Are there any good horror movies that don’t tell you, through the use of music, when to be apprehensive, when to anticipate, when to be scared, when to jump etc.? No low drumroll, no screechy violins, no overbearing bass-just a good horror movie that is a good horror movie because of the way it was written and/or directed.
The Wicker Man?
Which one?
The Blair Witch Project
I don’t know the answer but it is an interesting question. It would be fun to watch a horror movie with the soundtrack dropped out.
Or maybe not.
I’m definitely a fan of movies with little or no music - simply because it’s an under-utilized technique. And I feel that most films have too much music anyway, especially any dramatic movie or war movie with big battle scenes. They’re over-scored. They need to back off with the constant “dramatic” music which actually telegraphs and therefore lessens the drama.
It’s not exactly a horror movie, though it is horrifying, but the British borstal flick Scum, featuring a young Ray Winstone in his first role, has no music whatsoever, except for one very brief scene where there is digetic music in the background of a scene, coming from a radio. The stark and spartan quarters and harsh bright lighting of the borstal underscore the terror of the “trainees” both at each other and the spectacularly intimidating “warders”. Music would have ruined it.
The original 1931 Dracula has no musical score at all. There’s “Swan Lake” over the credits, and you hear a bit of Wagner when the Count is at the Opera, but it’s not meant to be even a sly “score”. The movie really has no music at all. (The DVD in the 1990s offered a new score by Philip Glass, which is interesting, but I don’t think it adds to it.)
For that matter, I don’t think the original Frankenstein from Universal has much of a score, either.
I don’t recall any music in Carl Dreyer’s 1932 Vampyr, but IMDB gives a music credit. at any rate, it’s not intrusive
The IMDB says that Bernhard Kaum did the music for Frankenstein, but he gets no screen credit. The only music I can recall is under the credits – certainly most of the film lacks music.
By contrast, Bride of Frankenstein has some pretty lush orchestration. and the later films in the cycle feature music by Hans J. Salter. But when they started out, they didn’t overdo the music.
Yeah, I came in to say this, too.
The background silence in Frankenstein is pretty noticeable; the effect of the quick zooms to Boris’s face when the monster first appears is heart-skipping.
The great Franz Waxman was responsible for the wonderful Bride of Frankenstein score…it’s worth listening to on CD or online without the movie playing. Perfect motifs for the monster, and for Doctor Praetorius, one of the best characters in all the classic Universal horror flicks.
It’s been years since I watched, nut I believe Paranormal Activity fits the bill.
Alfred Hitchcock’s, The Birds.
Most “found footage” horror movies that I can think of won’t have a soundtrack or score, because it doesn’t fit with the framing device. Quarantine, V/H/S, Creep, As Above So Below, all of the Paranormal Activity and REC movies…
The Innocents (1961) doesn’t have musical cues when its eeriest or most abrupt scary scenes occur.
I could make the argument that the original Dracula soundtrack was only music.
I could as easily argue that the “Original Dracula” it ain’t.
(They deliberately set a scene with the Count reflected in a mirror! A mirror!)