With the summer concerts kicking off all around the country, I thought it would be interesting to strike up a conversation about rock and roll and horror, two different forms of art and entertainment that have a lot in common. Both enjoy intensely loyal fans who crave the visceral sensations that both offer their legions of followers. They share an ability to get pulses racing and hearts pounding, sometimes to the point of fainting, whether from sheer terror or from getting in close proximity of a rock idol they adore, à la The Beatles or Elvis. 
There are many musical artists who have incorporated horror tropes in their stage performances and their songs, and in every subgenre of rock music, including goth, glam, heavy metal, shock, punk, and others. These horror-themed bands hail from all over the world. With a powerful stage presence and music that incorporates all manner of dark subject matter, from the occult to the macabre, and everything in between, these are things that horror fans love.
The Florida-based group The Bloody Jug Band has been described as blending horror and country rock. Band member Craigmire Peace has said that his love of old monster movies, cult films, and B grade cinema was central to formation of the band. Their debut album was titled “Coffin Up Blood,” and includes songs such as Graverobber Blues and Blood Train.
Calabrese is an Arizona horror-rock band that credits White Zombie and the Ramones as their biggest influences. Since the release of their first album in 2003, Midnight Spookshow, which featured the songs ‘Backseat of My Hearse’ and ‘Every Day’s a Funeral,’ Calabrese has been providing everything fans of horror, punk, and the macabre crave.
North Carolina’s Wednesday 13 is the stage name used by Joseph Michael Poole, a musician who played with numerous bands, including the Murderdolls. As Wednesday 13, the metal horror punk music pays tribute to horror cinema through his music. It has been said the he lives every day like it’s Halloween. Wednesday 13 is a huge horror fan, evident from tracks like ‘Haddonfield.”
The artist told reporters, “Growing up in the ‘80s, I remember the satanic panic of heavy metal music and parents’ concern over what their kids were listening to. My mother was constantly checking my cassettes and making sure I wasn’t possessed by the devil. Most of the music that I listened to never had any of those themes, but they were just accused of it. So when writing the lyrics to this song, I wrote what I thought would terrify my mother if she had stumbled upon this music. I wanted the lyrics to be upfront and leave no question as to what they were about…the Devil.”
Wednesday 13’s tenth studio album, “Mid Death Crisis’ released in April 2025, oozes infectious 1980s sleaze metal energy, as one reviewer aptly put it. It features tracks like “Rotting Away” and “Blood Storm” that ensnare listeners with metallic goth-punk energy.
F.K.Ü., which stands for Freddy Krueger’s Underwear, is a Swedish horror-themed metal band. The four members formed the group to pay tribute to their two main interests, horror movies from the 1980’s and thrash metal. Their album Metal Moshing Mad was a tribute to classic horror movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. Their follow-up album paid homage to horror films that included Motel Hell, Maniac Cop, and The Fog.
Denmark’s King Diamond is a heavy metal band, complete with evil-inspired makeup, that makes music for horror fans. Kind Diamond is also the stage name of the band’s lead singer, and he purportedly lives in a haunted house and is a practitioner of LaVeyan Satanism. He also is a devotee of classic monster and horror films.
It’s not just punk and heavy metal bands that embrace horror themes. The New York hip-hop band Gravediggaz is known for their dark humor and menacing sound. Their blend of gangsta rap and hip hop, which is as hardcore as it gets, created a sub-genre in their industry known as horrorcore. The subject matter they touch on ranges from death, murder and suicide to the occult and a variety of horror movie tropes. Their debut album, 6 Feet Deep, was released in 1994 to high praise, including from Rolling Stone Magazine. Although their success was short-lived, the contribution Gravediggaz made in the horror rap genre has been significant, inspiring other acts and garnering new fans of the music today.
These are just a few of the growing number of horror-inspired rock bands. Not everyone may be familiar with the musicians I mentioned previously, but acts such as Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson, and Rob Zombie are widely known and have been around for a long time. Rob Zombie has successfully crossed over to make a string of mainstream horror films, giving us such cinematic delights as House of 1000 corpses, The Lords of Salem, and a reimagining of John Carpenter’s classic Halloween.
Coming from the other direction, exploring horror movies either about rock musicians or featuring them prominently in the storyline, there have been a fair amount of them made, most of them, understandably, produced in the 80s. Unfortunately, few are any good, but there are a handful that are worthy of checking out.
Black Roses is a 1988 film about a small-town teacher who saves teenage souls from a heavy metal rocker and his band from hell whose music transforms the kids into homicidal punks. Their music literally turns the listeners into demonic monsters. Much of the music for the film was performed by members of King Kobra and Lizzy Borden, among others.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare is a 1987 Canadian direct-to-video horror film. A band called Triton travels to an isolated farmhouse that, unbeknownst to them, is inhabited by homicidal demons who seek to possess the musicians. This one is so bad, it’s good.
In Blood Tracks, 1985, a glam rock band and a production crew venture to an abandoned factory in a remote snowy mountain to shoot a music video. They soon learn that a family of murderous psychopaths have been hiding out in the factory for decades and they start going all ‘The-Hills-Have-Eyes’ on the rockers and their crew. The film captures an intense feeling of isolation with a series of avalanches that traps the spike-haired, spandex-wearing visitors on the mountain so they can get picked off one at a time. You’ll be treated to a high body count in this one.
Hard Rock Zombies, also from 1985, is about resurrected bandmates who come out of permanent retirement to exact revenge on the music-hating Nazis who murdered them, and along the way put on rock shows for their living fans.
Perhaps a movie concept about a rock band made of the undead isn’t such a stretch in reality, considering all the bands from the 60s and 70s that are still active today, featuring octogenarian front men and musicians. It makes you wonder if these ageless rock and rollers might be actual vampires or zombies themselves, immune to mortality like the rest of us. It at least makes you wonder, doesn’t it.
Trick or Treat from 1986 might be the best of the rock-horror flicks, and if you watch it you’ll understand why it has developed the cult following that it has. It’s a supernatural slasher film that features special appearances by Ozzy Osbourne and Gene Simmons. That alone is worth the streaming rental price. The story centers around a bullied teen who is upset over the death of his heavy metal idol, Sammi Curr. This movie also involves a revenge plot that goes wrong and a love interest that needs saving, but it contains a lot of rock music from the 80s and an awesome score besides providing a lot of great kills.
What more could you ask for?
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