Horror Choir
Located in 2 routes
Choral writing used for terror rather than uplift—massed voices intoning ominous Latin, invented liturgical languages, or wordless clusters to summon the demonic, the sacred-gone-wrong and the overwhelming. It draws on requiem and plainchant tradition but subverts it: chanted "black masses," children's-choir menace, whispered and shrieked vocal effects, and huge dissonant vocal walls layered over organ and orchestra. Dynamic extremes—from a lone hushed voice to a full choir at full cry—mark thresholds of dread and revelation. The choir lends horror a false holiness that makes the profane feel cosmic.
History
Jerry Goldsmith's Latin-chanted Ave Satani for The Omen (1976) is the genre's cornerstone, setting satanic pseudo-liturgy for choir and orchestra and winning an Academy Award, and it made the demonic choir a horror standard. Christopher Young's soaring, damned choirs for Hellraiser (1987), Wojciech Kilar's massed voices for Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and Elliot Goldenthal's requiem-horror deepened the tradition. Contemporary composers—Benjamin Wallfisch on It, the choral clusters of the Conjuring films—continue to reach for the choir when horror needs scale and sacred dread, and trailer music has adopted the "epic evil choir" as shorthand for apocalyptic threat.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Ave Satani (The Omen)(1976) — Jerry GoldsmithSpotifyYouTube
- Resurrection (Hellraiser)(1987) — Christopher YoungSpotifyYouTube
- The Storm (Bram Stoker's Dracula)(1992) — Wojciech KilarSpotifyYouTube
- Libera Me (Interview with the Vampire)(1994) — Elliot GoldenthalSpotifyYouTube
- Pennywise (It)(2017) — Benjamin WallfischSpotifyYouTube
- The Piper Dreams (The Omen)(1976) — Jerry GoldsmithSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Neil Lerner (ed.), Music in the Horror Film (2010)
- Randall D. Larson, Musique Fantastique (1985)
- James Wierzbicki, Film Music: A History (2009)