BRE-BRE(pause)BRE-BRE! That’s me screaking Bernard Herrmann’s “Psycho Suite” at your Halloween party. BRE-BRE(pause)BRE-BRE! BRE! DOAHH DOAHH DOAHH! Don’t like it? You aren’t gonna quiet the clamor of my counter-perched gargoyle ass unless you turn on some tunes.
No, you can’t turn on the “Psycho Suite.” 1) I was just screeching it for you. 2) Everyone does horror movie music at Halloween parties, Chad. Also, I don’t want to hear Rihanna’s “Disturbia,” and so help me, if you put on the Eagles “Witchy Woman,” me and your salt and vinegar chip bowl aren’t leaving the bathtub till the world is a better place.
Whatchya want are freaky fresh melodies to transmute the room. Enter: horror game soundtracks. Here’s six of ‘em to slip a killer twist into yer shindig.
“Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (Original Game Soundtrack)” “What are you doing little piggy? Do you think I’ll let you sabotage me again?” I don’t know, sir, but I do know you’re a brutal bit of dialogue sandwiched between soothing to stabby Victorian tunes. Fifty-one tracks, and quite a few of them in “Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs” are vicious talkey bits. It’s an interruptive album composed by Jessica Curry that will make your house feel haunted by an industrialist butcher staggering about in a fever dream.
Hella bonus: Curry also created the score for “Dear Esther.” There’s no dialogue and it feels more melancholy spectral than serial killer – if that’s your body-bag. It’ll put an indie piano vibe out there, say, if you wanna create a dead, dejected, mountaintop mime mob on Devil’s Night.
“Limbo (Original Video Game Soundtrack)”I’m not going to judge you if you want to make your guests feel less like they’re at an All Hallows’ bash and more like they’re in the foggy forest of your hellish mind. I’m here to tell you that you should turn on Martin Stig Andersen’s “Limbo” for a full dark, no stars, occasionally jagged, ambient vibe. It’s short, but if you have that mellow monster on loop, no one’ll notice.
“Dead Space 2”OK. Fine. You really want the “Psycho Suite?” The song “Much Ado about Necromorphs,” by Jason Graves off the “Dead Space 2” soundtrack could hit the spot. It is a hammed-up, hardcore version, but it definitely starts with shrill pounding and has symphonic slowdowns. The whole album will take your phantom’s ball from let’s sci-fi waltz to WTF SUDDENLY I AM A CARAMEL-APPLE-HAIRED MEDUSA RUNNING DOWN THE HALL. WHERE IS BRETT? OH GOD THEY GOT BRETT.
Ba-ba-BONUS TIME: Another freakass, I’m-coming-to-get-ya-in-space soundtrack is Joe Henson and Alexis Smith’s score for “Alien: Isolation.” It’s a chest-bursting good time.
“CarnEVIL” If you’re the type of ahole – like me – who’d adore nothing more than having a carnie Helloween, spin the soundtrack from the Midway Games ’90s rail shooter “CarnEvil.” It never made it past the arcade and into home gaming, but “CarnEVIL” will make you scream and cry and then you’ll die. And, if you put a golden token in a jester’s mouth who’s standing on a ringmaster’s grave, the Earth may spit out a haunted amusement park for you and your party friends to perish in.
Bonus bile! More carnival tunes: Akira Yamaoka’s “The Living Must (Merry-Go-Round)” from “Silent Hill 3” is a slippery sideshow soirée, and Jason Tai’s “Vale of Tears” from “Alice: Madness Returns” could be the tune coming outta a zombified, tattooed man’s music box.
“Silent Hill 4”Yeah. Obvs, I’m not gonna namedrop Akira Yamaoka with just a one-songer in this maggot pit of a music list. His soundtrack for “Silent Hill 4” goes from ghoulish grunge to claustrophobic creepy to discordant dreamy. Plus. You know. Drippingly murdery.
Your party will start at retro-goth dancing and end with BECKY’S HEARTBEAT IS PULSING IN HER FOREHEAD. WHAT? THERE WAS ANCIENT WITCH-DICK-BLOOD IN THE PUNCH? GREAT, NOW SHE’S A GHOST. It’s not a for-sure occurrence, but it’s plausible when Yamaoka is played on Mischief Night.
“Outlast (Original Game Soundtrack)”Ew. Ew. EW. WHO ACTUALLY LIKES HARMONIOUS TERROR MOANS, RISING STRINGS, AND CLACKEY BONE NOISES? Set your stereo up by the taco dip you want for leftovers because people are gonna be too panicky to eat. Samuel Laflamme’s soundtrack for the survival horror game “Outlast” will ghost-gut you and yer friends, then leave you in a rotting flesh pile for your families to find in the morning.
Patty Templeton
