on character development. It’s beautifully shot; the gore is great the zombies are wild. This is the only time that I would be able to except fast-pace zombies! I think we can learn a lot on how to make better remakes by studying this film and it’s well worth a watch for any zombie lover.

7. Land of the Dead – Romero has finally come back to what he knows best and that is making a great zombie movie and I think Land of the Dead is the next evolutionary step in that direction. This movie goes back to the basics of zombies for the first half and then slaps us with something we never expected… zombies that can actually think and have some kind of brain activity. If you know Romero’s stance on zombies and his ‘gospel’ then you’ll know this is something that he had planed. It has some great zombie effects and it has some funny and original zombie quarks. A great movie to go with Night, Day and Dawn.

8. Saw – Never since, possibly Ghostface, have we had a truly iconic and memorable horror villain till we got Jigsaw. His tactics, his brilliance and that infamous line “I want to play a game.” I think that Jigsaw has gone down in horror history and ranking up there with Jason, Freddy, Michael or Bates. Even more so, the score of Saw has become a staple in horror culture and has been used countless times. As for the movie, it’s original; it’s scary and brings something new to the horror genre. Like other horror icons, they made pointless sequels to it but that just shows you the magnitude this movie had.

9. Slither – James Gunn has shown us that he can take a ton of money and turn it into a studio made film that still retains it’s Troma-like qualities. This movie was fun to watch and I had a blast from start to finish. It had great humor, some witty dialogue and some outstanding creature effects and body distortions. I loved the gore and I loved how the movie progressed.

10. Paranormal Activity – This movie was made in respects to Blair Witch and it owes a lot to the ‘found footage’ genre. Even though it is receiving a slew of bad reviews now, it’s still a great original horror movie. It kept me on attentive and the sound design was great! It had some pretty scary moment and it really showed how the Internet has helped indie filmmakers.

11. The Hills Have Eyes – This is also another example of a remake done right. Aja takes the messy, grittiness of the original movie and adds in emotion, character studies and tense secluded atmosphere to make a truly horrifying film. The performances were top notch and I think what makes this movie stand out is the brutality of it and how it pays a lot to the survivor films of the 70s. This was a truly memorable film.

12. 28 Days Later – A wonderful take on the infection horror subgenre. It was fast paced, brilliantly edited and it really showed the scenery and devastation that the infection had on the city of London. It’s also a great study in personality and character. It also sparked a lot of controversy on whether or not the infected people were considered zombies or just infected people.

13. The Ring – Of all the Americanized versions of Japanese horror movies out there this one is the best because Verbinski keeps that surreal, gloomy, cold tone and the atmosphere t hat the original one had. There were some great moments and some great scares. The Ring was very disturbing and I think the score just accents the whole story. It is a must of any fan of the original.

14. Kairo – Out of all the good Japanese horror movies out there, and there are a lot to choose from, it was so hard narrowing it down to just one because all of them are so good!! I choose Kairo (Pulse) because it had to have been one of the saddest, compelling, atmospheric horror movie I had seen. There is so much subtext and meaning behind it that I was blown away. I loved this movie and the only thing that comes close to it would be The Eye.

15. Jeepers Creepers – I have this one on here because it’s probably one of the B-list horror superstars and although I am not a fan of Slava’s work, I think he did a great job with this movie. I loved The Creeper and I loved how this movie is almost like a horror western and just the general idea. It’s a great, gory movie that has so many “what the fuck” moments and I think it’s one of the best original horror movies of this decade. I loved the character of The Creeper and there is so much yet to be told, but it was also one of the first horror movies that I saw in a theater.

The Horror Re-Cuts of YouTube

From Blogger Pictures

After much consideration, I have decided to do a brief rundown of the re-cut horror trailers of the YouTube community. The first time that this was brought to my attention was from my teacher/mentor who showed me the re-cut version of West Side Story. Well, I just wanted to give a brief run down of my favorite re-cut trailers. This is not a top 10 list.

 This was the second one that I saw and it really made me laugh my ass off!! It cleverly manipulates the footage to make the movie center around a dad, who is a struggling alcoholic writer that tries to bond with his son. The point at which this trailer hits hysterical lever is when ‘Solsbury Hill’ by Peter Gabriel. Sheer brilliance.

Ten next one on the list is pretty interesting, it keeps the story of The Ring but it subtracts the supernatural element out of it… therefore it’s a story of a woman who is trying to get as much stuff done before she dies in 7 days. This trailer sure knows how to manipulate video footage to make it seem like it is a hard-hitting drama.

Who would have thought that such a beloved children’s movie could look so wicked, twisted and demented… but somebody decided to give the horror treatment to Marry Poppins in this parody of the faux film Scary Mary. This is one of my ultimate favorites because it’s short, clever and to the point and it takes footage that would normally be funny and makes it seem more possessed the usual.

What happens when you take the love and affection of Free Willy and the cinematic suspense of Steven Spielberg? You get a story about two men who fell in love with a shark in the hit summer movie Must Love Jaws. What a wonderful way of turning such a brutal movie into a heart-wrencher and one of the best scenes has Brody watching Quit get devoured by the shark as he laughs.

With the exception of the tagline at the end of the trailer, whoever did this re-edit took my number one favorite movie of all time and set it to one of my favorite genres of all time. Bravo! But what I enjoyed about this is that it makes it look like some evil force aboard the RMS Titanic was killing off people… a brilliant supernatural thriller.

This is perhaps my favorite re-edit of a movie… through clever editing techniques and some good special effects; the editor took an American musical classic and turned it into a brutally violent zombie movie. I guess it worked cause there is enough random street dancing to look like running zombies, but I can’t help but laugh. Don’t get me wrong, I love West Side Story, but I like the zombie version of it just a little more.

Well, I think this just proves that I may have too much time on my hands or I am really that obsessed with horror. There are so many re-cuts out there but the reason why I chose these is because they were professionally done and they included both a voice over and a wide selection of Immediate Music whereas some are just music and that’s all. I hope you enjoyed these and if you did… look for them online.