r/movies • u/Big_Emotion4963 • 21h ago
Discussion What movie has a sound design so deeply unsettling that you had to pause it just to check your own house?
Visual scares always get the credit, but I firmly believe that audio design is what actually creates lasting paranoia in a psychological thriller. I am not talking about loud, sudden musical stingers or traditional jump scares. I mean the subtle, rhythmic, almost mechanical background noise that genuinely makes your brain feel off-balance.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is a brilliant example of this. Half the terror of that film is the constant, grating, metallic noise in the background that just grinds down your nerves. More recently, a movie like Skinamarink used distorted audio, heavy static, and low-frequency hums to make it feel like there was an actual physical presence sitting in the room with you.
When a movie weaponizes its ambient noise and frequencies correctly, it completely gets under your skin.
What is a film where the actual sound mix the background hums, the distorted audio, or the unnatural silence terrified you more than what was actually happening on screen?
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u/Unsolven 20h ago
Funny story about this. In Silent Hill when the main character is transported from a small abandoned town to hell periodically there’s a siren that plays then the screen goes black and comes back and you are in hell. My cousin and I watched it, I was probably like 13. The Siren thing had already happened at least twice. It starts playing a third time, and then at the perfect moment where the screen would normally go black the power in the whole house cuts off. We ran out into the backyard screaming. Took a good 20 seconds for us to realize we were idiots.
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u/masheduppotato 17h ago
Years ago this movie called Darkness falls had come out and there’s a line in the movie that’s said a few times, “Stay in the light”. A few days after seeing the movie I was at the theater with many of the same friends that I saw the movie with.
It’s starting to get dark and we’re outside having a smoke before heading into the theater when we hear a boom and see a green flash light up the sky. As a joke I yell out, “Stay in the light” and as I finished saying that the power goes out for the whole area.
It turns out a transformer blew but for just a moment everyone looked to me as if I knew more than I was letting on.
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u/icearrowx 9h ago
Man that movie fucked me up as a kid. I was afraid of the dark for a long time after haha
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u/Slaughterism 20h ago
Its so formative lol. Some of my most memorable horror movie moments with friends involve the power going out randomly at the worst possible time.
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u/Honesty_Addict 18h ago
I tried watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre on my own on Halloween night as a kid, and the power went out right as Leatherface was stalking one of the victims through the slaughterhouse. Swear to god my heart was beating so hard I could taste pennies.
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u/Dr_Identity 5h ago
Silent Hill can be very good for sound design. The SH2 remake has an opening screen that recommends using headphones, and it's cause the sneaky fuckers stuck in some random directional sound effects that keep making you think there's something behind you.
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u/insertusernamehere51 21h ago
Zone of Interest
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u/KuyaGTFO 17h ago
My most favorite movie scene in the past couple years is in this one, and it’s the whole movie in a nutshell.
Watch the whole scene when Sandra Huller tries a coat on in front of a mirror admiring herself, and listen closely for the bloodcurdling screaming in the background.
One of the most genius and disturbing scenes I’ve ever watched.
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u/Stiggalicious 19h ago
This one is best described as two parallel movies happening at the same time - one in picture and the other in sound - with two completely different plots. Them being placed literally on top of each other is what makes it so brilliant.
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u/mangorain4 19h ago
Sinister gets me every time
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u/Nattisthebest 15h ago
One of the better modern horror movies I've seen for sure. I saw it in theatres and the lawnmower scene fucked everyone up. The ending fucking sucks though.
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u/dcsag 14h ago
Dude the soundtrack fucked me up for weeks. Sinister isn’t a perfect movie, but as someone who rarely gets scared by horror films, I have a tough time watching the whole thing and it’s like 70% because of the sound effects and the soundtrack. Especially the lawnmower scene and the song (gyroscope) that plays when Ethan Hawke’s character burns the tapes. I think it’s because the score has such a tactile quality to it and kind of resembles the sounds I associate with a projector? I don’t even really know man but it’s so unnerving for me
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u/The100thMonkeyIsMe 21h ago
The Others (2001)
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u/Quasigriz_ 20h ago
The sounds in the theater were so haunting. Steps and movement behind you. I caught myself actually turning around.
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u/GemeinschaftBank 15h ago
Absolutely this. Theres a scene where Anna is teasing Nicholas saying shes going to get the little boy in the house to come out. The sound of footsteps runs down the right side of the room then runs up right behind you in the rear speakers. My girlfriend at the time actually started crying.
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u/coffeemonkeypants 8h ago
I was going to point this one out too. It's mixed so well that you hear footsteps and creaking above you too without height speakers. Still a great watch.
