Scare Chord

Stranded Visitor, to Scientist: How big do [the shrews] get?
[creepy music plays]
Tom Servo: "How big does that music make it sound?!"

—The Killer Shrews, as riffed on Mystery Science Theater 3000

An eerie shadow moves across the hallway behind a character, or maybe the Not Quite Dead villain's eyes suddenly snap open. Whatever the case, it's a quiet event that's supposed to be shocking, but if the visual cue doesn't spook the audience, then the obligatory Scare Chord will do the trick.

A cousin to the Sting, the scare chord is a sudden, sharp sforzando of noise (musically based or not) intended to make viewers jump clean out of their seats. The thing that separates it from a Cat Scare is the fact that nothing onscreen causes the noise; it's added into the soundtrack as a way to guarantee the desired reaction. They are often preceded by a deliberate lull in the action of a scene or the music of a soundtrack.

Oh yeah; most people absolutely hate them, especially when they show up unexpectedly outside a horror film and make most viewers want to shout back: "Dammit, movie; don't do that!"

(Music Theory Nerdiness: Actually, the reason these are so prone to becoming cliches is that the chord most frequently used in such a case - the diminished 7th - has only 3 different ways of playing it. If you play it on C, it sounds exactly the same as on E flat, F sharp and A. That's just how they work. So it's a very easily recognizable sound.)

Perhaps the most common accompaniment to a Jump Scare, even more than a loud scream nowadays.

Often part of the Screamer Trailer.

Compare and contrast Last-Note Nightmare.

Examples of Scare Chord include:

Advertisements

  • Played for Laughs in that series of "scary" Verizon ads (i.e., "Towels are kinda scratchy!").

Anime and Manga

  • Happens too many times to count in Psychological Horror like Elfen Lied, Monster, and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.
    • Not to mention the original Umineko no Naku Koro ni sound novels, where these techniques are used QUITE liberally.
    • Also noteworthy is that the original novels of the When They Cry novels has almost perfected the act of causing the same effect of the Scare Chord without using music at all just by suddenly shutting off all sounds. This effect is quite nervewracking since it can come out of nowhere and it is always a sign that something very bad will happen.
  • Lucky Star used a Scare Chord in only one episode, which nevertheless made it to the released soundtrack with a title of "Gyaaaaaaaaa".
  • One episode of Ghost Hunt had Mai psychically experiencing the kidnapping and murder of another character. She couldn't scream, so somebody's violin screamed for her, and very convincingly.
  • In the first Kara no Kyoukai: movie, the moment Shiki opens her Glowing Eyes of Doom and initiates a Curb Stomp Battle against a group of ghosts is accompanied by a Scare Chord, which quickly changes to Shiki's recurring theme.
  • In Axis Powers Hetalia, Russia's version of Maru Kaite Chikyuu has a well-placed scare cord, followed by,

"Maru Kaite Chikyuu!/Maru Kaite Chikyuu./...Maru Kaite Chikyuu..."

    • "Draw a circle, that's the Earth, looking closely... KOLKOLKOL"
With the third Marukaite Chikyuu being said in possibly the scariest tone known to man.

Comic Books

  • Klarion the Witch Boy briefly added one in his name ("Klarion... bum bum BUM... the Witch Boy!"), and insisted that others addressing him use it as well. Since they were basically saying "bum bum BUM" (presumably with tonal changes) it didn't really do much for him.

Films -- Animated

  • Strangely enough, used quite a bit in the soundtrack for How to Train Your Dragon. Be prepared to jump out of your seat a lot.
    • In an interesting twist, a scare chord is used to start off one of the score's most popular and heartwarming tracks.
  • Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit puts a Lampshade (... windowshade?) over his in a scene where thunder and lightning clashes whenever the characters say the word, "BULLET!" Annoyed, Lord Victor slams down the nearby windowshade, which stops the entire effect.
    • With the exception of A Grand Day Out, all of the shorts and The Movie have music in their title sequences which end on a Scare Chord.
  • Dinosaur: The scene where the head Velociraptor lunges at the camera.

Films -- Live-Action

  • Go ahead, pick any slasher movie. Psycho is probably the best-known example. Psycho‍'‍s particular scare chord even has its own trope.
  • One of the Scream movies had a subversion where a guy opens a door accompanied by a Scare Chord... and nothing happens. Then Ghostface comes out of nowhere and kills him with no warning
  • Jaws is the first film to prove that people can be scared of cellos. Duh-Dun...Duh-dun...Duh-dun...
  • Cult Classic The Day the Earth Stood Still had lots of these, although it sounded more like the piano was being dropped off a building.
  • The first Spider-Man movie had a scene where Norman Osborn has a quick, half-second flashback to his transformation into the Green Goblin, accompanied by a jarring and extremely loud scare chord.
  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street dropped a lot of the scare chords from the stage version, but left in the overpowering Scare Chord when the Beggar Woman is wandering in the shop - and Sweeney suddenly appears in the doorway, silhouetted.
    • Even louder, in the Final Sequence, when Sweeney killls the Judge.
  • John Carpenter's The Thing features an overpowering scare chord that sounds like a microphone held up to a speaker while being sucked into a black hole. It's VERY loud and jarring, the rest of the film is relatively quiet, and to top it all off, its used in one of the most mundane Jump Scare moments ever: a guy walks in front of Fuchs. Frightening.
  • Like everything else, taken completely unseriously by Monty Python, as in the Knights Who Say Ni scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

Knight Who Says Ni: We demand... a shrubbery!
(Cue a very loud, screeching chord.)

