10 Tricks Horror Movies Use To Scare You

A well-used repetitive motif can be what pushes a movie over the edge of 'ok' to 'genuinely quite good.' Whether this is a narrative point, a visual cue or, as we're going to discuss here, a sound, successful deployment of this tactic can really tie a film together.

If you do it right, people can recognise your film without any further detail than hearing that signature noise. Take for example Charlie’s click in Hereditary. Before I watched the movie, when I asked friends what they thought about it they would always punctuate it with that horrible mouth pop. I thought this was just weird (and in retrospect, it still is a bit) until I saw the film and it all came together.

Repeating a sound that you associate with a certain character or event helps build the dread an audience feels. It plays into the idea of subliminal messaging, in that sometimes it’s such a subtle tick that it’s barely noticeable unless you’re listening for it. The infamous Ju On death rattle, the knock knock knock of The Babadook - these are all sounds associated with a moment of terror and a source of danger, and so when they are used strategically they really get our heart racing with no spooky visuals necessary.