10 Songs You Probably Didn't Know Were Inspired By Horror Movies

The granddaddy of horror showmanship, and Rob Zombie's most significant theatrical forebear, Alice Cooper has been adopting horror influences into his music since before Jason Voorhees was in short trousers.

Granted, given his stage presence, dress sense, infatuation with skulls and snakes, and typically dark (though often tongue in cheek) lyrical subject matter, it may come as no surprise to learn that Alice has based a ditty or two on a horror classic - but the influences for this one may catch modern listeners unawares.

Ballad of Dwight Fry, from the Alice Cooper band's 1971 Love It To Death, is actually a direct homage to a few key flicks in the classic horror canon. It centres around a fictional interpretation of actor Dwight Frye, who was known for his work in the old black and white Universal horror monster movies - perhaps most notably as RM Renfield in 1931's Dracula (with Dracula himself Bela Lugosi as, well, Dracula himself).

Inspired by the real man's body of work, and paralleling Renfield's perspective, Ballad follows the story of a man insane, stuck in a straight jacket in a psychiatric facility as his life and mind unfold before him like a movie reel.

Dwight Frye himself was dead long before the song was ever penned, but we can all only hope for such a fitting tribute when our time comes.