  • David Lynch loves these. See for example the first appearance of BOB in Twin Peaks, the hobo/monster behind the Winkie's dumpster in Mulholland Drive, or their extremely frequent use in Inland Empire.
    • The orchestral chaos noise that occasionally punctuates Wild at Heart (driving up to visit Isabella Rosselini?) is a Badalamenti version of this.
  • The M. Night Shyamalan films The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Village, and Lady in the Water are rife with these. I'm sensing a pattern.
  • Shortly after the car accident in The Orphanage.
  • The "Corpse Chords" that accompany a slam-cut glance at any of Samara's victims in the US remake of The Ring.
  • The remake of The Amityville Horror had so many of these that, if you replaced them with a bass drum, you could use the film's soundtrack as the beat to a piece of house/techno music.
  • Scare chords are used in Serenity, both during River's Stealth Hi Bye moment at the beginning and when the Reavers attack.
  • There are a whole bunch of these in Kubrick's The Shining.
  • Night of the Living Dead - the one that comes when the power goes out toward the end is the Scariest Chord of Them All.
  • Saw does this a lot. The first movie has an especially obnoxious one when Adam looks at the photo of Lawrence's family held hostage.
  • In The Exorcist III there is a long shot down a hall in an asylum. Nothing special is going on, the night guard is getting off his shift and a nurse is delivering medicine. As the nurse turns down a hall, the camera suddenly jumps to her end of the hall, and that is when somebody wrapped in white linen and wielding a large knife and a "scare chord symphony" comes from the other side of the hall with the blade raised high. After a mili-second of that, the scene finishs on a shot of a clean white headless Jesus statue.
  • Sure, it's a blatant ripoff of Carrie, and sure, probably everyone in the theater knows it's coming. But combined with some really excellent timing, the scare cord as the Inferi hand grab's Harry's in the Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince movie is going to make the entire theater jump a foot in the air.
    • It doesn't help that they draaaag the scene out, feinting at least three times, before it actually happens.
  • Every time James Bond hits the tarantula with his gun in Dr. No, there's a scare chord. The first time it just seems a little cheesy, but after that the scene starts to be funny.
  • Drag Me to Hell uses this to a ridiculous degree. Even a drifting handkerchief that suddenly lands on a car's windshield makes a VERY LOUD Scare Chord. The people in the last row of the theater probably died of laughter after seeing everyone jump out of their seats during the séance scene when a demon's head suddenly zooms at the audience SCREAMING with a fire background..
  • I Am Legend does a similar thing with SFX: Will Smith discussing Bob Marley. Then a nasty window-closing sound comes in, 1 to 3 seconds before the window is shown. And it's just before a tense sequence (his house being invaded).
  • Used frequently in Aliens, most effectively in the scene when Hicks pokes his head up into the ceiling, and sees several aliens crawling upside-down towards him.
  • Used at one point in Planet Terror, where it sounds like someone mashing low notes on an old synthesizer.
  • After a long uneasy build-up, John Williams utilizes one of these to underscore the first sight of one of the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
  • Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein has fun with this trope as a horror movie convention, using a horse's neigh as a scare chord every time the name "Frau Blucher" is mentioned. Finally the hunchbacked assistant (Marty Feldman) starts saying the name just to set off the horses.
  • The Howling plays with this as well; in one scene there's a tracking shot with a sudden Scare Chord - at which point nothing happens, and then a scene or two later a character searching a file cabinet in a darkened office has a monster stand up behind her in total silence - wonderfully jarring.
  • Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. After the children and parents board the Wonkatania, it is rowed along the chocolate river, and then goes through what seems to be a tunnel straight to hell, all the passengers are treated to extremely fast speeds, a range of horrific images, and then Willy Wonka reciting a poem that would make Edgar Allan Poe shit his pants. Cue the Scare Chord at the words: "Is the grizzly reaper mowing?". However, it is low-pitched, and drawn out.
  • The 2009 film adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. First time we see the portrait in all its ugliness, it's not really that bad... Until the thing gasps horrifically and some petrifying music makes you fall back from your chair. Damn.
  • The Joker's chord in The Dark Knight. Chilling and ratchets up the tension. About the only time two notes have been considered Oscar worthy.
  • Youth in Revolt. An organ chord plays when Trent pulls out the letter incriminating Nick, only for the camera to reveal that it was just Mrs. Saunders, high on mushrooms, exploring the organ.
  • In Inception, when Ariadne is looking into Cobb's dream and sees Mal in the hotel room. Mal suddenly looks up at her, and BAM! Out of your seat!
    • And of course, as made famous by the trailers, BWONG!!!
  • A scare chord accompanies some of would-be Presidential assassin Mitch Leary's appearances in In the Line of Fire.
  • A good example is in the first Terminator film, right after Kyle's Heroic Sacrifice, Blowing up the Terminator using the last pipe bomb. When Sarah goes over to Kyle's dead body you can see a large chunk of the Terminator move slightly, then WHAM! right as it sits up and starts to chase her once again, barely moving using its only other arm.
  • Used relatively frequently in Black Swan.
  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service features one right when Fräulein Bundt pops out from under the sheets after Bond thought he was sneaking up on Ruby Bartlett instead. Cue a Tap on the Head and the screen becoming blurry.
  • Batman gets a few when attacking the mooks on the dock in Batman Begins, followed by some serious Psycho Strings.
  • The Raptors in Jurassic Park have a lot.

