Hell Is That Noise/Film

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Star Wars
    • HHHHHHGGHHH-PHRRRRRR. HHHHHGGGHHH-PHHHHRRRR.
    • Everything about Jabba's palace; the screams of possibly sentient droids being tormented by a sociopath, Oola's screams of terror as she's devoured by the Rancor, those damned gates opening up for R-2 and 3PO, even Jabba's distant and derisive laughter can beterrifying with the right timing. All of these are a testament to Ben Burt's sound design, and one damned good screamer.
  • In The Dark Knight, the Joker's Leitmotif plays whenever he is working his mischief or his nefarious plans are coming to fruition. The "music" is a single sustained violin chord followed by discordant strings that grow into a crescendo. The result is extremely unsettling, but often surprisingly subliminal.
    • Hans Zimmer apparently used some unique methods to achieve the sound, like striking razor blades against cello strings.
    • Batman Begins has a similar sound for Batman when he's attacking mooks on the docks.
  • The Ju-On films, and their remakes, The Grudge films. The croaking sound made by Kayako (her death rattle) will haunt your nightmares for weeks. Same with Toshio's piercing cat meow.
  • Silence of the Lambs: "Thhhp-thp-thp-thp-thp-thp-thp-thp."
    • "Hello, Clarice."
  • Silent Hill: The air raid siren that sounds just before bad things happen.
  • The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The sound of Eddie screaming, and the sound of Frank hacking him to pieces with a pick-axe.
  • Coraline is made of this trope, yet the music manages to be both creepy and charming. One song that stands out plays during the ending credits with "fast-paced plucked strings, harp and whining boys choir, singing meaningless words in almost intimate whispers."
    • When the music takes darker turns, as in Wybie, Ghost Children, Dangerous, and a host of other cues, the music becomes strongly rhythmic and otherworldly.
    • The song for "The Supper" does it best. Cooing boys choir, clanging bells, and the omnipresent glass harmonica are joined by the occasional piano, ghostly sound effects, and meaningless lyrics sung by various solos.
  • Children of Men: Jasper's "Zen Music" he enjoys so much.
    • "You know that high-pitched ringing sound you hear? That eeeeeeeeee? That's the sound of the ear cells dying, like their swan song. Once it's gone you'll never hear that frequency again. Enjoy it while it lasts."
  • Friday the 13 th: Chi-chi-chi-ha-ha-ha...Ki-ki-ki-ki...ma-ma-ma-ma...
  • Drag Me to Hell uses this quite effectively.
    • For example, in one scene, Christine is alone in her house at night when she starts hearing strange noises, including screeching sounds, creaking, and thumps from above. The lights then go out, some hanging pots and pans suddenly clang together, and then light enters the house showing the shadow of a demonic figure. An invisible force then blasts her backwards into a counter, leaving her with a bloody lip.
  • In the American remake of The Ring, the cursed videotape contains an odd, rising-and-falling-in-pitch squeaking sound that loops constantly. It's scary because it quickly becomes associated with Samara's attacks, but the repetition - it's the exact same sound every time- is creepy on its own.
    • In the original Japanese movie, the videotape contains a grating, high-pitched squeaking sound which is heard multiple times throughout the movie. It is creepy. Also, during the ending, a single, high-pitched squeak is heard repeatedly when Sadako is coming for Ryuji... and it only rises in pitch as she gets closer to emerging from the TV.
      • In the same movie, the barely-audible speech of the "Towel-Headed Man" from the video (used twice in the first film and then used once towards the end of Ring 2) will haunt you.
    • There's also a short, incredibly high-pitched whine (for those of you watching the Tape: it's the sound of the finger pushing down into the nail) that tends to come up every once in a while.
    • You'll also never listen to forest sounds, like insects and birds, the same way. (These precede the infamous Well Scene.)
  • The music that opens There Will Be Blood.
    • The same musical device is used in The Hurt Locker to enhance the Oh Crap moment when James realizes that the wire he found was attached to a daisy chain of a half-dozen or so IEDs.
  • The shark attack theme from Jaws.
  • The sound of Doc Ock's approach during the balcony scene in Spider-Man 2. As Roger Ebert describes in his review: "We hear him coming, hammering his way toward us like the drums of hell."
  • The original Halloween theme. As it was, the film was received poorly before that theme was introduced. Then it grossed over 100 times its budget.
    • In the original, at the end, after Loomis shoots Michael six times, and the body just disappears, we hear that theme, with Michael's heavy breathing in the background.
  • Psycho. That horrific shrieking violin when someone gets attacked.
  • Don't watch Come and See if you like twin-boom aircraft.
  • The movie Audition had "Kiri kiri kiri kiri kiiiii....". Coupled with a SLOW Eye Scream.
