Almost exactly one year ago, we posted a little thing called The 10 Greatest Horror Movie Themes, in which we... well, we listed ten great horror movie themes. Now I should know by now that any time you run a "10 Best" anything, you're asking for trouble – because "best" is in the eye (or ear, in this case) of the beholder. So in the interest of objectivity, I picked ten themes that nearly everyone could recognize, whether they be hardcore horror junkies (like you and me) or just dabblers. Needless to say, I had to leave out a lot of classic tunes that most serious genre fans know better than their own moms, so last year's list was just begging for a sequel. While I stand by my original list of iconic tunes, we always aim to satisfy the true horror faithful, so here we are again.

Remember we're talking themes here, not entire soundtracks, and instead of ranking them from 1 to 10, they're just listed alphabetically this time, so we'll let you decide which ones are your favorites. There's also a clip for each theme, so you can hum along as you read...

Candyman

Celebrated classical composer Philip Glass, whose music involves complex, hypnotic repeating patterns, was an ingenious choice for Bernard Rose's excellent 1992 adaptation of Clive Barker's short story "The Forbidden." The simple but amazing score is woven through the story's mythical puzzle until it almost becomes a character itself, but it's the chillingly beautiful music-box lullaby "It Was Always You, Helen" that sticks in most people's memories. It perfectly captures the supernatural relationship and intertwined destinies of the heroine and the title character... very creepy, but also tender and intimate, and it makes you feel the pain and sorrow that live deep within Candyman's monstrous exterior (beneath all the bees, of course).

Cannibal Holocaust 

Here we've got a contender for the most ironic movie theme in horror history: Riz Ortolani's sweet, melancholy main title music for Ruggero Deodato's controversial cult classic sounds more fitting for a family-friendly flick about a little girl and her beloved kitten, but instead we hear this theme accompanying a film which features a young woman impaled up the hoo-hah. Taken out of context, it's actually a very tender ballad with a slightly off-kilter edge, thanks to the combination of rich acoustic guitar and a warbling synthesizer melody, and it's among the best of many great themes from Ortolani's long career (which includes the Grammy-winning theme for shock-doc Mondo Cane). Who knew cannibalism, torture, dismemberment and mass murder could seem so... pleasant?

Creepshow

Filmmaker John Harrison first appeared the horror scene as part of George Romero's inner circle – working not only as a musician and composer, but in many other roles both behind and in front of the camera. His piano score for the low-budget thriller Effects was one of the film's strongest elements, and it led George to tap into John's musical skills for several of his own projects, including the director's first team-up with fellow horror legend Stephen King. Harrison's score for Creepshow is also based mostly on piano compositions – and the movie's main theme is the best example of how simple but effective this can be. The addition of ghostly voices singing a wordless children's taunt calls up the feeling of a tormented boy escaping into the gruesome four-color world of horror comics.

Hellraiser

When Clive Barker first conceived his feature directing debut, he originally intended the adaptation of his novella The Hellbound Heart to be a much more surreal, boundary-pushing film packed with S&M imagery. To help bring that vision to life, he turned to early industrial music pioneers Coil (John Balance and Peter Christopherson) to do an electronic score. But backers New World Pictures pushed for a slightly safer approach, which among other things included ditching Coil's unsettling music and going instead for Christopher Young's more traditional orchestral compositions. That said, Young's score is so magnificently gothic, sensual and dripping with dread that it's hard to imagine anything else accompanying the film's opening titles.

Phantasm

Man, I caught hell for not including this one in the original Top 10 – and believe me, it was a hard decision. Phantasm is a perfect example of a movie theme that may not have made its way into mainstream culture (yet), but is so beloved by generations of horror fans that it instantly brings a smile when you hear it: just a few notes in, and you'll remember exactly where and when you first took in the eerie delights of Don Coscarelli's 1979 classic. It might have something to do with the warm tones of the moody rock melody by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave, which manages to capture the sadness and terror of leaving the safety of childhood and plunging headlong into the unknown – where the Tall Man is waiting in the darkness.

Poltergeist

There's something about the sound of children singing that just cranks up the creepy factor of a horror movie. Whether it's little girls chanting the Freddy rhyme from A Nightmare on Elm Street or the "School at Night" record playing beneath grisly murders in Dario Argento's Deep Red, kids' voices just seem to kick scary scenes to a whole new level. Even when Steven Spielberg's touchy-feely '80s family vibe is involved, like in Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist, it's still disturbing – as proved by the recurring "Carol Anne's Theme." The end titles feature a full children's choir performing the song (there's also a lyric version called "Bless This House"), and if it accompanied anything but a horror film, it might seem comforting. But after the events that literally explode across the screen, it's not soothing at all... especially when the kids start giggling at the end.

Rosemary's Baby

If you're detecting a recurring pattern of nursery rhymes, lullabies and other kid-centric tunes in this list, it's probably no accident. There's nothing more unsettling than pairing up dark, terrifying screen images with sweet, childlike melodies... and director Roman Polanski knew this four decades ago when he took on this classic adaptation of Ira Levin's bestselling occult novel. The soft and gentle "la-la-las" of Krzysztof Komeda's Rosemary's Baby theme represent the frailty and innocence of Mia Farrow's Rosemary – and they should, because that's Mia herself singing it. Her voice is so fragile and vulnerable that you immediately become scared for her, long before you discover the horrifying things that are about to happen.

The Thing

John Carpenter's musical connection to the genre is legendary, since he scores nearly all of his own films, and I count myself proudly among his musical admirers. Whatever your flavor of choice, you get the best of everything in Carpenter's 1982 epic, for which he enlisted acclaimed Italian composer Ennio Morricone – the genius behind countless classic film scores from Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns to giallos by Argento and Fulci. Morricone provided the haunting orchestral compositions for the film, while Carpenter added his own (uncredited) electronic accents. Morricone reportedly disliked the end result, but for me it's horror music at its absolute best, and the main theme is the best example of how old and new styles come together to create a feeling of ultimate doom.

Zombie

Here's another one that missed last year's list, and I'm glad to finally satisfy my fellow fans of Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci and his frequent musical collaborator Fabio Frizzi. One of their earliest projects together was also the film that kicked the director's already prolific career into overdrive and made us fall in love with his literally eye-popping cinematic output. There's hardly a horror buff out there who can't instantly identify the Zombie theme... all it takes is a couple of those drum machine kicks and we're instantly underwater watching that zombie throw down with a shark. Frizzi's pulsing theme is so catchy in its simplicity that he even borrowed it from himself for City of the Living Dead. Oh sure, he changed it a little bit, but we all know it's the same tune. Hell, why tamper with perfection?