It’s October, Halloween is fast approaching, and that means it’s time to rap about horror movies. Well… that’s what it means to us, anyway. There are very few movies that we feel couldn’t be improved by ending with a rap song that contains lyrics about the film you just watched, and horror movies are no exception… unless of course they’re actually trying to be scary. Campy fright flicks and horror-comedies tend to benefit the most from a rap song on the soundtrack, and some of them are so much fun that we figured they deserved a Top This all to themselves.
So, apropos of almost nothing, here are CraveOnline‘s Top 10 Horror Movie Rap Songs. Because screw it, we think this is a fun idea.
By the fifth film in the franchise, Warwick Davis’s Leprechaun had already gone to Vegas, and he’d already gone into space. The time was clearly right to take him into The Hood. (Or perhaps maybe Ireland, which nobody seems to have ever suggested.) Despite the funny title of Leprechaun in the Hood – surpassed only by its follow-up, Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood (as if putting a homicidal leprechaun in an urban area was the original idea in the first place) – this 2000 horror-comedy was short on horror, and comedy, and although Warwick Davis does conclude the film with the weird-ass rap number “Lep in the Hood,” it’s just not a good song either musically or lyrically. But a leprechaun is rapping, damn it, and that’s good enough for the #10 spot.
Best Lyric:
Bluntest, dopest, place is hype / There’s a lassie, she’s just my type / I hate to resort so soon to magic / Haven’t been in laid in so long it’s tragic
Fred Dekker’s 1987 cult classic The Monster Squad bombed in its initial release, only to find a loyal following on VHS that appreciated the story about foul-mouthed kids taking on Dracula, the Wolfman, the Gillman, the Mummy and Frankenstein’s Monster, written by Iron Man 3 director Shane Black. As a movie, The Monster Squad holds up great, and the tone is so unironically fun that ending the film with a rap song about a Monster Squad performed by a group called The Monster Squad seems just about perfect. Too bad the song isn’t better, but the innocent lyrics and feel-good beat still make this jam a lot of fun.
Best Lyric:
We need silver bullets, we need wooden stakes / Normal stuff won’t stop them ’cause they live on hate / Speak some magic words from a virgin’s lips / Maybe that’ll shake ’em, make ’em slip and trip
Maniac Cop 2, William Lustig’s sequel to William Lustig’s Maniac Cop (no relation to William Lustig’s Maniac) isn’t as fondly remembered as the original film about a hero cop turned homicidal zombie, but it still has a pretty ridiculous rap song called “Maniac Rap,” which gets surprisingly mean-spirited when it makes fun of actor Robert Z’Dar, who plays the title character, and who admittedly does have a distractingly large jawline.
Best Lyric:
He’s homicidal and maladjusted / But when he busts in your ass is busted / You won’t get a ticket or pay a fine / You might as well be dealin’ with Frankenstein / He’s big and ugly with a busted jaw / You know he’s the wrong arm of the law
Renny Harlin’s tongue-in-cheek 1999 killer super-intelligent shark movie Deep Blue Sea co-starred LL Cool J as the cook aboard a floating oceanic science lab genetically engineering Mako sharks to fight Alzheimer’s disease. So of course, it had to have a rap song. LL Cool J’s lyrics aren’t particularly funny or clever, but he’s so damned committed to the notion that being a shark would be hardcore that it his sincerity quickly becomes the joke.
Best Lyric:
Abandoned pirate ships / Eels and sod scum / Fish that glow in the dark / The Titanic’s hub / Underwater storms / Your blood is so warm / Your life vest is off / And that turns me on
A noble attempt to rekindle the old school blaxploitation vibe with modern horror tropes, Ernest Dickerson’s 2001 horror movie Bones starred Snoop Dogg as a spectre of vengeance who died in 1979 and now wreaks vengeance in the present day. The film was swiftly forgotten, but with Snoop Dogg playing the title character, you know there had to be a pretty good soundtrack. The best track is probably “The Legend of Jimmy Bones,” featuring MC Ren and RBX, a dark jam with some pretty messed up lyrics, even though not all of them make sense. Snoop claims “The Legend of Jimmy Bones” isn’t based on a true story because Jimmy Bones is real? How does that work?
Best Lyric:
The Legend of Jimmy Bones / Sharp as nails, tough as stones / This ain’t based on no true story / This the real motherfucker
