PRESS
“Tom Schraeder’s low-key mournful score has just the right dose of uncanny, but his finest work is the closing theme song “Darkness Stalls” — an evocative country folksong with a Gothic streak which he composed and sung himself.”
— Maggie Lee “Variety”
“And What Sounds You’ll Remember: None of it would be nearly as affective if it weren’t for Tom Schraeder’s unnerving score. Similar to Colin Stetson’s work on 2018’s Hereditary — or even Mark Korven’s melange of sounds for 2015’s The Witch — Schraeder floods so much of the terrain here with compositions that feel culled from the roots of Hades. But at the same time, it’s also very earthy and rustic, a dichotomy that helps turn the film’s isolated pastures into a claustrophobic nightmare.”
— Michael Roffman “Consequence of Sound”
“Composer Tom Schraeder’s score building to a crescendo of uneasy dread that never, ever leaves the frame. Drenched in cold, sepia tones, the farmhouse where the film takes place feels out of another time.”
— Killer Horror Critic
“The music (by Tom Schraeder) is delicate but with a clear weight that pulls you down.”
— ihorror
“The ambient sound design, disturbing musical score, disorienting visuals and subtle special effects add immeasurably to the overall impact, but it's Ireland's shattering performance that truly gives the film its gripping power.”
— Hollywood Reporter
“The unease of Tom Schraeder’s score filled with devilish riddles and singing saws.”
— Dread Central
“It begins haunting the periphery of their vision, and ours, and Tom Schraeder’s chilling score only amplifies the mood.“
— Ryan Larson “Ghastly Grinning”
“Credit is also due to cinematographer Tristan Nyby and composer Tom Schraeder for shaping the atmosphere and the terror through images and sounds both subtle and jarring.”
— Film School Rejects
“Tom Schraeder’s disquieting score adds a point of emphasis to each scare, making mangled fingers and floating figures feel tangible to the point of visceral unease.”
— Kaylin Corrigan “Slash Film”
“Also helping this modestly scaled production deliver big-time shivers are cinematographer Tristan Nyby, capturing stark, oppressive atmosphere, and Tom Schraeder, who created the mournful, increasingly discordant score.”
— Michael Gingold “Rue Morgue”
“It’s all sinister undercurrents, unsettling in the pit of your stomach. It doesn’t hurt that you feel Tom Schraeder’s eerie, subtle score creep up your spine.”
— Brent McKnight “The Last Thing I See”
“Bertino has crafted a film that’s horrifying from beginning to end. Just like in The Strangers, the score adds the perfect intensity to the most frightening scenes.”
— Sara Clements “Awards Watch”
“Add to that an unsettling soundtrack composed by Tom Schraeder made up of various ways to use a violin, each more unnerving than the previous, and you’ve got a lugubrious mixture, indeed.”
— Simon Rother “Infamous Horrors”
“...the tension created by Bertino. However, it is undoubtedly helped by Tom Schaeder’s doomily unsettling score, which really twists the knife in.”
— Scott Murphy “The Wee Review”
“Tom Schraeder's eerie piano score immediately got stuck in my head and sound like something I'd like to put on my Halloween playlist.”
— Cody Loves Horror
“The soundtrack by Tom Schraeder drives you forward like cows being led to slaughter. You don’t want to go; you know what is coming, and yet you go anyway. As you peek from behind fingers and beg for the end of certain scenes, I won’t spoil it for you; his soundtrack plays on in plucks from string instruments and clanging chimes. Elements from classic possession movies that have come before like the Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby prepare you psychologically for the horrors to come. “She told us not to come” is the refrain repeated over and over as Schraeder’s relentless dissonant chords play on.”
— Tracy Palmer “Signal Horizon”
“Credit is also due to cinematographer Tristan Nyby and composer Tom Schraeder for shaping the atmosphere and the terror through images and sound both subtle and jarring.”
— Wustoo
“It’s worth mentioning here that Tom Schraeder’s amazingly overwhelming, atonal, gutted country soundtrack has a place among contemporary masterpieces like Mark Korven’s music for The Witch or Colin Stetson’s murderous saxicism in Heriditary.”
— Filmtett.ro
“From beginning to end, "The Dark and The Wicked" posses a brooding atmosphere similar to that of recent popular horror films "Hereditary" and "The Witch." The muted gray tones of the film along with the excellent work of the music and sound departments only add to the feeling of impending dread.”
