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- Jaws. John Williams is inarguably one of the greatest composers the world has ever seen, and 1975's Jaws may very well be his finest and most acclaimed work.
- Psycho. Bernard Herrmann made arguably the most recognizable and unforgettable horror movie soundtracks of all time with his stellar work in 1960s Psycho.
- The Exorcist. The Exorcist has gone down in history as one of the most chilling, terrifying, and downright terrifying films in the history of cinema, and accompanying this brutally masochistic film is a wickedly entertaining and enthralling score from Mike Oldfield and Jack Nitzsche.
- Halloween. Horror movie fans worldwide immediately know the first three notes of John Carpenter's Halloween score like the back of their hands. A motif that has become synonymous with the genre itself, the chilling piano riff and booming bass of the main theme of Halloween is a show stopper that beings the movie magnificently, but this score has so much more to offer than just an opening.
- Psycho: Bernard Herrmann. It’s those enduringly iconic violin stabs that do it. Bernard Herrmann’s score for Hitchcock’s tense 1960 horror film Psycho arguably set the tone for all horror scoring more than any other.
- Jaws: John Williams. Similar to Psycho, the suspense and terror of the man-eating shark story, Jaws, is reinforced simply-yet-effectively by just a couple of well-chosen notes.
- The Thing: Ennio Morricone. Fellow horror film composer, John Carpenter (see below), described the late Ennio Morricone’s score for The Thing as “fabulous”, in recent reminiscences about their collaboration on the film.
- Rosemary’s Baby: Krzysztof Komeda. The score for 1968 horror classic Rosemary’s Baby makes use of high piano tingles, followed by the “la la la…” of wistful, whispery vocals for the ultimate creep-factor in the film’s intro and recurring theme.
- ‘Red Right Hand’ by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Scream
- ‘Banana Boat’ by Harry Belafont – Beetlejuice
- ‘When The Man Comes Around’ by Johnny Cash – Dawn of The Dead
- ‘Goodbye Horses’ by Q Lazzarus – The Silence of The Lambs
- ‘Superstition’ by Stevie Wonder – The Thing
- ‘Tiptoe Through The Tulips’ by Tiny Tim – Insidious
- ‘Midnight, The Stars and You’ by Al Bowlly – The Shining
- ‘Hip to Be Square’ by Huey Lewis and The News – American Psycho
- ‘Tubular Bells’ by Mike Oldfield – The Exorcist
For good reason, the American horror maestroWes Craven is recognised as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, re-inventing the genre several times throughout his career. His 1996 film Screamdoffs its cap to the very genre it’s built from, satirically twisting cliches to tell the story of a teenage girl and her group of friends stalked by a se...
The influential gothic filmmaker Tim Burton is beloved for his approach to horror, sprinkling the genre with his own taste for elaborate costumes and romantic tales. His 1988 classic Beetlejuice is no different, with the film telling the story of a deceased couple who are unsuccessful in scaring away a family that has moved into their old home from...
To say that the horror novelist Stephen King is a fan of your film is great praise indeed, with this being the case for Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead in 2004. Calling the film “genius perfected”, King spoke the praises of the zombie movie, which tells the story of a group of desperate survivors who seek refuge in a shopping mall, starrin...
Based on the novel of the same name and series of books following the serial killer from author Thomas Harris, Jonathan Demme’s film tails along with a young FBI cadet seeking help from an incarcerated cannibal in the effort to track down another vicious serial killer. With a central plot that is palpable in tension, Anthony Hopkins’ haunting perfo...
John Carpenter’s remake of the 1951 film The Thing from Another World, itself based on the John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There?, is a pioneer of cosmic horror storytelling, deftly entwining the terror of man’s paranoid struggle with the inconceivable horror of the unknown. That’s why the music choice of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’ toward...
James Wan’s successful horror movie franchise Insidious may be one of the most beloved genre series of contemporary cinema, but we don’t think it’s worthy of being considered one of the best horror movies of the 2010s. Still, there are moments in the supernatural horror flick, following a young boy who falls into a coma and enters a psychic otherwo...
Set in the magnificent, fictional Overlook Hotel, located in the Colorado Rockies, Stanley Kubrick’s iconic movie, based on Stephen King’s tale, follows Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) and his family, who opt to look after the hotel over the winter. Dwarfed by the towering presence of the hotel, however, Jack soon becomes engulfed by an evil, violen...
The blinding illusion of the American Dream is violently smashed to pieces in Mary Harron’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psychofollowing Patrick Bateman, an egotistical psychopath with hedonistic fantasies. Exploring the mind of an American psychopath, played excellently by Christian Bale, Bateman is an obsessive maniac with a passion ...
Widely recognised as the greatest horror movie of all time, William Friedkin’s The Exorcistis an undisputed masterpiece, largely thanks to Marcel Vercoutere’s iconic special effects work, and the performances from each of Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller and Max von Sydow. Still, without ‘Tubular Bells’ by Mike Oldfield, the film wouldn’t h...
- ‘Xtro’ (Harry Bromley Davenport, 1983) Director Harry Bromley Davenport once described his 1983 sci-fi shocker Xtro as "an extraordinary mess," an assessment that the film's many critics would probably view as immodestly generous.
- ‘Zombi 2’ (Fabio Frizzi, 1979) This sort-of sequel to the Italian release of Dawn of the Dead includes what may be the most memorable theme song from synth-horror master and frequent Lucio Fulci collaborator Fabio Frizzi – a dark electronic plod that makes Goblin seem light-hearted.
- ‘C.H.U.D.’ (Martin Cooper and David Hughes, 1984) Composed by Martin Cooper (the keyboardist from hit-making New Wave romantics Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark) and David Hughes (an ex-keyboardist from the same), the C.H.U.D.
- ‘Nightmare City’ (Stelvio Cipriani, 1980) Nothing about Umberto Lenzi's Nightmare City makes much sense, from the lack of a consistent logic (its "zombies" run, wield weapons and sometimes look pretty normal), to its absurd story (men and women are exposed to radiation on an airplane and come out ready to kill) to its tendency to take the scenic route towards plot.
- Grieg – In the Hall of the Mountain King. Grieg’s masterpiece of tension-building was supposed to evoke a cave full of trolls, gnomes and goblins. Grieg himself wasn’t a huge fan, though; he once said, “For the Hall of the Mountain King I have written something that so reeks of cowpats, ultra-Norwegianism, and ‘to-thyself-be-enough-ness’ that I can’t bear to hear it, though I hope that the irony will make itself felt.”
- Saint-Saëns – Danse Macabre. As the title suggests, this dark little dance by Camille Saint-Saëns has everything required to give the listener the willies.
- John Williams – Jaws. It doesn’t seem logical that just two notes could cause such a sense of foreboding, but John Williams managed it. His soundtrack to Spielberg’s Jaws has been keeping people out of the sea since 1975.
- Mussorgsky – A Night on the Bare Mountain. Beginning life as a tone poem called St. John’s Night on Bald Mountain, Mussorgsky’s most famous work was made more famous when it was revised by Rimsky-Korsakov, and then included in the soundtrack from Disney’s Fantasia.
1 day ago · These horror soundtracks are beautifully paired with their respective films, but they also make great standalone albums to listen to.
The best horror movie soundtracks of all time from some iconic composers. Info, Trivia, and Soundtrack links included. Which of these haunting harmonies is your favourite? Discuss this List here