Live-Action TV

  • Monty Python's Flying Circus:
    • Nobody expects the jarring chord of the Spanish Inquisition! Its chief weapon is surprise; surprise and loudness!... Loudness and surprise, two weapons; its two weapons are loudness, and surprise, and its shock value... Its three weapons, are loudness, and surprise, and shock value, and being a Subverted Trope due to the harmlessness of the inquisition... Damn. Amongst its weapons... It's not very scary any more, is it?
    • Also used, or abused, in the "Science Fiction Sketch", following such lines as, "He was not so much a man... as a blancmange!"
  • Lost uses this from time to time, although the preceding (both short-term and long-term!) suspense is more unbearable, naturally. One example is in the season 4 premier episode "The Beginning of the End", while Hurley is peeping into a cabin window: an EYE closeup abruptly comes into view.
  • Parodied in an episode of Family Matters where Carl had a dream in the style of an old Western movie. After each Scare Chord, everybody in the saloon looked around to try and find where the chord came from.

Steve Urkel: Let's form a posse and track down that dang orchestra!

  • Also parodied in an episode of Roseanne where the Connors were dealing with taxes and the IRS. A Scare Chord sounded every time someone said the word "audit", prompting everyone to look for the source of the chord.

Roseanne: "I think we need to get out of this house!"

  • In the Star Trek original series episode "Court Martial", the prosecuting attorney badgers McCoy into admitting, "Yes, it's possible"—whereupon we get one of the series's trademark overly-dramatic musical stings.
  • Sonny With a Chance uses the scare chord twice in one episode. The first time, it was Zora playing it on a violin to scare Tawni and Sonny. The second time it happens, Sonny tells Zora to stop it, only to reveal that it wasn't Zora. Tawni and Sonny look around the room in confusion and fright.
  • The dramatic "chunk-chunk" noise in Law and Order and its spinoffs. Parodied by Sesame Street.
  • Doctor Who - Blink
  • Used pretty effectively and often enough on Fringe.
  • The Paramount "closet killer" Vanity Plate features, as its nickname suggests, a trumpet scare chord sounding like something out of a Slasher Movie.
  • Often parodied in Blackadder. For example in season 3 episode "Nob & Nobility", where the guest star expects to find a party, but instead stumbles on an empty dungeon. "Don't worry! In a minute we will hear the sound of music and happy laughter!" Cue Scare Chord and Evil Laugh.
  • Captain Scarlet uses this every week in the opening where Captain Black appears, and often repeats at various intervals in the story to denote the appearance of a Mysteron agent.
  • Parodied in the slasher movie-themed episode of Boy Meets World. Everytime one of the characters makes a dramatic and scary statement Eric goes "Duh! Duh! Duh!" in imitation of a scare chord. The other characters get annoyed after he does this several times and they get him to stop.

