Music and horror are not often affiliated with one another, but here are a few examples of what happens when bands find inspiration in the classic horrors that we all know and love. Whether they add their own unique flavor or follow a strict shot by shot recreation, it’s always fun to see “outsiders” take the horror genre for a spin–even if the music isn’t your particular cup of tea. So let’s have a look!

Movie: Hard Candy

Chances are high that when you hear German and rock band in the same sentence your mind automatically wonders to Rammstein; but Oomph! Is one of the bands that inspired Rammstein. Anyways, Oomph! has some crazy awesome videos. The best are from their album Monster where creative movie mashups are often used. The one that stood out the most though is “Beim ersten Mal tut’s immer weh” translating to “the first time it always hurts”. The video follows a 15 year old girl nicknamed Rotkäppchen, aka Little Red Riding Hood, who agrees to meet an online predator. But their roles are reversed when she ties up and tortures the man both mentally and physically. The music video is based on the psychological thriller Hard Candy. The difference though, unlike Hayley, Rotkäppchen, actually castrates the guy and waves his cojones at his face. You know, just to prove that Germans don’t fuck around.

Movie: The Evil Dead

Established back in 1992, Lordi is the band that rose Finland to success by winning the 2006 Eurovision with their hit song “Hard Rock Halleluja”; becoming the first ever (and still the only) heavy metal band to win. But before the worldwide praise and victory there was “Blood Red Sandman”. The song title and parts of the lyrics such as “scream all you want you won’t wake up when you scream” or “can you hear how the children weep?” seems more appropriate for A Nightmare on Elm Street. However, the video is actually based on Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead. Three friends in a cabin find a tape, and once they play it, evil spirits arise. Originally the song was called “Blood Red Santa”, but due to controversy the title was changed… because Blood Red Sandman is so much better. 

Movie: The Shining

A big empty hotel, long hallways, a dude in a bunny suit giving a blow job, a typewriter, a seductive girl in the shower in a forbidden room–does any of this ring a bell? If you’ve seen Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining, then it should. Even the paper next to the typewriter has the repeated lyrics “this is who I really am” similar to Jack Torrance’s “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. The close attention to details makes this one of the most pleasing videos to watch. No wonder it won greatest rock video in Kerrang Rock 100 back in 2009.

Movie: A Clockwork Orange

I told you guys this band has some awesome music videos. Here comes Oomph! again in the list with “Auf Kurs” translating to “on course”. Also released from their Monster album, this video has one very similar scene to Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange in which is a prisoner, played by band’s lead singer Dero, is being forced to watch imagery on a big screen while having his one eye forced open. While this is the only resemblance to the movie in the video, there are still some torture scenes such as knees getting drilled into. Ouch.

Movie: From Dusk Till Dawn

Similar to many European bands, Rammstein’s videos are often intriguing and well thought out (don’t believe me, just watch their video for “Sonne”). If you watch their video for “Engel”, translating to “angel”, you’ll instantly notice that this is a homage to Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn. The entire video is inspired by the snake dance scene performed by Salma Hayek. Identical to the movie, it features a woman with a snake wrapped around her walking over to Flake and putting her foot in his mouth while pouring a drink down her leg. The band’s guitarist Richard Z. Kruspe also quoted “For the video “Engel”, we pondered: Which direction shall we go? What could it be? We were always inspired by movie classics. I think it was about the time when “From Dusk Till Dawn” was in the cinemas. We were extremely inspired by this scene.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGYEXYPy3Mw