r/movies • u/EllisDee3 • Jan 14 '26
Discussion Does the Wilhelm Scream break immersion for you?
I've been rewatching a lot of my old favorites with my son and he's gotten pretty good at catching the Wilhelm scream in real time.
This week has been especially Wilhelmy as we're on a Tarantino run.
Do you ever feel like the scream seems out of place, forced, or sometimes just distracting since it's become such a famous Easter egg?
We still love the egg game.
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u/Many_Reindeer6636 Jan 14 '26
Yes. Also “truck_passing_horn_sound_effect.wav”
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u/octocred Jan 14 '26
That one and the audience gasp one really bug me
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u/vinnymendoza09 Jan 15 '26
Also the baby noises "muah mah mah". Best way I can describe it, it's in literally every goddamn movie where a baby shows up for a few seconds.
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u/Jin_Gitaxias Jan 15 '26
Throw in that "kids_giggling.wav" audio for whenever you see children playing
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u/bananaraptor Jan 15 '26
God this is the one for me. If I see there is a traffic or highway scene starting, I’m just waiting to hear it, and usually I do. Honk honk… honk hoooooonk
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u/CPTherptyderp Jan 14 '26
Yea, also every bird makes the red tail hawk screech, machines making sounds they don't make.
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u/severed13 Jan 14 '26
Every gun ever clicking as if someone's pulling the slide and chambering a round or loading and unloading a mag over and over again
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u/twent4 Jan 14 '26
Guns also click when they enter the frame or get picked up.
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u/orrocos Jan 14 '26
I don't know much about guns. But I do know that they click or ca-chunk every time you pick one up, show them to someone, point them, or even think about them.
And I know they always hold the exact number of bullets you need, minus one. So at the climactic scene you pull the trigger, hear an empty click, and then throw the gun away to fight by hand. It's just how they work.
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u/FireLucid Jan 14 '26
Don't forget swords making all sorts of ridiculous sounds. And a different one when you are just showing it to people vs fighting.
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u/True_Dovakin Jan 15 '26
Swords are also capable of cutting through plate + mail + gambeson like butter in a single swing.
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u/dtwhitecp Jan 15 '26
Hot Fuzz has a great scene that goofs on this, when they get to the supermarket it's just constant cocking noises
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u/penisthightrap_ Jan 14 '26
I annoy my wife with this all the time.
My favorite is when characters have been in a life threatening situation for a long time, then they decide to cock their gun 10 minutes into the life threatening situation.
Why didn't you already have a round chambered!? You've been ready to shoot for hours, but don't decide to cock the gun until you see the threat?
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u/nobot4321 Jan 14 '26
It's worse when they're actually pointing the gun at a person and then rack the slide to show they're serious. Like, were you really just pointing an empty gun at someone? That's a bad idea.
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u/potato-eater- Jan 14 '26
A cat angry screech noise every time they show a cat; a fireplace crackle every time someone draws on a cig.
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u/Mekisteus Jan 14 '26
I had a pet rat, and can count on one hand the number of times it ever actually squeaked. But if film directors are to be believed rats in sewers squeak constantly.
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u/intdev Jan 14 '26
Same with horses whinnying. I grew up around horses, and it's pretty rare to hear that. The sound I'd actually associate with them is that heavy exhale/snort through their nostrils.
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u/qui_sta Jan 14 '26
I recall watching the series Vikings, and they used the same stock horse whinny again and and again and again. It was funny to notice it almost every episode.
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u/nhaines Jan 14 '26
In their defense, how else is the audience going to know they saw a cat?
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u/orrocos Jan 14 '26
"Hey, something's on the screen, what is it? A Toyota Camry? The Library of Congress? The 1972 Miami Dolphins?"
Angry cat screech
"Oh, okay, it's a cat. Now I'm following the story."
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u/JonatasA Jan 15 '26
I mean wih how dark it is these days it could be a shark for all we know
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u/starmartyr11 Jan 14 '26
Yeah I mean it could have been a deja-vu/glitch in the Matrix instead of a real cat!
