Tag Archives: Music

Sometimes I’m not looking for some “great classic work” to analyze and I don’t feel like pulling the trigger on something new that I may or may not enjoy or otherwise find value in. Sometimes, I just want some of the (perhaps ironic) comfort that comes with horror vibes in musical form. There’s just a specific pleasure to be found in music that somehow connects with the genre. Maybe it’s a rocking song based on some bit of horror film or literature. Maybe it’s a theme from a favorite movie. Sometimes, it’s even just a tune that features in a key sequence of a film that you don’t even exactly love, but the fact that it’s from a horror movie elevates it to a kind of beloved status. These songs can just be a lovely, familiar place to hang out, a warm blanket on a rainy November day, or a kick of energy to get in a party mood or get stuff done. Maybe it’s just because I’m a fan of the genre and they bring to mind remembered satisfaction, but I think there’s also some rich juxtaposition of dark and light at work. Here’s a fun song that plays while terrible things happen. Here’s a catchy dance song about death and destruction. It’s just easier to get into some upbeat number when it has a dash of murder to cut what could otherwise be saccharine – to entirely mix my metaphors, it’s the spoon full of sugar that makes the pop tune go down.

I’ve done a few such lists before, often with more stringent rules. Here you can find a list of some of my favorite horror scores. This is a list of treasured songs found in horror movies. And here is a list of groovy tunes that aren’t from films per se, but all have horror themes. That said, this week, I’m casting a slightly wider net. Some of these will be the title theme to a movie. Some will just feature in a particular scene. Some will be about a horror topic or will reference a horror work. But they all rock.

Killer Klowns – The Dickies (1988)

I just mentioned this back in September when discussing the classic for the ages, Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988). It is a deeply silly movie with a theme to match. Building on Fucik’s “Entry of the Gladiators,” (the first song that comes to mind when you think of clowns or the circus, which I just learned was composed as a military march – wild), The Dickies get the party started during the opening credits with this bopping song. I read that they wrote it knowing very little about the movie other than the title, but it somehow strikes exactly the right tone. It’s bouncy – it implies circus – and it has just a bit of an edge, a note of something threatening, even sinister. It sets up what the movie is going to feel like: silly and playful, but with a bite.

No Vampires Remain in Romania – King Luan (2019)

Apparently this plays during the credits of s01e02 of What We Do in the Shadows, a show I love, but I can’t claim to have discovered it there. Rather, the Spotify algorithm just knew this was a song for me, and boy is it. Not actually connected to any particular horror work, it is just a great vampire themed disco song. Or maybe it’s a lack-of-vampire themed disco song, to be precise. What is it about actually? I’m not sure – maybe it’s just a bunch of random stuff that rhymes, but it feels vampirey, and it sounds cool and it’s the sort of thing that you can jump around the kitchen to or shout along with in the car. Seriously, I don’t really understand what’s going on here, but it makes me get up and boogie. And it’s got vampires and a video that for some reason features a lot of Nikola Tesla. Sure – why not?

Nosferatu – Blue Öyster Cult (1977)

Wow – I just discovered this one a couple of months ago, but it is tremendous. A quiet creeper with a bridge that just stomps, it is entirely about Murnau’s 1922 masterpiece, focused on Lucy and her death as an act of self-sacrifice. In this, it only touches on one aspect of the story, but I feel it does so richly and effectively. It hangs out in a seventies rock groove – maybe not the place you expect to really feel a German silent film from the 20s about a particularly ugly version of Dracula, but I think Blue Öyster Cult rather nails it. I feel the mood, the atmosphere, the drive of the story, and when it opens up into a full out rock song, the sustained tension of the beginning pays off with a real release. I’ve always loved their Godzilla – do they have other songs based on horror greats? Something to check… Also, one note of interest – to avoid issues with copyright (unsuccessfully), Murnau changed all the names from Stoker’s novel, changing the name of Mina Harker, for example, to Ellen Hutter. Yet, in the song, it does reference the character as “Lucy” (Lucy, of course, being Mina’s friend in the novel). Interestingly, two years later, in his remake of Murnau’s film, Werner Herzog names the character “Lucy” as well. With some rudimentary googling, I’ve not been able to find the story of how the name was changed thus, but I am so curious – was there some source that both the band and Herzog took the name from? Was Herzog just a fan of Blue Öyster Cult? (I wouldn’t expect it, but who knows.) If anyone out there has info on this, please leave a comment!