— Red Carpet Crash
“Sinister strings on the soundtrack create an ongoing discordance and the entire soundscape of the film simply never allows you to relax. There are also moments of the soundscape that sound reversed, adding to the idea that something's not right at all. It begins haunting the periphery of their vision, and ours, Tom Schraeder’s chilling score only amplifies the mood.”
— Scared Sheepless
“If Bryan Bertino is smart, he will once again have a first-time cinematographer in the cinema like Tristan Nyby and Tom Schraeder at the helm: the atmospheres are dark and oppressive, the notes hit the bone.”
— Javier S. Donate “Terror Weekend”
“The great virtue of the film lies here. In the director's ability to build an atmosphere from Tom Schraeder's eccentric soundtrack and Lance Hoffman's commendable sound mix. An authentic symphony of the abyss played with the blow of a saw and violin, where the visits of the unknown during the worst days of a family close to the duel manage to enclose the screams and shocks of each victim of this rural tragedy in a kind of death cell. A dead end road. One night that swallows the light.”
— Carles Martinez Agenjo “El Cine de Hollywood”
“The music by Tom Schraeder added to this suspense. Sometimes twinkling, sometimes single notes or bars just to reinforce the slow pace; the absolute opposite of an overdone score.”
— Alix Turner “Ready Steady Cut “
“And it’s that atmosphere that has the strongest effect in the film. Tom Schraeder’s moody score combined with the earthy colors in Tristan Nyby’s measured and carefully composed cinematography makes for an experience that is unpleasant in a very purposeful way.”
— Herman Dhaliwal “Cinema Sanctum”
“Paired with Tom Schraeder’s unsettling score which perfectly punctuates each unnerving scene, the audience is left spooked like those sheep in the barn. Unsure, on edge and waiting for something bad to happen.”
— Freddy Beans “Ain’t It Cool”
“He backs those visuals up with sound effects and a score that are designed to give the viewer a sense of dread and unease.”
— Jim Morazzini “Voices From The Balcony“
“Tom Schraeder’s brooding score is another telling ingredient.”
— One Guys Opinion
“The rural landscape is creepy already, especially at night, and Tom Schraeder’s daunting score keeps the tension on track.”
— Victoria’s Advocate
“With its haunting score that cascades through the shadows, great cinematography, and perfect lighting, this film is definitely a must-see for horror fans.”
— Geek Vibes Nation
“Bertino’s scares are sometimes understated without having to be underscored by instrumental stingers. Even when composer Tom Schrader’s creepy score gives an assist, the sinister dread is already brewing into hopelessness.”
— Artful Critic
“I think sometimes people forget about the importance of sound and score. In horror, they are like an unseen character. In the opening of The Dark and the Wicked, a new Shudder original, sound and score put you on edge before the title appears on-screen. Christopher Duke, Joe Stockton, and Tom Schraeder, alongside writer-director Bryan Bertino carefully craft that feeling of uneasiness you want in a genre knockout.”
— Reel News Daily
“The tension is further raised by an awesomely dissonant screechy string score from composer Tom Schraeder (Hurt, Act Super Naturally). And all of it combined delivers some Grade-A scares along the way.”
— The Big Smoke
“This is a slow build type of film, but Bertino's use of sound and the continuously throbbing score keep the audience on edge throughout.”
— Edge Media Network
“He’s helped along greatly by Tom Schrader’s score, a quasi-tonal sonic landscape of dark piano melodies, discordant strings, found sounds, and tape delays. It feels as if the haunting is so complete that it’s even managed to possess the soundtrack.”
— Fanboys of the Universe
“The ambient sound design, disturbing musical score, disorienting visuals and subtle special effects add immeasurably to the overall impact.”
— Mark Manage
“Tom Schraeder’s music, which follows the tiresome trend of horror scores that sound like insect swarms, doesn’t help.”
— New York Post
“The haunting score by Tom Schraeder is effective in giving us the creeps.”
— Monster Zero NJ
“The soundscape/score was robust, both helped carry so much of the tone of the movie.”
— Victims and Villains
“Another aspect of the film that works out amazingly is the background score that is so subtle at times that it’ll give you the chills. The silence is daunting and unsettling. The use of sound is such that if you were to watch this movie alone with headphones on.”
— Leisure Bite
“The creepy mood sounds, the disturbing musical score, the disorienting images and the subtle special effects contribute enormously to the overall impact of this print.”
