When you watch a movie like “Halloween” or “Aliens”, it becomes perfectly clear how an effective musical score can heighten the emotion of a film. John Carpenter’s simple yet eerie piano arrangement in “Halloween” is probably as synonymous with the film series as Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers themselves. And James Horner’s score for “Aliens” was so successful at creating a feeling of fear and frenzied military-versus-alien chaos that several other movies used Aliens’ music in their trailers to make their less exciting films seem more interesting.

This underscores how music is a key element that needs to be considered when making a horror film. A well-edited soundtrack can give even a low-budget film some extra production value. It could be the difference between a finished product that looks like a carefully planned and produced labor of love, or a campy summer project filmed by a bunch of drunk guys with a new camera and too much time on their hands.

Filmmakers Fined Or Jailed For Using Copyrighted Music

Nothing can limit an independent film’s chances for reaching an audience faster than using copyrighted music from another film. It’s likely that such a film won’t last long on video hosting sites, like Vimeo and YouTube, before someone comes along and has it removed. Or worse. If the production becomes successful and the copyright owner finds out about the illegal use of their music, the filmmaker could be facing jail time and fines up to $250,000.

Most independent and hobby filmmakers aren’t going to have a budget large enough to cover $250,000 fines or to avoid them by hiring the London Symphony Orchestra to create an original score for their film. But there are several resources available to help the budding horror-movie filmmaker create a professional score on a budget without any legal issues.

Make Friends With Musicians

Friends with musical talent and access to a recording studio, or a knack for using software like Apple’s Garageband, can be a great resource for original soundtrack music. Garageband is fairly easy to use and even a novice can use the music loops included in the program to create an arrangement. Third party horror loop collections are also available to increase the musical options in Garageband and create a more customized sound. For good quality results, however, the user should have some basic understanding of arranging music so that the results sound well constructed.

Buy Royalty Free Stock Music

An easier option is to purchase royalty free stock music. As the dropping prices of video recording and editing equipment make film editing more accessible to the masses, more and more sites are popping up that offer royalty free stock music for use in any type of production. Many sell individual tracks as well as CD collections with multiple tracks.

Large Music Selection With Great Cinematic Quality

Opuzz.com offers several collections that lend themselves well to horror movies, particularly their “Dark Moods” and “Erie & Creepy” collections. They have a multitude of pricing options, from buying individual tracks based on length for as low as $2.99 for 10-seconds, to buying full CDs with 10 tracks for $49, with discounts starting at 2 CDs or more. Although not the cheapest option, Opuzz does offer a large selection and their tracks have a strong, cinematic quality.

Footagefirm.com is a site that initially offered only free stock videos, but they recently began offering stock production music as well. Their CD collections are organized in themes and usually contain about 10 to 15 tracks, some that include various length clips. While most CDs are priced at $139, they frequently have promotions in which they will offer a collection for “free,” meaning, you just pay $8.41 for shipping and handling. The production quality is very high on their tracks, although some collections are stronger than others. Their “Science Fiction Cinematic Production Music” collection is somewhat campy, with far too many tracks that are reminiscent of 60s sci-fi movies. But many of the other titles in their Cinematic Production Music collection feature much stronger, contemporary tracks, including two volumes devoted entirely to horror music.

Download Free Stock Music

Freestockmusic.com is a spin-off site from the same people who run Footagefirm.com. The site is still expanding and currently only offers a limited number of tracks. However, the tracks are very high quality, are available in 3 different file formats (WAV, AIFF, and MP3), and are 100% free. The catch is that you have to create an account to download the tracks and, once you do, you will undoubtedly receive regular e-mails asking you to sign up for VideoBlocks.com, another sister site to Footagefirm and FreeStockMusic.

Seven Days of Free Music with Credit Card

VideoBlocks promises 7 days of free stock music and video downloads with no obligation. But the site requires a credit card to sign up and, after the 7 days, they begin billing you a monthly fee, the amount of which is not disclosed in their terms of service. The reason for this is that their monthly fee is arbitrary. If you decide to cancel your service to avoid the monthly fee, they will send you e-mails offering you “special deals” and “reduced” monthly rates. It’s not a straightforward way to do business and is probably not worth the continued expense for the hobbyist filmmaker, especially considering all of the other options available. But getting access to the free tracks available on Freestockmusic makes it worth dealing with occasional, annoying e-mails promoting VideoBlocks.

Incompetech.com is a site hosted by composer Kevin MacLeod. While it’s sometimes difficult to figure out the navigation of the site, it’s worth the effort because MacLeod gives away all the music on his site for free, if he is credited in the production. Otherwise, a no-attribution license can be purchased for the use of his music. MacLeod also requests an optional $5 donation for any track used. He has a large, eclectic selection, searchable by genre and feel, which can be very helpful when you don’t have a lot of time for browsing. All tracks list the instruments used and the tempo, and some include helpful descriptions in which MacLeod describes the mood of the piece and offers some usage notes. Occasionally, he might have an arrangement that sounds overly synthesized, but overall, his offerings tend to be more distinct and have more character than other stock music sites. His tracks do a great job of capturing the particular feel of a scene and often times include musical highs and lows in an arrangement, where most stock tracks will have a consistent feel throughout.

Go Without Music

Another artistic choice could be to forego music altogether and let the audience feel their own emotion based on the scene. Sometimes that works better than telegraphing the horror by keying the spooky music and letting the audience know that something is about to happen. Depending on the subject and quality of your production, you might be able to create more drama and horror in a scene with no music at all.

Cameron Chose No Score During Battle Scene

James Cameron made this choice in the climactic battle scene between Ripley and the queen alien in “Aliens”. It’s probably one of the most memorable, exciting, and tense confrontations in sci-fi/horror movie history. Yet surprisingly, from the moment just before Ripley’s makes her entrance on the loader and delivers her classic “Get away from her, you bitch!” line, there is no music in that scene until the alien queen has been vanquished.

This could be a risky choice, however, if the production value of the film isn’t high enough to create the desired mood in a scene on its own. If it isn’t, it might be a better option to consider some quality stock music.

Whenever purchasing stock music, be sure to read the terms of use to make sure your production complies with the license offered on the tracks and any required attribution.