Horror Movie Production

Music and Sound

One of the most overlooked aspects of films is the sound. An audience can easily forget that if the music and sound effects were taken away from a horror, the fear factor would decrease dramatically, possibly even disappear completely. If you was to watch a horror movie and turn the sound down, you would suddenly forget how scared you were and the images on the screen wont scare you half as much as they would if the volume was up.

From the information I have read about horror films, I have found out that music in horror movies are probably more powerful than in any other film genre. The music in a film is used to communicate with the audience, so we must interpret it. You can watch a horror film without music, but it isn't frightening, however it can be gruesome. If you add the music, you add the tension.

Orchestral music is seen as the most recognised and common type of music used in horror hilms. Orchestral music has been used since the start of the horror genre and is still the most popular type of music used in horrors and thrillers. The reason why orchestral music is used so much in horror films is because the composer can vary compositions following each event happening in the film. Orchestral music can be seen as a very neutral type of music and it appeals to a wide audience. This sort of music helps set a certain mood and gets across different emotions in a horror film.
As well as the classical orchestral music, we have to consider that modern alternative horror music is also used in many films. This genre uses synth-based music and industrial music.
An example of this music genre is used in horrors such as Blair Witch 2, which consists of alternative rock and heavy metal music. This music works well with horrors as it is quite dark and brooding, which suits the visual style of the film.

From doing all this research about music and sound effect in horror films, I have realised how important it is to use the right kind of music in our horror trailer. Without effective horror music in our trailer, the audience won't be drawn to the movie and they won't feel like it is going to be a scary horror. We have decided that we are going to use Modern Alternative Music for our horror trailer as our film name is 30/10/10 and this represents the present day and comes across as very modern. It is always the right music to use when linking it to our overall concept.