The Collegian

Issue date: 10/31/06 Section: Detour

Media Credit: compliments of http://images.google.com

This Halloween, as you kick back in the living room (or dorm room) and wait for eager trick-or-treaters and all the Halloween hoopla to commence, it might be a good idea to slip in that old dusty Halloween "scary sounds" CD from Target like 10 years ago, you know, the one with all the creaky doors and blood curdling screams that bore you to sleep. Trash it!

The foggy old CD case with the evil jack o' lantern just won't cut it this year. You need something that sounds more diabolical, maybe something that was playing while you jumped out of your seat at the movie theater during Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the first time. Follow me into the dark forest of creepy movie soundtracks, I guarantee some of the most spine-tingling, bone chilling tunes to haunt your Halloween night for years to come.

First off, there are always the classics, like John Carpenter's Halloween original soundtrack (OST) (1978), The Exorcist OST (1973), and Nightmare on Elm Street OST (1984). For some creepy jams from the underground horror film scene, try George Romero & Dario Argento's Goblin OST (1981) Italy

Budy Maglione's Cannibal Ferox OST (1981) (this movie was so shocking it was not even given a rating when it came out), or Francis Lai's Bilitis OST (1977), France. These are the REAL scary soundtracks, the ones your mother didn't tell you about.

When it comes to slasher films and gore galore music has a profound effect on whether or not the hair on one's neck stands up, or if a person jumps at that door bell at 1a.m. John Carpenter is the true master of suspense. Anything composed by him is usually pretty creepy. He makes his claim as one of the most renowned sci-fi/horror guys. Besides Halloween, he also did the music for the movies Christine and Vampires (1998). The scores he creates perfectly capture that scene in the movie where the point of view shifts to that of the killer in a dimly lit area, exposing the victim as the scared and unaware prey he/she is.

The subversive sounds might be a good addition to your Halloween festivities. The internet has a great selection of scary movie soundtrack compilations such as Halloween, The Best of John Carpenter, or Choice Cuts: Wicked Sounds of Horror Anthology. Horror soundtracks set the mood and make for spooky background music when trick-or-treaters are milling outside, or to listen to alone in a dark room. Tonight put on a spooky soundtrack and seeeeeee!! Muuu-hahahaha!!!!

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