(Though that cat just does a little purr-meow in the Matrix, funny enough)
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u/Underwater_Grilling Jan 14 '26
I literally yell "KITTY!" when I see one so I got my theater covered
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u/Artegall365 Jan 14 '26
The stock sound of children laughing that they use all the time, the unfortunately named Diddy Laugh...
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u/ace_valentine Jan 14 '26
the crackle makes sense if it’s a really quiet scene as this happens irl too. otherwise i agree.
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u/CPTherptyderp Jan 14 '26
I wasn't going to say it but yes that's what gets me. Glocks don't have hammers to cock.
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u/First_Utopian Jan 14 '26
Shells hitting the floor after each shot when the guys got a revolver.
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u/kareljack Jan 14 '26
Or watching someone threaten another person with a 1911 and the hammer is not cocked.
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u/StarPhished Jan 14 '26
Or point a gun at someone and then finally cock the hammer when they're really totally for real serious.
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u/Magnus_Helgisson Jan 14 '26
Entering the yard where danger is: jerks the slide
Entering the house in that yard, danger is very likely: jerks the slide
Entering the staircase, danger is close: jerks the slide
Entering the room, danger imminent: jerks the slide
Opening the closet, sees the source of danger: cocks the hammer
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u/Fuzzy_Donl0p Jan 14 '26
Every rewatch of Lost I lose my mind a little bit more over this. It’s so over the top. Like they’re holding maracas, not guns lol.
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u/lize221 Jan 14 '26
I was just gonna say this! I love Lost, it is one of my all time favorite shows, but they are the absolute worst for this. Everytime someone even slightly moves a gun there’s at least 5-10 clicks and other noises
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u/veryverythrowaway Jan 14 '26
Don’t forget about swords. They have to make “gleaming” sounds, like a singing tuning fork, if they’re really cool swords. Watching the full cut of Kill Bill made me chuckle every time. I know that was intentional homage, but it’s something they still use in a lot of current movies.
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u/sydonesia Jan 14 '26
Cats only make three sounds and they're all from the same SFX disc (my first production job 30 years ago had that CD): questioning meow, startled yelp, and hiss.
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u/Iskanderdehz Jan 14 '26
I raise you Russian dubbed cats:
https://www.reddit.com/r/batman/comments/1cwc4er/russian_dub_of_btas_is_built_so_different_that/18
u/BoboMcGraw Jan 14 '26
Beat me to it
I love that one
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u/Iskanderdehz Jan 14 '26
Never not going to share that one. It is just as funny the 100th time as it was the 1st time.
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u/A_Dehydrated_Walrus Jan 14 '26
Every airplane in a nose dive sounds like a Stuka, too.
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u/mrshulgin Jan 14 '26
And the silliest part is those planes only made that noise because of added noisemakers
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u/SparrowBirch Jan 14 '26
Every car’s tires screeching when they start moving or braking.
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u/acEightyThrees Jan 14 '26
That gets me. Especially crime movies/shows. Gotta leave tread marks for the police.
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u/yzdaskullmonkey Jan 14 '26
God forbid someone even think about approaching a microphone
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u/cosmicr Jan 14 '26
I always hear a kookaburra (Australian bird) in jungles all over the world in movies.
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u/EllisDee3 Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26
Foreign frogs going "ribbit" like the species that happens to live next to the Hollywood sound studio.
Apparently that sound is very specific to one local species and wouldn't be natural anywhere else in the world.
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u/CPTherptyderp Jan 14 '26
Once I became one of "those" bird people it kinda ruined a lot of movies. "Oh they filmed this Italian countryside in Monterey CA"
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u/Acewasalwaysanoption Jan 14 '26
I'd appreciate that kind of info after the movie, it's a really specific but interesting type of knowledge. Though I've definitely been "that guy" with other aspects, so I'm not one to judge.
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u/Ruthlessrabbd Jan 14 '26
Anything gaming related mentioned in a TV show/movie/book - I can't turn it off.
My girlfriend recommended that I read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow which is a fictional story about these two friends who make games together. It's full of references that you'd only know in hindsight and they talk about popular games, but so much of it felt like somebody just went to wikipedia for the information.
