"Horror Movie" was the second single from the Skyhooks album Living in the Seventies

Living in the Seventies

Living in the 70's was the debut album released by Melbourne band Skyhooks in October 1974 on the Mushroom Records label. Initially charting in Melbourne only in 1974, by early 1975 the rest of the nation began to catch on...

and was their first number-one single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, staying there for two weeks in March 1975.

The single was greatly helped along by the band's appearance on the then-new ABC

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

 pop music

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 TV show

Television program

A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

 Countdown.

Along with "Women in Uniform", "Horror Movie" is widely recognised as one of the Skyhooks' signature tracks. The song itself, written by bass

Bass (instrument)

Bass describes musical instruments that produce tones in the low-pitched range. They belong to different families of instruments and can cover a wide range of musical roles...

 player Greg Macainish, is about how the world has taken a turn for the worse with all of the chaos in society, to the point where watching the nightly TV news

News program

A news program, news programme, news show, or newscast is a regularly scheduled radio or television program that reports current events. News is typically reported in a series of individual stories that are presented by one or more anchors...

 is like watching a horror movie

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

.

The song remains popular as a Halloween

Halloween

Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...

 song in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and appears on the compilation album

Compilation album

A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

 Elvira Presents Haunted Hits

Elvira Presents Haunted Hits

Elvira Presents Haunted Hits is a compilation album of Halloween songs. It was first issued in 1988, and is presented by Elvira. Subsequent albums were Elvira Presents Monster Hits and Revenge Of the Monster Hits.-Track listing:...

.

In 1998 Australia Post

Australia Post

Australia Post is the trading name of the Australian Government-owned Australian Postal Corporation .-History:...

 issued a special edition set of twelve stamps

Postage stamp

A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...

 celebrating the early years of Australian rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

, featuring Australian hit songs of the late 50s, the 60s and the early 70s.

"Each of them said something about us, and told the rest of the world this is what popular culture sounds like, and it has an Australian accent."

One of the stamps featured was the "Horror Movie" stamp.