  • The theme for The Amityville Horror had innocent, happy-toned music that offset the deep wrongness of the house perfectly.
  • The Exorcist had "Tubular Bells". Made creepier because there's an album of nothing but this music put out by the original artist.
    • Except that the opening of Tubular Bells (the part used by The Exorcist) is the most creepy part of that song (all 44 minutes of it). And then only because it was used in The Exorcist. The final part of that two-part song is a Sailors Hornpipe.
  • Paranormal Activity has a a trigger sound of the presence arriving to do its business, which sounds like some sort of rumbling, which was probably meant to be the audio track being distorted by the presence.
    • The footsteps of the demon 'walking' down the hall during the preliminary hauntings turn out to mirror the shuffling noises we hear just before the 'pop out and scare you' moment in the last scene.
    • Katie talking about her paranormal experiences that include hearing long scratching sounds and the calling of her name.
  • Simon's voice from Session 9. But especially the way he says that last line, over the final shot drawing away from the abandoned asylum, just before the credits roll and shortly after watching everybody die except Gordon, who went Ax Crazy and killed them all. "And where do you live, Simon?" "I live...in the weak...and the wounded, Doc."
  • The screaming, invisible ghost children in The Orphanage.
    • Also in The Orphanage, the knock on the wall game that the protagonist plays with one of the ghosts. She has to face the wall to knock on the wall and say a little rhyme and each time she turns around, the ghost is a little bit closer.
    • And Tomás's rasping breathing.
  • The ghastly mechanical-sounding GROAAAAAAN noise that plays whenever a Terminator shows up. Terrifying, yet awesome at the same time.
    • Especially the repetitive version of this accompanying the T-1000.
  • All the normal sounds that you should be hearing slowing down, distorting, and finally fading out, leaving absolute silence behind.
  • Parodied in Kung Fu Panda - the jar that contains a thousand souls makes a deliberately ominous "oooOOOooo" every time someone even touches its pieces.
  • The sound of a hand sliding against tent material...
    • "Liberate.... me..." Free me. Except that's all they could hear over the horrible distortion and grisly screams. It's later found out to be "liberate tuteme ex infernis", or "save yourself from hell." And the sounds were the crew and ship tearing each other - and themselves - apart in a horrible orgy of violence and madness. One of the more literal interpretations of the trope in question.
  • Night of the Demon features a high-pitched chittering sound that precedes the appearance of said demon, or at least threatens imminent arrival.
  • Wet sneakers in the first Resident Evil movie. Think it's a survivor? Dead wrong, it's a zombie with a broken foot.
  • The "ping" sound of the sonar picking up the enemy sub in Das Boot.
  • The ticking of the Geiger counter that heralds the approach of the title creature in The Thing from Another World.
  • One, two, Freddy's coming for you...
  • Boom....boom.....boom....boom... "SKREEEEEOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNK!"
  • Clicking noises and baby monitors. A winning combination in Signs.
  • The Thing: The blood test scene where MacReady casually puts a heated wire to a tray of Palmer's blood and the blood explodes with a hideous screeching sound. It should be hilarious but it's horrifying.
    • The scene where the lights go out in Fuchs' room (it only attacks in the dark) and as he walks to the door with a candle, a shadow darts by with a sound that...I can't even describe, it's so alien.
    • The Bennings-Thing's scream. It still disturbs many fans of the movie. And in some fanfics, it causes a reaction of horror in the individual cells of any non-Thing life form.
    • The combinations of sounds from the Jed/Kennel Thing. Especially that insect droning.
  • The earth-shaking noise (and the water rippling usually coupled with it) whenever the T. rex is walking in Jurassic Park.
    • The raptors tapping their claws in the kitchen chase scene.
  • The titular Piranha announce themselves with a watery echoing gargling/burbling chitter. It's creepy to young impressionable ears, but when you're older it sounds like a flock of scuba-diving turkeys.
  • The dissonant, horrifying "Sand Choir" from the 1953 movie Invaders from Mars. See here.
  • Thought Hellraiser was scary enough as it was? Now try it with this track.
  • That horrific noise made by the Zuni Fetish Doll in the Trilogy of Terror as he attacks the main character Amelia and as he's being burned in the oven.
  • That scream in Men Who Hate Women. It will haunt you in your dreams, as well as return later in the series.
  • The Wizard of Gore has a prolonged screeching sound frequently used in scenes where the heroes realized something is horribly not right with the scene. Contrasts heavily with the cheery jazz music as Montag gleefully rips gobbets of flesh out of his victims.
  • In 2001: A Space Odyssey, there's the wailing and high-pitched noise ("Requiem" by Ligeti) that the Monolith appears to make. Which sounds like the voices of hell.