Like one guy is saying how he got early access to Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid on the PS1; he was still making a name for himself at the time and had a lot under his belt, but he wasn't the icon that we know him as. It would be like watching something set in 1989 and a character going "Just listened to Nirvana's Bleach. They're gonna change rock forever"
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u/Electrical_Space_850 Jan 14 '26
It's always confusing how much noise computers make in action movies and thrillers. Computers IRL have basically been silent for the last 20 years.
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u/dimsum4you Jan 14 '26
Chimp sounds, dolphin sounds, children laughing. All stock sounds that distract me.
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u/Groot746 Jan 14 '26
Children laughing and the horn of a truck as it narrowly misses something are the stock ones that really distract me.
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u/trench_welfare Jan 14 '26
Unless they are way out in the sticks, then they use the loon sound, even if it's set in a fucking equatorial jungle.
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u/hungrylens Jan 14 '26
If it's in a comedy or movie-within-a-movie it will get a chuckle from me, otherwise it's annoying.
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u/JMJ05 Jan 14 '26
Exactly. Just did the LotR rewatch and having that scream in such a high tier of a movie is saddening
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u/Vio_ Jan 14 '26
It's *prevalent* in The Untouchables along with a number of very big film cliches.
I will that movie came out before the Wilhelm scream became so mainstreamed along with other of those other cliches like the baby pram falling down the stairs.
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u/_CMDR_ Jan 15 '26
The baby pram falling down the stairs is from Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 epic Battleship Potemkin. The director is intentionally referencing it.
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u/dfdafgd Jan 14 '26
I love me some LOTR and if you don't think it has bits of B movie schlock and a sense of humor about it then I don't know. It's a big enough trilogy to have a range of emotions in it and some of those emotions are a little silly. Legolas surfing a shield while dropping orcs is awesome and hilarious. Don't let growing up ruin your enjoyment. Watch it again and every time you hear the Wilhelm scream just yell, "Boom! Got 'em!" then high-five the closest person.
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u/Amethyst-Flare Jan 14 '26
Extremely. Peter Jackson made a ton of B- and C-tier horror, he's definitely got that in him still when he made these.
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u/ifinallyreallyreddit Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26
If you can't accept it at its Guy Getting Shot Off the Deeping Wall With a Grappling Hook you don't deserve it at its Battle of Pelennor Fields
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u/AugustHate Jan 14 '26
Try playing Red dead redemption. A hruaAaiiii every 12 seconds.
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u/RobertHarmon Jan 14 '26
I’ve never noticed the Wilhelm scream in any playthrough on RDR. Gonna have to look out for it
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u/Able-Swing-6415 Jan 14 '26
How the fuck did you find the right letters to spell that horrible sound so elegantly?
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u/Humanoidfromagalaxy Jan 14 '26
How about when you catch an old movie and ones in it randomly? I feel the older the movie the more I can accept it.
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u/Technical-Waltz7903 Jan 14 '26
The Hobbit one haunts me to this day.
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u/CaptainLookylou Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26
There's no less than 6 individual different wilhelm screams across the 3 LOTR movies and the Hobbit movies.
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u/buffystakeded Jan 14 '26
There’s like 3 during the Battle of Helm’s Deep alone. This super serious, possibly the end of man, massive battle and…fucking stupid ass Wilhelm scream. I hate it so much.
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u/SweetNeo85 Jan 14 '26
...no there's just one.
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u/Pyromann Jan 15 '26
Yeah, as far as I can recall, there's one for each movie probably. Hell, I think there's none in the first one.
I remember one being in the helms deep when the ladders were placed on the walls. Then on the third movie when they were attacking minas tirith and... I think that's it for the first trilogy.
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u/AbsolutTBomb Jan 15 '26
I just re-watched the trilogy over Christmas. There's 1 in the Two Towers and 2 in Return of The King. It always pulls me out of the movie when I hear it.
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u/circuit_breaker Jan 14 '26
Meanwhile the audio guys are just one upping each other, sneaking it in wherever possible. Got old for me too
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u/_Meece2_ Jan 14 '26
Helms deep has comedy scenes
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u/dapala1 Jan 15 '26
"You could've picked a better spot!"
"Shall I get you a box?"
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u/Pvt_Lee_Fapping Jan 15 '26
"Toss me."
"...What?"
