13 Cringe-Worthy Movie Moments That Completely Ruined Great Songs

3. The Host Of Seraphim (Dead Can Dance) - The Mist

The Host of Seraphim is by no means a cheery song: it's a devastating, emotional, heart-wrenching cry for sorrow, used memorably in a montage sequence in Ron Fricke's outstanding 1992 documentary film Baraka, to depict various states of desperation the world over. What was a brilliant musical selection turned into rampant cliche when it was used at the end of Frank Darabont's otherwise excellent The Mist. The movie ends with the protagonist giving up hope and shooting both his son and his companions dead (with their consent), before turning the gun on himself. However, he forgets to leave a bullet for himself, and so ventures out into the mist to be consumed by the monsters awaiting him. Just at that moment...a tank rolls through the mist, and if he had waited just a minute longer, his son and friends would still be alive. It's a jaw-dropping moment (one the novella's author, Stephen King, says he wishes he had thought of), though the use of Host of Seraphim is almost comedic in its lack of subtlety: we already get that it's a kick in the nuts, but this song, complete with its anguished wailing, almost makes the moment funny. It's been used to such depressing effect that its use in anything else seems trite and far removed from the genuine heartbreak of that initial, iconic placement.