The effect of sound - Jemina

In films, two main sensory mediums exist, video and sound. Sound is what makes a movies atmosphere translate to the viewer when the video only hints it. For example suspense can be quite subtle in the video while the music creates the actual feeling of anxiety. Horror movies are the most obvious example of the effect of sound in films. In a way the whole term "Horror movie" is a wrong term for them. It's not the video that makes it terrifying, it's the sound. If you try and watch the shining on mute it will just look a bit weird and wont have the same effect as with sound. Same thing with romantic movies, without the cheesy background music most of the scenes just look a bit cringy and weird. Here is a video of the Rocky training montage without music and it just looks kind of  lame without the epic soundtrack.

Sound is also a huge part of the movie's recognition. Star Wars for example can be instantly recognised by just the opening song. The use of the same song and similar themed ones during every movie creates continuity and helps viewers commit to the brand.

Evolutionary psychology of sounds

Usually people like to turn the lights off when they watch a film and because our eyesight becomes unreliable, we are biologically wired to rely on our hearing more in the dark. Especially any sound that reminds our brain of a predator makes us feel nervous even when we try to control it. But there are a lot of sounds used in films that generally make people feel anxious and almost all of them have evolutionary reason behind them. For example a broken silence can remind our brain of a bouncing jungle cat, an escalating noise of an approaching stampede or something totally bizarre like "Ring Around the Rosie" sung slowly over a pan across an ominous room lets us know that things are not as they should be. The video below shows how just a children song sung in a suspenseful way can make the scene unnerving.