The Wilhelm Scream

And with the Top 10 of 2011 well behind us and the traditional short pause of one update equally behind us, this may be as good as any moment to thank you for reading the Avenue – in the past months a couple of people have subscribed to these reviews and that truly makes a difference, but it’s a bit awkward to write such statements into an entry, so that’s why I’m doing it now. Because there is a full week between 30 January and 5 February, the Avenue will add an extra update on 1 February, so stay tuned if you want to hear our thoughts on the latest Cronenberg movie.

However, sometimes you read about something and a name catches your eye, but without any reference you don’t pay any attention and quickly forget about it. In our case, that was what happened to the “Wilhelm scream”. Then – about the fourth time the name popped up – we read the story and thought it was worthy of sharing.

The Wilhelm scream is a sound effect that first popped up in 1951. Originally it was just called a “scream”, but in the third movie it was used, the character who was wounded was called Wilhelm and that’s where it got its name from. Ever since, it’s been used as an effect as well as an injoke for movie maniacs and it’s quite remarkable to hear the same scream pop up in various movies. As you can watch and hear in this compilation: