Music for the (dark) ages
As a follow up to my previous post, I wanted to briefly go over some of the soundtracks and pieces of music that I primarily turn to for horror scenarios. In each case, I will talk about what the soundtrack brings to the game and give a few examples of how some of the tracks can be used to evoke mood and support scenes.
Bioshock Orchestral Scores
The original scores from both Bioshock and Bioshock 2 contain some excellent tracks that can be incorporated into your horror games. They contain a good mix of ambient, atmospheric background music, as well as some more cinematic pieces that can be used to highlight specific events within your scenes. For me, the original Bioshock provides a greater range for using with roleplaying games compared to its sequel, which is much more cinematic.
Some excellent tracks from the Bioshock score include The Engine City, which has some oppressive, industrial overtones. Both Step Into My Gardens and This Is Where They Sleep include some creepy violins, sure to send a shiver down your players' spines. And Empty Houses and Dancers on a String are haunting tracks that provides a deep sense of loss.
From Bioshock 2, Ten Years Later provides a suitably mournful piece with excellent violins, although it suffers from having some cinematic overtones. Welcome Back provides a creepy piece harking back to the original Bioshock score's use of violins. Cult Of Lamb has some saxophone overlaying it, giving it a Noir air and making it a good background piece for investigative gumshoe work. How She Sees The World is a great piano piece, which I've used as a background element before when running The Final Revelation. Drained Memories is another haunting track, useful for evoking a sense of both horror and loss.
Both soundtracks are somewhat difficult to get hold of these days, as they were released with the special editions of the video games. 2K did have the original game score available for download but the link for the download is currently broken. However, many of the tracks can be located on YouTube with a little searching.
The Witch (or should that be VVitch?)
Mark Korven's soundtrack for Robert Eggers' 2015 horror film is chillingly brilliant. It is also ripe to be plucked for some excellent music for horror roleplaying. The opener, What Went We is perfect background music for anything set in the 17th century - it would be very fitting for something like Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Many of the tracks, such as Banished and A Witch Stole Sam, are built around a slow build up to a horrifying crescendo, featuring strings and uncanny vocals. These are good for supporting brief shocking moments of horrors. Other tracks, such as Foster the Children and Caleb is Lost provide eerie ambient drone that grates on your nerves, good for providing backdrops to your more unsettling scenes. The fact is that almost all of this album provides brilliant accompaniment for horror games.
The Ring (and The Ring Two)
Hans Zimmer's music for the American versions of The Ring and The Ring Two provide haunting background music that is good for some general scenes within horror games. Much of the soundtrack is cinematic, however, and many of the tracks have a modern, industrial style to them. Tracks I have used to good effect include Before You Die You See The Ring, Not Your Mommy and The Ferry. The Well is also useful, although you will probably find you want to split the track up as it is quite variable.
The Japanese original also provides a couple of excellent tracks to help support your horror. A Discordant Split and The Cursed Video are the two I use most frequently. Again, you will find that you need to cut the tracks to get the right atmosphere that you need.
Pelgrane Press' Music
Pelgrane Press publish my current favourite game, Trail of Cthulhu, which uses one of my favourite gaming systems, the Gumshoe system. They also put out musical arrangements to accompany their games, providing atmospheric background to support their products. As most of their games focus on the horror genre, they provide perfect background to your horror games. A lot of these suites of music feature only a few tracks though, so you will need to supplement the tracks they offer with other fare. Their Four Shadows suite for Trail of Cthulhu is excellent for Mythos horror, as is the much larger offering from the Eternal Lies Suite, although the latter is a little pulp orientated in some areas.
Concluding remarks
That's about it for this post, which I hope highlights some of the music that I primarily use to complement my horror scenarios. There is a whole range of other options out there to choose from, but these represent some of my favourite. Searching out music to complement your games is part of the fun though, so keep an ear out for suitable pieces next time you are playing your favourite video games and watching new films and television shows.