horror soundtracks

Oh god

How could I have forgotten my favorite of them all?! THE WICKER MAN.

Oh jesus christ!

goes w/o saying

i thought you were holding it back for a special occasion!

I was going to hold it back until the good lord wed me, but I got caught up in the moment. Please excuse my indiscretion.

Candyman (Glass) is pretty good too.

I was pretty disappointed in the music for The Wicker Tree, btw. The songs themselves were...ok, and the scoring was super syrupy and distracting. Could have been hammy, but in a different way.

The Wicker Man is up there with Suspiria for obviousness, but if this is comprehensive, then HELL YES, that soundtrack is so so great.

My brain has completely blanked on non-obvious stuff, to be honest. I might have to skim through the record collection and see what else I've got.

(Oh, not one film specifically, but would recommend the Bollywood Bloodbath comp, which has tracks from Bollywood horrors.)

Seconded on the CANDYMAN score. Very creepy, and the movie itself was surprisingly effective.

Some great sound design in the first HELLRAISERS, but the score itself doesn't seem that memorable.

HALLOWEEN should get some ups, too.

Thanks for the discussion about this in the poll thread, btw. I don't know why I've never really thought about procuring horror scores before (especially no-brainers like Creepshow, whose music I LOVE). But I guess I have a new thing to get all obsessive about now.

Badalamenti's Lynch scores (particularly Mulholland Dr.) are great, as is Eraserhead.

I know it's totally cheating, but Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age seems very much as if it were intended to sound like a horror score/soundtrack from the '60s/'70s. Very creepy and great and well worth checking out if you dig horror scores. But then I could probably spin off a whole other thread of stuff that fits that "soundalike" bill (Comus, Olivia Tremor Control side projects, Pomme Fritz).

Not horror, but I watched Master of the Flying Guillotine/One Armed Boxer 2 last night and was flipping out about the crazy proto sludge electro soundtrack which sounded amazing yet oddly familiat, and then looked it up on imdb and found out that it is literally Neu! songs slowed down to half or quarter speed.

Whoa that is so cool!

Spasmo, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, Four Flies On Grey Velvet, Cat o' Nine Tails (all by Morricone, I'm sure there are more good 'uns)
Kwaidan
Phantasm
Psychomania
Blood On Satan's Claw

Whoa, JJJ, okay, I have to catch that.

Is the soundtrack to Psychomania available? The opening credits to that are so GREAT it makes me want to scream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mik1c8yPLTc&feature=related

emil.y tell me if you find it!!

it isnt the whole thing, just several spots. its arguably one of the best insano kung fu movies of all time too, so you wouldnt be wasting your time either way. xpost

Psychomania s/t came out on Trunk records, I guess it's still available

i would contribute some modern horror soundtracks i can get behind but my mind is drawing a complete blank

Eh this thread is here when it comes back.

After this horror score discussion started, I realized that the flipside of the Blair Witch 2 (ugh) DVD is a CD of the Carter Burwell score I've never listened to. Will check it out and report back.

xxxpost The only thing that's even coming to mind is Requiem for a Dream, but I'd be happy to never hear those four notes ever again thx.

Huh. I like Carter Burwell -- sometimes a little too precious for me, but I like him.

I think this thread needs a little Vuh tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLiBkEhs2QE&feature=related

Or if you prefer, Goblin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nHV6MAA1K8&feature=related

Finders Keepers records doing a lot of work on making this stuff available:

http://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/

Not usually much bothered about soundtracks detached from celluloid, but these reissues look fabulous

Oh yeah, I love Finders Keepers!

Also should mention La La Land Records itt -- they have good sales too!

My favorite score is by Carter Burwell (Millers Crossing fyi)

Yay I'm so glad you started this thread LL. I was already working on a post about my top 50 scores from the horror movie poll. It will take me another day or so though.

Have there been any really great new ones? (Not reissues, but those are cool too)

Yes, there have. From the last few years:

--Conrad Pope, The Presence, 2011. Elegant, sinuous, eerie, with amazing solo writing for bassoon. Tied with Tree Of Life for the best score of 2011 IMO. Pope is John Williams' orchestrator but he has his own voice and color pallete.

--Christopher Gordon, Daybreakers, 2009 (?). Huge, imposing, dark as hell, very original. Gordon has full, natural command of the post-WWII compositional toolbox. He manages here to use the BIG TAIKO DRUMS trope in a non-hackneyed way.

--Marco Beltrami, Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark, 2011. This is basically a deliberate and totally successful throwback to the great 70s horror scores of Goldsmith and the Italians.