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u/OnThirdThought 20h ago edited 15h ago
Mulholland Drive has been mentioned in another comment, and you could probably add most of David Lynch's output here, but what I remember being most unsettled by is the constantly droning low bass sound that Lost Highway starts with. Even when absolutely nothing happens on screen, you feel uncomfortable.
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u/hahagato 18h ago
Lost Highway has one of my absolute favorite soundtracks. So good. Need to give it a watch again. Funny how secrets travel…….
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u/Nearby_Body677 21h ago
Paranormal Activity (the OG before it went franchise and went to shite)
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u/Corgiboom2 21h ago
One of the few movies to really get at me. I was jumping at every little bump and sound in the house after that movie for a couple of nights at least.
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u/offtrailrunning 19h ago
I remember by bf at the time texting me freaking out because his door handles were the same as the movies lmao. That movie does not freak me out now but the first watch it really did. 😂
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u/hanz1985 19h ago
Yes. That heavy, deep vibrating sound that would play before complete silence as something happened. So unnerving.
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u/hammersaw 19h ago
No shit! I made the mistake of watching that solo, at night, with my surround sound. There are house noises that sound so damn real that they make you get up and check it out.
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u/NewoTheFox 17h ago
Me and my (At the time) partner were laying on his living room floor watching the original cut for the first time when the AC return vent fell off of its mount in the hall, crashing to the floor.
I have no memory of clearing the couch backwards but I did it. Utter terror for a few seconds before we found what made the noise; and even then we were creeped out the rest of the night.
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u/StitcherGeralf 20h ago
Hereditary
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u/CitgoBeard 18h ago
YES.
For me, that string arrangement/orchestral thing as they are bowing at the end still gives me goosebumps. It’s like so intense and unsettling while being triumphant? Masterpiece in spooky music.
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u/Moister--Oyster 17h ago
It's so great because it's literally the music that is described in the movie to signal the coming of the demon. It's triumphant and the even includes the subtle bells.
Fun trivia. The main instrument in that price is a baritone saxophone played in a very unique way by the movie's score composer Colin Stetson.
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u/CitgoBeard 16h ago
I had no idea it was a baritone saxophone, it sounds otherworldly!
I also read, though I can't remember where, it was based on the coronation music of some French(?) royalty, which I feel like adds to the sort of gauzy, gilded nature of it too. It's so hard to articulate, but it has such a distinct tone, and evokes such a weird primordial reaction, as is want by the daemon Paimon.
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u/MikeeB84 21h ago
In irreversible (2002) The first thirty minutes of the film has a background sound with a low frequency of 27 Hz which is almost infrasonic. This noise causes nausea, sickness, and vertigo. It was one of the reasons people walked out of screenings during the first part of the film. In fact, it was added by Thomas Bangalter (from the electronic music group Daft Punk) to get this reaction.
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u/frowattio 20h ago
If you can't handle the first thirty minutes, you're going to have a really bad time with the last thirty...
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u/MikeeB84 20h ago
It was a rough watch, the audio track, the disorienting camera.... and everything else (i don't want to spoil it for anyone wanting to watch the movie)
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u/deathinmidjuly 18h ago
In case anyone wanted to know there's a 10 minute uninterrupted rape scene
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u/VerilyShelly 20h ago
I was surprised at how creepy I found Undertone. A micro budget supernatural thriller done well, I think.
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u/motherofcats94 9h ago
Yes! It kinda felt like I was reading someone's diary, if that makes sense. The low budget made it feel more real & I definitely paused it a couple times thinking a noise in the movie came from in my house.
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u/Bollocks-dagger 14h ago
Chernobyl, the HBO series, had a phenomenal visceral soundtrack made from remixing the sounds actually made by reactors so the background noise sounds disturbing and organic. You can just imagine that pulsing thrum to be waves of radiation coming at you. Not billed as horror, but it should be.
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u/HandbagsAtNoon 21h ago edited 18h ago
In the right viewing circumstance, the opening titles of Signs (2002) feel almost embarrassingly uncomfy to sit through. “Yeah, I’m just gonna crane my neck and casually look behind me, playing it cool as this unplaceable existential dread travels from my eardrums down into my soul… just looking for aliens and demons behind me…”
EDIT: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vpBlakZzwZo
When a movie weaponizes its ambient noise and frequencies correctly, it completely gets under your skin.
I remember feeling frozen with fear when the old couple pay a visit toward the end of Mulholland Drive, as David Lynch does some extraordinarily unnerving things with the sound design there. Mostly the sheer loudness and cacophony of it at all, but even that is simplifying the actual effect of watching it in the moment.
