
Later, better elaborated and sophisticated songs like the one of Panther (1986) came out, with a style that, still being 8-bit music, could more be assimilated to the current electronic music, but that still contained variants in some of its notes, modifying its tone gradually and causing tension in the player like every suspense soundtrack.Īlready in the nineties, with the advent of the fourth generation of video games, titles emerged whose horror genre extended beyond the classic invasions of aliens and they experimented with vampires, ghosts and zombies.

Games like the well-known Space Invaders or Demon Attack, had a musical soundtrack that consisted of a single song formed by four notes that were repeated constantly in a loop but had the peculiarity that the rhythm was accelerating as the danger was increasing, resulting in a kind of scary music. It all started with the alien invasion games, when Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 video game consoles experimented with the first games in the eighties. These videos wouldn’t have much effect if they weren’t accompanied by horror audio at the time of the scare. Speaking of jokes, since a long time the so-called screamers move across the Internet, which are jokes in which people receive a link to a small horror video, which at first does not seem to be related to the genre until suddenly a demonic creature appears in the foreground with the intention of frightening. If you still keep jumping out of the chair it is because someone has put a thumbtack under you.

Try to watch any horror scene without sound and you will notice the difference. Background horror music is the underpinning part of any kind of story of fear or suspense.įor example, what makes you jump right out of your chair when you see a scary scene in a movie or when playing a horror video game, which can even contain violent and bloody scenes, is not the image itself, but the sound, its volume and its changes of rhythm, which cause you to experience a sense of alarm. Visually, it is closely linked to darkness, cruelty and strange or mysterious atmospheres, and is used to set movies, video games and any type of audiovisual representation, where the image on its own does not efficiently transmit what it intends. If the music manages to keep the listener fearful, expectant and tense, the mission is accomplished.

Generally, horror music should convey expectation, suspense, fright, and strong emotions that are opposed to joy and pleasure, such as terror, repulsion, and even drama or sadness. It is a musical genre that is aimed at causing fear in the spectator.
