The Renaissance of Horror Franchises

In this article:

• Explore the resurgence of classic horror IPs and their upcoming releases.
• Meet the latest horror icons turning into full-fledged franchises.
• Discover which horror/thriller films are becoming episodic TV events.
• Dive into the role music and soundscapes play in amplifying fear, tension, and dread.
• Learn what makes a horror soundtrack, trailer, or marketing campaign unforgettable.
• Find out how Universal Production Music supports industry pros shaping the future of horror.

Making Horror Content Scream Louder: How Music and Sound Define the Genre’s Most Iconic IPs

We’re deep in a full-blown horror renaissance. Classic IPs like The Exorcist, Alien, and I Know What You Did Last Summer are rising from the grave. New icons like M3GAN and The Black Phone are already spawning sequels and streaming deals. 

But in today’s overstuffed horror landscape, it’s not enough to just reanimate a legacy franchise or create a creepy new villain. To truly stand out and haunt the nightmares of your audience, you need a signature sound that slices through the noise. 

The M3GAN 2.0 team showed how it’s done, fusing Britney Spears and Chappell Roan into a pop-horror trailer that lit up social media and set a new standard for sound-driven marketing. From viral trailer drops to reimagined legacy themes, modern horror campaigns are turning music and sound into a creative weapon as irresistible as Leatherface’s chainsaw.

If you’re a director, editor, trailer producer, or sync supervisor working in this space, the question is: How will you make your horror sound unforgettable?

Let’s explore how the genre’s biggest franchises are doing just that—and how Universal Production Music helps horror content creators raise the stakes.

Behind the Screams: The Soundtracks Powering Horror’s Renaissance

The Exorcist: Believer - Reviving Classic Frequencies

For The Exorcist: Believer, composers David Wingo and Amman Abbasi stayed true to the franchise roots, using silence as a tool to let dread build before leaning on musical cues.

The unmistakable “Tubular Bells” resurfaces — a sonic callback to Regan’s slow head turn — but it’s used sparingly, appearing only at pivotal moments.

Critics praised the subtle, atmospheric score for honoring the original’s legacy while layering in modern textures: eerie vocalizations and minimalist instrumentation build psychological tension without overpowering the scene.

Are you a producer, director, music coordinator, or music supervisor interested in pushing sonic boundaries to keep the horror genre fresh? Check out our horror suspense playlist.

Saw XI - Evolving Gritty Soundscapes 

Charlie Clouser, longtime composer for the Saw franchise, is expected to return for Saw XI. Drawing on his background working with Nine Inch Nails, Clouser blends pounding metallic percussion with haunting melodies, creating a gritty, emotionally charged soundscape that mirrors the series’ themes of physical torment and psychological unraveling. 

Instead of traditional character themes, Clouser uses motifs tied to emotional states or settings to underscore the trapped, desperate mindsets of the characters. 

Insidious: The Further  - Redefining Fear with Experimental Sounds

Joseph Bishara’s atonal, nerve-jangling compositions helped Insidious stand out in the 2010s. Instead of traditional motifs, Bishara builds spine-tingling tension through near silence, then ruptures it with piercing, otherworldly sounds and stingers that feel more like haunted breathing than music.

Bishara’s work redefines how fear can sound (you can hear his ghostly unreleased syncs on 2018’sMore Music from the Further) and has been a big influence on the recent wave of minimalist, experimental horror scores.

28 Years Later - Crafting Apocalyptic Atmospheres

After an 18-year gap since 28 Weeks Later, the teaser for 28 Years Later delivered a bold reintroduction with a historically layered soundtrack. 

Eschewing orchestral tension or heavy synths, it hinges entirely on a 1915 recording of Rudyard Kipling’s “Boots,” performed by Taylor Holmes. The piece is so psychologically unnerving, it’s used in U.S. Navy SERE training to simulate captivity. The recitation crescendos into full-throated hysteria — with screams of “There’s no discharge in the war” — fitting for a bleak landscape ravaged by decades of infection. 

As The Guardian notes, “It’s a scarring listen… The effect of the poem is so immediately disturbing that it took me a few watches to actually pay attention to the visuals.” 

Scottish art-rap pioneersYoung Fathers provide the film’s original score, fusing industrial percussion, gospel, and hip-hop into a soundscape that captures the fragile grip on sanity in a crumbling world.

Tomorrow’s Horror Titans: New Franchises Being Forged

M3GAN - Blending Wonder and Menace

Part slasher, part satire, M3GAN is fast becoming a Gen Z horror icon. Anthony Willis’s score pivots between warmth, wonder, and sheer terror with mournful piano motifs and harsh industrial synths.

Willis’s blend of organic and synthetic textures masterfully echoes M3GAN’s own fractured identity, which is equal parts child, machine, and menace.

