Sound is incredibly important to horror. Rumbling thunder in the distance, the eerie creak of a door opening, the subtly discordant orchestra playing during a tense scene — noises like this help set up scares and make them pierce directly into your soul. A horror movie with poor sound design is hardly a horror movie at all. It’s what separates kitschy B-movies from masterpieces.
But there is more to the connection between the genre and sound. Musicians have long used horror tropes to give their music an edge. Pop idols and metal warlords have both pulled from horror’s bag of tricks in the past.
No matter how you look at it, sound is undoubtedly just as terrifying as visuals.
Cody Meirick on November 2, 2023