Howling – Steve Parsons and Babel (1985)

So, The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985) is famously a “very bad movie,” a judgment that may be earned, but I’ve got to say, I think it’s a pretty good time, and in its defense, I feel it knows what it is, and that its failings as “cinema” are balanced by the degree to which its tongue remains firmly planted in cheek. But beyond camp value, one standout element is its main theme, simply titled “Howling,” by Steve Parsons and the New Wave band, Babel. The band is featured in a club scene playing the song, but otherwise, the song seems to play constantly throughout the film and somehow, for me, it never gets old. It’s got a cool, eighties erotic-pop sound, lyrics that all give solid werewolf vibes, and it unabashedly keeps repeating the title of the film (at least the “howling” part of it – the actual line “Your sister is a werewolf” is left to the great, unfortunate Christopher Lee to have to utter – this was reportedly not his favorite film appearance).

The Cask of Amontillado – The Alan Parson’s Project (1976)

The Alan Parson’s Project’s debut album was an ode to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, titled “Tales of Mystery and Imagination.” I don’t know how much it really feels like Poe to me, but it was obviously made with great love of his oeuvre, and it was a real nail biter for me to choose only one song to recommend. It all, as I understand the “kids” were saying a few years ago, “slaps.” Let’s just link the whole album – give yourself 40 minutes some time to check it out – it’s worth it. Alternatingly orchestral and proggy, every track is interesting and fun and at least Poe literate. The fourth song, “The Cask of Amontillado,” walks the line between the two poles of the album – about half of which takes the form of seventies prog-rock jams and half of which is a symphonic suite circling around “The Fall of the House of Usher.” This track certainly rocks, but also has an older kind of atmosphere as it tells the tale of a man slowly dying, having been walled up in the cellar.

The Blob – The Five Blobs (1958)

Somehow I’d never seen The Blob (1958) before last spring. I don’t know how this iconic 50s teens vs aliens monster movie had so long eluded my attention (I mean, I knew about it, but just never watched it), but I’m glad I finally checked it out. Here we have another super fun theme that plays during the opening credits and alerts us to the good times we have in store. The song is lively and playful, and so is the movie, though it does also have some real threat and weight and loss along the way, not to mention, pretty cool goo-based special effects. Never having seen it before, I’d somehow expected a more self-serious affair, but as the credits rolled, hearing this, I realized I was in for something a great deal more fun.

Also, I think it’s interesting how this theme, playing in the beginning, functions in such a similar manner as the above praised “Killer Klowns,” given the degree to which that later film is so clearly modeled on the skeleton of, if not The Blob, per se (blobs don’t have skeletons after all), then films like it, to be sure.

Prom Night – Paul Zaza, Gordean Simpson (1980)

Prom Night, the 1980 slasher set on, you guessed it, prom night, is a pretty good time, if not groundbreaking. There’s a terrible prank gone wrong, a series of vengeance killings of teens out to have fun, a perfunctory but ultimately satisfying mystery as to the identity of the killer and a solid, downbeat ending. It’s also got Jamie Lee Curtis lighting the dance floor on fire in a disco sequence at the eponymous school dance (to a song that bears the title of the movie) that goes on way too long for narrative value, but who cares? It’s one of the best parts of the flick. She and her dance partner (Casey Stevens when he could pull the moves off, a dance double when he couldn’t) really bring the party to life. And it’s generally a groovy song to boot. Generally here, I’m sharing Youtube clips of the songs themselves, but in his case, I’ve gotta share the clip from the movie even if the song isn’t complete. This is probably one of those cases where if this song weren’t from an early 80s slasher, it would just fade into other disco of the era, but since it comes from a movie that features a severed head, I’m there for it!

