10 Ridiculously Overused Movie Sound Effects

2. Sword Shing

You always know that someone means business when you hear that distinctive "shing!" sound effect as someone draws their sword, usually in a fantasy film or medieval epic. It tells us, "Woah, that's a damn sharp sword, and this scene is full of danger", and the sound is often pitched up or down depending on how large the stabbing implement is; a dagger, say, will sound a little higher than a samurai sword. The sound has been used in the likes of Gladiator, Troy, V For Vendetta, Kill Bill, the Underworld series, J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, and so on in various manipulated capacities. It seems to be one of those sound effects used simply because editors think it's what we expect to hear; often the sound is employed even when it wouldn't make sense for it to be (such as if a sword is being drawn from a belt rather than a sheath), yet our mind is so trained to expect it that we don't usually question it.