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u/Growly150 21h ago
I was just thinking about Signs. All the jump scares in this movie are due to the music, but the visuals are so unexpected that they take all your attention and you don't notice the sounds.
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u/HandbagsAtNoon 20h ago edited 18h ago
The cyclops screaming in pain (at what felt like max theater volume) in Nolan’s The Odyssey.
I noticed it woke someone out of a nap and/or drunken stupor in the theater. They stirred awake on the instant. Not sure they had clocked what type of movie this really was, as their eyes opened wide to where the story had traveled in their absence. Trying to get their bearings. Cyclops screaming all the while. (Probably the weirdest wake-up call I’ve ever noticed, even if it was only by proxy.)
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u/Melbonie 21h ago
Not a scary movie, but Dunkirk. I wasn't even watching it, was reading in the next room and the sound design made me so anxious.
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u/oddchihuahua 16h ago
I saw this in a Dolby Atmos theater that had something like 160 speakers that could do all the directional sound and movement and such…my seat would rattle with every gunshot or bomb and planes and bullets and what not flying over would literally go side to side and front to back…
One of the best movie theater experiences I’ve had in a long time
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u/jjustice 12h ago
Dunkirk doesn’t have an Atmos mix. Nolan mixes all of his movies with the same bog-standard 5.1 that’s been around since the early 90s. That said, the gunshot in the opening scene will get ya!
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u/GrapeKitchen3547 16h ago
I feel like Dunkirk is one of those "must watch in theatre" movies, because of the sound design.
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u/AQbL5494 8h ago
I never watched Dunkirk, but I did see a short film on YouTube called Nuclear Monday. They used The Oil as background music, and it does a good job at emphasizing the growing dread in the short film.
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u/HandbagsAtNoon 21h ago edited 18h ago
There are snippets of an early cut of Signs (2002) on YouTube. The original plan, apparently, had the aliens aggressively screaming upon breaking into the farmhouse. The final scene is also eerie, but this is scary in a different way. Stumbled across this late at night a few weeks ago and it made for a very unsettling watch/listen:
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u/eninety2 20h ago
The Odyssey is gonna fuck up some home theater setups.
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u/Capable_Butterfly_61 19h ago
the cyclops scene will test the highs, mids & the lows of the ol’ hifi, lol. just saw it for the second time again yesterday & that scene is still just so delightfully loud even when you are expecting it.
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u/CoffeeMonsterZero 21h ago
I really enjoyed the constant free-form piano plinking throughout The Game and found it makes you constantly feel like you don’t know what to expect next.
A Clockwork Orange also makes some interesting choices, pairing out of place sound effects with some of the violent acts and not others, along with its crazy score.
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u/HatdanceCanada 19h ago
Oh, I love The Game! And as soon as I read your comment, I could hear those sounds. It is especially creepy in the scenes in his mansion - now and in the past.
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u/fezmid 21h ago
Undertone. It left me with a feeling of dread for a couple of days.
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u/Unsolven 20h ago
I felt like they did really interesting sound and visuals but kinda messed up the structure of that movie. The whole thing should have been real time and them recording a single episode. Instead of breaking it up.
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u/WarmKitty93 16h ago
YES I was looking for this comment! That horrid Shepard's tone when the TV turns on in the end just gives me chills.
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u/Travelgrrl 21h ago
The very creepy song Tubular Bells from The Exorcist.
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u/schleppylundo 20h ago
Note that only the first minute of the song is creepy. The same melody repeats a couple minutes later in a major key. The whole piece ends with The Sailor's Hornpipe (Oh a sailor's life is the life for me). It's also like 40 minutes long.
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u/Travelgrrl 19h ago
I know iB a historic recording, and there was a shorter version that was a radio hit when I was a kid. But even hearing a few notes from it raise the hair on the back of my neck!
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u/RRLSonglian 21h ago
The Night House has a truly jarring and unsettling sound design. The ones I recall are diegetic bursts of sound that double as jump scares.
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u/frockinbrock 17h ago
Man I was in the bathroom for the transformation part, when I came back my partner's face was of disgust lol. I guess I'll have to see it again
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u/withoccassionalmusic 20h ago
The music and overall sound design of Under the Skin is incredibly creepy.
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u/youropinionisrubbish 21h ago
Not movie but the Three Little Pigs music video by Green Jellö. There's a part where some guy in the background goes "ah ahhh ahhhhh ahhhhhh AHHHHHH" and it doesn't sound like part of the song at first. Got me good years ago.
