As any true horror fan knows, a scary movie lives or dies by its soundtrack. And by soundtrack, I don’t just mean its traditional musical score, although that counts too. After all, Halloween would mostly be boring shots of Jamie Lee Curtis walking around without John Carpenter’s eerie score to make it so unsettling.

And what would The Exorcist be without those jarring strings whenever the possessed little girl does something terrifying? Or the Friday the 13th movies without their infamous “chchch ahahah” sound effect every time a teenager goes wandering in the woods? These classic films would all be half as memorable.

Now someone has created a new musical instrument made just for creating the kinds of sounds that put us all at the edge of our seats when watching a truly good and effective horror movie. The new instrument is called “The Apprehension Engine”, and it was designed by Tony Duggan-Smith, who built this musical  instrument with the very intention of using it in horror film scores.

According to the description, the instrument consists of metal rulers which are bowed, a hurdy gurdy like mechanism, a string played with an attached Ebow, a spring reverb (also played with an ebow) some long metal rods, magnets, trash, anything at all to get unnerving sounds. You can listen to a sample of the Apprehension Engine in the video down below from YouTube account Indie Film Maker:

Personally, I think folks like The Conjuring director James Wan and other popular horror auteurs should be ordering their own Apprehension Engines right away. I know I kept looking for the serial killer hiding around the corner of the room just listening to it for the handful of minutes that make up that video.

What do you make of this new “musical” instrument? Should horror filmmakers be ordering one right away? Let us know what you think down below in the comments.

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Images: Warner Brothers