  • The Killing Fields: About thirty minutes in, there's a scene of two helicopters flying over Cambodia that the composer scored with some kind of mechanical grinding and a drum kit.
  • In a Docu Drama about the Americans held hostage in Lebanon in the '80s, they were wrapped from head to toe in duct tape when being transported by their captors. At the end, during a press conference, a nearby gaffer goes to tape down a loose cable causing at least one of the freed hostages to visibly cringe in anticipation of yet another cocooning.
  • This sound in Inception.
    • And if that doesn't give you chills, try listening to it for five minutes straight. Spooky.
  • I Am Legend manages to turn a window closing into the scariest thing ever.
  • The shriek at the end of the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
  • In The Lord of the Rings, Moria has the Drums...Drums in the deep... doom, doom, doom... Best of all, when the first drum is heard, everyone in the audience and in the scene can tell that the shit has hit the fan.
    • One of the things Jackson had not merely right, but perfect.
    • Also, that tapping noise that happens right after Pippin drops a stone in the well in the same chapter.
    • The Nazgul screeching. It's so horrible that in universe it causes people to just fall where they are and scream while covering their ears. Created by recording and blending numerous sounds including co-producer Fran Walsh screaming. She had a throat infection at the time. Fans joked that Jackson got her to make that sound by telling her he was going to do a film of The Silmarillion next.
  • Night of the Living Dead did this a couple of times - the zombie feast was understated and otherworldly; the death of Helen Cooper was a series of highly distorted screams; even the last bit of music during the photo montage of the posse disposing of the bodies...
    • In Day of the Dead one character's head is slowly pulled off by a horde of zombies. As he screams, his vocal cords are pulled taut and finally snap...
  • Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds:
  • Subverted in My Cousin Vinny. Seeking a quiet place to rest, Vinny and Lisa have borrowed a cabin in the forest. The silence is broken by a horrific screech, Vinny jumps up WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT and starts shooting at random into the trees. The culprit, a screech owl that could fit in the palm of your hand, merely blinks and turns around on its branch.
  • In Kiss Me Deadly there's the hideous, dissonant sounds when the mysterious suitcase is opened. It's supposed to be a nuclear explosion gearing up, but it sounds more like something out of Hell itself.
  • QUICK SILVERGIRL---QUICKSILVER GIRL---QUICKSILVER GIRL---QUICKSILVER---QUICKSILVER---QUICK---QUICK---QUICK---QUICK-
  • The motion trackers in Aliens. Not only does the rising tone of the detection chime become outright terrifying, especially in the tense build-up to the "Last Stand" scene, but even the soft "paf" of the tracker when it's not detecting anything causes fear because you just know what it's leading to. Tipp: if you want to wake up quick, program this sound to be your alarm clock's sound the night after watching Aliens.
    • Additionally the screeches and hisses of the aliens themselves are quite terrifying.
    • The noises in the original film's trailer are scary enough in themselves.
  • The Shining: Most of the music, including the opening theme and the spooky music that plays during the scene where Wendy stumbles upon a dude in a dog suit blowing a well dressed middle aged guy.
  • IT: The inhuman noise Pennywise makes whenever he gets those fangs.
    • The music that plays during the scene wherein Bill is looking at an old photo album of his dead brother George, and suddenly Georgie's picture winks at him. He throws it across the room and the album starts moving on its own, turning back to that same picture, which then starts to bleed heavily.
    • The music that plays when Beverly's dad leaves the bathroom after he doesn't even notice when the sink starts spewing blood and Beverly is left alone crying to herself.
    • The theme song and intro music.
  • The clicking sound of the Predator.
    • How about it playing back the soldiers' conversation?
    • From Predators, when they realize the Mexican dude is dead, but the Predator keeps playing his voice. Then it starts playing some variations of that same voice. It sounded like a five-second chorus of disturbingly calm souls begging for help FROM HELL.
  • The squawk Bing's violin makes when the shadows swallow him in Mirrormask.
  • "Warriors, come out to pla-ay!" *clinkclinkclink*
  • Toy Story 3 has one. When night falls on Sunnyside Daycare, a Cymbal-Banging Monkey sits in the second-floor security office, watching all the screens. If a toy tries to escape, he turns on the center's P.A. system and screeches into it while banging his cymbals.
  • The soundtrack of 127 Hours plays a truly horrible "nails on chalkboard" type of sound every time Aron touches the main nerve of his forearm with the knife. This film also treats us to the sound of a man's radius, and then his ulna, snapping extremely loudly.
  • Requiem for a Dream and "Meltdown". Some bizarre amalagration of disjointed violins, machinery and swing music. It'd be awesome if it weren't so terrifying. Wait till you get to about 3:28.