Music

  • Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 94, nicknamed the "Surprise Symphony", features an unexpected fortissimo chord in the middle of the quiet second movement.
  • The "Firebird Suite" also does a pretty impressive leap in volume when transitioning to the main portion of the piece.
    • Fantasia 2000 uses it very appropriately for an Eye Awaken moment. The two combined are nearly enough to give the viewer a heart attack.
    • That's hardly scary compared to some passages the suites don't use, such as "Magic Carillon" and "Kastchei's Death."
  • The Beatles used this several times:
    • The opening chord to the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" can be shocking to those who aren't expecting it.
      • Cirque du Soleil's LOVE takes full advantage of this in its opening sequence, thanks to Sir George and Giles Martin's clever remixing: after the opening procession set to "Because", the famous last chord of "A Day in the Life" is played backwards, which means it gets louder and louder (and the theatre gets darker), and then...BAM. All they need is that chord, and then it's off to "Get Back"...
    • The Beatles' album Abbey Road "finishes" with the gentle fade-out of strings that concludes the song "The End". Approximately fourteen seconds later, the short hidden track "Her Majesty" jumps in with a loud chord (originally the final note of "Mean Mr Mustard") which is out of place with the rest of the song.
    • Also on Abbey Road, the song "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" concludes with the precise opposite of a scare chord - an abrupt silence in the middle of a bar, after a long period of hypnotic repetition. The sudden absence of sound is just as startling.
    • Then there's the gibberish chopped-up/reversed speech of the Sergeant Pepper inner groove...
  • The video "Sweetness" by Fischerspooner adds several random scare chords that weren't in the original song. And I mean random.
  • Halloween by Aqua, since the song is sort of a homage to old horror films.
  • You Don't Love Me Anymore, by Weird Al, does a variant of this. After the song, the track continues for a good ten minutes, silently, until a sudden 30-second burst of screaming and what sounds like a chainsaw. Apparently this was supposed to scare people that left the CD playing.
    • It's also a parody of some similar randomness from Nirvana's Nevermind album, "Endless, Nameless".
  • Scissor Sisters' first album contains an unnamed track between the CD bonus tracks, which encourages the listener to either start the album from the beginning, or to keep the disc playing after a (fairly creepy) soundclip of people screaming to hear the bonus content.
  • Julee Cruise's "Into The Night" is a languidly paced haunting ballad (as used to eerie effect in Twin Peaks) - then about 3 and a half minutes in, there's a slowly rising backwards cymbal, followed by 5 rapidly played ominous notes that are much louder and more high pitched than the rest of the song. Not quite a Last-Note Nightmare though, as the song then goes on for another minute or so as though nothing ever happened.
  • The ending of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (the original 1973 mix or the 2009 5.1 remix, but not the 1976 remix on Boxed) does this; the "caveman" passage segues into a very quiet and soothing guitar/organ segment and then suddenly, without warning, the Sailors' Hornpipe drastically ups both the tempo and the volume.
    • The point thirteen and a half minutes into Part 1, where a long, mellow Hawaiian-guitar-like sequence is interrupted by a horrible, raspy guitar. And, of course, the sinister voice of Vivian Stanshall appearing out of nowhere to speak the words "Grand piano" after 20 minutes of pure instrumental.
    • Oldfield's later work Amarok is absolutely full of these, including a section where some light African chanting is punctuated by scare chord stabs and a sampled voice saying "Happy?" in increasingly processed and chopped-up ways. Supposedly, his falling out with Virgin Records prompted him to produce an album that Virgin couldn't possibly lift a 3-minute single from, as every theme in the piece would inevitably move on faster than this, or be subjected to these bizarre interruptions.
  • The Doors' 18 minute odyssey Celebration of the Lizard has Jim yell "WAKE UP!!!" after a few silent seconds somewhere in the second or third minute.
    • Can also apply to the beginning of "The Soft Parade" if you're not familiar with the song... YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER!!
  • The Moody Blues' "Nights in White Satin" does this with a gong at the end.
  • There's a pretty dissonant scare chord at the beginning of Depeche Mode's "Love In Itself."
  • Pink Floyd's "Sysyphus", from their album Ummagumma; eerily calm ambient music, accompanied by the sound of a babbling brook, then suddenly DUNNNNNNNNN!!! Then back to ambience, as you go change your underwear.
  • Coheed and Cambria pull this one a number of times throughout their albums, most notably at the end "Three Evils (Embodied in Love and Shadow)"—the sound of rain and a vaguely creepy piano are punctuated by sobbing and an absolutely terrifying scream.
  • The beginning synth-organ chord to Def Leppard's "Rock! Rock! Till You Drop", from Pyromania, can be startling.
  • Paul Hardcastle's "19" used this a lot.
  • "Sensual Impressions" by the German group Joy Unlimited is basically an extended flute solo with pianissimo organ/cymbal backing, save for two instances of fortissimo "scare chords" which are TERRIFYING when listening to the piece for the first time.
  • The freaky synth-squawk at the end of Todd Rundgren's "Golden Goose" probably applies here, too.
  • The post-drum duet jam from The Grateful Dead's The Closing of Winterland concert has a Scare Thunderclap, which is very jarring if the sound is turned up.
  • Who could forget Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima? The entire song is a scare chord mashup, and parts of it were even used in one of The Shining movies. Most of Penderecki's other early symphonic works are similarly atonal and scary.
  • Elbow does this with a blast of trumpets and percussion that repeats several times in "Starlings", an otherwise quiet song. It's more of an awestruck sens of surprise than a scare, though.
  • The last chord of Mahler's Das Klagende Lied, which thus doubles as a Last-Note Nightmare. Mahler must have liked the effect, because he did it again in his sixth symphony.
  • In Mahler's 2nd Symphony, the opening chord of the last (5th) movement. Nicknamed the "Resurrection" Symphony, the work was intended by Mahler to initially portray states of despair and happiness here on earth, followed, in the last movement, by a portrayal of the resurrection into the afterlife. The 4th movement illustrates the longing for relief from earthly woes, and ends quietly. This mood is rudely interrupted by a shrieking, dissonant chord in the whole orchestra at the very opening of the last movement. This has sometimes been described (including by its composer) as portraying the state of the damned after death, although, as the symphony progresses towards its triumphant ending, this portrayal of the damned is shown to have apparently been only an illusion believed in by people while still on earth. All ends in peace and love, and all humanity is included in that.
  • Venetian Snares' "Szamár Madár" has quite the horrifying number of scare chords at the beginning of their piece. This troper guarantees you'll jump at least once if you listen to it in a dark room in complete silence. Can be found HERE
  • The climax of Fantômas' 'Delìrium Còrdia'... for a whole minute.
  • Waking The Witch by Kate Bush does this. It starts off with around 80 seconds of quiet, relaxing piano music and ambient noise, with lots of reassuring voices urging the listener to wake up. Except for the last, who exclaims "look who's here to see you!". It's never explained what it is that's paying a visit, but it most certainly sounds terrifying. Then, after you've gotten over the initial shock of the music crashing in, a terrifying demonic voice shouts at you, just to make sure you've completely evacuated your bowels.
    • For whatever reason, the CD mix sucks a lot of the life from the song, merely making it sound a bit strange. While it's still shocking and unexpected, to really get the full effect you have to listen to the mix on the original vinyl run.
  • Black Sabbath do a rather impressive one on their self-titled song off their self-titled album. After a 1-minute jam session, the song ends. No less than 3 seconds, you're treated to a sudden blast of sound. Shouldn't be surprising considering it's the first "official" Heavy Metal album.
  • There's a really effective one at the end of Alice Cooper's Dada album. It seems like a regular ol' fadeout and when the song is almost gone.. BOOM. Got me more than once.

