SilentHill2

When you mention creepy soundtracks, people tend to think of movies. I understand why this happens--because a good soundtrack can make an average movie terrifying--but it's hardly the only place where a spooky bit of music can set the mood and freak out an audience. Gaming is still in its infancy as an artform (and we'll save the "are games art?" debate for another day...), but music in horror games is as vital to the overall experience as it is in horror films. Unfortunately, it rarely gets any kind of recognition from the masses.

With that idea in mind, I had the brilliant idea to come up with a list of the creepiest music from horror videogames. Like most of my ideas, it sounded really great when it occurred to me. How hard can it be to come up with ten or so scary tracks? I thought to myself. Like all projects I undertake, this one turned out to be way more work than I expected. There's a lot of horror game music out there, and I've spent the last week or so going through it track by track trying to find the best of the best. This is the fruit of my labor...

Jump past the break for the list.

Late last night, the Hollywood Reporter broke word that writer Roger Avary and producer Samuel Hadida will be returning to the smoke laden town of Silent Hill for production company Davis Films. It's a small and relatively vague news item, to be sure, but it does lay out the time-frame for production will begin in 2010 when filming on Hadida's other current video game property, Resident Evil 4, ends.

Beyond that, things are hazy. There is no confirmation that Christophe Gans will be returning to captain the sequel, nor is there a hint as to whether or not star Radha Mitchell will return in some capacity. I'm sure, though, that these signs of progress are bound to lead to firm declaration of who else is involved in the next two or three months.

Personally, if the audience is going to take a trip back to the town of ash babies, pyramid heads, and confusingly sexy demon nurses, I'd rather have Gans retained as a director over Roger Avary as the screenwriter. Visually, Silent Hill is a dark masterwork, but the poorly paced and often nonsensical script is what holds it back from being a good film. It's going to take someone with a demented eye for production design to make anything resembling a worthy follow-up, so until Davis Films names someone who fits that bill, I'm, uh, cautiously indifferent.