--Christian Henson, Black Death, 2010. Period instruments, monastic vocalizing and dark-ambient techniques wickedly deployed to create thee doom score of the past decade. Henson seems really promising to me.

--Danny Elfman, The Wolf Man, 2010. Elfman takes the basic vibe of what Kilar did for Coppola's Dracula and boils it radically down to sheer, teeth-gritted, undiluted mid-tempo gypsy death tread.

--Christopher Young, Exorcism Of Emily Rose and Drag Me To Hell. Young is without doubt the horror score king of the post-Goldsmith/Morricone generation. He must have done at least 20 essential horror scores by now. These two sum up his strengths pretty comprehensively. Emily Rose veers between avant shriek-clouds and pellucid dread and passages of Bartokian head-banging and is incessantly inventive. Drag Me is the ultimate descendant of Young's Hellraiser massive slightly camp satanic liturgy style with really cool use of guttural vocalizations and solo violin.

--Michael Giacchino, Let Me In, 2010. Nothing else in Giacchino's generally upbeat, dynamic discography hints at this sound. Its closest kin is Shore's Silence of the Lambs music. He somehow manages to make over an hour of processional-tempo, relentlessly stygian music be engaging and arresting all the way through.

I also really liked the over-the-top assault of the music for Insidious, though I don't have the album. I'm sure I'm forgetting several things above.

xpost Carter Burwell's Blair Witch music is amazing.

Was just listening to bits of the original Texas Chainsaw score on youtube the other day. That and the followup, Eaten Alive, are some really disturbing clanking and banging; great work from Hooper and Wayne Bell. Eraserhead is very effective sound design as well.

i remember liking the Cabin Fever soundtrack quite a bit but never owned it so i cant vouch in full

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eLMCYRjo0Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player

--Michael Giacchino, Let Me In, 2010. Nothing else in Giacchino's generally upbeat, dynamic discography hints at this sound. Its closest kin is Shore's Silence of the Lambs music. He somehow manages to make over an hour of processional-tempo, relentlessly stygian music be engaging and arresting all the way through.

this
sounds
so
good

Didn't much like the Insidious score.

Oh, duh. Not NEW new, but the score for Ravenous is all-time.

The movie Insidious scared me so badly that I don't think I could handle the score. Something about that woman and the house, yikes almighty.

Yeah, I thought it was pretty zzzzzzzzz throughout.

So I'm biased that way.

Yeah I dunno how it would serve as a stand alone listen. Maybe too in-face.

^^ that

I was in a super tense mood anyway when I saw it, so I think it was just my personal state. I'm sure the movie isn't really all that scary.

Also if Herzog ever does horror again I can't wait to hear how Ernst Reijseger scores it. He's amazing.

AGREED. I loved his music for Cave of Forgotten Dreams!

All the Argento ones mentioned upthread. I also have a lot of time for Keith Emerson's prog-jazz freakout score to Inferno.

It'd probably be easier to list the gialli whose soundtracks i don't love rather than the ones i do.

Cannibal Holocaust's theme is really quite beautiful - probably the best thing about the film. Fabio Frizzi's Zombi 2 is another classic.

Plus Vampyros Lesbos / She Killed In Ecstasy, of course.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51M2cisqO1L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Ok I just remembered this movie on another thread and was thinking that the soundtrack was really good and this confirms that thought - Dark Night of the Scarecrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PXDUOGwFus&feature=youtube_gdata_player

John Justen that sdtrack has been released! I think you can DL sample mp3s from here:

http://www.2m1records.com/darknight

YES

maybe a little bit knowing, but it's new and it's from a horror flick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF6oxtDt-fQ&feature=related

Paul McCollough - passage to normal (end credits) (Night Of The Living Dead, 1990)

John Massari - Killer Klowns March (Killer Klowns From Outer Space, 1988)

yes x1000 to killer klowns

some faves with a more traditional approach, Bernard Herrmann style

Richard Band - Main Title: Bride Of Re-Animator (Bride Of Re-Animator, 1990)
Christopher Young - hellbound heart

..and YES the cacophonic Insidious score is unbelievable effective, love it.

