Movie buffs want to help me brainstorm? What songs have directors ruined for you by playing over a horrific event?
Usually it only hits me when talented directors do this; they create images seared into my mind that are evoked every subsequent time I hear the song.
Off the top of my head: “Love Hurts”, as a sheriff grieves over his step-daughter, shot by police; Johnny Mathis’s “Wonderful, Wonderful”, which accompanies deformed brothers as they beat a policeman and his wife to death in their home; “The Hokey Pokey”, played while a possessed doll tries to kill a girl’s mother; and (obviously) Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle”, which accompanies one of the most-disturbing torture scenes of the ’90s (again of a cop — what’s with the recurrent police theme in these scenes?)
Contributions?
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From a friend on Facebook: “Don’t Fear the Reaper” from The Stand. ← good choice
Donovan’s “Atlantis” in Goodfellas, while they are beating Billy Bats to death.
Nice one, @Mark.
There is, of course, and entire page devoted to this over at TVTropes.
I’d have considered looking there, but zOMG is that not the most depressing site for writers??!!1! Especially of action scenes. I don’t think I’ve ever come up with something that’s not cited, somewhere, on that site.
but zOMG is that not the most depressing site for writers??!!1!
I think you’re looking at it in a very half-glass-empty sort of way. If you were a biologist, would you be depressed or excited by projects like CBOL (probably a bad example, as I’ve met plenty of taxonomists who strongly disagree with CBOL, but I think my point stands)? Knowing that what you’re doing is a thing, and there’s a term to describe it, need not be depressing. Written ideas can acheive speciation much more quickly than biological entities; TVTropes is an reliable resource for making sure that your written work has excellent ancestry.
TVTropes is an reliable resource for making sure that your written work has excellent ancestry.
Marvelous.
Also, TVTropes is invaluable if you’re running an RPG.
As for your request, my nomination is “Singin’ in the Rain” from A Clockwork Orange.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, my reactions to both the movie and the song were improved from their already lofty positions by the inclusion of “Don’t Stop Me Now” in Shaun of the Dead.