Research : The Importance Of Sound In Horror Films

The sounds used within horror films plays a big part in how scary the film is and building up tension, such as sound effects creating eerie tension within the scenes and non-diegetic sound such as music within scenes to create suspense such as any situation could be made peaceful or with certain sounds and backing music it could be made more scary and create tension in that certain situation. 



above is the famous scene from the film 'Psycho' featuring someone alone in a dark house with a killer on the loose, who then attacks her with a knife and when he does so there is high-pitched string instrument notes with very fast attack as he drives the knife into her. this is effective as the percussion used to create a strong feeling of the knife and its movements into the females body. without the music in this scene it would lack in the build up of the tension needed for the scene to be effective.




above is another iconic music scene within horror films  that creates tension is from Jaws. Only two notes are mainly used which is simple yet effective as it has become so well known. it is meant to match the pace of people's heart beat. This results in an increase of the audience's adrenaline meaning more enjoyment. Prof Daniel Blumstein reported that horror films commonly have a extremely high amount of abrupt shifts up and down in pitch compared to any other genre, this shows that change in pitch is likely to have a big impact on the audience and their feelings and emotions when hearing the music and its changes.