Gangster Rock – Felony (1981)

So, following the last entry, I just have to include another clip from a different early 80s slasher, in this case, Graduation Day from 1981. Once again, we have a scene from a school dance that goes on so much longer than you ever might expect it to. But in this case, it is interspersed with footage of two teenagers (one of whom is scream queen, Linnea Quigley) slipping out to the woods to have sex and get murdered by a sword wielding maniac (the killer’s a bit less creative here – one person in this movie gets killed by a football with a blade attached to it). In the beginning, the song didn’t exactly grab me, but after it had been playing for like 8 minutes, and after being so integrally tied to a pretty fun golden age slasher kill/chase scene, this energetic, keyboard slamming rocker wormed its way into my heart. And honestly, I think the whole sequence is really buoyed by the music. In this era, you can see so many similar scenes that play out in such similar fashion, but setting it all to this party sound and cutting back and forth with such energetic editing gives the whole bit a real kick. It’s great. The bladed football is great. The movie has a great final girl. Honestly, this movie which might be deemed ‘objectively bad’ by some, which Linda Gross of the Los Angeles times called, “an insinuating and lecherous movie with many hokey effects and poor-quality acting,” has a surprising amount to love in it.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t link to Stacie Ponder over at the Final Girl blog and her observation about this party scene. I’d seen the movie a couple times before and had never noticed this detail, but once she pointed it out, it’s the only thing I can see, and it’s pretty special.

The Hell of It – Paul Williams (1974)

Playing over the closing credits of Brian De Palma’s epic, weird, wonderful flop of a horror rock opera, Phantom of the Paradise (1974) (starring, among others, Jessica Harper – most known to horror fans as Suzy Bannion from Argento’s Suspiria), this searingly cynical song is just so tight and mean and glorious. Apparently, it was written to play at Beef’s funeral, but the scene was cut, but as I think it might be the best track on the soundtrack, it’s a great way to close out the picture. The movie itself is odd, but really distinctive, and I do recommend it if you ever have the chance. De Palma throws “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Faust,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” and a particularly sour view of the 70s music industry into a blender and pours out an utterly unique film. It’s not for everybody, but I kind of love it, Harper has an amazing, deep singing voice that you might not expect from her slight frame (she’s also great in Shock Treatment (1981), Richard O’Brien’s follow up to Rocky Horror), and the music, all by Paul Williams, who also stars as the Faustian record producer, is uniformly fantastic, with this song being, in my opinion, the standout hit.  

Rock Until You Drop – Michael Sembello (1987)

From Michael Sembello (who also gave the world the Flashdance song, inspired by William Lustig’s gritty, scalp collecting killer film, Maniac (1980)), this up-tempo 80s inspirational jam plays during the montage in The Monster Squad (1987) when all the kids are spending the day gearing up to do battle with the, you know, monsters: carving stakes in shop class, riding bikes somewhere in a hurry, playing dress up with Frankenstein’s creature, writing a letter in crayon to the “army guys” to “come quik” cause “there are monsters,” making silver bullets and also business cards, consulting maps, and stealing archery equipment – the kids all get ready in their own way. This was a movie that I loved well before I was actually into horror (I saw it in the cinema when I was nine and I remember coming out at the end just so stoked – ready, myself to fight the forces of darkness). Generally I think it holds up as one of the essential ‘kids vs monsters’ flicks, though it hasn’t been one that I revisit often as an adult, and this has got to be one of the all-time-great 80s ‘preparation montages’. Even if I don’t often watch it, the movie will always hold a special place in my heart – it’s just a shame that it features some homophobic slurs, and that really hasn’t aged well (sure, it’s how kids really talked – and probably still do – on the playground, but it’s still a turn off).

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And there we have it – ten more great horror songs. It’s interesting to me how many of them are dancey disco tunes or seventies rock grooves – not something I expected when I first sat down to brainstorm what I wanted to include in this list. It is a specific sound, and one not always associated with horror, but all of these immediately give me a taste of the genre, if not instant associations with some specific horror work.  May they keep you bopping through the night as well.

Sometimes, you’re not actually looking for the big scare, nor are you looking to be particularly disgusted or disturbed, but you still want to enjoy that horror vibe. Sometimes, it’s just really satisfying to hang out with horror-themes and imagery even while the tone is playful, silly, or outright comic. And sometimes you want all that while you’re driving someplace or getting work done on the computer. And so I thought it could be fun to throw together a short list of some horror themed songs that I really enjoy.