Radio

Theatre

  • In the final minute of The Consul, Magda is rudely awakened from her Dying Dream by the telephone ringing, and each ring is followed by a dissonant slam (though only loud in comparison to the preceding diminuendo).
  • The Phantom of the Opera employs this tactic frequently, with its famous organ riff.
  • Being modelled after the thriller scores of Bernard Herrmann, the score to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street features quite a few scare chords, a particularly notable example being the release of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" (the "Swing your razor wide ..." section).
    • Also notable are the ear-piercing factory whistles used to punctuate various dramatic moments.
    • Stephen Sondheim was conscious of this trope, and wrote what amounted to miniature scare chords into the Overture and main theme of the score. They were tiny crescendos every two measures. The audience automatically expected something to happen during these crescendos, and the fact that nothing happened added to the suspense already present.

Video Games

  • Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors loves doing this. Mercifully, the scariest moments are usually not accompanied by these.
  • Victoria: An Empire Under The Sun just knows how to play this trope. The distinctive sound that comes with a declaration of war is by far the loudest and terrifying one. It doesn't help either when the full message reads "Sir, the rotten swines in GERMANY have declared WAR upon US".
  • Let's get this out of the way first: FINISH HIM! DAH-DAH-DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! (Or "DU-DU-DUNNNNNNN!" post-UMK3)
  • The original Alone in the Dark trilogy used a classic string tritone hit to good effect.
  • Tomb Raider III makes frequent use of these, and they're extremely effective. At some points, such as in the Expansion Pack, Tomb Raider: The Lost Artifact, it uses the scare chord for no reason at all. Damnit!
  • Illbleed had every single trap, even the deactivated ones, prefaced by a classic scare chord. The upside to this is that people who've played this game tend not to jump nearly as high whenever a movie tries to pull one on them.
    • * Violin screech* (+ 30 Adreneline) "Cool!"
  • Being spotted in the Metal Gear Solid games results in an iconic sound best described as '!'.
  • Likewise, being seen in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell also triggers a sudden Scare Chord. The first level from the first game, for example, uses a strong, sudden piano note.
  • Resident Evil 3 first signals the approach of the Implacable Man Nemesis with a piece composed of low tritone string chords, then when he enters the room, the music elevates to a scare chord crescendo. Horror, along with his demonic growl of "STARS", which you sometimes hear before he enters.
  • Resident Evil 2 had at least two scare themes in the various scenes where zombies broke in through the windows or doors. There was also a big choral scare chord played at the beginning of the Final Boss battle of each scenario, especially disturbing with the One-Winged Angel forms William has taken on.
    • Another scare chord was played during the appearances of Mr. X in the second scenario.
    • A secondary character hands the player a key before locking himself into another room. Finding a way into that other room triggers a Cutscene with the above-mentioned scare theme playing as he slowly transforms into a zombie.
  • Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Carbon play a Scare Chord to a camera pan every time you're spotted by a squad car.
    • Sort of happens in NFS II and III with the Variable Mix music when crashing your car before resuming the previous section of music it was playing.
  • Heavy Rain: A symphony of high instruments play at some points when Norman starts to suffer from the effects of Triptocaine. It's also included in Norman Jayden's main theme.
  • Gears of War does this in the PC version when a wretch runs past a door, and it's a very loud one too.
    • The Xbox 360 version does this, too. Several times. Whether it's finding people on meat hooks in the prison, seeing a wretch, or kicking open a door only to have a handful of krill escape into the night, they really like to use this...
  • Silent Hill 1 has a Scare Leitmotif, heard in the first encounter with an Air Screamer and in the scene where you have to save Dr. Kauffman from a Romper.
  • X-COM: Terror From The Deep had quiet, eerie tension music that suited its deepsea enviroment, until DAH!DAH! Agh! [Panicked search for aliens who are still hidden.] These scares had nothing to do with events; they just jerked you out of your seat.
  • The first time you get a good, up close look at a Hunter in Half Life 2: Episode 2 you know, where you turn around AND IT'S WATCHING YOU THROUGH THE WINDOW NEXT TO YOU! a scare chord goes off. It's actually the Hunter bellowing a war-cry of sorts, but it's to the same effect. To make things worse, it then guts the Love Interest in front of you and buries you under rubble. Hunters = best enemy ever.
    • In Episode One, in the first of the tunnel sections with several Zombines with them, a loud, grating chord is played which sounds just like distorted Combine "death beeps"... it's actually a context-activated piece of music, like all the others in Half Life 2, but just as effective.
      • And in the original Half Life 2, after the beach section of Sandtraps, there's a nice Scare Chord when the Antlion Guard rises from the sand right in your face.
      • Exact same thing happens when you down the hunter chopper at the end of Water Hazard.
  • Monster Hunter plays a scare chord whenever you are spotted by a large monster, or if you dropped an egg or a valuable rock.
  • Star Trek: Elite Force 2 is riddled with these, every time an enemy comes at you, or you die by, well, anything.
