Eight pop stars who wrote soundtracks for British horror films

(Please note, as one of the world’s least musical people, I’m going to make no attempt to describe any of this music.)

Vince Clarke

The guy from Erasure, Yazoo and early Depeche Mode provided the soundtrack for Blood, directed by Charly Cantor in 2000. A stunning ‘inverse vampire’ tale of a genetically created woman with addictive, narcotic blood, the film has frustratingly never been released uncut (except in France, where it was dubbed).

Tracy Thorn

Fifty percent of Everything But the Girl, Thorn composed the score for Carol Morley’s terrific 2015 feature The Falling, in which Maisie Williams is at the epicentre of a fainting sickness outbreak in a 1960s girls’ school.

Guy Fletcher

As well as playing keyboards in Dire Straits and on Mark Knopfler’s subsequent solo projects, Fletcher composed several film soundtracks including one for the awful 2005 movie Spirit Trap. (The cast included Billie Piper when she was still primarily known for her records and also Russian Eurovision singer Alsou.)

Robert Fripp

Steve Oram’s bonkers 2015 humans-act-like-apes feature Aaaaaaaah! includes among its cast former 1980s pop star Toyah Willcox. When her husband, King Crimson rocker Fripp, heard about the movie he offered Oram a collection of unreleased tracks from which to collate a soundtrack.

Graham Coxon

Steven Nesbitt’s 2010 film Curio, a sort of Misery/Psycho mash-up (with ghosts) features a soundtrack from Coxon, lead guitarist with Britpoppers Blur. The film was released in the States as Mother’s Day Evil.

Steven Severin

Former bassist for Siouxsie and the Banshees, Severin has provided the soundtracks for two British horror films: Robert Pratten’s atmospheric 2004 feature London Voodoo and Paul Burrow’s 2006 anglo-giallo Nature Morte. (He has also composed a score to accompany silent classic Vampyr.)

Orbital

The only vaguely good thing about Octane, a terrible horror/road movie directed by Marcus Adams in 2003 (released as Pulse in the States), was the soundtrack by dance duo Orbital. Every single other aspect of the film was really, really bad.

Matt Johnson

In 2009, when Gerard Johnson needed music for his brilliantly bleak character study Tony, about a socially awkward psychopath, he turned to his brother Matt. Music fans know him better as the main guy behind alternative band The The.