These aren’t necessarily from any particular soundtracks (though of course, some have been used in a film here or there). For some of my favorite tracks used in horror movies, you could check out this list, and for my favorite scores, here’s another post. Generally, I’m also trying to stay off the beaten path a bit – so no Monster Mash, Season of the Witch, or anything by The Cramps (though perhaps I should have made room for ‘I was a Teenage Werewolf‘). Also, I make no claim these are the best horror songs out there, but just songs I really like. There are bands that specialize in riffing on horror flicks, but I don’t always get into them. I get that Ice Nine Kills does some really cool stuff, for example, but I just haven’t clicked with their sound. What can you do? I’m also not including anything that’s just straight out Satanic as there is just too much to choose from. While I love the eponymous title track on Black Sabbath’s first album, Iron Maiden’s ‘The Number of the Beast,’ or Ghost’s infernal inversion of Christian rock “praise music,” ‘He is,’ I feel like that constitutes its own whole sub-genre, so maybe it’s a post for another day.

Ok, enough about what I’m not including – let’s get into what I am, in no particular order…

Night of the Vampire – Roky Erickson

How did I not get into Roky Erickson sooner? He has one of my favorite tracks on the soundtrack to Return of the Living Dead (“Burn the Flames”), but I’d never looked into the rest of his output. Then a couple of weeks ago, while looking for information to fuel my post on Val Lewton’s I Walked with a Zombie, I came across Erickson’s song of the same name and proceeded to go down a real rabbit hole.  I learned that he’d had a couple late 60s hits with the psychedelic rock band The 13^th Floor Elevators, and apparently struggled with some serious mental health issues over the course of his life. He also released some absolutely rocking horror themed songs.

‘Night of the Vampire’ is included on his 1981 release, The Evil One, along with other slamming tracks about zombies, fire demons, ghosts, and a creature with an atom brain. There is something essentially playful to it all, but at the same time, this stomping garage rock sound explodes with an absolutely rabid ferocity – atmospheric, wild, dangerous, and just plain fun – I’m so glad to have recently discovered it.

This song encapsulates much of what I love about his sound. There is a creeping, building sense of menace and drama, all riding on top of a kind of rock-march and bellowed without a hint of irony or equivocation. It’s a real blast.

Curse of Millhaven (Przekleństwo Millhaven) – Nick Cave / Kinga Preis

Originally released on the 1996 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album, Murder Ballads, ‘The Curse of Millhaven is a glorious, feverish first person song from the perspective of a sweet little girl who recounts the terrible killings that have been taking place in her small town, before it is (unsurprisingly) revealed that she’s been behind them all along, that “It is I, Lottie, the Curse of Millhaven – I’ve struck horror in the heart of this town – like my eyes ain’t green and my hair ain’t yellow – it’s more like the other way around – I got a pretty little mouth, beneath all the foaming…” It’s pretty great stuff.

While I love Nick Cave’s original version, I was really struck when I came upon Kinga Preis, a Polish actress-singer, performing a translation of the song on Youtube some years back (for regular readers, she played the singer in The Lure, the Polish Mermaid Horror Musical I wrote about last summer). I assume most of my readers don’t speak Polish, but especially if you’re familiar with the original lyrics, I don’t think you need to understand her words to go on the ride, and it is a wild one: unhinged, physical, manic, and dangerous. Also, I understand the translation itself is really quite good (if you do speak Polish and have the ability to compare) – it captures the spirit of the song, while really speaking in a different, culturally specific idiom. There’s also a video out there of her doing ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’ with Mariusz Drężek, but I don’t think it quite holds a candle to the intensity she brings in this performance.

Gingerbread Coffin – Rasputina

I first came to Rasputina due to their song, ‘Transylvanian Concubine’ being featured on an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (“Surprise” – when Drusilla has a birthday and gets an arm). I really got into their ‘chamber-rock,’ cello forward sound, and back when CDs were still a thing, bought all of theirs.

‘Gingerbread Coffin’ kicks off their 2002 album, Cabin Fever. It’s a solid, morbid, gothy jam about a group of young girls that find a broken old doll and proceed to build a black mass around it, burying it in a gingerbread coffin and knowing that when they need her, “she’ll rise to the light.” The song details the elements of their created ritual (a set of old knives they brought, but didn’t use, passing around an old tea cup all filled up with dead flies, etc.) and looks forward to the imagined future magical payoff. Trading in a dark childhood spiritualism, the romantic sense that things have power, that the world is a more mysterious, darker, more magical place than we come to inhabit as adults, Rasputina evokes some secret, arcane potency that can perhaps only exist between children and their imaginations. It also always makes me think of Heavenly Creatures (1994).

