10 Great Cover Songs in Horror Movies

by Patrick Bromley

What are you waiting for?
These covers aren't necessarily better than the originals, but they just might be scarier.

1. "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Marilyn Manson

If it wasn't for its placement in the stellar 1999 remake of William Castle's House on Haunted Hill, I would probably accuse Marilyn Manson's dirgey cover of The Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" to be some real '90s edgelord bullshit. Actually, it's exactly that, and I say that as someone who hates Marilyn Manson the person but who counts Antichrist Superstar among his favorite albums of all time. The cover has been used in countless movies and TV shows, including Gamer and Trick 'r Treat, but this is the movie with which I will always associate it. The cover takes an innocuous pop song and turns it into something creepy and sinister, perfectly setting the stage for director William Malone's total blast of a remake, still the best of all the Dark Castle movies.

2. "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Gus Black

Wes Craven's Scream is one of the all-time great horror movies, definitely in the conversation as the best of the 1990s if not the actual best. While it too often gets blamed for inspiring a bunch of inferior knock-offs and imitators, it should instead be praised for helping revitalize horror and getting a bunch more projects greenlit at major studios. Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand" is the most memorable song in the movie -- so much so that it became the anthem of the franchise -- but I've always loved the inclusion of this slower acoustic cover of Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" that plays under Neve Campbell and Skeet Ulrich's first bedroom scene. Sure, the foreshadowing might be too heavy-handed, but that's what makes it great. Wes Craven was laying everything out in plain sight.

3. "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?" by Bing Crosby

Writer/director Frank LaLoggia's 1988 ghost story Lady in White is a real gem of '80s horror and one of the greatest gateway genre movies ever made. It's use of Bing Crosby's cover of "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?" is one of the best examples of the old-song-turned-creepy trope -- a very common trope -- ever to appear in a horror movie. It immediately transports us back the past, just as this movie wishes.

4. "Love Hurts" by Nan Vernon

Like the movie in which it appears, I'm sure this pick will be controversial. Rob Zombie's use of "Love Hurts" by Nazareth in his 2007 remake of Halloween is almost unintentionally comical, scoring the sight of a young Michael Myers despondent on the curb waiting for his mom who is stripdancing at the club to come home and take him trick or treating. The fact that he brings it back in the form of Nan Vernon's stripped-down, impossibly sad cover somehow manages to make the sequence in the first movie pay off in a way I could never have predicted. I love that Zombie lets the song stretch from the sequel's final moments and into the end credits, refusing the break Halloween II's haunting spell. Love hurts indeed.

5. "Stay" by Ghost and Patrick Wilson

This cover song is the whole reason I made this list because it's my favorite thing about Insidious: The Red Door, a movie I kind of like despite knowing better. Not only does Patrick Wilson star in and direct The Red Door, but also sings lead on this Ghost cover of Shakespeare's Sister's haunting ballad. And he sings the shit out of it! I forgot he was a Broadway guy until hearing this cover, which plays over the end credits of the movie and leaves me thinking it's a better and more emotional experience than it probably is. Music has that power.

6. "Mad World" by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews

Ok so maybe Donnie Darko isn't technically a horror movie but it is a great Halloween movie so I'm including it on this list. The cover of Tears for Fears' 1982 single "Mad World" has -- at least in my circles -- eclipsed the original in terms of quality and recognizability. It's not so much "Mad World" as it is "the Donnie Darko song." There are obvious thematic connections -- we live in a mad world! -- but what strikes me every time I hear it, particularly in the movie, is how unbearably sad it is. I might be wrong for finding Donnie Darko sad, but I do.

7. "People are Strange" by Echo and the Bunnymen

I came pretty close to leaving this cover of "People Are Strange" off of this list because it's so similar to The Doors' original, but the song has become so synonymous with The Lost Boys in my mind that it felt wrong to exclude it. Truth be told, the filmmakers should have just licensed The Doors' version, but maybe it was too expensive or didn't fit into director Joel Schumacher's hip and edgy vision of the movie. Either way, I love this song probably because it was The Lost Boys that introduced me to it and this movie meant a lot to me and my siblings as kids.

8. "Summer Breeze" by Type O Negative

One of the best things about the 1997 slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer is that it opens with the familiar notes of Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze," only done in heavy-ass guitar style by Type O Negative, a band I have no doubt some people like. This fucking movie is lousy with covers, including updated versions of The Beatles' "Hey Bulldog" and Deep Purple's "Hush," but it's this one that kicks things off that resonates most with me for the sense of foreboding it provides -- twisting a familiar summer jam into something darker and more threatening. The movie (which I like in the same way I like a generic '80s slasher like Graduation Day) doesn't always fulfill this promise.

9. "How Soon is Now" by Love Spit Love

Like Echo and the Bunnymen's "People Are Strange" in The Lost Boys, there isn't a ton that's different about Love Spit Love's cover of The Smiths' "How Soon is Now" featured prominently in The Craft. It's got a little more of an edge to it in large part because of LSL vocalist Richard Butler (also frontman of The Psychedelic Furs) trademark sneer. That doesn't matter. What matters are those chords, which are immediately recognizable and iconic and prepare us for what The Craft has in store.

10. "Get Down With the Sickness" by Richard Cheese

We'll close this list out with this pick from Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, which, instead of trying to make a familiar song "edgier" like most of these picks, goes the other direction and turns Disturbed's "Get Down With the Sickness" into a lounge song. The choice of cover suggests something that pretty much no moment in any other Zack Snyder movie suggests: that he has a sense of humor.