Hi friends! This isn’t Halloween playlist per se, but I’ve gotten a couple of requests for it and I thought the week before Halloween would be the perfect time to post it. It’s a good writing playlist for horror, suspense, and mystery novels and screenplays, and it’s also good, intense music to listen to when writing a book with a scary scene in it.
The best background writing music is just that—background—so I only use music with no English lyrics (including classical music and music from TV and movie soundtracks). I can write to music with lyrics, and I practically wrote a whole haunted house romance while listening to this song on repeat.
[AdSense-B]
But for a lot of people, the best songs to write to are instrumental. I included more slow and quiet songs than fast, dramatic songs in case the latter get in the way of your thought process.
Here’s the playlist, and I hope it brings you lots of inspiration! Although I did watch the heck out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I haven’t seen any of the movies the soundtrack music is from. I get scared too easily. 🙂 If you click on each song, you can listen to it on YouTube.
“Caleb’s Seduction,” Mark Korven
“William’s Confession,” Mark Korven
“Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath,” Hector Berlioz
“Spellbound,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Christophe Beck
“Suite from Sleeper,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Robert Duncan
“Var,” Sigur Rós
“End,” Sigur Rós
“Pensée des Morts,” Franz Liszt
“Totentanz,” Franz Liszt
“Funeral,” Hereditary, Colin Stetson
“And Still They Move,” Colin Stetson
“Tempus Vernum,” Enya
“Boadicea,” Enya
“The Isle of the Dead,” Sergei Rachmaninov
“Near Dark,” Tangerine Dream
“The Thing,” Ennio Morricone
“The Arrival,” The Lighthouse, Mark Korven
“Into the Light,” The Lighthouse, Mark Korven
“Suspira,” Opening Credits, Goblin
“Summoning the Woman in Black,” The Woman in Black, Marco Beltrami
“Arthur’s Theme,” The Woman in Black, Marco Beltrami
“Piano Quintet,” Alfred Schnittke
“Danse Macabre,” Camille Saint-Saëns
I hope you enjoy these! And in my experience, if you like a couple of songs from a movie soundtrack or from a band, your best bet is to buy the album and write to that.
If you’re in a completely different writing mood, and you need a happy song playlist, you can get it here!
[AdSense-B]
Do you have spooky or haunting music you’d like to recommend? Or do you have another way to get in the mood to write an intense scene or evoke the emotion of fear? Are you a fan of any of the movies or TV shows here? Let us know in the comments! Thanks for reading, and happy writing!
Ooh! Excited to listen to these. I also recommend the entire Gone Girl soundtrack.
I just checked it out…I love it! Love that book and movie, too. Great rec!
Ahhh, thank you for this! I like to play Peter Gundry on YouTube while I write, he’s got some pretty haunting stuff. I think the opening theme music to The Shining and Amityville Horror movies are scary, too.
I agree on the Shining opening! Throw in some music from The Omen… Gone Girl is a little more subtle spooky. I’ll check out the others.
I had never heard Peter Gundry…it’s perfect for scary writing!! Yeah, I love those opening themes, too.
Great list… that I’ll be playing with all the lights on! ? The opening beats of The Thing creep me out. Every. Time. ? Thanks for sharing, Bryn.
Haha! I’ve never seen the movie, so the music doesn’t scare me…but it still sounds pretty creepy!
Here are some songs I like for Halloween:
By Iron Maiden: Iron Maiden, The Number of the Beast, Fear of The Dark, Dance of Death
By Judas Priest: A Touch of Evil, Nightcrawler
By Metallica: Am I Evil
Hi, Ian—thanks for the recommendations! The titles certainly sound Halloween-appropriate!
I personally don’t think it’s THAT spooky, but some friends do, so… When you’re evil, by Voltaire, is a great listen either way.
“Tubular Bells” by Mike Oldfield is a classic, just watch “The Exorcist”! His “Ommadawn” is also very evocative but not so “spooky”! Short and sweet is “The Ripper” by Judas Priest and I can heartilly recommend “Fogwalking” by Peter Hammill!
Hi Bryn,
Just got to read this now. Thanks for the list. I really like Summoning the Woman in Black! Christophe Beck is a favorite of mine (I love almost anything he did for Buffy the Vampire Slayer–Moment of Happiness is special). A lot of his stuff is pretty dark and a powerful one is Massacre and Poison Arrow is another one that might fit into the list. Thanks again for all the lists and support you give. Have a great day!
Can you give me any ideas for a couple of my unfinished novels? One of them is a dark fantasy/ contemporary fantasy involving fairy-like creatures, a semi-abusive stepfather, and a bunch of kids pulled into a potentially dangerous world by a figure from the main character’s past. So I’m looking for a mixture of whimsical/ mysterious music along with something that could give it a bit more intensity without necessarily being too scary.
My other story is about a former foster child with unusual superpowers being brought into a world of supernatural or celestial creatures by the Grim Reaper himself, after a near-death experience involving a dare, a Ouija Board and the highest building in her university puts her into a coma. Only not everything is as it seems in this strange world- including the main character herself. So for this one, I would need something that conveys the unsettling atmosphere of the story’s universe, while also conveying the mysterious and overly- powerful nature of the MC herself. It would also need to establish the feelings of distrust and anger that she feels towards the world due to her history of PTSD and Reactive Attachment Disorder (which is a disorder that causes her to keep everyone at arms length because she is afraid of getting hurt), and the mysterious connection that she has with the Angel of Death and his head reaper Reina.
Could you also give me some ideas for music that gives a bit of a romantic feel? Preferably without words, because I’ve already got some worded songs to describe the semi-romantic relationship between the second book’s MC and a vampire.