  • The blaster beam sound associated with V'ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture tends to be this.
  • Also from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Lori Ciani's death scream in the transporter.
  • The repetitive organ music that plays for about four minutes at the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, accompanying a completely blank screen tends to become this when listened to in silence, in a darkened room, or while relatively alone.
    • For such a silly, entertaining movie, the eerie howls that can occasionally be heard in the background (such as when Galahad's limping towards Castle Anthrax) are genuinely disturbing. Can you imagine being in the rain, wounded, locked outside a castle, listening to those mournful howls come closer and closer?
    • The jingle at the end of The Naked Gun credits has the same effect.
  • In the second Tremors movie, about 48 minutes into the movie the Graboid screams, and it is one of the most chilling sounds you'll ever hear.
  • An innocent child's laughter should be heartwarming, right? Take that very same laugh, place it in the woods in the dead of night. Courtesy of The Blair Witch Project.
  • The entire ambient soundtrack of Alien
    • Especially that quiet heartbeat sound right before the chestburster.
  • Hostel Part 2, that woman rubbing the tip of the scythe against Heather Matarazzo's skin, and then her screams.
  • 1408: "We've only just begun...."
  • Dracula. Renfield's laugh. "Nhnn, hnn, hnn, hnn, hnnnnn..."
  • Irreversible contains a nearly-inaudible, low-frequency noise intended to make viewers uncomfortable. It is apparently there to cause sensitive viewers to leave the theater before things get really bad.
  • Oh god, Eraserhead. Throughout the whole movie, there are a lot of jump scares involving noise, like the artificial chickens, the demon baby thing getting sick, and the sound of a baby crying. For about fifteen minutes straight. The last ten minutes or so are nothing but high pitched static and the sounds of a baby screaming.
  • The screeching synthesizer chords as Phyllis is stabbed to death in The Last House on the Left.
  • "I'm singin' in the rain, just singin' in the rain..."
  • The Loved Ones tells the story of a deranged girl who kidnaps a boy and tortures him. One of the first things she does is inject his vocal chords with bleach to silence him. When she eventually begins her Cold-Blooded Torture his resulting screams are this trope times a thousand.
  • You hear that? That's Sergeant Donny Donowitz. But you might know him better by his nickname...
  • Gabriel's horn in Legion, which sounds like the sky turned into a big sub-woofer.
  • March of the Children, the ending theme of the 1995 Village of the Damned film, is one of the creepiest ending themes I've ever heard.
  • Indio's watch chime in For a Few Dollars More. Every time it plays, you know someone is going to die horribly.
  • Toy Story: How about that horrifying music that plays whenever Buzz and co. are being "played with" by the toddlers in the third movie?
  • In a literal, but no less terrifying, case is the horror film Nine Miles Down. The movie takes place in a remote scientific camp where they have drilled down below the Earth's crust. The only person left on the base shows our main character a sound recording the scientists made from the hole. At first, it just sounds like the wind. As the recording is adjusted, it becomes the screams of the Damned in Hell.
  • Saw's recurring theme, "Hello Zepp". When you hear that opening rhythm, you know things are about to get very, very bad.
  • Finding Nemo: The music being played when Marlin loses sight of the boat. It's just chilling.
  • In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1, whenever the Locket horcrux starts twisting the thoughts of our heroic trio, there's a constant soft screechy squeak noise playing throughout the scene.
    • Similarly, the spine-chilling violin at the beginning of The Exodus is Paranoia Fuel incarnate; able to make something like walking into work an exercise in looking over your shoulder. It plays as Ron's Horcrux-enhanced suspicions about Harry and Hermione grow along with their sense of desperation, and the WWN lists off the names of all the witches and wizards who have disappeared...
  • The Great Mouse Detective: The whole clock scene. Even before Ratigan freaked out, the sound of the cogs going was just eerie.
  • Red State: And I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. The horns of the apocalypse sound an awful lot like an iPod playing shofar blasts over an air raid siren.
  • Lost Highway: The sound of the Mystery Man laughing.
  • The metallic droning screech given off when the spaceship starts up in District9 District
  • The sound of Jafar in Aladdin laughing. Especially his laugh at the end of Prince Ali the reprise]].
  • In the movie Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story the presence of the samurai armor clad demon is accompanied by convincingly realistic off-screen shrieks of agony and fear. Considering where this demon had just supposedly come from, this might be the most literal example of this trope yet.
  • The Haunted Mansion: The ringing telephone in the middle of the empty secret corridor.
  • Judge Doom high pitched voice in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.
  • Pontypool: Sydney Briar is alive. Sydney Briar is alive. Sydney Briar is alive.
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