Goldsmith's THE MEPHISTO WALTZ.

Horror scores aren't always the first answer to this question. Elmer Bernstein's score to Amazing Grace and Chuck just creeps me out--all that music that's supposed to associate nuclear weapons with bad stuff--played apart from the film just gives me the willies. Closer to home, The Day the Earth Stood Still just seems so alien and otherworldly to me that I can't believe it was even composed by someone without 3 eyes and tentacles for arms. I can't play Morricone's The Thing unless it's during the day and the shades are open to the sun, no question. And yet Morricone's more deliberate horror music (Black Belly of the Tarantula for example) doesn't have the same effect.

There are other good examples, but I'll leave the field open for others.......

Ernest Gold’s music to the original ON THE BEACH is frightening.
“Waltzing Matilda” when twisted and in minor key, seemed
like a dirge. The movie is such a portrayal of stupidity and
hopelessness, that I find its music truly horrifying. I was raised with the
nuclear scare, so that movie’s possibilities and all sound associated
with it, seemed like an imminent, unwanted reality lurking
just around the bend.

Poltergeist
Criminal Law
The Haunting
Malice
The Omen

I've put on horror scores for writing inspiration, and the only two times I've managed to scare MYSELF was listening to: REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD (Goldsmith) and ALIEN 3 (Elliot Goldenthal).

I didn't know THE MEPHISTO WALTZ in those days, but would probably have had the same reaction to it (I read that there's a scene in an old documentary, THE SCORE, wherein during a recording-session playback of a cue from that, everybody was freaked out by MEPHISTO WALTZ, including Goldsmith himself!)

Speaking of scary music outside the traditional framework, Goldsmith's TORA TORA TORA is also surprisingly frightening in places ("Imperial Palace" in particular is creepy as hell) -- and curiously, I seem to remember Thomas Newman's THREESOME and Basil Poledouris' NO MAN'S LAND in much the same way. Both of these all-or-mostly-synth scores. In the same vein, glad to see somebody else appreciating CRIMINAL LAW, a strange and excellent all-synth work from the master.

Carter Burwell's all-synth PSYCHO III has some really startling stuff in it; there's a hair-raising cue in his prior BLOOD SIMPLE as well. Popol Vuh's main theme for NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979) is one that I cannot play at night, nor can I watch the film at night.

• The Fury!!!! (Williams)
  
• CE3K (Williams)
  
• Jaws 2 (Williams)
  
• Alien (Goldsmith)
  
• The Omen / Omen 2 (Goldsmith)
  
• Poltergeist (Goldsmith)
  
• The Mephisto Waltz (Goldsmith)
  
• Hollow Man (Goldsmith) (that synth sound in the later tracks)
  
• Alien³ (Goldenthal)
  
• Interview with the Vampire (Goldenthal)
  
• The Lord of the Rings (Rosenman)
  

but if you want something all-out freaky, seek out the orchestral works of Alfred Schnittke. some startling music, especially if you're not used to it.

man, I need to get this Mephisto Waltz CD and see what the fuss is about.

is it creepier than even The Omen?

I would also mention Jarre's electronic score for Jacob's Ladder. It is a great score, and has some scary writing in it.

The end credits to The Sixth Sense by JNH has some amazingly disturbing stuff in it, at the end. You have to hear it in the film, though, as it's not on the CD.

and then of course, there is Poltergeist with the giggling girls....

quote:

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Originally posted by JJH:
man, I need to get this Mephisto Waltz CD and see what the fuss is about.

is it creepier than even The Omen?

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Actually, I don't find Omen that creepy. Mephisto Waltz sounds very atonal, I think the only real theme is the well-known Dies Irae. I don't listen to the CD very often, but it certainly is creepy as hell. Check out the main title at the Deconstructing Goldsmith site, and you know what it sounds like.

anyway...

Kilar's DRACULA

Hoenig's THE BLOB

William's SUPERNOVA

Sarde's GHOST STORY

Kamen's/Orbital's EVENT HORIZON

Morricone's THE THING

Isham's BLADE

and

Great suggestions all. Keep `em comming.

Let's see if we can keep this post alive until halloween!

Herrmann's String Quartet Echoes actually creeps me out--where the Clarinet Quintet is lovely, the Quartet reeks of lonely people in hideaway manor houses.

Speeking of which, Robert Cobert's theme to Dark Shadows puts the effective chill on, but I'm not sure if it's the music or the associations I have with it.

Atonal scores can sometimes do the chilling but sometimes my emotional defences come up when I encounter something trying to be strange. That's why Pendrecki and Lygeti and guys like Babbett or Crumb fascinate but don't really scare me.

Babbit never has done a damn thing for me. Why, oh why, is he considered some sort of academic god?

if you want some truly frightening music, try the 3rd movement of Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No.4/ Symphony No. 5. Not only is the orchesatration masterful, but it starts out LOW in the orchestra, builds a bit, and then lets loose with some chord that shook me to pieces the first time I heard it. The movement then builds toward a screaming chord that uses like 11 tones of the 12 tone scale.

PSYCHO always does the trick. Every year on Halloween we conceal speakers in the bushes outside our house and whenever someone walks up to us for trick-or-treating, we play "The Murder" (Kunzel's version, which includes screams). It sends some kids running. Last year some of them caught on, and a few kids approached our house warning their friends that "this place is haunted." Thanks to PSYCHO, we have the scariest house in the neighborhood with virtually no decoration.

There are more, but I can't think of them right now.

quote:

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Originally posted by AaronR1074:
OK all,
Halloween is approaching. I have no life, and will probably not attend any parties and am too old to go out and bother some old people for candy. Sooo...I wanna feel scared, really scared. I need some scary music. The CD "Chiller" by Erich Kunzel comes to mind. Or the works of Danny Elfman. Anybody else have any suggestions?

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Suspiria {Goblin},the wierd music is certainly an acquired taste but it's pretty scary even outside the film {I love both}

The Ninth Gate {Wochiech Kilar},probably spelt wrong!

Candyman {Philip Glass}

The Devil Rides Out {James Bernard}

Don't Look Now {Pino Donnagio}

And no I didn't know that off the top of my head.

Seriously: Psycho, The Thing
James Newton Howard has some good suspense hits, but I wouldn't classify those as horror. But with the volume up in the dark... You'll jump every time.

HALLOWEEN
THE SIXTH SENSE
SIGNS
TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA
TALES FROM THE CRYPT TV Series
TWILIGHT ZONE TV Series
ALIEN
THE DUNWICH HORROR
MARS ATTACKS
BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA
THE EXORCIST
THE OMEN
THE OUTER LIMITS TV Series

That's 13...and HAPPY BELATED FRIDAY THE 13th, Everyone!!!

Happy Halloween !!!

quote:

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Originally posted by AaronR1074:
OK all,
Halloween is approaching. I have no life, and will probably not attend any parties and am too old to go out and bother some old people for candy. Sooo...I wanna feel scared, really scared. I need some scary music. The CD "Chiller" by Erich Kunzel comes to mind. Or the works of Danny Elfman. Anybody else have any suggestions?

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