It’s that time of the year again that the whole world is interested in the darker side of the world… Samhain, Hallow’s Eve, Halloween is upon us! We found this the ideal time to have a look at the love story between horror and metal, rock and industrial music. There’s an ocean of things we could discuss here. There are horror themed bands, bands with releases with a horror theme, horror movies with metal and rock inspired soundtracks, musicians giving directing and/or acting in a horror flick a try,… Because we don’t want to scare you away with an article that goes on for ages, we’ll be selecting a small partition to take a look at this year and come back on a different section every coming Halloween. This year we’re focusing on…

Horror Movie Soundtracks of the 21st Century

The past 17 years there has been quite some horror movies having metal music integrated in them and have those songs together with some extra awesome tracks on the official soundtrack. You could even find a trend in which one artist/musician/band made the actual score of a movie with every single song having a big role in the story or atmosphere. The following list brings you an overview of some of the great soundtracks to put on while you get ready for your Halloween activities… Enjoy!

Queen of the Damned

Resident Evil

Underworld

Saw

Freddy vs Jason

Queen of the Damned

One of the first movies of the 21st century that had a really distinct metal inspired soundtrack that was an essential part of the story was “Queen of the Damned” in 2002.  The film, based on story elements of the Anne Rice’s “Vampire Chronicles” series, features a version of Lestat the vampire coming back to life and starting a band to gather followers with his hauntingly vocals. Despite many negative critiques the soundtrack was rather impressive. The songs used in the movie were written by Jonathan Davis of Korn (his first musical outing outside of his band) and Richard Gibbs. And while the vocals of Lestat in the movie were sung by Davis, the same songs on the soundtrack album were performed by others like Wayne Static, David Draiman, Chester Bennington, Marilyn Manson and Jay Gordon due to contractual commitments. The style was very similar to what Korn had been releasing for ages already but somehow with a bit more of a haunting vibe. They also did something with the tracks that hadn’t been done before: since Lestat had a legit popular band in the movie, they made full music videos for the songs with the acting band! Besides those tracks there were songs by Deftones, Papa Roach, Godhead, Disturbed, Static-X, Earshot, Dry Cell, Tricky and Kidneythieves that are featured in the movie as well and form a perfect little alternative metal album.

Tracklist:
1. Not Meant For Me – Wayne Static (of Static-X)
2. Forsaken – David Draiman (of Disturbed)
3. System – Chester Bennington (of Linkin Park)
4. Change (In The House Of Flies) – Deftones
5. Redeemer – Marilyn Manson
6. Dead Cell – Papa Roach
7. Penetrate – Godhead
8. Slept So Long – Jay Gordon (of Orgy)
9. Down with the Sickness – Disturbed
10. Cold – Static-X
11. Headstrong – Earshot
12. Body Crumbles – Dry Cell
13. Excess – Tricky
14. Before I’m Dead – Kidneythieves