My Halloween Post

In honor of Halloween this week, I wanted to write a little post concerning the best horror scores as well as the scariest movies I have ever seen.  I'm not a huge horror movie fan, so that list might be limited.

Scariest movies (no particular order):

Alien

The Descent

The Babadook

Oculus

The Sixth Sense

What Lies Beneath

Jaws

The Blair Witch Project

The Shining

Best Horror Scores:

1. Bram Stoker's Dracula (Wojciech Kilar)

            My quintessential horror score.  Fantastic theme, haunting.

            Standout Track: Vampire Hunters

2.  The Village (James Newton Howard)

            The most haunting use of violin in any score I've heard (played by the great Hilary Hahn).

            Standout Track: The Gravel Road

3.  Psycho (Bernard Herrmann)

            Speaking of strings...

            Standout Track: The Murder (duh)

4.  Scream Quadrilogy (Marco Beltrami)

            One of two modern masters of horror scoring, I cannot separate these movies because the scores all work well together.

            Standout Track:  Cotton Gets Picked (Scream 3)

5.  The Wolfman (Danny Elfman)

            Funny that this score was originally rejected for being "too old fashioned."  When a new score was written, the studio thankfully realized that it was perfect.

            Standout Track:  The Travelling Montage

6.  Sleepy Hollow (Danny Elfman)

            One of my favorite Tim Burton movies with one of my favorite Elfman scores.

            Standout Track:  The Chase

7.  Hellraiser/Hellbound: Hellraiser II (Christopher Young)

            Another modern horror master.  Want to be freaked out?  Give this a listen.  I used part of it in high school to underscore a scene where I played the Devil.

            Standout Track:  Looking Through a Woman

8.  The Fly II (Christopher Young)

            A slightly subdued version of Hellraiser, I suppose.

            Standout Track: The Fly March

9.  The Sixth Sense (James Newton Howard)

            A great theme though much of the score is quiet.

            Standout Track:  Run to the Church

10.  The Omen (Jerry Goldsmith)

            Goldsmith's only Oscar?  It's not even one of his five or even maybe ten best scores, but the theme is very memorable.

            Standout Track:  Ave Satani

11.  28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later (John Murphy)

            I prefer the second movie and score, but both are pretty good.

            Standout Track:  Leaving England (28 Weeks Later) (a track so good he would reuse it in Sunshine and Kick-Ass)

12.  What Lies Beneath (Alan Silvestri)

            One of Silvestri's best scores in the last 15 years.

            Standout Track:  Chase (The Getaway)

13.  Drag Me To Hell (Christopher Young)

            This score is a little more difficult for me to comment on since it's one of the few on the list I have not seen, but it is classic Young in horror mode.

            Standout Track:  Concerto to Hell

14.  Identity (Alan Silvestri)

            Maybe not as good as the movie, but still has its moments.

            Standout Track:  Settling In

15.  The Fly (Howard Shore)

            Outside of Lord of the Rings, Shore is a decently capable composer.

            Standout Track:  Plasma Pool