History Main / OminousMusicboxTune

* Throughout the film ''Film/{{Reality}}'', this is a main theme in Alexandre Desplat's soundtrack.

* The final notes of the ''{{Series/Dollhouse}}'' InstrumentalThemeTune sound like a music box in minor key. Appropriate, given the title.

* The BGM for the Fortune-Teller's room in ''VideoGame/{{Shivers}}''.

[[AC:For added atmosphere, play the music from [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b5MCvI0n48 this track]] while reading on.]]

* In ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'', a distorted tune of this nature plays whenever your Shade [[note]] a ghost that appears wherever you are after you died, which you must defeat to reclaim your coins and repair your soul reserve[[/note]]is nearby.

* The ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' series have quite a few, not surprising, since the games mainly take place at children's restaurants.

** In [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 the sequel]], the player must keep winding a music box that plays "Grandfather's Clock" in order to keep an animatronic Puppet from moving from its place. Forget to wind it and you'll learn to dread "Pop Goes to Weasel" in a hurry...

** The [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSisterLocation fifth game]] has Ballora's theme tune, Crumbling Dreams, though it veers more into NostalgicMusicBox.
** [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSecurityBreach Security Breach]] has gift boxes which require you to wind them to open them, playing a tune. While nothing bad happens, it can sound out of place in a setting where everything (but Freddy) is out to get you.

** Alexia and Alfred's music box in VideoGame/ResidentEvilCodeVeronica.

* ''VideoGame/{{Planetarian}}'' opens with its RobotGirl lead cheerfully greeting planetarium customers, over a music-box arrangement of the hymn "What A Friend We Have In Jesus" [[note]]In case you're wondering what the connection is, in Japan the tune is better known as "World of Stars"[[/note]]... and then, we cut immediately to AfterTheEnd.

* The song that plays in the opening ballroom scene of the Disney movie ''Film/TheHauntedMansion''. The music box in the movie also has a similar tune.

* A 2019 Advertising/{{GEICO}} commercial showed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWy2kuGJrRo the Gecko and a homeowner exploring the attic of a newly-purchased house.]] The Gecko opens a music box (calling it a "tiny dancer", since he's British). The owner turns on the light, and they discover [[SurpriseCreepy the attic is full of mannequins in varying states of disrepair]] [[LettingTheAirOutOfTheBand while the music box slows to a stop]].

* The Hungarian anti-war psychological drama ''The Fifth Seal'' begins with the off-putting sounds of a large standing music box being wound up (with close-up shots on the internal mechanism, no less), its individual instruments tuning up, before it begins playing a short, unsettling, sometimes off-key bohemian chamber piece. It's practically the only continuous piece of music we hear throughout the movie, [[ShooOutTheClowns and when it stops...]]

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Survivors," Deanna Troi, TheEmpath of the crew, happens to hear a music box playing during the Away Team's investigation of an elderly couple's home after a mysterious attack on their colony. Her empathic nature briefly brings her into contact with something very powerful that doesn't want to be discovered - the result is that the music box melody starts [[TerribleTicking playing in her mind]] [[EarWorm over and over again]], [[PsychicStatic louder and louder]], until even a medically induced coma can't block it out.
* Used in ''Series/DoctorWho'' in "Silence in the Library" as the theme for the library and the alternate world, doubling the WTF factor and giving the episode Moffat's trademark 'dark fairytale' overtone.

* The killer in the ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode "No Compromises" uses one.

* The OminousMusicBoxTune is used to a fantastic effect in [[https://youtu.be/xrtQCCT8kpk this advert]] for ''Series/EastEnders''.

* In ''Series/TheFlash2014'', James Jesse/Trickster I's {{leitmotif}} is an eerie music box version of his theme from [[Series/TheFlash1990 the 90's series]].

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* ''[[Anime/GhostInTheShell1995 Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence]]'' has an entire sequence set inside a very creepy MindScrew mansion, all accompanied by the world's biggest music box ("The Doll House" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89WWqjxhXrE versions 1]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9m8ZManV_A 2]]). The score composer Kenji Kawai said in an interview that he wanted it to sound like you were ''inside'' said music box -- and he most certainly succeeded. In the Making Of extras on the DVD, it's shown how they did it: they had a company specializing in music boxes make them a huge one to play the tune, and then took it into some empty mine shaft to record it. Sure, they could have just electronically added the echo, [[ShownTheirWork but it just wouldn't have been]] [[DoingItForTheArt authentic enough]].

