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

Resident Evil

Another big horror movie of this decade that spawned a whole series with the 6th and final installment coming soon is “Resident Evil”, based on the highly popular horror games. The first movie saw movie makers yet again turn towards an alternative music artist for the score. Marilyn Manson collaborated with movie composer Marco Beltrami and multi-instrumentalist Tim Sköld (Manson‘s later bassist) to create the main theme song and 3 other tracks that appeared regularly throughout the movie. The industrial metal styled music fitted the Umbrella Corporation caused zombie mayhem perfectly. On the officially released soundtrack songs of several popular bands and artists of that time appeared, often in a remixed version crafted for the album. And I’ll never forget how awesome it sounded to hear the ‘Red Queen’ say “You’re all going to die down here.” immediately followed by the riffs of My Plague by Slipknot.

Tracklist:
1. Red Queen – Michaela Dicker
2. My Plague (New Abuse Mix) – Slipknot
3. The Fight Song (Slipknot Remix) – Marilyn Manson
4. Something Told Me – Coal Chamber
5. Name of the Game (CleanName) – The Crystal Method
6. Everyone – Adema
7. Invisible Wounds (The Suture Dream Mix) – Fear Factory
8. Anything But This – Static-X
9. Hallelujah – Rammstein
10. Dirt – Depeche Mode
11. What Comes Around (Day of the Dead Mix) – Ill Niño
12. Dig (Everything and Nothing Remix) – Mudvayne
13. Release Yo’Self (The Prodigy Remix) – Method Man
14. 800 (Manson Remix) – Saliva
15. The Infinity – Five Pointe O
16. The Umbrella Corporation – Jason Isaacs
17. Resident Evil Main Theme – Marilyn Manson & Marco Beltrami
18. Seizure of Power – Marilyn Manson & Marco Beltrami
19. Reunion – Marilyn Manson & Marco Beltrami
20. Cleansing – Marilyn Manson & Marco Beltrami

Some of the following Resident Evil movies had a metal soundtrack as well eventhough nothing of the music was featured in the movie itself except for the credits song, to be more exact, “Resident Evil: Apocalypse” from 2004 and “Resident Evil: Extinction” from 2007. Again, it was a mix of songs by popular metal and rock acts and remixes of existing songs.

Resident Evil Apocalypse Tracklist:
1. Vermilion – Slipknot
2. Just a Little – The Used
3. Us or Them – The Cure
4. Swamped – Lacuna Coil
5. The Outsider (Resident Renholdër Mix) – A Perfect Circle
6. The End of Heartache (Resident Evil Version) – Killswitch Engage
7. Mein Teil – Rammstein
8. Digging Up the Corpses – DevilDriver
9. Nymphetamine – Cradle of Filth
10. Escape from Hellview – CKY
11. The Chauffeur (Duran Duran cover) – Deftones
12. Join Me in Death – HIM
13. My Heartstrings Come Undone – Demon Hunter (replaced by Nemo by Nightwish in European release)
14. Under a Killing Moon – Thrice
15. Bloodwork – 36 Crazyfists
16.End of the World (acoustic) – Cold
17. Girl on Fire (Resident Renholdër Mix) – Rob Zombie
18. Future Proof – Massive Attack

With as the end credits’ song The End of Heartache by Killswitch Engage:

For “Resident Evil: Extinction” they called upon Charlie Clouser (ex-Nine Inch Nails) for the score of the film. Most likely because he had done such a damn good job for the “Saw” franchise, on which I’m coming back later.

Tracklist:
1. Main Title – Charlie Clouser
2. Stupid Crazy – Shadows Fall
3. I’m So Sick (T-Virus Remix) – Flyleaf vs. Legion of Doom
4. My World – Emigrate
5. Duality (Project Alice String Remix) – Bayside
6. Losing – Charlie Clouser
7. One Love (Extinction Remix) – Aiden vs. Legion of Doom
8. Deathcar – Fightstar
9. I, Suicide – Throwdown
10. White Rabbit (SPC ECO Mix) – Collide
11. Paralyzed – Chimaira
12. Laser Tunnel – Charlie Clouser
13. Asleep on the Frontlines (Appliantz Remix) – The Bled
14. Catch Me – City Sleeps
15. Contagious – Searchlight
16. Scenotaph (DJA Infected Remix) – Emanuel
17. Sixth of June – It Dies Today
18. Wrecking Itself Taking You with Me – Poison the Well
19. Convoy – Charlie Clouser

With “Resident Evil: Afterlife” the seemingly took a step away from the alternative (rock) music soundtrack and released only a score of mostly electronic (trance) music composed by Tomandandy. The only more rock track used was A Perfect Circle‘s The Outsider (Apocalypse Remix) for the marketing of the movie, a little snippet during the confrontation between Alice and Wesker, as well as playing it over the end credits.

“Resident Evil: Retribution” went much the same way: a score by Tomandandy with now the track Hexes by Bassnectar and Deftones‘ vocalist Chino Moreno as the one more alternative track. Again this was used for the film’s end credits.

The last installment of the franchise, “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” has even less to do with any alternative music and just has a “classic” movie score.