How Sound Is Used To Create Suspense In Horror Movies | Movies Insider

How do you convey the presence or someone or something in a scene without the audience actually seeing it? That's the special challenge of horror-movie sound design. In this episode of "Movies Insider," we visited Alchemy Post Sound, the Foley studio behind "The Invisible Man" and a slew of other horror projects, to find out how horror movies use sound to play with viewers' minds.

We had one of Alchemy's founders, Foley artist Leslie Bloome, break down a few scenes from "The Invisible Man" as case studies, recreating how his team made sounds as subtle and detailed as a faucet squeak or a faint wind chime. He also showed us how Foley artists create a range of classic horror-movie suspense sounds, from unsettling creaks to mysterious gusts of wind, and explained how all these carefully crafted sounds come together to ratchet up the tension in horror scenes, making climactic moments feel larger than life.

For more from Alchemy Post Sound:

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How Sound Is Used To Create Suspense In Horror Movies | Movies Insider

[brettsnell]

"When should we add in the voice over?"

"Definitely when he's demonstrating how he makes each sound."

[theatrekid-hi]

I love how horror movies are becoming more and more focused on the sound of it, it doesn’t rely on cheap jump scares. Jump scared are welcome but I feel as if many movies and franchises are using them every chance they get. Sometimes a suspenseful moment where you are waiting, sitting on bated breath, for the jump scare, only for it not to happen. In my opinion, those moments are better then any. And I feel as if sound adds more feel to if you are really in the scene itself.

[Will-gqgn]

Crazy how the sound artists are literally 95% of horror movies with 0 recognition

[PhilleShy]

Horror movies nowadays:
Normal scene: *50% sound volume*
Jumpscare scene: *200% sound volume*

[TheDanaYiShow]

I am watching this even though I scare easily and don't like horror movies, but the sound engineering/creation behind these scenes is so cool!

[teeth_denier]

Imagine how quietly foley artists have to breathe while recording in studios


According to the comments in this, it probably is true that they hold their breath

[dennis_thedj]

The real horror starts when you put voiceover while Leslie is demonstrating his skills

[willowoodz]

chimes in the real world : 🛎🤗🎶🌈🌿
chimes in horror movies : ☠️😰🔪👤🌬

[Morehangouts]

9:41 “but it holds a sh...ton of water” 😂 I love how he caught himself. This video was incredible though

[theatrekid-hi]

9:15
It would have been an amazing reveal if they didn’t show it in the trailer. It was an amazing movie but the trailer gave a lot away to be honest.

[YorrickLiu]

For horror movies, sound is sometimes more important than image because you can be too scared to keep your eyes open but you still want to hear it

[eternalproductions]

I wish we could actually hear the scene instead of telling us what we're supposed to be hearing

[sportstacker]

It's not the graphics that are scary at this point, it's the sound
You can mute the sound in a horror movie and come out perfectly normal

Edit: WOW IM FAMOUS

[chefadammenard]

Narrator talking over half the sound effects was really cool

[Hobbies]

I LOVE people like Leslie. He associates sound things make with completely different objects or events "regular people" would never dream of. So creative.

[goggleassistant]

I learned to close my ears in horror movies when it comes to tense scenes since i was a child since this sounds really make horror movies scary for me.

[chadwick]

That faucet scene without the score looks like it came from a depressing drama movie

[zrspangle]

Man I love when a video about sound design doesn't let you hear the sounds

[Miss_Nina.]

I love those Insider videos! Horror movies are absolutely amazing so I love to see how they're doing some sound- and visual effects.

[gothnate]

Insider: Video about sound design and foley.
Also Insider: Proceeds to describe every sound instead of letting us hear it.

Sure. Let's just talk over everything you're describing...