Lakeshore Records has released Vicious—Music from the Paramount+ Original Movie digitally today October 10, featuring music by composer Tom Schraeder (The Dark and the Wicked). Schraeder is regarded as an inventive and sought-after composer in the genre, known for weaving unsettling textures with emotional resonance. With this score, his second collaboration with Bertino, he deepened that approach. Scoring from Bertino’s script before shooting began, Schraeder developed themes that evolved alongside the film – scaling from an initial 64-piece orchestral concept to a more intimate score that mirrors Dakota Fanning’s character’s breath, endurance, and inner unraveling.
The recording process was just as unorthodox. Schraeder collaborated with musicians like Stan Harrison (David Bowie/Bruce Springsteen) and Clive Deamer (Portishead/Radiohead), encouraging them to “explore their instruments in unconventional ways” and invent sounds outside tradition – preparing pianos, bowing and submerging gongs underwater, and even building his own terrifying-sounding “Terror Box,” which became central to the score. Paramount gave him a rare office on the lot, where he worked alongside the edit team, weaving live recordings directly into the cut. Vicious is streaming now exclusively on Paramount+.
Notes Schraeder: “Working on the score for Vicious didn’t feel like a composer and director collaboration. It’s more like we’re bandmates, with Bryan as frontman and me helping bring his vision to life.”
Purchase/ Stream:
Track List
01. Spiral
02. Polly’s Theme (Something You Love)
03. Come In
04. Polly’s Theme (Vocal Reprise)
05. Vicious Theme (Calling Mom)
06. The Box Theme
07. You’re Going To Die
08. I’m Not Your Mother
09. I Wanna Play (The Key)
10. Instructions
11. I Loved Them
12. You and I
13. Box Reprise (It Should Have Been Me)
14. Hourglass (Something You Hate)
15. Something. I. Fear.
16. I’m Gonna Start Now
17. Go Away
18. Hair Cut
19. Vicious Theme
20. Humble Yourself
21. Nothing Left
22. What Happened Auntie P?
23. Wrong Answer
24. It Could Have Been Anyone
25. Vicious Theme (Something You Need)
26. What Do You Fear?
27. Tara’s Theme (Something You Want)
28. The Box Theme (It Wants You)
29. Closet
30. Tara’s Theme (She Lies)
31. Polly’s Theme (A Lot to Offer)
32. Logo
ABOUT VICIOUS
Polly receives a mysterious box that comes with instructions to place three things inside: something you need, something you hate, and something you love. What begins as a strange ritual quickly unravels into a waking nightmare as she becomes trapped in a terrifying world where reality bends and memory betrays. As time slips away, she must confront the darkness not just around her, but within her, before it consumes everything and everyone she’s ever known.
ABOUT TOM SCHRAEDER
Tom Schraeder is a film composer whose work has quickly made him a standout in the horror and thriller genres.
Schraeder’s path to scoring was anything but conventional. As a kid, he chased film from every angle – auditioning for Forrest Gump and Freaks and Geeks, writing scripts by age nine, and even landing a small part in Road to Perdition (before his scene was cut). By sixteen, the pull of music proved stronger. He played his first solo show at the House of Blues Chicago and, years later, found himself performing at Chicago’s Grant Park and major festivals like Lollapalooza, CMJ, SXSW, and even headlining the Kennedy Center. Chicago Magazine called him “on the brink of stardom,” and the Sun-Times featured him on its Lollapalooza weekend cover saying, “LCD, Schraeder, Daft Punk Soar” – all before his debut EP was even out.
In 2009, a conversation with Eddie Vedder changed his trajectory. Vedder’s advice, “record as much as you can” – pushed Schraeder to start releasing music relentlessly. That year he signed his first record deal and began experimenting with scoring, producing a short film with Bailout Pictures and later composing music for famed chef Homaro Cantu’s series Cooking Under Pressure. Over time, he released more than 25 albums, toured internationally, and shared bills with artists like Dawes, Justin Townes Earle, and John Doe of X – all while sharpening his instincts for cinematic storytelling.
Ironically, it was when he stepped back from music in the early 2010s – returning to bartending to “reclaim it as a love, not a career” – that film came calling again. Producer/director Sonny Mallhi asked him to contribute an original song to a Blumhouse/Netflix feature, which led to co-composing Mallhi’s Hurt. Soon after, Schraeder was introduced to Bryan Bertino, sparking a creative partnership that would define his career. Bertino invited him to score The Dark and the Wicked, a chilling collaboration that became Schraeder’s breakthrough, earning acclaim from The New York Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Consequence of Sound, as well as award nominations from the Hollywood Music in Media Awards and Fangoria.
That restless curiosity, combined with a storyteller’s instinct, and guidance from a modern horror master like Bertino, Schraeder is establishing himself as one of the most distinctive new voices in contemporary film scoring.
ABOUT LAKESHORE RECORDS
Lakeshore Records is a GRAMMY-winning record label, and the soundtrack arm of the Cutting Edge Group. Lakeshore Records is the global independent leader in top line soundtrack album releases, including such popular, critically acclaimed and classic soundtracks as Bridgerton, Stranger Things, Wednesday, Fallout, John Wick, Whiplash, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Drive, Cyberpunk 2077 / Edgerunners, Star Trek: Picard, Bojack Horseman, The Walking Dead, Napoleon Dynamite, Red Dead Redemption 2, the Grammy-winning Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok, the Academy Award nominated Lady Bird and Academy Award winners Moonlight, Little Miss Sunshine, American Factory, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Hurt Locker and many, many more.