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' has a music box in Ikana Canyon, a literal UncannyValley, which is used to ward off [[{{Mummy}} Gibdoes]] from a scientist's house when the waterwheel turns. The sound of the strangely cheery sound is strongly contrasted with the drab, dead-looking location filled with undead creatures. The tune eerily fits perfectly when played over a similar piece from the BigBoosHaunt level of ''Videogame/SuperMario64'', another music box-style tune, creating one multi-layered OminousMusicBoxTune.

* In Chapter 2 of ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'', when [[spoiler:[[AloneWithThePsycho confronting Noelle in the hospital]] during the epilogue of a Weird Route playthrough]], the interaction is underscored by a song referred to in the game's files as [[https://youtu.be/5Eyk5Hg7v8A "flashback_exerpt.ogg"]], a minor-key music box arpeggio atop a skeletal version of [[spoiler:Noelle's leitmotif]] and a droning synth string version of "THE HOLY".

* ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' uses this trope [[AwesomeMusic/PaperMario fantastically]] for its final boss fight with [[https://youtu.be/Dd3y6Pci3g8 The Ultimate Show]], starting off with a slow music box and having the broken music box sound come back throughout the song. As if fighting [[spoiler: Luigi forcibly turned into a VillainousHarlequin EldritchAbomination]] wasn't creepy enough!

* ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' has this in the final Prayer cutscene of the Giygas battle.

* ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' has this in the final Prayer cutscene of the Giygas battle.

* Given the eerie nature of the series, a few of the songs ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' are like this: Kikai, Henka, Hayashi, Giwaku, Hyoui, Tatari, the main theme (not the opening song), etc. The [[https://youtu.be/UuofG8a7EEk main theme]] is accompanied by a very distinctive, creepy, subdued sort of wailing, but it may takes one or two times through the series before you notice it's actually [[spoiler: Hanyuu's VerbalTic, with the morbid creepiness turned UpToEleven]]. No, seriously.

* ''Anime/{{Ghost in the Shell|1995}} 2: Innocence'' has an entire sequence set inside a very creepy MindScrew mansion, all accompanied by the world's biggest music box ("The Doll House" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89WWqjxhXrE versions 1]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9m8ZManV_A 2]]). The score composer Kenji Kawai said in an interview that he wanted it to sound like you were ''inside'' said music box -- and he most certainly succeeded. In the Making Of extras on the DVD, it's shown how they did it: they had a company specializing in music boxes make them a huge one to play the tune, and then took it into some empty mine shaft to record it. Sure, they could have just electronically added the echo, [[ShownTheirWork but it just wouldn't have been]] [[DoingItForTheArt authentic enough]].

* Suito Kusanagi in ''Anime/TheSkyCrawlers'' has a large stationary music box in her office, that plays the movie's theme tune. It's probably a ShoutOut to the [[Creator/MamoruOshii director's]] previous work, ''Anime/GhostInTheShell 2: Innocence'', mentioned above.
* A lot of the songs from the movie adaptation of ''WesternAnimation/{{Coraline}}'': "[[https://youtu.be/71K9-1Jwxfk&feature=PlayList&p=DCD67CE98D531DCE&index=30 Mechanical Lullaby]]," "[[https://youtu.be/_LLHUQQ9cmM&feature=PlayList&p=DCD67CE98D531DCE&index=1 Dreaming]]," the song playing during the [[https://youtu.be/J8ry1f_3Lsk&feature=PlayList&p=DCD67CE98D531DCE&index=0 end credits]], "[[https://youtu.be/gxs2vS2gJ-c&feature=PlayList&p=DCD67CE98D531DCE&index=2 Exploration]]," "[[https://youtu.be/hpfgFnhgf-8&feature=PlayList&p=DCD67CE98D531DCE&index=9 The Supper]]," "[[https://youtu.be/qtDH_YlwuWY&feature=PlayList&p=DCD67CE98D531DCE&index=17 The Mice Circus]]" and "[[https://youtu.be/WXBDMA6Zp08&feature=PlayList&p=DCD67CE98D531DCE&index=26 Cocobeetles]]," to name a few.
* A ''extremely creepy'' one plays from just off screen in the film ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker''. Even more disturbing once you realize [[spoiler: what ComicBook/TheJoker [[BrainwashedAndCrazy did to Tim]], and that he has created a perverse "family" out of himself, Tim, and Harley...]]

** In ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'', [[https://youtu.be/Tt5YKcrYgD4 the BGM for N's Room]] is this. Whether it's more creepy or [[TheWoobie sad]] is up for debate, though it being [[AdultFear both]] also exists. ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite2'' uses a very creepy [[https://youtu.be/Fl0c9wApUeg version]] where the music box is now broken, thanks to the destruction of the castle.

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[[folder: Audio Drama]]

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