Wilhelm Scream

Have you ever heard the Wilhelm Scream? I bet you have; the distinctive scream has been used in movies for over fifty years.

The scream is a fitting scream for a Taekwondo tournament. We have all heard a version of it when we accidentally hit an opponent while sparring. The opponent screams and falls to floor in extreme agony, until the referee issues you a warning or disqualification, then the opponent jumps up, miraculously healed and ready to continue.

The scream began in 1951 in the Warner Brothers film Distant Drums. In the film, Gary Cooper, as Captain Quincy Wyatt, leads a group of soldiers to stop some Seminole Indians from threatening settlers in early 19th Century Florida. During a scene where the soldiers are wading through a swamp, we hear the scream as one of the soldiers is bitten and dragged underwater by an alligator. The scream was later archived in the studio's sound effects library and used in many subsequent Warner Brothers productions.

Here is a compilation of the Wilhelm Scream as it has been used in movies through the years.