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Halloween is one of the greatest holidays. You
get to dress up however you want, destroy pumpkins with sharp
knives, demand sweets from strangers and eat candy till you puke.
You also get to listen to Bobby "Boris" Pickett's ghoulishly groovy
"Monster Mash" over and over again. That song may be the most well
known graveyard smash, but plenty of other tunes, stories and sound
effects can provide appropriately creepy Halloween merriment. We
scoured the Internet, auditioned hundreds and hundreds of tracks,
and asked our fellow employees, "Is this scary, or just really
stupid?" in order to assemble a real grab bag of goodies. You can
spill the contents on the floor and pick through them slowly or you
can just gobble them all without a thought. Just like Halloween
candy, it's all free.
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| HALLOWEEN
SONGS! |
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| (see
below for Scary Stories
and Spooky Sounds)
|
|
| 1.
Art
Sulit Pipe Organ Works |
"Dracula Theme (Toca et Fuga - Bach)" |
There is no better
way to kick start Halloween than with a fugue by Bach. Wait, don’t
flee in horror -- this is the dark, murky organ music that Lon
Chaney played deep within his hidden lair in The Phantom of the
Opera. It also makes great theme music for walking into a
boardroom, or into a restaurant to meet a blind
date.
|
| 2. Blue
Oyster Cult |
"(Don’t
Fear) The Reaper" |
Blue Oyster Cult
made a specialty out of goofy but riff-heavy monster songs during
the 1970s ("Godzilla," "Nosferatu"). Beware, though: playing this
ratty, ragged song about sucking down suds with Dr. Death invokes
visions of zombies sporting "Free Mustache Rides" T-shirts and back
pocket combs for all eternity. Horror fans will remember the song
from director John Carpenter’s brilliantly terrifying
Halloween.
|
| 3. Bauhaus |
"Bela
Lugosi’s Dead" |
These pioneering
Goth rockers are the reason morbid teens the world over still dress
like Gomez and Morticia Addams. The freaky dirge "Bela Lugosi’s
Dead" was their biggest hit; the band had a cameo singing it in the
opening scenes of the slick ’n’ sleazy vampire flick The
Hunger, which co-starred Bauhaus template David
Bowie.
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| 4. Spinal
Tap |
"Back
From the Dead" |
The resurrected
Spinal Tap have always been in it for the laughs. This goodtime
graveyard song is close enough to classic Blue Oyster Cult to make
you wonder which band is really playing dress up for Halloween. And
no, putting a foil-wrapped cucumber down your trousers doesn’t mean
you’ve come up with a Halloween costume.
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| 5. Veronica
Martell |
"What
a Little Moonlight Can Do" |
The full moon does
strange things. It makes ordinary men turn into werewolves. It can
also make suburban parents turn into amorous beasts when the kids
are out trick-or-treating. Martell puts plenty of sizzle into this
hard swinging standard that Woody Allen used for the Halloween
sequence of Everyone Says I Love You.
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| 6. The
Shmunks |
"On
Halloween" |
In the tradition of
Woody Woodpecker and Bart Simpson, the Shmunks prove that using
adult women to portray young boys can be pretty creepy in itself.
"On Halloween" should get the kiddies psyched up for their big night
of dress up and candy gorging. The junior goblin set will devour
this like candy, but parents should beware: this song is inanely
catchy, and its annoying refrain may haunt you
forever.
|
| 7. MC
Hammer |
"Addams
Family Groove" |
If you really want
to freak people out, dress up as a rapper from the early 1990s --
the look has already dated well past Don Knotts' groovy get-ups on
Three’s Company. Luckily, Hammer’s breezy good humor has
stayed pretty fresh on this movie tie-in that originated with
Charles Adams’ devilishly clever New Yorker
cartoons.
|
| 8. Ministry
|
"Everyday
is Halloween" |
This early Synth Pop
hit for Ministry makes a good point. Why don’t we wear whatever we
want everyday? Because we live in a society, that’s why. You can’t
say that Ministry’s Al Jourgensen doesn’t practice what he preaches.
