Much like the rock and roll genre does for music, the horror genre has pushed the envelope and challenged movie audiences for decades. Since horror and rock are tuned to the same wavelength, it’s no surprise that many great songs were inspired by scary movies.

Rock music is generally all about having a good time, but there is a darker side to it, and there is no better place to draw inspiration than from a creepy or violent horror flick. Good movies, like good songs, are an expression of pain, suffering, and anger. There have been some awesome songs that were written for horror movie soundtracks, but even better ones that pay homage to terrifying cinema.

10 Eminem Gave A New Take On The Silence Of The Lambs

Buffalo Bill is one of the most terrifying serial killers in the history of film, but because he is upstaged in The Silence of the Lambs by its iconic villain, Hannibal Lecter, many people forget that he’s the actual antagonist of the film. As a composite of real life serial killers like Ed Gein and Ted Bundy, Buffalo Bill provides some of the creepiest and scariest moments in the 1991 psychological horror, as well as some memorable quotes.

Almost 20 years after the release of The Silence of the Lambs, Eminem paid tribute to the film with a song aptly titled “Buffalo Bill.” It would make sense for the track to have been from his Music to Be Murdered By album, but it was actually some bonus material on his 2009 triple-platinum disc, Relapse. The lyrics to the song are a graphic nod to the fictional serial killer with a shout-out to “the lotion in the basket.”

9 Ramones Don’t Wanna Be Freaks No More

The uninitiated may think the Ramones’ song “Pinhead” is about the villain of Hellraiser, but the track was released 10 years before the legendary Clive Barker horror movie. Instead, the Ramones took inspiration from Tod Browning’s 1932 horror, Freaks, which is one of the most unsettling films ever made.

In Freaks, a traveling carnival side-show accepts a “Normie” into their ranks by chanting, “We accept her, one of us. Gobble-gobble, gobble-gobble.” In a similar vein, the Ramones’ “Pinhead” begins with the chant, “Gabba-gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us” and ends with “Gabba-gabba-hey!” — a phrase that became a rallying cry during their live performances.

8 Iron Maiden Pays Respect To Murders in the Rue Morgue

Murders in the Rue Morgue, released in 1932, is a tragically underrated classic Bela Legosi horror film. Based on the Edgar Allen Poe short story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, it’s a chilling tale of a mad scientist and his killer ape, (although in the Poe version, it was an orangutan). Upon its initial release, the movie was savaged by critics, whose main complaint was that was too terrifying to watch.

Heavy metal architects, Iron Maiden, have often drawn from the dark side of cinema for their music. On their second studio album, Killers, the last to feature original singer Paul Di’Anno, they unleashed a soaring metallic opus, “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” dedicated to the film. With a twin-guitar attack and frenetic tempo changes, it’s one of the best songs on an LP that comes off like a “Greatest Hits” record.

7 The Misfits Reinvent The Night of the Living Dead

The New Jersey punk rock band, Misfits, is known for its unique mix of raucous, sing-a-long tunes and dark, violent lyrics. There is a long list of the Misfits’ horror movie-inspired songs; however, the perfect mix of a great flick and a killer jam is found with “Night of the Living Dead”, originally released as a single in 1979 and later included on the 1982 album Walk Among Us.

The song is, of course, a tribute to George A. Romero’s ground-breaking 1968 horror movie, Night of the Living Dead. Much like how the Misfits evolved punk, the low-budget film forever changed horror and introduced the zombie sub-genre. The movie is creepy with more than enough terror, while the Misfits’ song has a rousing, upbeat feel to it, despite being about flesh-eating undead monsters.

6 The Stormtroopers of Death Have A Nightmare on Elm Street

Released in 1984, A Nightmare on Elm Street may not have been the first slasher film, but its success kicked the 80s horror-movie craze into high gear. On top of being an original, genuinely scary story, the movie’s antagonist, Freddy Krueger, became the first superstar killer. Unlike Leatherface, Michael Myers, and Jason Voorhees before him, Freddy could speak and had a wicked (but magnetic) personality, allowing him to launch a merchandising empire.

Stormtroopers of Death (S.O.D.) was an underground supergroup, comprised of band members from Anthrax, Nuclear Assault, and Psycho. They, too, found the killer with the bladed glove to be a source of inspiration and immortalized him on their debut album, Speak English or Die, with the track “Freddy Krueger.” The song fused hardcore punk with thrash metal and is a moshable recap of the movie.