Creepy Doll – Jonathan Coulton

While on the subject of creepy dolls, how about a song about just that? I apologize for the quality of the video, but I really wanted to share exactly this version of the song, from a tour that Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman did together, mixing readings of short stories and songs (It’s available on the 3 disc set, An Evening with Neil and Amanda). In addition, they also brought out a couple guests, one of which, Jonathan Coulton, had this gem of a silly, eerie song to share.

It paints a story for you, wherein you come to this spooky old house, find a creepy doll in the attic and are thus doomed to have it accompany you forever, being, you know, creepy, and also passive aggressively suggesting that you don’t eat particularly well. It’s all a silly lark, but the picture it creates is still so rich in the tropes of a certain kind of scary story, and it is just great fun. Gaiman narrates one verse in this version and it’s a pleasure. Again, this video is not good so here’s a link to a cleaner version of the song itself, but honestly, I find it a bit over-produced and really prefer the stripped down guy-with a guitar rendition from the concert.

Walk Like a Zombie – HorrorPops

A Danish psychobilly band, HorrorPops has put out three albums of poppy-punky, double bass driven horror themed boppers and this one is no exception. Perhaps the danciest song on this list, it’s a really upbeat love song to a paramour who happens to be an undead monster. They may ‘wanna hold hands in the cemetery,’ and they may ‘wanna be lost for all eternity,’ and everything might be ‘dark and kinda scary,’ but she doesn’t care. She’ll follow her love into the grave, bopping along all the way in a retro fifties groove. It’s a fun tune.

On a heavier note, in 2020, frontperson, Patricia Day was diagnosed with cancer. Apparently she beat it, but still has a GoFundMe page open as I guess there are ongoing medical bills to deal with. If you’re a fan, I guess she could still use the support.

Steven / The Awakening – Alice Cooper

The climax of Alice Cooper’s first solo album, Welcome to My Nightmare, this is a spooky, dreamy song that actually brings a solid horror kick when it’s revealed that through the whole album, things have not been as they seemed. The concept album leading up to this moment had taken us through the nightmares of a young boy named Steven, featuring devilish stuff, a spot of necrophilia, and a black widow set to conquer the world (with a delicious spoken word intro from Vincent Price).

In ‘Steven,’ the nightmares reach their culmination in a vertiginous sequence of murder and regret, possibly involving a newborn baby, all through the eyes of this tortured young boy. It’s not 100% clear what exactly is going on, but that’s part of the disquieting charm, and all through it, someone is calling his name, as if to wake him up. And then awake he does, and we learn he is no child, but a grown man, and in his dream state, he has committed real acts of violence. It’s a great, chilling, cool turn to cap off an album that has largely had its tongue firmly in cheek. If you like Cooper’s sound and have never listened to this album, sit down some time and take it for a drive – critically panned on release as melodramatic and cheesy (representing a clear change in style from the original band, which had just broken up), I think it stands the test of time as some of Alice Cooper’s best work, and it marks the moment that he came into his own as a dark vaudevillian showman.

No One Lives Forever – Oingo Boingo

Propulsive, chaotic, tight, quirky and just a bit spooky, ‘No One Lives Forever’ finishes Side 1 of Oingo Boingo’s 1985 album, Dead Man’s Party in explosive fashion. It’s a great record with some of their biggest hits (such as ‘Dead Man’s Party’ and ‘Weird Science’), but somehow I’ve never seen this song get the attention it deserves. I guess the two aforementioned songs got featured in bigger cinema hits (Back to School and Weird Science), whilst this up tempo ode to death and dying plays during the bridge scene at the start of Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, which I’m guessing might not have done the same box office numbers – I mean, I love it, but it is an odd flick.

Circling around an ominous bit about how we should have a party with the “full moon in the sky – it’s the hour of the wolf and I don’t want to die,” the singer alternatingly claims to be too clever and quick for the reaper to catch and councils us to live it up now cause no matter how many tricks we think we have up our sleeves, there’s no way to outrun his scythe. It’s clearly a song about mortality, but it also carries such a lively carpe diem spirit of dancing through the graveyard. 

Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) – Concrete Blonde

Centered on a really simple, but still driving bass line, the title track of Concrete Blonde’s third album, released in 1990, is a whole mood. “There’s a crack in the mirror and a bloodstain on the bed – You were a vampire and baby, I’m the walking dead.” The song both feels like a gothic celebration of eternal undeath set against a sultry New Orleans nightscape and possibly also like a much darker song about abuse and personal trauma, the fall-out of a toxic relationship rightly ended. The vibe is rich and cool to hang out in, but there is a sense of something emotionally painful at the heart of it all. Both elements make it a great horror song. I dig the fun vampire stuff, but I appreciate how it’s also grounded in genuine feeling.

Nature Trail to Hell (in 3D) – Weird Al Yankovic

They sometimes say that to parody something well, you need to really love it, and I’ve always felt that when Weird Al does his spin on someone’s song, he never seems to be putting the artist down. I’d say the same is true in this mind-blowingly great send up of don’t-go-in-the-woods early 80s Slasher flicks. It advertises, “Coming this Christmas to a theatre near you – the most horrifying film to hit the screen – there’s a homicidal maniac who finds a cub scout troupe – and he hacks up two or three in every scene!”

Released in 1984, this came out after the peak of the first big slasher cycle, and it’s interesting to see this pop culture reference to what was probably a bit of fatigue with the formula, including the reference to it all happening “in 3D” (Friday the 13^th pt. III brought 3D eyeball pops and yo-yo tricks to cinemas the year this was recorded). At the same time, it really sells it, and makes it sound just awesome. I would watch this movie.

Also, just a note on the link – this isn’t an official Weird Al video, but rather a fan edited compilation of loads of appropriate slashers of the time (mostly, but not exclusively Friday the 13^th movies). It’s pretty great and the song works so well with it. Enjoy. Sadly, as it’s filled with violence and has a touch of nudity, it’s “age restricted”, and you’ll have to click through to Youtube to see it.

Excitable Boy – Warren Zevon

I have always loved this song. It encapsulates one of my favorite sub-genres of music – the peppy, sweet, upbeat, positive song…that is really about terrible, terrible things if you actually stop and listen to the words. This could play in supermarkets or waiting rooms if no one paid any attention to what he was singing about. With a bouncy sax line and doo-wop backup singers sweetly repeating “ooo-wa-ooo ooo-ooo excitable boy,” Zevon spins a tale of a young man who first starts exhibiting simply odd eccentricities, but who rapidly grows dangerous, until he rapes and kills a girl at the junior prom. Then, “after ten long years they let him out of the home – excitable boy they all said – and he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones – excitable boy they all said – well, he’s just an excitable boy.” You could say it gets dark.

I also really appreciate how, for all that the song morbidly plays with awful events, it also feels like an ironic excoriation of a culture that happily accepts ‘boys being boys’ and looks the other way, whistling a jaunty tune and allowing horrors to carry on unchecked. It is not a “message song,” but I feel it does have a satirical bite in this respect.

And, at my wife’s suggestion, one bonus song:

I Eat Boys – chloe moriondo

This feels appropriate to follow the last song, given the theme of young men and privilege. Responding to the kind of threat women often feel in public spaces, this turns that on its head and creates a young, female predator, out to “eat boys” and “get them gory,” defiantly stating, “you can’t control me – cause I wrote this story.” The sound is all minor key light pop, but its ethos is all to do with making the other side feel that fear instead, warning “hands off kid, or you’ll wake up in my basement.” In its juxtaposition of a light, poppy sound, the threat of violence, and a sense of social commentary, it has a few things in common with the previous song, though it is the flip side of the coin. Perhaps there are echoes of the line in Bit (2020) about making all women vampires and letting men be scared to jog at night for a change.

Also, the video is great – very cool, bloody fun (it’s what my wife did for her most recent Halloween costume); its look really gives me a Jennifer’s Body kind of vibe, and its lyrics bring to mind a line from that film’s trailer (which was inexplicably left out of the final cut): “You’re killing people?” “No, I’m killing boys.”