The Black Phone - Building Retro Terror

Mark Korven’s gritty score for The Black Phone leans into vintage analog and minimalist dread. As The Film Scorer notes, it oscillates between "nightmare fuel and mellow atmospheric soundscape,” pulling everything — and everyone — closer to the truth.

Korven’s score unexpectedly dips into emotional territory during scenes of the town grieving Finney’s disappearance, offering a rare, tender undercurrent. But it always circles back to his signature chaos that’s rich with creaking tape noise and distant, inhuman whispers.

Five Nights at Freddy’s - Tapping Fan Nostalgia

FNaF is a nostalgia-fueled nightmare with a rabid fanbase. Fittingly, the Newton Brothers deliver a score blending retro synths and game-inspired tones with eerie vocals. Its main theme is a disturbing nod to the animatronic mascots, opening with a frantic, 80s-style electronic beat layered under a children’s choir. 

The Living Tombstone’s viral “Five Nights at Freddy’s” song appears during the credits, bridging online fan culture with cinematic storytelling, and generating lots of post-release buzz.

Expanding the Lore: Horror Goes Longform

Horror isn’t just returning to theaters. It’s entering a golden age on the small screen.

Crystal Lake - Processing an origin story

While no composer is confirmed, the franchise will likely stay loyal to its experimental musical DNA, pioneered by Harry Manfredini’s avant-garde “Ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma” vocal motif. Expect a blend of legacy elements, such as processed voice and synths, with modern tension drones and distorted orchestration to both honor and evolve the mythos.

Welcome to Derry - Creating the creepy carnival 

Set in the 1960s, this HBO Max It prequel expands the Pennywise backstory. Award-winning composer Benjamin Wallfisch, who scored the It films (2017/2019), returns, layering subtle orchestral textures with distant calliopes and cracked carousels to slowly strip away the illusion of joy or innocence and reveal something sinister underneath.

Alien: Earth - Custom-made moods

FX’s Alien: Earth brings Ridley Scott’s world to new audiences. Composer Jeff Russo (of Legion and Fargo) takes the helm. A teaser hints at a score blending ominous drones and slow-building suspense with cinematic grandeur echoing Aliens composer James Horner’s work.

Russo’s known for an experimental approach, forging his own path with custom-made instruments such as a steel triangle with strings to evoke psychological terror in new ways.

The X-Files - Musical and genetic hybrids  

Yes, it's coming back. And yes, composer Mark Snow’s iconic theme will return. The synth-based original became a cultural touchstone in the ‘90s, instantly triggering extraterrestrial paranoia. 

For the reboot, expect an electronic and orchestral hybrid score that reflects not only the theme of alien-human genetic hybrids but also the original series’ evolution from moody synthscapes to the cinematic grandeur of its feature film scores.

Sound in Horror Marketing: Campaigns That Spread Like a Zombie Horde

The right sound can haunt a horror campaign, turning trailers and stunts into cultural contagions that grip audiences. 

• M3GAN 2.0’s trailers, set to Chappell Roan’s “Femininomenon” and Britney Spears’ “Oops!… I Did It Again,” leaned into campy pop, sparking a surge of hashtags like #m3gan and #m3gandance across TikTok and driving tens of thousands of fan videos and remixes. Through targeted promotions, the official @m3gan account grew to over 700K followers and millions of likes, cementing M3GAN’s status as a Gen Z and LGBTQ+ icon. 
• A Quiet Place: Day One trailers wove near silence with jarring creature clicks and panicked whispers, generating 28 million YouTube views and helping fuel a $52.2 million Box Office debut, almost doubling the production budget in its opening weekend.
• In 2022, Stranger Things revived Kate Bush’s forgotten 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill” in its Season 4 trailers, sparking over 2.7 million TikTok videos with emotional fan edits and POV tributes to Max’s battle with Vecna, while driving 1 billion Spotify streams, elevating the song to #4 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

These marketing campaigns show how the creative use of music and sound can ignite a project’s cultural impact. By leveraging licensable tracks, editable stems, and AI search tools, professionals can build horror campaigns that grip audiences and fuel viral momentum.

Why Universal Production Music Is a Trusted Resource for Horror Creators

In horror, sound is never just in the background, it’s a character. It activates your nervous system’s “Spidey” sense that something isn’t right. 

At Universal Production Music, our horror soundtrack collections and suspense music playlists are curated by genre experts and constantly updated. We give filmmakers, editors, and music supervisors the tools they need to heighten tension, shape scenes, and deliver unforgettable scares.

Need to raise goosebumps or evoke full-body horror? Listen to our horror background music collections for inspiration.

Whether you're scoring a sequel or cutting a trailer, we offer:

• AI Similarity Search to instantly match a reference track
• Music Direction Services with our team of search experts guiding your vision
• Editable Stems for control in post-production
• Flexible Licensing Options for everything from theaters to VOD

See why the studios trust us again and again as their go-to source for scary syncs. Register to access a library of high-quality tracks and discover the right sound for your next production.