— DeFilmBlog.de
“When you know how to do, you know how to do. A horror film that for once does not work ridiculous (in recent times it has happened to us a lot) and take what you have to take and, with what little you have, it handles all the elements that it has to handle perfectly and focuses in giving fear: and it succeeds. It intrigues us from the beginning and the film achieves an interesting in crescendo rhyme that leaves us glued to the screen.”
— MartinCID
“Composer Tom Schraeder further compliments Bertino’s gloom-ridden output with a minimalist soundtrack that is equal parts terrifying and haunting.”
— Flickering Myth
“An important element of horror films is the music. In this case, too, a perfect musical composition is made to cause that effect of demonic presence throughout the film. The composer Tom Schraeder, who has made the music for other films of the same genre, makes sure that the musical notes created for the film are correct.”
— Peakd
“Coupled with Tom Schraeder’s eerie score and Tristan Nyby’s atmospheric cinematography, The Dark and the Wicked scores high on the technical level.”
— Casey’s Movie Media
“The atmospheric tone of this film with the underlying music is unnerving.”
— Real Talk with Chuck and Pam
“Tom Schraeder's chilling score, is - despite the sibling's best efforts - explicitly a place of death nested inside other deaths.”
— Make the Switch
“Tom Schraeder’s score will send chills down viewer’s spines, as it accompanies some horrific shots in the film. It adds another layer to the tension Bertino is creating and amplifies the feeling of unease felt throughout the film.”
— Popaxiom
“The tension mounts, as we are influenced by a telling dissonant musical score, several jump scares and the deeply affecting performance by Marin Ireland.”
— Dennis Schwartz Reviews
“The music is reduced to the bone, thus giving the viewer no grip to be prepared. A horror, perhaps paradoxically, intimate and reflective, which forces the comparison with the theme of death.”
— Movie Trainer
“Bryan Bertino naturally takes care of the rest, masterful in building tension without falling into cheap artifice, the gloomy photography by Tristan Nyby and the evocative soundtrack by Tom Schrader.”
— Loud vision.it
“A story of demonic possession, built with dark and disturbing atmospheres, an exceptional care of the soundtrack, shots composed with balance and refinement, with a very intelligent use of depth of field.”
— Ciak Magazine.it
“The score is eerie and sharp, evoking this sense of dread and unsettling feeling, sounds that compel you to feel that whatever secrets will be revealed, something wrong is going to happen.”
— Reclusive Voyage
“Creepy and ominous soundtrack.”
— Cinemagazine.nl
“Carefully balances ambient atmospherics with Tom Schraeder’s musical soundtrack.”
— MovieSteve
“It works thanks to Bertino's carefully calibrated slow tempo, the atmospheric camerawork, the soundtrack and most importantly the credible playing of Ireland and Abbott.”
— Schokkend Nieuws Filmmagazine
“The music (by Tom Schraeder) is also impressive. The strange piano sounds that make the whole even more ominous can be called eerie, even ghostly.”
— Modern Myths.nl
“Disturbing musical score.”
— Apeksha News
“The music seems ominous and foreboding from Minute One.”
— Dvdmg.com
“There’s an impossibly creepy strings score by Tom Schraeder that piles on a lot of atmospheric mood too.”
— Podcasting Them Softly
“The Dark and The Wicked comes to Blu-Ray with a bombastic DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track. The dialogue and sound effects are appropriately balanced with the creepy score from Tom Schraeder where nothing gets lost in the track. Surround channels get some noticeable activity during the outside scenes on the farm and with the creaky house during any lead up to a terrifying reveal. The movie is mostly on the quiet side with bursts of activity when the family is being terrorized. There are some musical stings that will make you nearly jump out of your skin. The low end of the track is especially active during these moments with a bit of wall shaking happening. This track is very impressive and brings the sinister world to life in a very pleasing manner.”
— Geek Vibes Nation - Dillion Gonzalez
“Not to mention the sound; the score by Tom Schraeder and accompanying sound design did a lot of the heavy lifting here, and deserves a proper surround presentation as opposed to a tinny FM broadcast.”
— Horror Movie A Day Blogspot
“The score and sound effects complement as peripherals. Because of the audio, I was sucked in…”
— Horror News.net
“Adding to this is the sometimes startling, always haunting score. It is a crucial element with this otherwise quiet film, reminiscent of classic horror films such as The Omen and The Changeling.”
— Horror Geek Nerd
"And Tom Schraeder has made some quite amazing music for the film, which adds to the tension even more and simply upsets the viewer. The faint ray of hope and takes it away from us.”
— Horrorshake