Here we are on All Hallows` Eve. Since he’s been in his mid-teens it`s become a tradition, a ritual, for me and my second, middle, son to attempt to stay up all night – gorging ourselves on things we`re not normally allowed to eat, racking up the E numbers and washing them down with flagons of fizzy pop, while watching back to back horrors, lights off, in the perfect, pitch, black. Scaring ourselves shit-less, up on this Japanese mountain top, with – hopefully – no one but the animals, the monkeys, bears and wild boar, for company. So last night, in preparation, I was filling our Netflix and Amazon Prime play-lists with suitable viewing fare – The Color Out Of Space, Saint Maude, The Endless… – and I got to thinking, that I should have also put together some tunes. I got to wondering, how many horror scores do I own? The bulk of the spine-tingling stuff on my shelves is due to the exhaustive digging of the labels, Death Waltz and Finders Keepers, and are usually worth picking  up for the artwork alone…

Broadcast / Berberian Sound Studio

A film, within a film, and Broadcast brilliantly tapping into that very British, Witchfinder General, Blood On Satan`s Claw, brand of rural / folk horror. 

John Carpenter / The Fog

It`s impossible to chose a favourite from the vast catalogue of the horror auteur. 

Luboš Fišer / Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders

Music box pretty, and overwound clockwork creepy, I must have cited this album in around a million record reviews.

Goblin / Profondo Rosso

A sinister cinematic landmark and a gift from my dear, dear, friend, Leo Mas.

Goblin / Suspiria

I bought this, what feels like a hundred years ago, solely because Carl Craig sampled it. 

Justin Greaves / The Devil`s Business

Epic, guitar-driven, walls of noise, from the Crippled Black Phoenix main man.

Manfred Hübler & Siegfried Schwab / Vampyros Lesbos

The was a brief moment, I guess when this soundtrack was reissued in 1995, that The Lions And The Cucumber was a ubiquitous play in London’s “rave” back rooms. 

Wojciech Kilar / Bram Stokers Dracula

A Jose Padilla sunset classic (that`s coincidently just been given a super deluxe repress).

Mica Levi / Under The Skin

Eerie alien love themes amid the sheer existential terror. 

Steve Moore / The Guest

I remember interviewing Steve Moore, when he was working with L.I.E.S., and him telling me how he disliked dance music. At the time he’d just started work on this, his first feature film score. 

Riz Ortolani / La Ragazza Dal Pigiama Giallo

To be honest, I’m not sure if this counts as a horror, but I’ve got to get some Giallo in there. 

Francois De Roubaix / Les Levres Rouges

More sexually charged blood-sucking seductresses, scored by the tragically, prematurely taken, French musical savant. 

Johan Söderqvist / Let The Right One In

The things we do for love.

Giuliano Sorgini / Living Dead At Manchester Morgue 

Fab exploitation funk, cribbed from an Andrew Weatherall mix / masterpiece. 

Thom Yorke / Suspiria

Haunting heartbreak from Luca Guadagnino`s 2018 remake.

Various / A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

The highlights for me are Federale`s Morricone moments.

Various / Willows Songs

Not Strictly a score, but music that inspired the score of The Wicker Man. Ballads, both bawdy and creepy, plus this beautiful ethereal instrumental.