They don't put things up until official release day I think

http://www.avclub.com/article/take-exclusive-look-scored-death-new-book-intervie-239745

Hmm. Tentatively interested. Would be more psyched if the guy seemed less focused on the usual goblin carpenter frizzi area, I mean there has been so much incredible horro work done by composers who aren't necessarily 'horror film composers'

Saw F2F (Frizzi to Fulci? Fulci to Frizzi? I can't remember) -- basically Fabio Frizzi + a 6-person band -- playing the score to The Beyond with the movie at a huge old theater packed to the gills with horror soundtrack fanatics. There was a lot of clapping, yelling, horns-throwing and they played three encores iirc, including selections from City of the Living Dead and Zombi. It was awesome! So glad I went. My only complaint was that the drums were a little bit too quiet for my liking but that could be because I am deaf or I'm just accustomed to much louder music.

The crowd was very patient and polite while Frizzi played a new (I think he said it was new?) somewhat limp cpuntry rock song too. That's one of the best things about horror soundtracks, like Carrie -- there are cheesy song-type songs mixed in with the horror-y tracks. Gives the best tracks that extra punch!

See also the Halloween song interrupting the magnificence of the Halloween III soundtrack

oops above that was supposed to say country, not cpuntry, lol

that sounds like an awesome gig!

i am also a fan of the totally conventional FM country tune interrupting a hair-raising horror OST, said tune generally coming from the jukebox in the roadside greasy spoon as the local sheriff hears something faintly disturbing from a local and just before we cut to a POV from the bushes

Just came across this top 100 list. As much as I can't endorse any ranking that doesn't put Goldsmith's Poltergeist score in the top 5 or 10, much less barely squeaking into the top 100, this is a compelling ranking.

http://www.factmag.com/2014/10/28/the-100-greatest-horror-soundtracks/

(Oh, also, Waxwork just did a third pressing of the Creepshow vinyl.)

yeah that list is kind of sheltered and way too coolness-oriented. i'm sorry but some of the greatest horror soundtracks of all time are from films that are legit embarrassing. everything on that list is either arty-hip or mondo-hip.

Seems like they admit some of the films are awful?

Glad to see that Libra's Shock really does have an audience. I've seen it on a few lists now and it's well deserved.

The biggest gaps to me is the lack of Hammer/Amicus/Tigon and no silent films. It's understandable people haven't got a hold of many Japanese soundtracks but when I was binging Samurai horror there was a lot of interesting stuff.

One net gain, I hadn't realized just how good The Entity score was until just now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNHelS21hhE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlgI3OvlQ80
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ANkMcqr4E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO42Nf3qENM

So hey, does anyone want a Bandcamp code for Jonathan Snipes' soundtrack for Starry Eyes? Guy who did Room 237, if you enjoyed that; I picked up a copy of the Starry Eyes score and got two Bandcamp cards by mistake. I can't guarantee the second one works, but if anyone wants it just email me

worth mentioning how incredible the MANDY soundtrack is
so loud, so good

in my top 20 this year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilaRNAPSUKc

also prob one of the most dynamic records i own, parts of it scare the shit out of me even at low volume

Johannsson was extremely good at spooky tunes, i think the foreboding music throughout Sicario for example basically made that film twice as good as it was. It works as a horror score.

Can't wait to listen, Arrival was my favorite score of its year

oh man this is great

what a frickin' loss

Hints teased on the Intrada Records forum are making it look as if Jerry Goldsmith’s score for The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975) is gonna get released for the first time ever next week. If so, a massive massive occasion - even on the shitty bootlegs that have been around it’s clearly a total high water mark - gorgeous swooning romantic writing melted together with aggressive modular synth utterances. Super excited!!!

September's nearly here, which means I'm close to putting all my soundtrack discs in the car again.

This'll be a new one this year:

http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.11965/.f?sc=13&category=22848

Ha I was going to say GHOST STORY was the release of the season. Sarde’s masterpiece imo and one of the best shivery/exquisite horror scores of all time

That one too!

Tempting…

https://waxworkrecords.com/collections/all/products/hausu

!!

picked this one up a few years ago.
listening to it is an intense experience.
probably more so than watching the actual film.

https://www.discogs.com/release/5070915-Roque-Ba%C3%B1os-Evil-Dead-Original-Motion-Picture-Soundtrack

A horror soundtrack comp technically

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO-fzmlECAI

Oops. Meant to post the whole playlist.

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nF9L0bIv4Tu6CsNLNmh_WhyEU_nga_P6Y

Ichi The Killer OST

by Karera Musication (aka classic-era The Boredoms w/o EYE)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ncfYt5F2dM

I just saw Carrie at the cinema and the main theme music is so beautiful, hadn't noticed when I saw it years ago.

Ganja and Hess has a great soundtrack, written and performed by NINA SIMONE(s brother)