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And there we have it, ten eleven great tunes that bring the horror vibes. May they put a bop in your step and a chill in your heart…

So, every May/June, I visit my parents in Ocean City, MD to help them prepare a show that they will perform throughout the summer. It’s great that I’m able to make the trip and I always enjoy the work, but sometimes, it is just exhausting. My “workshop,” so to speak, is an out-door space and I’m generally working there from early morning until it starts getting dark each day. It’s a lot, especially when it’s a really hot day. But thank the gods for headphones and podcasts and playlists. And the other day, when it was particularly hot and sunny, and I was really low on juice, I put on a playlist I keep in my phone for just such occasions – my list of groovy tunes written for horror movies. It never fails to pick me up when I’m down or put a smile on my face. And honestly, I don’t exactly know why. Sure, some of the films these are from are comfort food favorites (see comfort food part I and part II) and it’s nice to have a song take you there, but not all are. But there is something about this confluence of an 80s synthesized sound (in most, but not all cases) and music made to accompany movies that were supposed to scare, while still being, you know, fun – it just hits a particularly sweet spot for me.

And I thought, “Hey, that’s something worth sharing!” So, today I’m going to run down ten songs on my list. I noticed that most were already from the eighties, so I restricted the set to that decade. I’m excising from the list any cuts from scores (I’m sure that could be a whole other post) or songs not written for the film in question, but just used on the soundtrack. I’m also not taking more than one song from a given source, with apologies to the soundtracks to The Lost Boys, Fright Night, and The Return of the Living Dead (all of which offer their own complete iteration of this list), so sometimes, hard decisions have had to be made about what to leave out. 

Every year, I hear people talk about what the ‘song of the summer’ is. Well, something about all of these just feels like summer somehow. I suppose some are from real popcorn horror movies, while some just feel hot, I guess. But beyond that, in the summer, when it’s hot and sunny outside, I just love to hide in a dark, air conditioned room and watch something that will give me chills. So maybe all horror music feels like the summer to me.

That said, let’s get into it and run down this list of “Ten Songs Written for Eighties Horror Movies, Not Including Score Orchestration!” (catchy title, huh?) These come in no particular order, really just the sequence I hear them in my playlist.

Dream Warriors – Dokken (1987): Nightmare on Elm Street 3

I’ve already written about my appreciation for this series entry – I think it’s probably the best example of what Nightmare on Elm Street movies have to offer. And this song is a part of that. I mean, the whole film is just such a good time and having a song to rock out to where you find yourself screaming out the name of the film is just such cheesy, glorious fun. I think for horror to work, you have to be open to it. You can’t be too cool to get scared or it won’t work. Maybe that’s why so many of the songs on this list, this one certainly included, are so unabashedly sincere, and rocking.

The Ballad of Harry Warden – Paul Zaza (1981): My Bloody Valentine

I just love a folksy ballad about murder and/or a disaster. Old broadsheet ballads, Nick Cave, The Willow Garden, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald; that kind of thing is rather my jam. And this tune, which plays over the credits of My Bloody Valentine, one of the better entries (I think) of the first slasher cycle, really delivers the atmosphere, the nostalgic regret, and the beauty that the film deserves. It’s just so very pretty, but it’s got this pinch of pain, of threat. It’s a great song for a singalong around a campfire, if only I weren’t so shy about playing my guitar in front of other people…

Angela’s Theme (You’re Just What I’ve Been Looking For) – Franki Vinci (1983): Sleepaway Camp

Sleepaway Camp is an easy movie to love (so intentionally sleazy and accidentally sweet, all while (I suspect) totally inadvertently making a case for trans rights, all in a dirty little slasher that seems to, more accurately than most, show kids at summer camp in a way that is oddly, rather believable (though I imagine there’s often less murder), and this ode to Felicia Rose’s Angela is one really groovy, synth-tastic gem. It plays over the credits, following a key moment which shouldn’t be spoiled if possible, and is in a kind of dialogue with that moment, allowing it to linger as the credits roll. It’s just the perfect cap to a really enjoyable flick.    