  • The song "Devils, Monsters" from the Halo: Combat Evolved soundtrack, aka the Flood theme, seems to be made up entirely of scare chords.
    • Two more scarechord and Psycho Strings based pieces, also associated with terror or the Flood are "Shadows" (prominently heard at the beginning of Two Betrayals when Cortana tells MC about what Halo really does) and "Ancient Machine".
    • Then there's that sound that sounds like a rusty metal trapdoor that appears in several soundtrack pieces, eg "Shudder" and "Guilt and Punishment".
    • During the Cutscene right before encountering the Flood, a scare chord is played when MC opens the door and a Peek-a-Boo Corpse falls out. It is heard on the OST in "Lament for Pvt. Jenkins". The same chord plays if Capt. Keyes is killed during his Escort Mission.
    • After an ominous choral and Psycho Strings build-up, a scare chord plays when the Arbiter kills Truth.
  • Several tracks from the EverQuest II sountrack, such as Nektulos Forest, seem almost entirely composed of scare chords or rapid string notes. A scare chord which signaled a player character had broken from combat and is attempting to flee has been removed.
  • So you're playing BioShock (series), and you've just beaten the second boss. The game has changed level, and you're happily walking down a narrow pathway with no enemies in sight. With no warning whatsoever, you have a very sudden vision of three pictures with a Scare Chord (in this case a scream) along with it. Managed not to jump up and yelp like a little girl? No? You're not alone.
  • F.E.A.R. makes heavy use of the Scare Chord in conjunction with sudden appearances by Alma or Replica attacks. Or sometimes just for false scares.
    • On the level with the automated gun turrets, a certain scare chord plays when a turret activates.
    • Players of the series have also noticed the major flaw in a Scare Chord. In the first (and scariest) game, the chord was a subtle, creepy little ringing sound. Later games had much sharper, louder scare chords... which often did more to ruin the suspenseful atmosphere than make anything scary.
  • Whenever Zant in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess appears, a Scare Chord that sounds a bit like an unearthly scream plays.
    • How can you mention Zelda without mentioning the ReDead? You're wandering around in a dark temple, or below a scary well or tomb, minding your own innocent business...then suddenly, a terrifying mutilated scream sounds and before you can even spin around to see the source, BOOM, you're frozen in the paralyzing fear as the ReDead shambles toward you...
  • In Resident Evil 4, in the kitchen section of the last chapter, the music is silent for several seconds before a disquieting piano chord.
  • The NES adaptation of Friday The 13th plays a scare chord whenever Jason appears, or when he kills one of the children.
    • The Commodore 64 game is even worse, with the scare chord being a blood-curdling scream combined with a scary image, such as an axe in someone's head. These come up whenever someone is killed. It doesn't help that the music playing the rest of the time is calming nursery rhyme music.
  • Dead Space practically runs off this trope. It's both used straight and played with - At times, you'll hear what sounds like a scare chord, bring up your weapon and frantically look around the room for something to shoot, only to find that the noise was made by something completely harmless, like a sprinkler system starting up. Other times, you hear one right before you get your head clawed off, so... Yeah.
  • The SA-X from Metroid Fusion. Especially that first scene. Or anytime the SA-X shows up. Scare Footsteps, more like.
  • One of these, appropriately titled "Shock", shows up in Super Mario RPG, when Mallow finds out he isn't a tadpole.
  • At times in Condemned 2: Bloodshot, fights will be accompanied by a scare chord every time you or an enemy takes a hit or blocks, along with a long violin screech when an enemy dies. This happens only in certain fights, but the enemies are not at all different from the others.
  • Oregon Trail II. DUN DUN!!!!
    • There's another one besides the infamous DUN DUN, the odd horn whenever a nastier thing such as cholera or an infection occurs.
    • A later version had different banjo riffs associated with different events. The one for your axle breaking sounded like someone had ripped the strings right off the banjo.
  • Left 4 Dead is chockful of musical cues, some subtle and some not, depending on what enemies are nearby or attacking your friends. Or you.
  • La-Mulana plays one if you trigger a trap. Also, the Wiiware version of "Wonder of the Wonder" starts with a shriek.
  • Mewtwo and Arceus both have pretty unnerving cries in the otherwise (fairly) innocent Pokémon games. Arceus compounds this by having a musical theme consisting almost entirely of drums and shrill trumpets.
  • Resistance sometimes does this in the middle of perfectly peaceful places, just to keep you on your toes.
  • Clock Tower: The First Fear does this every time Bobby attacks, as well as a few other scenes. It's especially effective because there is (typically) NO music when he isn't there.
  • The scraping, shrieking noise that Husk spikes make in Mass Effect. Worse, the newly spawned Husk will usually charge straight at you, gibbering and screaming the whole way.
  • When Kazuya Mishima is holding his grandfather, reminiscing about the old times when he used to train with him, it seems like a sweet scene. The musical cue that accompanies his evil smile and glowing red eye just before he kills Jinpachi is the classic stinger chord and interrupts this out of nowhere. The way the scene is set up lends itself to this, as when Kazuya picks up Jinpachi, he's facing the right side, thus his left eye (the one that glows) is unseen. When he smirks, the viewer is given an full-on headshot, and then as he looks over his shoulder afterward, his evil eye is the only one visible.
  • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind does this to a lesser extent, the ambient background music will change from "exploration" themes to a random "battle" theme once the wandering player is attacked. The exploration themes are typically quite and soothing while various battle themes will start with a loud drumbeat or trumpet blast. This can be quite surprising and startling when the player is already fairly tense, or concentrated on something else.
  • In the horror The Suffering, in addition to scripted scares, you get sudden, short and completely random flashes of scary images accompanied by a high-pitched scare chord. It happens frequently in the later parts of the game. The result is that you are afraid even if you are backtracking or just standing on a spot with your character.
  • Turok 2: The Mantid Hive music has a lot of scare chords in it.
  • The original sound novels of Umineko no Naku Koro ni use these occasionally, and get some bonus points for actually making the damn things scary rather than just startling.
    • Higurashi no Naku Koro ni does this even better. Especially when a sentence stops midway for a second, and when the shocking part is said, SCARE CHORD! If the text itself isn't enough to make you go 'oh shit', then the scare chord is the push that WILL make you go 'oh shit!'
  • The Sims has a Scare Chord whenever something bad shows up, usually a robber but also for things like a raccoon showing up.
    • Even worse is when the sound appears to play for no apparent reason. No raccoon, no burglar, nothing. You frantically pan around a darkened house where everyone is asleep, and nothing is out of place. Much worse.
      • That's usually because your fish are dead. Still...
        • Or a burglar / raccoon / etc. walks onto your lot and leaves in less than a second.
          • Or you find a bear tiptoeing in to steal your honey.
  • Fatal Frame is full of these. From the sounds of doors opening, to tinkling bells, to a koto string snapping as you approach a previously locked door.
    • Fatal Frame is an example of the scare chord done right: very loud and dramatic chords are extremely rare; most of them are minor background noise. This makes the games a lot scarier, as it alerts the player that something is happening, but doesn't break the suspense.
  • In the Edutainment game Dr. Healthenstein's Body Fun, there are three two instances where the character you play will visit the Imp's cave. He represents all the bad habits one can have as far as drug use (smoking, drinking and dope), and to avoid having your character lose points on their health scale you have to answer a question that is usually about "what do you do if so-and-so happens", where only the best answer counts. Get a question right and you get a soft "ta-daaa!" sound while your character avoids actually doing whatever bad habit was thrown at you. Get it wrong, and you not only hear the loud sound of someone slamming two handfuls of keys on an organ blaring in your ears, but it's also followed by the creepiest gif image of the imp overlapping the number choice you picked popping up suddenly that will give ten year olds a good freak-out, which is exactly the age group the game was aimed for. Since the game is aimed for kids, the questions are fairly easy and older players or ones equally good at knowing what kids are expected to do in these scenarios can very well go through the game without ever hearing the dreaded organs. However, there is one particular question where your answer may be right to you but wrong to the game. Hmm... So my parents might be getting a divorce. Should I try to see how I can solve this the calmest way possible or just sit it out, "accept" the problem and act as if it is never there or it will never change no matter what I do? According to the game, you have to accept it and do nothing.
  • The original Police Quest had a "dun dun da dun" stinger when something bad was about to happen, which would sometimes mean Sonny being killed ("bang bang", :dies:). Open Season played a Psycho Strings and piano scare chord when you found the dead body in the dumpster, and for other disturbing scenes (eg, the severed head in the refrigerator).
  • A scare chord begins to play whenever you trick-or-treat at a house in Costume Quest. It ends either happily or frighteningly, depending on whether an adult or a monster opens the door.
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door had this, accompanied with camera zoom abuse, on a couple occasions, including when you first see Flurrie in a cutscene and she flips out at being unable to find her necklace and when you first meet Ghost T. and he asks for your soul. He's just kidding, though.
  • In BlazBlue, Arakune's theme starts off with one... and then segues into an awesome rock theme. It's a Daisuke Ishiwatari composition: it's to be expected.
  • The old DOS shooter Corridor 7: Alien Invasion would play a strange noise when it decided that it wanted to pop a giant red skull in front of you for no reason other than that you were lost and trying to find the elevator. Needless to say it hascaused a number of players to soil themselves the first time it happened.
  • Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2. had the dimensional scream. The first you get it, you hear a high-pitch noise as you pass out. If that wasn't scary enough, the 'H-H-Help!' that accompanied it made it so.
  • Assassin's Creed: Revelations has a scare chord play during a Templar stalker attack. Foreshadowed only by creepy whispers, the scare chord coupled with a completely random attack by what you thought was an ordinary citizen makes a stalker attack absolutely terrifying.
  • Amnesia: The Dark Descent plays a very grating variety of scare chord when Daniel spots an enemy.