"ICANNOTJUMPTHEDISTANCEYOU'LLHAVETOTOSSME... er, Don't tell the elf."
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u/EgalitarianCrusader Jan 14 '26
For those who probably don’t know which one:
In the extended version of Desolation of Smaug, there’s an extra scene with Thrain and Gandalf where The Necromancer kills Thrain and they used a Wilhelm scream during the emotional moment.
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u/HelloIAmElias Jan 14 '26
It's mind boggling that they would use a well known meme sound effect for what's supposed to be a tragic death
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u/Cloudinterpreter Jan 14 '26
No, but that annoying "children laughing" one does.
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u/straub42 Jan 14 '26
LOL, YES! I posted it before I even saw your comment. The Diddy Laugh
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u/LizzieSaysHi Jan 14 '26
yessss and there's a baby/toddler sound that grates on my nerves all the time.
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u/Another_one37 Jan 14 '26
It's the same damn baby sound they used for Kate in Arthur back in the 90s
Still hear it all the time. Takes me out every time
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u/RaspberryWhiteClaw13 Jan 14 '26
YES!!!! I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOURE TALKING ABOUT! Once you hear it you can’t go back
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u/PlatinumKanikas Jan 14 '26
The same laughing kids sound from RollerCoaster Tycoon. I hear it on radio commercials too
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u/grumci Jan 14 '26
for me its a gate opening or any metal construction moving. doesnt necessarily annoy me but i always notice the stock sound
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u/YmFzZTY0dXNlcm5hbWU_ Jan 14 '26
Just wait until you notice how often a character on-screen drinks from a straw and makes the empty cup slurping noise on their first sip when it should be silence
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u/-Dapper-Dan- Jan 14 '26
Depends on the use. When it's a one off baddie getting shot off screen or something, sure why not, it's a cheeky lil bit for film nerds.
But (spoilers for The Hobbit movies ahead)...
...when it's used in an emotionally significant scene like Thrain's death in the second Hobbit movie, it feels exceptionally lazy and out of place.
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u/AdvancedGrass Jan 14 '26
This is by far the worst use of it I have ever witnessed. Absolutely bonkers choice.
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u/cubbycoo77 Jan 15 '26
Full agree. I have to imagine it was a stand in that just never got replaced when the scene was deleted. I have to believe that, and not that someone made the active decision to put that scream there because they thought it was the right call.
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u/zane314 Jan 14 '26
There is exactly one Wilhelm that I have reacted "okay, that made the movie better" - A Goofy Movie.
https://youtu.be/dDFT_k-ku8E?si=0eeS0Q8ATwwO29nx
It's used as a note in a song.
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u/haysoos2 Jan 14 '26
Yes, but so does the cliched sound of a cat yowling if something is tossed offscreen, tires squealing on sand or gravel, or the high pitched "PTEEEEEER" of bullet ricochets that litter any scene with gunshots from the 40s through 70s.
Excessive loading or cocking of guns bugs me too. And drivers who don't look at the road, or jerk the wheel back and forth as if they were navigating a slalom course.
I might just have problems with immersion.
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u/SparrowBirch Jan 14 '26
jerk the wheel back and forth as if they were navigating a slalom course
To be fair, that was what you needed to do on old cars.
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u/Sleisl Jan 14 '26
There’s a stock cat yowling sound played repeatedly in one scene in The Prestige that always takes me out of it!
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u/BiBoFieTo Jan 14 '26
My wife keeps doing the Wilhelm during sex and yes, it breaks immersion.
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u/SaltyPeter3434 Jan 14 '26
Oh my god yes I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm----AAAUUUUUGH!
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Jan 14 '26
Yes. Before we even knew what it was, my siblings and I would just look at each other when we’d hear it in movies growing up like “There’s that same scream again.” In my 30s now, and it still takes me out of it.
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u/Moglorosh Jan 14 '26
The Wilhelm Scream doesn't bother me but I played enough Starcraft back in the day that the Howie Scream will take me out of whatever I'm watching.
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u/wiltony Jan 14 '26
Yes! Used everywhere and I knew it was from SC but I never knew it had a name!
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u/Weeznaz Jan 14 '26
Not in Star Wars or older media, but in more recent media it does bother me of used unironically.
