10 Horror Films That Actually Won Oscars

Won: Best Score

Also Nominated For: Best Original Song

Scripted by David Seltzer, The Omen is strictly a tawdry Exorcist cash-in but in upping the number of violent incidents that befall members of the cast it also laid the groundwork for the Final Destination series.

The story couldn’t be simpler: when a US Ambassador realizes that his adopted son is evil incarnate, he sets out to stop the little tyke from fulfilling his destiny as the prophesized antichrist. Brought to life by an excellent supporting cast (which includes David Warner, Billie Whitelaw and Patrick Troughton), the movie gets a big shot from Richard Donner’s slick direction but if you remember the film for any one thing it’ll be Jerry Goldsmith’s score.

One of the few foreign language songs ever to be nominated for an Oscar, Ave Satani (“Hail Satan”) is a satanic version of a Gregorian chant with a master leading his choir in a sinister inversion of the Catholic rite of the consecration. Used whenever the going gets weird, the song is the perfect accompaniment to the mayhem occurring onscreen.

The song’s concept later inspired Oculus Infernum, a concept album recorded by Van Helsing’s Curse, a side-project band of Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider.