Halloween Music

Aphex Twin.

Yes, some of James Bernard's Hammer film scores are (or least were) on CD.

One Halloween night in collegge, my roommate and I listened to The Shagg's "It's Halloween" 200 times (or thereabouts) in a row. I can honestly say life hasn't been quite the same ever since.

as well as the whole gems of masochism album, really.

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (NYSE:MSO) extended its omnimedia reach today by announcing that the company has signed an agreement with Rhino Entertainment to jointly produce and distribute a series of music and sound compilation albums for entertaining. The first release, MARTHA STEWART LIVING'S SPOOKY SCARY SOUNDS FOR HALLOWEEN, will launch September 5, 2000 at record and mass market retailers nationwide, including Kmart, as well as on marthastewart.com and through Martha By Mail.

ha ha.

as for real albums that suit halloween then coil's unreleased themes to hellraiser is great, bela lugosi's dead (of course) and tubular bells (for the exorcist connection). and 'die die die' by chapterhouse. and early bark psychosis.

andy

In terms of 'scary'/creepy stuff, I'd go with "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus (natch), "Stigmata Martyr" by Bauhaus, the entirety of the CLEANSE, FOLD & MANIPULATE album by Skinny Puppy, anything by Missing Foundation (very unsettling stuff, that) and maybe some good ol' Christian Death for good measure.

One Halloween night in collegge, my roommate and I listened to The Shagg's "It's Halloween" 200 times (or thereabouts) in a row. I can honestly say life hasn't been quite the same ever since.
What the hell were you thinking?

Add N To X - Monster Bobby
Arsonists - Halloween
Atari Teenage Riot - Ghost Chase
Beverley's All Stars - The Monster
Bis - Secret Vampires
Black Uhuru - Vampire
Bow Wow Wow - King Kong
David Bowie - Chant Of The Ever-Circling Skeletal Family
Babba Brooks - One Eyed Giant
Edgar Broughton Band - Demons Out
Kate Bush - Hammer Horror
Kate Bush - Waking The Witch
Johnny Cash - (Ghost) Riders in the Sky
John Cooper-Clarke - I Married A Monster From Outer Space
John Cooper-Clarke - Teenage Werewolf
Kevin Coyne - Witch
Cramps - I Was A Teenage Werewolf
Ronnie Dawson - Rockin' in the Cemetery
Dead Kennedys - Halloween
Bo Diddley - Bo Meets The Monster
Dinosaur Jr - Gargoyle
Dom & Roland - Spooks
Dragon - The Dragon Theme
Eeek-a-Mouse -Taller Than King Kong
Elementz Of Noize - Big Foot
Elvis Hitler - Ghouls Looking For Food
Alec Empire - The Cat Women Of The Moon
Alec Empire - The Robot Put A Voodoospell On Me
Roky Erikson - I Walked With A Zombie
Marianne Faithfull - Witches' Song
Fall - City Hobgoblins
Fall - I'm a Mummy
Fall - Sing! Harpy
Fall - There's A Ghost in My House
Frank Chickens - Werewolf Woman
Johnny Fuller - Haunted House
Funkadelic - March to the Witch's Castle
Go-Betweens - Spirit of a Vampyre
Gorillaz - Dracula
Grid - Big Foot
Gun Club - Ghost on the Highway
P.J. Harvey - Meet Ze Monsta
Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Little Demon
Hex - Homunculus
Devon Irons - Vampire
Itch - Energy Vampire
Jayhawks - The Creature From Outer Space
George Jones - Old King Kong
Cheb Kade - El Awanna ('The Witch')
DJ Kaos - Phantom
King Horror - Frankenstein
LFO - Loch Ness
Loxy - Fiend
Loxy & Ink - Quasimodo
Shane MacGowan - The Church of the Holy Spook
Mekons - Big Zombie
Mekons - Ghosts of American Astronauts
Meteors - My Daddy is a Vampire
Jeff Mills - Medusa
Morrissey- November Spawned a Monster
Willie Nelson - The Ghost
New York Dolls - Frankenstein
Pet Shop Boys - Vampires
Photek - Minotaur
Pioneers - Battle Of The Giants
Plane Field - Gargoyles
Q-Bert - Invasion Of The Octopus People
Regular Fries - King Kong
REM - I Walked With a Zombie
Rhythmatic - Demons
Round Robin - I'm the Wolfman
Rufige Cru - VIP Rulers Ghost
Rum and Black - Bogey Man
Shellac - Ghosts
Frank Sinatra - Witchcraft
Roni Size - Witchcraft (not the same song)
Skyhooks - Horror Movie
PF Sloan - Halloween Mary
Sonic Youth - NYC Ghosts And Flowers
Stooges - She Creatures Of Hollywood Hills
Sy - Vampire
R. Dean Taylor - There's A Ghost In My House
Jimi Tenor - Phantom
Richard Thompson -Ghosts In The Wind
Trans-Global Underground - Zombie'ites
Tyrone Asaurus - The Monster Twist
UltraViolence - Demons
Very Things - There's A Ghost In My House
Wedding Present - Chant Of The Ever-Circling Skeletal Family
White Knight - Demons
Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein
XTC - Poor Skeleton Steps Out

Duplicated below, because tomorrow it may be gone forever:

Bad Boy Butch Batson: Twisted & Bent [X]
This one's hard to find, but MP3s pop up every now and then. Earl "Bad Boy Butch" Batson, posed in wrestling boots on the front cover, is a maniac with absolutely no musical ability. "Once upon a Dream" is one of the strangest things I have ever heard, as Batson keeps hitting a broken guitar string while recounting his nightmares: "Once upon a dream I had a dream I was driving a delivery truck and I turned a corner and I was in hell and charcoal-flaming broiled burnt people were jumping out of my way." "Once upon a dream I had a dream I was being chased by a rat with a Doberman-pinching body and it got on top of me and ate my face off." On other songs he squeals to "Star Trek"'s "Green Girl" theme, or switches voices from obtuse blurts to Chipmunk falsettos to barking. A really uncomfortable call to a waitress with whom Batson was obsessed is included, during which he calls himself Jim Bowie and repeatedly asks if the waitress still loves him and is still his baby. On later recordings, Batson would sing about peeping in windows. Eerie in a behind-you-at-the-grocery-store way. --William Bowers

The Bad Luck 13 Riot Extravaganza: Bats on the Dance Floor [Resurrection A.D.; 2000]
Undoubtedly Philly's sickest children, the Bad Luck 13 crew would like nothing more than to stomp your skull and make punch with the pulp. "Big Red Van" mixes drunken, sloppy riffs with vocals that could easily have been recorded in a vomitorium, acidic bile drenching the microphone. The Crew are banned from a slew of Philly venues, their notorious live shows almost always shut down mid-clusterfuck by angry owners or the cops. No one is at once as menacing and balls-to-the wall rockin' as Bad Luck 13. Hide your mom's Precious Moments collection, put the cat outside. When this disc is on, shit's gonna get trashed like Frankenstein on a slam-dancing bender. --Mark Martelli

Bauhaus: Mask [Beggars Banquet; 1981]
"The passion of lovers is for death," said Bauhaus, and they were embraced by Plath-reading ankh-wearers everywhere as the soundtrack to those loving suicide pacts. Many too-quickly dismiss Bauhaus as prototypical Goth poseurs-- there's nothing scary about clove cigarettes and black trenchcoats. But when they chose to be, Bauhaus could be plenty damn scary. Don't believe me? Check Mask. More theater than music, Mask is a twisted cabaret of weird fiction, hidden agendas, and plaintive, hopeless emotion. It edges on being over-the-top, but Murphy's controlled vocal histrionics combine the leering showmanship of a carnival barker with a nearly unmatched flare for drama. Listen to his cries of, "I have seen too much/ Wipe away my eyes," on the "Man with the X-Ray Eyes", and by the end, you may feel the same way. --Eric Carr

Arthur Brown: The Crazy World of Arthur Brown [Atlantic; 1968]
I've been taken with music since birth, and was hoarding records of my own by the age of two. At four, my grandmother gave me a crate of the records my uncle owned in his early 20s. It became immediately clear to me that my uncle was not like the rest of the family. Even amongst the other strange 60s oddities, this one stood out: when I flipped past CCR to Arthur Brown, my heart skipped, I quickly flipped to the next record in a panic, and then slowly flipped back. The huge, scary, monstrous face on the cover was only the beginning. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, which I had dared myself to put on the bedroom turntable and now sat listening to overcome with nervousness and wracked with excitement, begins with a series of acid-trip recollections set to music, all concerning being trapped in fire. Arthur Brown's demonic wail writhes in passages like, "I was falling, falling, falling! I was falling into the flames! And I knew that I was gonna burn! I was gonna burn! Oh, it's so hot in here! Let me out, PLEASE!!!" and "Eyes glaring!! Voices blaring! WAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" followed by unintelligible screaming, maniacal laughter and massive horns. Unaware of drugs at this point, I could only equate it with Satan. It was, without question, the most terrifying experience of my life to that point. I had nightmares for weeks, yet couldn't resist playing it again and again-- I had never heard anything like it, and it was so catchy. My parents finally took it away. I found it last year in a used bin for $5. As it turns out, it's something of a psych rarity-- co-produced by Pete Townshend, no less. Darkly brilliant, and funny, too. --Ryan Schreiber

Coil: Time Machines [Eskaton; 1998]
In absence of light, a few moments' exposure to Time Machines slowly dissolves all other stimulus. Tremulant sine waves and ominous hiss cause the walls to recede, separate mind from body, and resonate within. The hypnotic rise and fall of the cascading drones slowly pulls you farther and farther away from the origin of this journey; by the time you realize the absolute isolation, you are swept away, led into a torpid waking sleep, and no longer in control of your destination. Coil understands that less is more-- underneath the sparse, soothing whole tones, Time Machines possesses the otherworldly transportive powers of its namesake and a genuine sense of malevolence. And this is only the trip. Getting there may be half the fun, but when the implied ends are this fearful, it can only be a relief that Coil drops you off moments before they finally arrive. --Eric Carr

Combatwoundedveteran: I Know a Girl Who Develops Crime Scene Photos [No Idea; 2000]
Grindcore for serial killers. Ballroom dancing for paranoid schizophrenics. Combatwoundedveteran are master noisehounds, their rabid dual guitar assault forming a dense wall of hellish static and intestine splitting, rumbling grooves. Dan and Chris' vocals are inscrutable and bone-chilling, the howls and groans of a whole ward of violent psychotics confessing their sins. No doubt Dante had this in his Discman while he toured the levels of Hell. Song titles like "My Spine! My Spine! My Spine!" and "Let the Surgical Strike Begin" only hint at the madness to be found on I Know a Girl. Mix all that with the accompanying artwork, a bloody collage of amputees and mutilated corpses and burn victims, and you have a record too vicious to deny. --Mark Martelli

Johnny Dowd: Wrong Side of Memphis [Koch Int'l; 1998]
The gothic gets marinated a little thick here, but it's effective. "Murder" and "Wages of Sin" are blatant. "Welcome Jesus" and "I Don't Exist" are simply long gone. "First There Was" is a sick singalong-chronicle of pointless homicides and vengeful hangings. The music is tinny and scraping, and the "singing" is a voice from wherever they bury the unidentifiable. Some of the speakers (let's hope these remorseless monsters, sex offenders and suicides aren't Dowd) say hollowly that they can only relate to movies; others warn over a prickly lick, "Be content with your life/ It might not get any better." So monotonously depraved, you'll turn it off. --William Bowers

Alec Empire + Techno Animal: Curse of the Golden Vampire [Digital Hardcore; 1998]
Someone better bust out a few thousand pounds of garlic for this one. There are no nice, neat puncture wounds here: Curse of the Golden Vampire rips out your throat and chews on your larynx instead. Distorted beats and harsh, rusty guitar mix with air raid sirens, white noise, and field recordings of the Zombie apocalypse. Empire and Techno Animal know how to celebrate the dawn of the dead. If your Halloween sound effects records were melted in the oven and played with a broken needle, it still wouldn't be this abrasive. Electro breaks ("Caucasian Deathmask"), digital hardcore, sleep-walking hip-hop ("Substance X")... a vampire swingers ball, no doubt. --Mark Martelli

Fantômas: The Director's Cut [Ipecac; 2001]
Mike Patton's done some pretty fucked up shit, but this one, a collection of film music covers, is the ultimate Halloween record, the one Gwar puts on at their kids' birthday parties. "Time for Pin-The-Tail-On-Our-Dark-Lord, girls!" "Oh no, the giant worm ate all the Cheez Doodles!" "Hey, is that Henry Mancini?" Yup. Patton's truly terrifying vocal contortions (his imitation of Rosemary's Baby tops the list) and interpretations of Mr Pink Panther make for some of the creepiest moments on the album. Theremins, epic skin-pounding by Slayer's Dave Lombardo, and "Spider Baby" (the best horror-movie roll call since "Monster Mash"): so scary it's funny, and so funny it's scary. What more could you ask for? --Brendan Reid

Morton Feldman, Piano and String Quartet, perf. Kronos Quartet with Aki Takahashi [Nonesuch, 1993]:
This piece by Feldman moves so gently but deliberately that it doesn't feel pensive so much as opaque: Takahashi's stately gestures, the tremulous strings and the edgeless silences take hold for eighty minutes to make a sublime piece of minimalism that's also the eeriest scare flick soundtrack never used in a film. The recording's void-like ambience-- engineered at George Lucas' Skywalker Sound facilities-- makes it even more impenetrable: when it gets in your head, it's like the shape in the corner of your bedroom that won't go away no matter how still you lie. --Chris Dahlen

Daniel Johnston: 1990 [Shimmy-Disc; 1990]
The cover art was a clue that all was not well; a disturbed Daniel is flanking his painting of a stormy flower. In interviews, Johnston says they won't let him listen to this one when he's institutionalized. Who can blame them? The album boasts a chilling ballad about living in a "Devil Town", and the way-more-frightening-than-Robert-Johnson blues of "Don't Play Cards with Satan", during which Johnston just starts howling in fear/celebration, "Satansatansatan!" Johnston breaks down into moans and tears during the hymn "Careless Souls", and joins a church congregation in a zombie-ish "Softly and Tenderly". When the audience laughs at him during the live version of "Funeral Home", his trembling alienation is unbearable. Kramer's icy reverb adds to the jeebies. Anyone afraid of losing their mind should steer clear of this portrait's slippery slope. --William Bowers

Lard Free: III/Spirale Malax [Spalax; 1977]
Terrible name, vastly underrated band. France's Lard Free, led by multi-instrumentalist Gilbert Artman, specialized in a kind of epic acid-trance. Imagine the murky synth sound of Suicide's first record combined with krautrock pulse and psyche flashbacks, and you're almost ready for the horrific experience of this album. The oozing rhythms and barely-in-focus mix transform what might have been free jazz in another era into electronic madness. For all of today's lauding of German bands from the 70s, it was truly the French who had the power to give you nightmares. --Dominique Leone

Nurse with Wound: Homotopy to Marie [United Dairies; 1982]
I've thought long and hard about it, and decided: this is what I'm blaring from my windows tonight. Arthur Brown might be more immediate, but Homotopy to Marie moves like a slug, and then lashes out venomously at its unsuspecting prey. On the 20-minute title track, pitch-black bouts of silence, gongs and ominous metal scrapes cause stomach-turning tension, suddenly reversing in dense, sucking clouds. A small British girl makes matter-of-fact statements suggesting impending misfortune and overtones of kidnapping and ritual sacrifice (or worse), as a stern mother retorts, "Don't be naïve, darling!" This finally erodes into distorted grunts and moans, high-pitched tones, and thick collages of frantic female whimpers and panicked panting, spliced into millisecond-long fragments and piled atop each other in blasts of raw horror. Sick, blistered gore, pulsating tremors, brutal snuff flick in sparkling audio. --Ryan Schreiber

Shub-Niggurath: Les Morts Vont Vite [Musea; 1986]
Shub-Niggurath is an obscure French band named after an H.P. Lovecraft fertility demon, and if the namesake isn't creepy enough, their sound certainly is: female soprano vocal alternates between disembodied clarity and terrible shriek; an explosive, overdriven bass sound rattles your deepest, dark areas; percussion and guitars ring so restless and sprawling as to verge on chaos without ever breaking free. The music is extreme, but not in a noisy way; it's more like a brief visit inside the mind of monster, as dirge-beats are pounded without remorse and guitars wail like wolves. Shub-Niggurath were masters of the indecent macabre, and this record is not only one of the best of its kind, but one of the most engaging of the 80s. --Dominique Leone

Throbbing Gristle: The First Annual Report of Throbbing Gristle [Thirsty Ear; 1975; r:2001]
Though nothing can quite top "Hamburger Lady" from 1978's DOA: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle for shear frightfulness, the group never recorded another album that was as intensely freaky as this from front to back. From the 18-minute, noise-slashed brutality of murder monologue "Very Friendly" to the aptly named tape apocalypse of "Whorle of Sound", Throbbing Gristle set out to splatter your brains all over everything (and would've gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those meddling kids). Want to up the scare factor for young trick-or-treaters? Turn this one up to ten on All Hallow's Eve and the kiddies won't even come near your place. --Joe Tangari

Univers Zero: Heresie [Cuneiform; 1979] An exercise in extreme dissonance, Heresie groans, throbs and chants its way up your spine and extends withered fingers directly into your fear cortex. This album is leafless trees in a foggy forest when you're being chased by a serial mangler. Bassoons, oboes, church organs, violin, viola, percussion and bass collide at all the wrong intervals, hurling up a terrifying racket. I dare you to try to listen to it in a dark attic. You won't last long. --Joe Tangari

Igor Wakhevitch: Donc. [Fractal; 1998]
Fractal's box-set reissue of Wakhevitch's six LPs from the 70s stands as a landmark for anyone unafraid of the outer limits. Beginning with 1970's Logos, all the way through 1979's Let's Start, Wakhevitch forgoes the tried-and-true for the disturbing-and-surreal. The early stuff is closest to rock, utilizing heavy drums and rambling bass to underscore the skewed orchestral and choral overtures. The later material is quite firmly on the edge of contemporary electronic music, with an idiosyncratic touch that might be approachable to some, disgusting to others. Throughout is an unhealthy attention to studio detail and detached spoken word proclamations. By turns thrilling, absurd and near-genius-- $90 (the going price for the set) says you can't make it though with the lights out. --Dominique Leone

Various Artists: Electric Ladyland VI [Mille Plateaux; 1998] The dank industrial corner of Mille Plateaux, piled with trash can drums and undisciplined noise, will be forgotten eventually as the label is remembered for perfecting the clicks + cuts "glitch" aesthetic. But the raw, dark sonics were in full effect on the Electric Ladyland series. Tracks here by artists like Techno Animal and Biochip C. are thick with black energy, but Panacea's "The New Style" (as well as the fact that it was released on October 30th, 1998) makes it a particularly noteworthy inclusion on this list. The sampled voice can only be described as coming from hell, with a mouth too twisted and thick with saliva and blood to approach comprehensibility. Pain and rage are mixed in equal measure, and when I hear it at a decent volume I usually stop breathing. --Mark Richardson

Various Artists: The Shining OST [Warner Bros; 1980]
Nobody recognizes that Wendy Carlos is responsible for the wonderfully ominous Main Title from The Shining. The soundtrack pairs it with its sequel, "Rocky Mountains". Dense analog keyboard blurts like electronic tuba, skittering noises and subtle, manipulated laughter and howls rise from a ghostly abyss, then a pause (really just silence between tracks, but actually a quite accidentally tense moment), and the pitchshifted hums arch, reach harmony, and swerve into discordance. This soundtrack is the essence of the film, distilled to archaic terror, which culminates in the bone-curdling orchestral damnation of Penderecki's "Polymorphia". Bela Bartok's "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta" defies its Ferrante & Teicher title to build serenely toward the fear-blast you hate to anticipate. Of course, the record closes out with the early-1930s recordings of Ray Noble and Henry Hall, but these are pretty nice to unwind to after the stop-motion fright that precedes them. Plus, "Midnight, The Stars & You" is so badass. --Ryan Schreiber

...and the most creepy ever:
Kronons Quartet - Black Angels

..but i may play: The Cure - Pornography /Scorn - Greetings from Birmingham / 2nd Gen - Irony Is.

sorry?! come again!!!

DJ martian in a 'I do not intend to get a record shockah!'

If I really wanted to be creepy for halloween, I'd play Turbonegro's "midnight nambla" out the window for all the kiddies.

is there a price-less thriller edit?

i guess it wouldnt be hard to make.

a halloween comp I put together a while back...

walter schumann - night of the hunter
the meteors - night of the werewolf
alice donut - halloween
gerard schurmann - horrors of the black museum (overture)
ennio morricone - the bird with the crystal plumage
tristram cary - quatermass & the pit (section 5)
skindred - vampire slayer
the voluptuous horror of karen black - I believe in halloween
fantomas - the devil rides out
dick jacobs - it came from outer space
david vanian and the phantom chords - screaming kid
piero piccioni - seven murders
naked city - new jersey scum swamp
the frantics - werewolf
mr gasser and the weirdos - surfer ghoul
dimitri tomkin - the thing (main title)
sleepytime gorilla museum - puppet show
burning skies - murder by existence
thinking plague - inside out
foetus - thrush
orthodox - arrodillate ante la madera y la piedra
the monsoon bassoon - in the iceman's back garden

for halloween parties I recommend Tod Dockstader & David Lee Myers' CD 'Bijou', which is a flowing musique concrete piece made out of samples of 1980's horror & suspense films -- the textures of the originals are all very recognizable, but all the dialogue's been removed so now you can just appreciate those textures as pure sound. Was not my favorite CD for straight-up listening when it came out, but for party ambience the thing really really works a crowd

Halloween mixtapes

Reverend Frosts' bloody halloween podcasts ftw

I just posted a halloween radio show. Mostly sixties psych-ish stuff, some other things, too.
http://holyvictrola.blogspot.com">Holy Victrola on kopn 89.5fm

gahd http://holyvictrola.blogspot.com

Trip Maker, thanks for posting yr set. I'll have to check out the VU show next week.

Sure thing. The VU show is going live tonight. I think that the archives sound better than the live stream, fwiw. I'm gonna have my co-host read from the Unterberger book and we're gonna play all stuff from the records, bootlegs, solo records, maybe a cover or two (if we can fit them in). We only have two hours. Anyway, there's a thread on here for my show (hint: it's the Holy Victrola thread) so I'll stop cluttering this one.

I've been listening to the incredibly racist Chinese Water Torture track on the 1962 Disney Halloween LP. So awesome.

That record figured into my show even though I didn't list it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL4hATHtPTM

I am sure my American friends of a certain age will remember that Halloween sound effects record with the orange border on the sleeve, I wish I still had it!

http://www.billbradbury.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/chilliing-thrilling-sounds-of-the-haunted-house.jpg
On the turntable RIGHT NOW. Imma make a mix if I get this programming assignment and design document done in time.

The new Fever Ray sounded pretty scary when I was making tonight's tea

Yes, Seth! I also loved the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of Caribbean discs, but Thrilling, Chilling is the locus classicus of the genre

gahd http://holyvictrola.blogspot.com

― Trip Maker, Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:29 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

That looks really good, looking forward to listening

I've been listening to the incredibly racist Chinese Water Torture track on the 1962 Disney Halloween LP. So awesome.

my copy is (C) 1964 but yeah totes racist especially the punchline. I also have a Chilling, Thrilling from 1979 that has different material

The Plimptons - I hate Halloween
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg2ACz9PcXk
http://www.mcgazz.co.uk/plimptons

My thrilling chilling has a white border and it feels wrong.

Hope nobody minds me shamelessly plugging my Halloween radio show. We had loads of fun doing this. Just hope we don't get sectioned for it.
Featuring Cathedral, Dead Raven Choir, Advisory Circle, Black Widow, The Cramps, The Shaggs, The Caretaker, Kode 9, Drexciya, Topper, Hellfish, Screaming Lord Sutch and MWWWWOOOOOOARRRRR!!! Bwahaha!!!

http://www.subcity.org/shows/beardradio/a1b6d/

I may have missed it above, but here's my favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M21JaCxWe9A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt_TD-1T7AI

this is my recent new favorite halloween song. i mean, old new favorite. new old favorite? 1968.

The Ghouls - draculas theme
Satans' Pilgrims - grave walk
Rod Willis - the cat
Combustible Edison - carnival of souls

The Double Leopards are really great for just slipping in and out of a generally fun dance mix.

I've spent the last week highlighting a few of my favorites.

can I just

The Misfits - Safe For Children (1978 - 1983)

The instrumental dirge version of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" (the Disneyland Haunted Mansion theme) that you hear in the foyer played by the pipe organ and accompanied by tubular bells is a pretty wild chord progression:

Am B7 F7
Am Bb
Am F7/A
Am F7b5
Am E7 Am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDJPzvC6H8w

What is it that makes this song so chilling/spooky/scary/haunting? I'm not a theory dude but there are some unexpectedly chromatic/dissonant chords, also the melody doesn't revolve when you expect it might.

The version in that video mostly sounds like fairly straightforward modal material in Ab minor, except that there's a lot of the unresolved chromatic pitch D (a tritone above the tonic), which I think is probably largely responsible for the unsettled quality. I see that the piano/voice sheet music online shows the harmonies you give in the OP, which are p weird, but I don't hear them in the video.

OK, the chords in the sheet music, which I do hear in vocal harmony versions I saw on Youtube are a little different from what you wrote:
Am - B7 - Am - Bb
Am - F7 - Am - F7b5
Am - E7 - Am - E7 - Am

which makes a little more sense. Since it always goes back to Am on the strong bars, it's basically prolonging the i chord until the V-i cadence with a bunch of weird chromatic chords that support the chromaticism and modal movement in the melody. So VI is turned into a 7th chord to include the Eb/D# a tritone above the tonic, the ii dim chord is substituted with B7 or Bb to support the D# and Bb.

Thank you for your replies Sund4r.

Could you expand on what you mean by "straightforward modal" and "modal movement" to a theory-ignorant person?

I might not have used the terms in the most precise way but I meant that, going by the version in the video, it sounded like it was written as a melody moving up and down the minor scale (mode) as opposed to seeming like it was built around a functional progression of chords (esp since there is no chordal accompaniment in the version in the video), and without e.g. raising the seventh note of the scale to lead to the tonic as is done in functional tonal music - so more like Medieval/Renaissance music (or folk music) than 18th or 19th century music, in a way. There is definitely more chromaticism, though, with the lowered 5th and 2nd scale degrees hinting at Locrian (although you get the unaltered versions a lot too). Even when I listen to the harmonized vocal version, it still sounds to me more like the chords were built around the melody - and that they mostly just extend the i chord.

*up and down within the minor scale

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

I've just put up a couple of mixes of old Halloween-ish music and speech.

Here's the first one, recordings from 1902-1926

https://centuriesofsound.com/2022/10/23/halloween-dance-original-recordings-1902-1926/

00:00 Aleister Crowley- The Call Of The First And Second Aethyr (Ca. 1920)
01:21 Original Dixieland Jazz Band – Skeleton Jangle (1918)
04:14 Bert Williams – Never Mo’ (1916)
06:52 Sodero’s Band – The Vampire. Dance Characteristic (1918)
10:24 Billy Murray – I’m Afraid to Come Home in the Dark (1908)
12:36 Len Spencer – The Transformation Scene From ”Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde” (1905)
14:46 Edith Wilson and Johnny Dunn Original Jazz Hounds – Evil Blues (1923)
18:04 Edison Concert Band – Skeleton Dance (1905)
20:17 Arthur Collins – The Goose-Bone Man (1905)
22:24 Unknown Artist – Brown Wax Home Recording of Comic Ghost Stories (Ca. 1910)
24:42 Six Brown Brothers – Ghost of the Saxophone (1917)
27:20 American Symphony Orchestra – Hallowe’en Dance (1909)
29:22 New Orleans Owls – The Nightmare (1926)
32:29 Victor Military Band – Spooky Spooks (1917)
35:12 Abdal Ali – Death Lament (1902)
39:00 Al Weston & Irene Young – At The Circus (1921)
42:24 Unknown Artist – Okeh Laughing Record (1922)

...and the second one, recordings / film clips from 1927-1938

https://centuriesofsound.com/2022/10/24/halloween-between-the-wars-original-recordings-1927-1938/

00:00 Bela Lugosi – Clip from Dracula (1931)
00:02 Gennett Sound Effects – Rainfall and Thunder (1936)
(Clip from Frankenstein – 1931)
00:44 Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski – Toccata and Fugue in D minor (1927)
01:26 Artie Shaw And His Orchestra – Nightmare (1938)
(Clip from Dracula – 1931)
04:20 Borrah Minnevitch – The Ghost Walk (1933)
06:40 Manny Gould and Ben Harrison – Scrappy’s Ghost Story (1935)
07:51 Five Jones Boys – Mr Ghost Goes To Town (1936)
10:43 Putney Dandridge – Skeleton In The Closet (1936)
(Clip from Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf)
13:19 Prairie Ramblers – Ghost in the Graveyard (1938)
(HMV Weather Effects – Wind – 1935)
15:59 New Mayfair Dance Orchestra – The Haunted House (1931)
(Clip from The Shadow – Circle of Death – 1937)
19:32 Raymond Scott – War Dance For Wooden Indians (1937)
(Clip from The Mummy – 1932)
21:59 Truett & George – Ghost Dance (1927)
(Clip from Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – 1931)
(Clip from Mediale Musik – The Speech Of Ancient Egypt, 18th Dynasty – 1938)
24:55 Washboard Rhythm Kings – Call Of The Freaks (1931)
(Clip from Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – 1931)
27:50 Victor Arden, Phil Ohman, & their Orchestra – Dancing the Devil Away (1930)
(Clip from Reverend Johnny Blakey – Warming By The Devil’s Fire – 1928)
31:07 Fletcher Henderson – Hotter Than ‘ell (1934)
(Clip from Island of Lost Souls – 1932)
34:01 Rev. A.W. Nix – Black Diamond Express to Hell (1927)
34:41 Cab Calloway – The Nightmare (1931)
(Clip from Murders in the Zoo – 1933)
(Clip from Tomatoes Another Day – 1930)
37:27 Henry Hall BBC Dance Orchestra – Here Comes The Bogey Man (1932)
(Clip from The Old Dark House – 1932)
40:39 Bertha Idaho – Graveyard Love (1928)
(Clip from Vampyr – 1932)
44:02 Skip James – Devil Got My Woman (1931)
(Clip from Bride of Frankenstein – 1935)
47:08 Victoria Spivey – Blood Thirsty Blues (1928)
(Clip from Gennett Sound Effects – Night Noises – 1936)
(Clip from The Shadow – Circle of Death – 1937)
50:30 Josh White – Blood Red River (1933)
(Clip from The Old Dark House – 1932)
53:46 Joe Mccoy – Evil Devil Woman Blues (1934)
(HMV Weather Effects – Wind – 1935)
(Clip from The Shadow – Circle of Death – 1937)
56:59 Walter Page – Blue Devil Blues (1930)
(Clip from Gennett Sound Effects – Rainfall and Thunder – 1936)
(Clip from King Kong – 1933)