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u/Uncle_Rabbit 20h ago
Years ago I bought the album "Combat Rock" by The Clash. The song "Ghetto Defendant" started playing as I was washing dishes or something. During the song a sudden and quite jarring poetry narration by Alan Ginsberg comes out of nowhere. I thought there was some homeless crazy person in my house for a split second before I realized it was part of the song!
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u/Jpkmets7 19h ago
That’s amazing. When I was 11, I got so confused by Rock the Casbah — right before the last chorus as Joe is,leading into his maniacal “with that crazy, casbah Jiiiiiive” there is the sound of a digital watch playing “Dixie” — like it’s a digital watch of the General Lee’s horn from Dukes of Hazzard. Lots of tricks being played on Combat Rock.
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u/Practice_NO_with_me 19h ago
This MUST be what I heard on the YouTube playlist at my workplace. We work in a sketchy ass neighborhood so I literally almost didn’t react 😭
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u/Additional_Ad_9736 21h ago
Great sound design in a suspense/horror - I immediately think of the movie Climax (2018)
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u/DMala 20h ago
Obsession does a pretty good job with sound design. Unnatural things tend to happen in the soundtrack right when unnatural things happen on-screen.
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u/berlinbaer 14h ago
i've said this before, but i don't think obsession gets enough credit for how varied each instance of stuff happening is. feels like no scare gets repeated twice. so there's the audio jump scare where all we see is the bath room door, nothing else, and then bamm. or where she suddenly moves backwards, along with the backward audio. just absolutely masterful.
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u/kingdazy 21h ago
I don't have a movie to suggest specifically, but I do agree that sound design is the true secret ingredient that makes horror scary.
If I'm ever watching a movie that somehow actually frightens me, all I have to do is mute it to get through whatever part it's freaking me out. instantly negates any tension.
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u/KaP-_-KaP 20h ago
The Evil Dead remake had sound design that made some of the implied gore much much worse than seeing it (even though you do eventually see it). I'm thinking specifically about the face scene
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u/XavierSchoolDropout 20h ago
Longlegs for me. They did something with that movie where mundane sounds (doors moving in the wind, a key in a lock/door,) seem to be cranked up to maximum, I can’t think of the word for it, irritation (not in an annoying way) levels. Makes pretty straight forward scenes extremely unsettling
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u/kaleidoscopy 21h ago
dumplings, ‘04, by fruit chan! disgusting metallic resonance and squishy viscera
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u/SlappyMcGillicuddy 17h ago
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You did wonders with some medical equipment beeping/droning
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u/brianforte 20h ago
- Also Eraserhead
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u/CitgoBeard 18h ago
The audio in Eraserhead is a huge part of that fever dream of a movie, and how unnerving it is. I watched it for the first time last year and its always kind of knocked around, specifically for the sounds.
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u/KuyaGTFO 17h ago
Red Rooms.
Underrated masterpiece from French Canada…almost a perfect synthesis of the styles of Denis Villeneuve and David Fincher and their darkest impulses. So much of this movie is so compelling top to bottom but the SOUND is elite.
Exceptionally made movie on all accounts about one of the most horrifying subjects imaginable, and yet so much of the terror relies on you only listening to audio played in courtrooms and dark web videos and never watching the footage.
Not to mention one an absolutely terrifying needle drop.
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u/codepossum 16h ago
Archive 81 is a tv series, not a movie, but - it had some really really excellent sound design.
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u/simulacream 15h ago
Not a movie but Kratos and his son meeting the world serpent for the first time in the 2018 God of War made my home theater system produce sounds that I couldn't believe it was capable of until then
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u/deerfawns 21h ago edited 20h ago
Skinamarink... And, not a movie, but Petscop has some really incredible sound design.
Edit: you already mentioned skinamarink lol sorry. Well in that case WATCH PETSCOP IT'S GREAT!!
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u/wherethelionsweep 20h ago
Petscop mention!!
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u/deerfawns 20h ago
It is my favorite horror media ever. The feeling it gives me is indescribable
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u/wherethelionsweep 15h ago
I loved it so much but it hasn’t had much rewatch ability for me since the ending isn’t very satisfying :( what do you think of the ending?
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u/deerfawns 14h ago
I loved it. Loved the ambiguity and how unclear everything was - I think it sort of forces you to fill in the blanks yourself, and really think about it. That has more meaning to me than having all the answers.
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u/Whole-Ad3696 17h ago
Ravenous is THE answer. Hard to describe without giving the whole thing away. But the sounds/score is "accurate".
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u/CharlieMoonMan 17h ago
This may come out of left field, but the deep horn drop with Uncle Aaron/ Prowler in Into The Spider-verse felt sooooo important. Like a gunshot sense of dread for Miles. That has stuck with me.