Web Comics

Web Originals

Western Animation

  • Probably the most famous scare chord in Western cartoon history isn't even 20 years old! Dick Walter composed a 6-second-long, three-note jingle for The Ren and Stimpy Show and it's been used EVERYWHERE.
  • Every single time the camera focuses on Azula's face in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Though instead of the standard blaring piano keys, she gets a distinct bell-like sound that is a lot quieter and means she's up to something sneaky.
    • The music playing when Ozai fought is basically one long series of Scare Chords.
  • The Strong Bad Email "narrator" features a Scare Chord when the dead goose jumps out of the dryer at Strong Sad.
  • It's Gutsman! Dun-Duhn!
  • The famous "West" episode of Flap Jack features an ominous noise whenever the word "West" is spoken.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants does this all the time, often accompanied by a Gross Up Close-Up.
  • Animaniacs often parodies this, after a Scare Chord it is usually revealed, that one from the trio plays it on a piano or even church organ.
  • A subtle, but very disturbing, one happens in Adventure Time, in the episode "Holly Jolly Secrets Part II. When we first see Simon Petrikov], the music is soft, but it's obvious there's tension brewing. When he opens the cabinet to reveal the the Ice King's crown, there's a quick crescendo on a rather unsettling chord, and it quickly dies down, as Simon narrates his tale. That subtle scare chord as we see the Ice King's crown is one of the most unsettling scare chords this troper has ever heard.
  • Even Beavis and Butthead got in on the act. During one music video, Beavis complained that he had a nightmare where everything sucked, to which Butthead replied "But Beavis, everything DOES suck!" Cue the "Duhn duhn DUUUN!" while Beavis flipped out. This repeated for the rest of the segment whenever someone said that something sucked.
    • And in the episode where Beavis was watching a show of a woman with morning sickness, and thought his nacho-induced stomachache was the onset of pregnancy. Every time someone mentioned pregnancy, it would play a Scare Chord, followed by Beavis's trademark "Ngyaaaah!".
  • King of the Hill invoked this in one episode when Dale bought a keyboard to mess around with while everyone hangs out and chats in the alley.
  • Happens towards the end of Ice Age 3. The main characters have succeeded in rescuing Sid and are heading towards the exit of the lost world. However, once they reach the tunnel, the previously cheery music turns downright unsettling and Rudy emerges from the cave.
  • Parodied in The Emperor's New School, where whenever the words "Condor Patch" are uttered, ominous music will play. Cue Kuzco saying it over and over

Other

  • The Doctor Who audio adventure Dead Air does this several times. It's written like a recording rescued from a sunken ship, complete with out of tune, too-slow voices and frequent staccato bursts of sound and creepy record screechings.
  • The Sosumi ("so sue me") beep sound on Macintosh computers is a tritone piano chord. Also the Chimes of Death on older Macs.
  • As if the scary mask isn't enough, the first Vanity Plate of the Russian TV company VID had five scare chords to go along with.
    This article is issued from Allthetropes. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.