Both the radio and TV ads for an upcoming show called (I think) “Harper’s Island” feature the voice of a small child rhythmically chanting, “One by one… one by one…” while spooky/suspenseful music plays.
I was thinking about how cliché this device is, until I completely blanked on any other examples of it. Where have I seen this kind of thing before?
I’m not talking about “REDRUM” or cases where the child himself is possessed or evil, but where an otherwise innocent nursery rhyme, song, or chant is juxtaposed into a creepy situation in an attempt to create a chilling effect…
When the remake of The Fly came out, there were radio commercials with a small child singing “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly” interspersed with dialog of the movie. At the end of the commercial he sang “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly… perhaps we’ll all die.”
Not necessarily seen, but the song “Dublin in the rare old times” does mention “haunting children’s rhymes,” then as part of the chorus mentions “Ring a ring a rosie, as the light declines.”
Seeing and hearing a group of unknown children play ring around the rosie in twilight in the middle of an old city would be creepy, so I count that.
on a rerun of Bones yesterday the mall santas all surrounded the murderous santa and sang “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” (you better watch out…blah blah)
I just saw another incidence on tv but I can’t quite bring it to the front of my brain. It was children, and a children’s song, don’t remember what program sorry. This will bother me all day now.
The TVTropes name for this is Ironic Nursery Tune. It’s damn near hit cliche status, frankly.
One specific example is the Dead Space trailer (caution: video game horror scenes).
You could also make a case for the Gears of War commercial set to Mad World, although that’s not a nursery rhyme and the lyrics are intentionally creepy.
I remember a commercial for drug abuse that showed a woman from the shoulders up. It kept changing, showing the effects of long term hard drug use, ending with a white sheet being pulled over her.
The song playing in the background was “How old are you now?”
The ads for the old 70s movie It’s Alive were basically a rotating hooded bassinet, with Brahm’s lullaby played slow and creepy in the background, until the shot ended with the other side of the bassinet coming into view and a bloody claw hanging out of it.
All the good ones have been mentioned so I’ll stretch it a bit and mention one that was never actually in the movie, only the commercial. Does anyone remember
“Rose are red, violets are blue
The iris is a flower that means the end of you” <shudder>
Suspiria
Also, the little girl in The Ring sings a lullabye just before she gets tossed down a well whose melody is the basis if the movie’s score.
I think it’s gone beyond a cliche and swung to the other side.
No, not that it’s assiduously avoided by everyone.
But rather, like the Mona Lisa, which is famous for being famous, Childrens rhymes are now inherently creepy because of their association with these sorts of scenes. (On a related note, I know of at least one person who thinks little girls are also inherently creepy [even when they’re not chanting children’s rhymes :)], and they were originally used as the epitome of innocence and now have done a complete 180 in his mind.)
It’s gotten to the point that if I saw a movie where a group of children sang a children’s rhyme in the course of their play, it would be sort of creepy even if the scene were otherwise ordinary.