5 Bauhaus Lament Dracula’s Demise

Count Dracula first hit the big screen as Count Orlok in the unauthorized 1922 film Nosferatu, but in 1931, a licensed version of Bram Stoker’s infamous vampire was released as simply Dracula. The film kicked off the Universal Monsters era and established horror movies as a viable genre. It also made a star out of Bela Lugosi, who would go on to have a prolific horror movie career.

British gloomsters, Bauhaus, started their musical career with the 1979 single “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” effectively forming the death rock genre, which would later be known as goth. Though the song’s title refers to the actor, the song’s lyrics are clearly about his most famous character, with references to black capes, bats, and “the Count.” Clocking in at almost 10 minutes, the track is a sprawling landscape of despair that has a surprisingly decent hook.

4 Talking Heads Talk About Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho

“Psycho Killer,” released on art rock/new wave band Talking Heads’ debut album, Talking Heads: 77, was released around the same time the Son of Sam Killings were taking place in New York and is thought to be related. In actuality, the song is about the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho, sung from the perspective of the killer. The song’s French refrain is basically a confession of achieving glory through murder, but despite its grim premise, “Psycho Killer” charted on the Billboard 100, hitting #92.

The Talking Heads are considered one of the most consequential alternative bands ever formed and the source material for their first hit is one of the most important horror movies ever made. Released in 1960, Psycho is regarded as the first slasher movie and shocked audiences with its violent brutality, though it was artfully filmed with minimal blood and no gore. Every crazed movie killer with an edged weapon owes its existence to Norman Bates and his overbearing dead mother.

3 The Edgar Winter Group Drop A Monster Frankenstein Track

The opening riff to “Frankenstein” by the Edgar Winter Group is one of the heaviest licks in all of 1970s hard rock. Released on the band’s 1972 album They Only Come Out at Night, the song went all the way to number one and sold over a million copies. Though it is an instrumental, it is most certainly related to the movie of the same name as it was extensively spliced together in the studio, as well as being a mishmash of genres like rock, funk, and jazz.

Mary Shelley’s classic gothic novel’s full title is Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, after the Greek God of Fire. In mythology, Prometheus is credited with both creating man from clay and giving the gift of scientific knowledge to humans. In the 1939 film adaptation of Frankenstein, the character of Victor Frankenstein creates a sapient creature, played brilliantly by Borris Karloff, of various body parts, bringing it to life with science and electricity.

2 Blue Öyster Cult Go Go Goes Godzilla

When a giant dinosaur-like creature surfaced in Tokyo Bay to stomp the city in the 1954 movie Godzilla, an icon that would launch the longest-running horror movie franchise was born. After starting out life as a villain, Godzilla was so beloved that he eventually became a benevolent force, protecting humanity from a variety of monstrous and extraterrestrial threats.

Hard rockers, Blue Öyster Cult honored everyone’s favorite monster with the track “Godzilla” on their 1977 album Spectres. A superior version of the song appears on the live album Extraterrestrial Live, with a great intro of the Godzilla story and some monstrous sound effects. The band’s live show used to feature an enormous Godzilla stage prop with simulated atomic breath. As killer of a song as it is, it’s only been used in one Godzilla movie during the ending credits of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019).

1 Black Sabbath Was Inspired By Black Sabbath

The opening tri-tone riff of Black Sabbath’s self-titled 1969 debut album marks the beginning of the heavy metal genre, but it almost never was. The band was originally named the Polka Tulk Blues Band (one of the least metal band names ever) before changing their name to Earth — another moniker that doesn’t exactly conjure up the thoughts of darkness and doom they would be known for. As fate would have it, a movie theater across the street from their practice studio was playing a horror film, and bassist Geezer Butler was fascinated that so many people would line up to see a scary movie.

That movie was the 1963 Italian horror film Black Sabbath, starring Boris Karloff, which inspired Butler and singer Ozzy Osbourne to write lyrics for the song “Black Sabbath.” It marked a turn for the band from blues revival to a darker undefined, at the time, genre. The song turned out so great, that the band adopted it as their name, as well as the title for their first album. The movie, by the way, was directed by Mario Bava and is a trilogy of stories, none of which have anything to do with the devil or sacrilege, as the name would imply.