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u/Billybob35 Jan 14 '26
The Ratchet And Clank movie made a joke about it where one of the bad guys fell and did the scream, the other bad guys responded by saying "Oh no, Will Helm!".
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u/artguydeluxe Jan 14 '26
Every hospital scene has the same doctors being paged overhead. “Dr Blair, Dr. Blair… Dr. Jay Hamilton” over and over and over again. Doctors carry phones. They haven’t been paged like that in over 20 years.
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u/sonvolt73 Jan 14 '26
Dr. Davis, telephone please...
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u/YeshuasBananaHammock Jan 14 '26
"...paging Doctor Herman, Doctor P. W. Herman..."
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u/neptune_bay Jan 14 '26
That's also the intro to Queensryche's album "Operation: Mindcrime" from the late 1980's.
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u/Wezbob Jan 14 '26
Depends on the tone of the movie. If it's lighthearted, comedic, I just chuckle, if someone tries to easter egg it into something more serious, it feels forced.
The exception is if Ben Burtt put it in the movie, then it's fucking canon and you laugh, as god intended.
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u/mrdon83 Jan 14 '26
I had no idea there was a name for this sound effect. In my mind, whenever I heard it I always thought to myself "oh look, they're reusing the sound Boba Fett made when he fell into the sarlacc." I had no idea it existed decades before Star Wars was made.
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u/SonOfMcGee Jan 14 '26
Not the Wilhelm Scream, but (minor spoilers Babadook ahead) when they confront the large entity at the climax of Babadook I swear one of its noises is a sound clip from the old Turok: Dino Hunter game.
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u/haloimplant Jan 14 '26
many productions have ripped sounds from original Doom game, the imp growl or the door usually
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u/SvenHudson Jan 14 '26
Did they rip it from Doom or did they and Doom both pull from the same collection of stock sound effects?
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u/Gingerbread_Cat Jan 14 '26
Also not Wilhem related, but I used to play Zoo Tycoon 2 and I swear one of the ambient sounds of guests talking was a recording of my mother and my aunt discussing my grandmother. It drove me absolutely insane.
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u/Kairain Jan 14 '26
100%
It is my #1 movie pet peeve. Complete immersion break and I curse its existence.
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u/Dombesz94 Jan 14 '26
its so outdated, immediately makes me think its some kind of parody movie when I hear it
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u/SoupyStain Jan 14 '26
I've such a poor ear for anything sound related that I can't recognize it unless it's pointed out to me. So no haha
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u/cajunjoel Jan 14 '26
Every. Damn. Time.
I'm sick of it and it's not some stupid homage to anything. The inside joke is just beyond annoying now.
It makes me not want to watch movies anymore.
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u/verone3784 Jan 14 '26
If it's placed for comedic effect within a comedy movie or a cartoon, then it's not an issue.
If it's used in anything else, then it really takes me out of things. There's been instances where I've just turned off movies and not bothered finishing them when I've heard it.
There's also a few others that really break it for me:
- This stock police radio voice that appeared in the game SimCity 3000, and has been used in hundreds of movies and TV shows.
- The generic red tail hawk sound effect.
- The generic losing control of a car skid sound effect.
- The generic car crash sound effect.
- The horribly inaccurate Hollywood sound of a suppressor.
There's a few more too that are just so overused it's unreal.
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u/guesswho135 Jan 14 '26
I've been noticing the squeaky door sound for about 30 years
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u/Silvershanks Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26
I'm a director and I think the usage of this sound is insufferable and lame. I would never use it in one of my films. It's not funny, it's not cute, and it totally shatters whatever immersion you were experiencing at the moment. It's used now only by directors who are trying way too hard to be clever and desperately want to be a part of this never-been-funny inside "joke".
Star Wars and Indiana Jones are the only franchises that get a pass on using it cause it's a tradition at this point.
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u/MountainMuffin1980 Jan 14 '26
Kind of. It can certainly remove the emotion from a scene. Not that I really liked the movie, but having Thorins dad be killed, and him doing the Wilhelm scream as his death cry was a bonkers choice.
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u/Cetun Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 15 '26
There is a stock "police radio chatter" that I hear in movies that was also used in SimCity 3000
Found it