Top 10 Best Uses of Diegetic Music in Modern Horror

The horror genre is a fertile ground for diegetic scores—tunes actually playing in-universe—which frequently serve to build dramatic tension, but can evoke a wide variety of emotions. These songs include bona fide classics, novelties, annoyingly catchy guilty pleasures, and straight-up auditory hell. All of the following examples manage to enhance the works featuring them.

I’ve done my best to include clips of scenes when possible, but studios can be extremely stingy with copyrighted music, and a few examples only seem to exist online in crappy edits. If an entry is missing a video of a moment you really want to see, I highly encourage you to check out the movie or show for yourself.

By no means have I seen all horror media from this millennium. If you can think of any glaring omissions, feel free to leave them in the comments!

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