Movie Music: Scary Symphonies

Besides a suspenseful storyline, a taut pace and a big bad boogieman to scare the pants off of audiences, one thing that all horror movies need is a spine-tingling score. How else will we know when to scream, jump or go running from the theater, screaming for our very lives?

Scary movie music of course begins and ends with Bernard Herrmann's landmark Psycho. Herrmann used violins like they were never heard before, and taking a shower would never be the same again. Nor would horror movie scores; Herrmann's highly influential work can be heard in the psychic "stings" of Carrie, not to mention countless other, lesser films.

"Da dum, da dum ..." No other four notes in cinematic history can lead you to grab the armrest in fearful anticipation like John Williams' iconic Jaws theme. In another Spielberg production, Jerry Goldsmith's (appropriately) haunting "Carol Anne Theme" from Poltergeist fills you with unease on a more ethereal level.

Satanic themes of a different sort inform Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" from The Exorcist and Goldsmith's "Ave Satani" from The Omen (the only pseudo-Gregorian chant ever nominated for a Best Song Oscar), while a traditional Christian hymn, "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms", took on a whole new, menacing meaning in The Night of the Hunter.

A simple nursery rhyme ("One, two, Freddy's coming for you ...") foretells the horrors to come in A Nightmare on Elm Street. And then there's the skin-crawling signature tunes of Freddy's fellow boogiemen Michael Myers in Halloween and Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th ("Chi-chi-chi-chi, ah-ah-ah-ah ...").

Scary music isn't just the hallmark of horror flicks either. Has there ever been a tune that fills more men with dread then "Dueling Banjos" from Deliverance? And let's not forget the disturbing sight of a dolled-up Bette Davis crooning "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Of this devil's dozen of scary movie music, which do you find the spookiest? Cast your vote in this week's MD Poll in the sidebar to your right (beneath my profile) and check back next week for the horrific results.

UPDATE: This poll is now closed. For the results, click here, and click here to vote in the latest MD Poll.

Links via Imdb.com.