Monsters of rock

Lurch forward. Form the claws. Shimmy to the left. Clap. To the right. Clap.

No one's going to save you from the beast about to strike.

Because, friends, this is Halloween. And it's thriller. Thriller, baby.

It's the season for horror, and, thanks to innovative spookster musicians throughout the decades, the choices for its soundtrack are as diverse as the deaths Michael Myers has inexplicably survived.

Intrepid artists like the theatric Alice Cooper, the slurringly theatric Ozzy Osbourne, the rhyme-spitting Sunz of Man and the not-so-intrepid Danzig have gone far in bunking the Boris Karloff-exclusive film score club.

"Horror" music in all its forms is such a success because theater and music inherently complement each other. When they come together, the results are pure, entertaining gold.

It's a sound that speaks to the human desire to be shocked, to scream and to boogie, man. After all, author Geoffrey Latham once mused, "Music is the vernacular of the human soul."

But what, praytell, do those tunes sound like if your soul is as black as obsidian? You write songs about it. Or continue to be Mariah Carey.

Either way, it's pretty damn scary.

During the past decades, macabre music has swept the globe and permeated all of pop's genres. Death metal acts hail from all over the globe - even, in GWAR's case, from off the globe.

In the mid '90s, rappers and West Coast producers took the gangsta vibe from the hood to the gates of hell, spawning both "horrorcore" with Gravediggaz and horror rap.

Sure, N.W.A. was scary, but what's more scary than dudes hanging upside-down rapping about werewolves? Nothing. Ask Heltah Skeltah.

The morbid music market is made even more palpable thanks to its mainstays. When you have a 60-year-old former drug addict wasting away on stage, bellowing about the dark lord, what's closer to the grave? Not much, friend, not much.

Really, Alice Cooper did say "School's out forever." It's possibly the deepest, darkest fear of comptrollers everywhere.

Of course, spooky tunes have their downside. Like Hollywood, many shock and/or goth rockers have trouble with quality control, spitting out wretched release after wretched release.

But, really, Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell wasn't that bad.

As Mr. Loaf and crew illustrate, the upside to horror music's shortcomings is, even when the industry's LPs are misses, they're often glorious cheese. It's a market for fog machines, inflatable stage props, blood geysers, etc. - never one to swap excess for foresight or trade groupies for Grammies.

Exploding heads and projectile vomit aren't the end-all, be-all of fright nowadays. Remember the music, remember the artists and remember our old friend Geoffery Latham. Do it.

It's a multigenre mess, a highway to hell. The bells are ringing, the freaks are coming and a red moon's rising.

So, when Halloween rolls around and your body starts to shiver, don't be afraid.

Just listed to some morbid tunes and let go, for, as we all know, no mere mortal can resist the evil of the thriller.

Contact the A&E Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.