The Overlooked Impact of Music in Horror

March 15, 2021

Close your eyes and imagine it. It’s the opening scene from Jaws. We’re given a POV from the shark stalking Chrissie Watkins from the depths. It’s getting closer and closer as Chrissie unknowingly swims above. All of the sudden, BAM! Chrissie is attacked and screaming for help from God as she’s pulled to the blackness below.

Chances are, when imagining that scene, you’re remembering every single minor second interval between notes, as the music crescendos and the shark closes in for its kill, followed by the shrill dissonance of horns and strings when it finally hits its prey. Now, mentally try to change that music to something else, or better yet, take it out completely. It’s impossible. Nothing feels right and the impact is gone. It can be debated that seemingly the least important aspect of that scene is the most important. The bottom line is, most of the time, great horror cannot exist without great music.

Okay, okay, let’s step back. I may have possibly used the most well-known director and most well-known composer ever in my example, so here are some more examples of the impact that music makes on great horror films, just to show you this isn’t a one-trick pony.

Let’s start off with a few films that are revered for being terrifying in their respective times, The Exorcist (Krzysztof Penderecki) and Psycho (Bernard Herrmann). Both scores use a plethora of dissonant chords to build suspense throughout the films, causing an almost automatic level of anxiety to those that listen. Fun fact regarding these two movies: Bernard Herrmann was originally tabbed to score The Exorcist but clashed with William Friedkin when he referred to the film as a “piece of sh*t” during the screening process. Anyway, back to dissonance in horror scores. Why do we as humans get so uneasy and anxious when composers use dissonance to accompany intense moments in horror? It’s simple: science!

Some neuroscientists have long evaluated the reasoning behind why dissonant chords put us on edge, and the most common answer is that dissonant sounds rattle us to our very cores. Our brains and nerves naturally accept harmonic tones and noises better, not necessarily because of the tones themselves (people who can’t tell the difference in musical tones even gravitate toward harmonies), but because of the frequencies and vibrations the dissonant tones create, which unnaturally go against the rhythm of our own heartbeats and blood flow.

Another regular example of this is how people can sometimes feel anxious when vibrations from a large truck shake them in their tiny car. It’s a feeling of intrusion. It’s all very interesting, and a genius way to scare an audience already on edge from visual stimulation. Dissonance in horror scores isn’t as common as it once was, but more and more modern horror directors have started going this route again, most notably James Wan when selecting the composers for The Conjuring and Insidious franchises or Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us.

The theme of intrusion goes well with my next couple of examples, Howard Shore’s scores for The Silence of the Lambs and The Fly. These are loud, booming, triumphant scores that almost overpower the subject matter being shown to us. In many instances, they feel like heroic accompaniment to a scene or character that…isn’t very heroic. These scores took everything we learned from films like Superman or Indiana Jones and threw it out the window. Our brains don’t calibrate things correctly when we’re seeing Seth Brundle puke acidic bile all over someone’s leg as a fly man, while overpowering hero music is blowing us all away.

When we don’t really put together what we’re seeing with what we’re hearing, we get anxious and become nervous. Similar examples come from Christopher Young’s Hellraiser, Bobby Krlic’s Midsommar, and Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind’s score for The Shining. Horrible, and hellish things happening on screen, yet triumphant orchestral music to accompany them.

The last impactful musical style in horror I’d like to bring up (there are many others!) is theming. I usually break this down into two categories. Main theming and secondary theming. Main theming is absolutely the more recognizable of the two. What would John Carpenter’s Halloween be without his iconic score? The same can be said for countless horror films involving central villains, like Candyman, A Nightmare on Elm Street, or Saw.

These themes ARE the musical embodiment of these characters. They are just as much a part of them as the way they look, and it’s incredibly difficult to imagine the characters on screen without them. Much like Jaws, a layer of character complexity and the attachment of the audience disappears if those main themes aren’t there. Imagine James Bond without the Bond theme. No thanks.

Secondary theming is much different, but no less important than main theming. This is one of my favorite things about horror scoring. It’s music that is flowing perfectly, flawlessly telling you the story along with the movie so well, that sometimes you forget it’s even there. They never take over the scenes, but simply make the scenes that much more enjoyable.

Goblin are masters at this. George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, where the slow, droning beats match the steps of the slow, deadly zombies. Dario Argento’s Suspiria, where the chaotic score matches the chaos with the lights and camera shots on screen. John Carpenter also does this particularly well, as he often moves away from main theming characters for secondary themes in films like The Prince of Darkness or Christine.

There are many, many ways music in horror affects the genre, and of course, I can’t geek out on all of them. I just think the impact tends to get overlooked by some horror fans. Without really thinking about it, we don’t realize how much would be missing without the perfectly-tuned thought that goes into the scores behind great horror.

We’d love to hear what your favorite horror scores and composers are!