The waterphone is a bowed metal instrument whose rods produce long, dissonant ringing tones that sound unlike a conventional melody instrument. Because that sound feels unnatural and hard to place, it became a favourite tool for creating suspense and unease in horror and thriller sound design. Short clips of it now circulate widely among video editors, who reuse the same unsettling scrape and shimmer to signal danger, mystery or something supernatural without needing dialogue or music.