FILM/TV: Clown Train

Clown Train opens with the sounds of an old train coming to a stop. The echo of those sounds create a vast emptiness and a haunting vision enters my head. That was my first impression of the film.

There’s a technique the filmmaker uses, in which they cut to the clown and at that cut play the sound of a heavy drum. It’s used a lot in movie trailers and is a horror film convention, and it’s a convention because it works in scaring the audience. It heightens the intensity of the reveal. Not only do our eyes have to adjust, but our ears as well.

There are other eerie noises scattered throughout to give audiences that level of edge to keep them uneasy. I don’t know the instrumental sources of them, but they are used throughout the horror genre. I don’t watch many horror films, so I can’t give the greatest example with spot references, but I am watching the TV series Hannibal, and in that, they use various percussion instruments in moments of tension which often make me jolt.