When this song came out in the mid-1980s, he dressed like a foppish
Boy George clone; a couple of years later he transformed himself
into a gutter-dwelling Harley rider.
|
| 9. Mortician
|
"Zombie
Apocalypse" |
Mortician take
Metal's B movie fixations to new heights -- or, perhaps more
accurately, new lows, given their fondness for bowel-rumbling guitar
frequencies and subterranean vocal growls. Even if you can't
understand a word of "Zombie Apocalypse," the choice horror flick
sample at the beginning should give you some idea of what they're
going on about.
|
| 10. TNT
|
"A
Funky Halloween" |
"Yo, Drac, hit me up
with an intro." Never mind that ole Drac's organ sounds more like
something you'd hear at a wedding than a haunted house -- with an
all-star lineup including Frankenstein on bass and the Wolfman
holding down "the wheels of steel," not to mention a convoluted plot
involving a black cat-induced car wreck and a break-dancing mummy,
this friendly hip-hop ode has the makings of a minor seasonal
classic.
|
| 11. Andrew
Gold |
"Spooky
Scary Skeletons" |
If you've seen
The Golden Girls or Mad About You, then you're
familiar with this journeyman songwriter's music. This song comes
from a 1996 album entitled Halloween Howls, and while it's
aimed at the kiddies, it's surprisingly non-cloying and, with a
little imagination on the listener's part, even Beatles-esque.
Receives further bonus points for using the word
"sarcophagus."
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| 12. Milkshake?
|
"Halloween"
|
Milkshake? bowed
down before the gods of Glam and came up with this unshakably catchy
Power Pop anthem, enhanced by spooky keyboards and silly vocal
howls. Lyrics explore a similar theme as Ministry's "Everyday is
Halloween," but in a more fun-loving fashion.
|
| 13. Jonne
Valtonen |
"Dracula
- Lucy's Funeral" |
Critics have been
known to overuse words such as "sweeping" and "cinematic," but
darned if this piece isn't sweeping, cinematic, and even a little
"tearfully melodramatic" on the side. Valtonen uses a sophisticated
keyboard setup to synthesize a string quartet and female choir, and
it sounds remarkably real.
|
| 14. Gargamel
|
"Upon
the Mountain of Serpents" |
All hail the ghastly
splendor of Gargamel! While their symphonic escapades are sure to
the please the dark lords of Metal, one suspects that the band
doesn't take itself too seriously -- at least if names such
as NosFatFartu and Necrobass are any indication. Nice makeup, by the
way.
|
| 15. Monkey
Puzzle |
"Frankenstein's
Little Monster" |
If you dig beneath
the surface of this song's lyrics, you may find that it has more to
do with people and relationships than Frankenstein or his
little monster. The trick is to not dig beneath the surface, and
instead just enjoy a darkly catchy, organ-drenched sing-along from
this underrated Australian Ska/rock outfit.
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| Scary Stories! |
|
| 1. Mary
Shelly |
Frankenstein
|
The classic
Frankenstein got turned into an atmospheric gabfest on this
1940s radio show. This is an excellent production, but the
unintentional double entendres put this version closer to Mel
Brooks’ Young Frankenstein than a Boris Karloff
flick.
|
| 2. Enormouse.com
|
"A
Vampire Calls" |
This short horror
tale updates the ancient vampire legend for the modern age,
sidestepping brooding Gothic atmosphere and landing right in slasher
territory. Punchy, distasteful and bloody -- just the way folks like
it.
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| 3. AudioDrama
|
"The
Pit and the Pendulum" |
Once you’ve gorged
yourself on candy you’ll have time to sit back and savor this
exquisitely produced adaptation of "The Pit and the Pendulum."
Lugubrious and literate, this one sustains its sinister mood long
after you’re tucked away in bed.
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| Spooky Sounds! |
|
| 1. Betsymusic
|
"Bach
Toccata Halloween Remix" |
What's the only
thing better than listening to Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor"
to get yourself in the Halloween spirit? Listening to that same
piece of music with a tape of low-budget explosions and what sounds
like someone getting punched in the stomach superimposed on it.
While not quite hi-fi, this track is definitely "scary." Just don't
listen too closely.
|
| 2. X-33
|
"Halloween
Haunted House
FX Track Scarey" |
Who says you have to
have fancy technology, or even good spelling skills, to be able to
come up with frightening noises? This ominous, keyboard-based
horrorscape is full of ghoulish "trick-or-treat" taunts and distant
cries of terror, thus making it useful in protecting your house from
kids seeking free candy.
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| 3. Halloween
|
"Halloween
Screams" |
After sitting still
for a couple of minutes -- muscles tensed and eyeballs wide open --
the person originally writing this review abruptly threw off his
headphones, ran screaming into the bathroom, turned on all the
lights, and locked the door. Let's just say this track is aptly
named, and fully approved for haunted house usage, especially if
there's any sort of bizarre science fiction/cyberspace theme
involved.
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