An exclusive music video for the film Betrayal has been released, featuring a haunting track from composers Steffen Thum and Max Aruj. The video, shot by the song’s vocalist alongside a colleague, showcases the eerie and atmospheric score that drives the tension and suspense of the film.

Released on September 6, Betrayal follows the unsettling journey of three brothers who return to the forest where they once buried their abusive father, only to find his grave mysteriously empty. As their trust erodes, the dark truth of their past unravels with devastating consequences.

Thum and Aruj, known for their work on Black Widow, Top Gun: Maverick, and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, have crafted a raw, organic soundscape that reflects the film’s surreal woodland setting. Their use of custom violin and cello textures, alongside experimental percussion and vocals, lends an air of mystery to the score. The music alternates between sparse and unsettling tones, allowing the smallest of sounds—like footsteps or breaths—to create a powerful emotional impact.

At the heart of the score is a mother’s lullaby, a contrasting element that weaves through the film’s bleakness. This lullaby is featured prominently in the music video, offering a glimpse into the emotional core of Betrayal.

What can you tell us about this music video and the track itself? Why are they unique/special?

We came up with this song as an emotional counterpoint to the darkness of this story of three brothers who decide to kill their abusive father after they tragically lost their mother. We knew the score would generally be quite dark, primal and bleak, so we were interested in bringing in a warm, human element that would represent the mother. We only see her in a few flashback scenes, but the memory of her haunts the brothers throughout the film. They want to avenge her death, so she’s essentially the catalyst of this whole story, the beginning of it all. We came up with the idea of a mother’s lullaby, something that she might have sung to her sons in the past.

We wanted it to sound mystical, spherical, like a folk song that has been around forever, and since the film is set in the Scottish woods, the lyrics were going to be in Scottish Gaelic. Not an easy task, but we were very lucky to find a great vocalist in Stephanie Healy, who not only brought the right emotion to this song, but helped us translate our English lyrics the right way. We all had so much fun working on it, we decided to give it its own music video, starring Stephanie.

What was your overall scoring approach for the film?

We knew we wanted a really raw, primal soundscape for this film, almost exclusively made of acoustic and organic sounds. We recorded a lot of custom violin and cello textures and experimented with a lot of different percussive sources, from rather conventional drums to found objects. Wood, metal and beyond, anything that could be hit with a stick was fair game.

In the case of the chase scenes in this film, we wanted to get really frenetic and messy with it, also often adding chopped up voices that sound like they’re running out of breath. In other parts of the film, we decided to go very sparse and quiet with the score to really hear every breath and footstep. There’s a mystic quality to these remote Scottish woodlands our characters live in, at nightfall almost a bit surreal, so it was important to not get in the way of those moments.

What do you hope fans/listeners take away from the film and your score?

We hope more genre fans will get to discover and enjoy the film. It’s a dark, gritty survival thriller with a talented cast, exciting twists and turns, but it’s also a tragic tale of domestic abuse. Our goal with the score was to tap into the emotional core of this story about revenge, paranoia and mistrust, not letting the audience off the hook until the last minute.

It was a pleasure working with director Rodger Griffiths and producers Lee Brazier and Claire Mundell, as well as Stephanie Healy and the rest of our fantastic music team.