I’ve never been a big fan of scary movies. And yet, I have seen many, many scary movies.
A large proportion of the scary movies I’ve seen came during a very specific time in my life – I’d guess from age 11 to 13 – when my older brother and I were suddenly gripped by a compulsion to rent every horror movie from every video rental store within a two-kilometre radius of our house. (And this was the early 90s, so video rental places were about as common in Toronto as cannabis stores are now.)
We did every major franchise: the nightmares on Elm street, the Friday the 13ths, the Halloweens. We did classics like Psycho and The Exorcist. We did weird horror-comedy crossovers like House.
Given that I was the type of kid who got scared by the low-budget costumes from 80s-era Doctor Who, why did I sit through so many hours of legitimately scary cinema?
At the time, I didn’t know. If you’d asked me back then, I probably would have said that I liked the films; I may have even convinced myself that I did. After all, the adolescent mind has a way of deluding itself to navigate illogical situations.
In retrospect though, the simple answer is: my brother.
Scary movies were his passion, and since he was the all-knowing older one, I must have assumed that a) I wanted to watch the movies too, and b) it was somehow safe to do so. Sitting in a scary place is easier if you do it with someone who represents protection.
In the decades since, my tastes have shifted to other genres: Bond movies, mid-Century musicals, the occasional intellectual speculative sci-fi.
My brother is now a YouTuber who reviews horror movies.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The bass. Just a simple four-note loop, but with the dark fuzziness of an 80s horror movie.
2. The vocal sample. Chopped and not quite intelligible, like some weird incantation that a possessed child says while looking creepily into a mirror.
3. The drums. With that double-time hi-hat, hearty kick drum, and perhaps the hardest rim hit on the snare, this might be one of the most confident drum loops I’ve ever heard. In other words, the kind of drums that would protect you from scary things.
Recommended listening activity:
Checking over your shoulder, just in case.