This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. Horror movies are a tennis match between the haunting absence of sound and ...

You know the sound: It's eerie and echoing, and it makes the little hairs on your arms stand up immediately. So many horror movies use it to create a chilling atmosphere, and even some reality shows ...

I was recently watching a scene from the 2025 film Weapons for a monograph I’m writing and noticed a familiar sound: a low, unsettling drone as a character walks down a hallway. It’s the same kind of ...

If you want to know what it sounds like to root around in someone’s chest cavity without the bloody mess, a grapefruit will do just fine. Tear, compress, and squish it in your hands. With a little ...

Not long ago, Fred Armisen was reminiscing about the sound-effect LPs he used to stock at the Chicago record store where he worked in the Nineties. These vinyl platters contained all kinds of sounds, ...

The iconic shower scene in Psycho was originally supposed to play out without music. Instead composer Bernard Herrmann created “The Murder”: as the killing transpires, violins shriek and scream along ...

An aural history of scary movies, and the Foley art and design that make them great. By Jordan Crucchiola vulture animal bureau Fear the Chamois It’s arguably the most versatile object in the Foley ...

Do you have more splintering? IS there anything like ‘straining at the door panel?'” asks Lawrence Kasdan. His sound designer, Bob Grieve, suggests that the music is too loud; the audience won’t catch ...