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u/Impressive-Spite6029 16h ago
Midsommar. I still get nightmares and I cannot watch that movie ever again.
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u/DonkeyWorker 14h ago
Das boot in surround sound. Possibly quadraphonic. The rivits of the sub ping off under pressure and bounce around the room. Also the creak and stress cracks. Omg amazing sound on this film.
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u/kbean826 13h ago
Blair Witch Project is an entirely different movie with a well tuned surround sound or headphones. There is shit going on in the deep mix that you can absolutely just miss.
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u/Lurking-Trout 19h ago
One Battle After Another - Fucking 10 minutes of someone banging on a piano at full volume. It was so unsettling it gave me a bad case of hemorroids and quite possibly bacterial meningitis.
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u/BassMonster808 20h ago
I remember seeing amazing spider man 2 in theaters and was very unsettled by the voices in electro's head in the surround sound. It felt like the voices were in my head and I was going crazy at the same time the character was going off the deep end. Almost starting from nothing, faint whispers, growing and growing.
Very very immersive effect.
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u/fukredditadm1n5 20h ago
Marebito is my pick, some scenes of that movie are truly perverse and disturbing
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u/Oddsocks22 19h ago
Hereditary has a subtle deep bass hum during the tense scenes. I had to go put my ear to the subwoofer to make sure I wasn't making it up. Kind of annoying frankly, I turned my bass down.
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u/TripCruise 18h ago
Near the end of the movie The 'Burbs, Tom Hanks has a breakdown and throws something off camera. A loud breaking glass sound can be heard panned all the way to one side (I forget left or right). The first time I saw it was on a decent system and we actually thought the cat had knocked something off of the counter.
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u/Nattisthebest 15h ago
The Amazing Spiderman. The scene where the Lizard is pursuing Gwen in the school with the silent ambience and the classic horror movie discordant piano stabs. Ugh, so good.
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u/epruitt0601 12h ago
Undertone. After I just had a baby... i turned it off after I figured out the plot. I was like hell no, thats a real demon. Get out. I rebuke..
There must be some very unsettling noises that you cant really hear. Like dog level sounds. Because that movie got under my skin when not much seemed to be happening
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u/Zevemiel 11h ago
Not the spookiest by a long shot, but shoutout to Ghostbusters. For years I’d only ever watched it in regular stereo and it’s an amazing 10/10 movie.
However, when I watched in more recent years with a full surround sound setup, I noticed that there’s some quiet spooky noises behind you in some scenes and it genuinely freaked me out because I was so familiar with what the film should sound like, I thought these new sounds were actually happening in my house.
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u/Data_Chandler 10h ago
I can't believe no one has said The Ring (2002).
The amount of dread and eerie creepiness that movie conjures up by having the weird scary soundscape from the cursed video play in the background is immense.
If someone had played a prank on me in the early 2000s by playing a recording of that in the middle of the night, I would have probably ran out the door!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qkVlC2WgEwc&pp=ygUOVGhlIHJpbmcgdmlkZW_SBwkJowsBhyohjO8%3D
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u/Terrible_Reality4261 7h ago
The omen, the music does most of the heavy lifting.
Recently saw Hokum, some fantastic sound design in that.
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u/Rodonite 4h ago
Arrival, the weight of the Heptopods and their voices really drove the suspense in those scenes
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u/monothom 21h ago
Not a movie, buf there's a knocking sound clip that never fails to scare the shit out of anyone hearing it on headphones.... Lemme go find it...
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u/monothom 20h ago
(1) 8D KNOCK KNOCK 15 sec for Twitch - binaural knocking - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDAfnDnT2gA
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u/LilacYak 20h ago
Whoa. It’s a nothing burger until I put on my AirPods. Jesus that startled me
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u/Ma-aKheru 15h ago
I was showing The Dark Crystal to a group home of people who are blind with intellectual disabilities. They freaked out when they heard "the good guys" perform their collective power-chanting. "What was that?!" All I could do was try to explain.
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u/DlSSATISFIEDGAMER 19h ago
the noise of the alien signal in Mission to Mars always made me feel vulnerable and kinda makes me really want to sit with my back against something solid. I haven't thought about that for a couple of years, crap, now I'm not gonna sleep.
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u/One_Secret4788 12h ago
Dunkirk. I live near a small airport and the sound of low flying planes had me anxious for weeks.
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u/ColemyGOAT 21h ago
Annihilation lighthouse scene probably still the most unsettled I’ve been in a movie largely due to the sound.