Pet Sematary – The Ramones (1989): Pet Sematary

I remember being freaked out by the trailers on TV for Pet Sematary when I was a kid. I would have been 10 or 11 when it was being advertised and we had always had cats, so the image of Church, back from the dead and now evil, was just really disturbing for me – a mix of sad and wrong and scary that got under my skin. Many years later, I finally read the book and was struck with how ultimately mournful it all is, far more than scary. And yet, for the 1989 film, the Ramones contributed this upbeat anthemic rocker with downbeat lyrics (I don’t wanna be buried in a pet sematary – I don’t want to live my life again) for the end credits, and it’s hard not to bop your head when you hear it.

Tonight (We’ll Make Love Until We Die) – SSQ (1985): The Return of the Living Dead

It’s honestly difficult to pick just one song from this soundtrack, but in the end, I think this might be my favorite of them. It’s got a great sound, it is clearly for exactly this film with lyrics about rising from earth beds, smells gone sweetly rancid, and dancing among the dead, and it is the tune that plays during the iconic cemetery striptease that Trash (Linnea Quigley) performs right after voicing her fantasy about being eaten by old men and shortly before becoming zombified herself. How could I choose anything else?

Come to Me – Brad Fiedel (1985):  Fright Night

An instrumental version of this song is used as the vampire seduction theme throughout both Fright Night and its sequel, but on the soundtrack album, words were added to make more of a pop tune out of it. Either way, it is a sultry, cool, evocative piece – utterly appropriate for apple eating, chunky knit sweater wearing vampires to beguile beautiful women to. And it’s a perfect accompaniment to Fright Night’s brand of good old fashioned vampire story meets modernity (ala 1985).  

Cat People (Putting Out Fire With Gasoline) – David Bowie (1982): Cat People

Another song that has a different version on the album and in the film.  On Bowie’s Let’s Dance album, the song is sped up to be, I guess, more danceable (yes, let’s), and it’s fine. But the version made for the film with its slowed down intro is just so rich, with a gorgeous building tension that just explodes when it kicks into gear. Since Cat People (an interesting and enjoyable, and very 80s remake of the classic Val Lewton original), it’s been featured on a few other soundtracks. Notably, Tarantino put it to really good use in Inglourious Basterds, but its steamy quality just pairs so well with the sweaty, New Orleans set, sex obsessed film for which it was named.

I Still Believe – Tim Cappello (1987): The Lost Boys

Ok, I’m breaking my own rule here. This wasn’t actually written for the movie. Apparently, the version in the film is a cover of a song by The Call, but Cappello did record this to be on the soundtrack. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Cappello’s appearance in the film, performing this song, surrounded by fire, oiled up and swinging his sax around, is just perfect: exuberant, cheesy, over the top, totally earnest, and unapologetically passionate and joyful. It sets the tone for Santa Carla night life youth culture—everyone there is really having a fantastically amazing time (so much life) and amidst the hubbub, Michael and Star lock eyes. Their actual romance may feel tacked on (fueling those who claim the stronger connection is between Michael and David), but in this moment, the connection feels magical.

He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask) – Alice Cooper (1986): Friday the 13^th Part VI: Jason Lives

Alice Cooper has at least three songs on the soundtrack of Jason Lives, but this is the only one that is really directly about the movie, or at least its titular killer. This is possibly the silliest of the Friday movies, and this celebratory ode to Jason fits in with it just great. Past that, it’s just a love letter to the whole slasher formula: kids fooling around in the woods, or out on lovers’ lake, and running into homicidal trouble in the form of a masked psychopath. It doesn’t feel like a horror movie exactly, but in some way, it can scratch the itch.

Maniac – Dennis Matkosky and Michael Sembello (1983): Flashdance / Maniac

Ok, this is a pretty odd inclusion. But it comes with a story. So apparently Matkosky had heard about some serial killer and it inspired him to start writing. Once begun, he and Sembello came upon William Lustig’s effectively gruesome 1980 horror film Maniac, and it gave them fuel to round out the rest of the lyrics with gems such as:

Somehow it got on the radar of Flashdance’s director, Adrian Lyne who requested they change the lyrics to be more about a girl who’s dancing and less about a serial killer involved in feline carpentry, and it became the MTV hit that everybody knows, but it all started with something pretty dark and playful. So I’ll leave you with that.

And that’s it for now. Maybe some other time, I’ll dig into some scores that I think stand out, but for now, I hope this helps enliven your summer months…