To say that horror and metal go hand in hand is an understatement. It’s one of those magical connections where both cultures are viewed as outsiders in their medium and yet their fans are rabid, defending and understanding the genre for everything positive and worthwhile it has to offer.
Plus, you can’t deny that metal has some serious love of the horror genre. Think of Iron Maiden’s “Eddie” or Megadeth’s “Vic Rattlehead”. Give a minute to dwell on Metallica and their great many horror-themed songs. How about Slayer and, well…being fucking Slayer.
And more and more these rock and metal musicians are getting their feet into the horror world. David Bowie did it with The Hunger, Sully Erna was in Army Of The Damned, Dee Snider in Strangeland, and the list goes on and on. There’s obviously a passion for metal heads to be a part of the horror world.
But what if they went behind the camera and used their musical talents to create the ultimate unseen character for a horror film: the score. Imagine these musicians, who know how to write incredibly heavy and intense music turning their skills to something that requires more subtlety, more finesse, and more experimentation, but still needs that intensity, that sheer in-your-face quality. The end results could be absolutely magnificent if the right musician was connected with the right kind of movie.
So let’s go with that! Let’s take that thread and explore five possibilities that would work, in my mind, beautifully.