You may have heard of the Wilhelm scream, a sound effect of a man screaming that’s been repeated in movies since its origination in the ’50s. It’s not a kind of scream; it’s the actual recorded scream, the same sound bite that’s appeared in a number of movies over the past fifty years.
NPR has a current story on the scream–check it out here.
I’ve heard the Wilhelm in the Lord of the Ring movies, too. I haven’t heard it yet in The Fellowship of the Ring, but I bet it’s there. In The Two Towers, the scream happens a couple of minutes into the Battle of Helm’s Deep as a soldier falls from the wall. In The Return of the King the scream happens when **SPOILER ALERT–SPOILER ALERT** Legolas is crawling on the giant elephant and knocks an enemy soldier off. **END SPOILER ALERT**
It’s a fun thing to look for– you can Google it here, or see a nice quick rundown with a sound sample here. You can find a video montage of the scream at the bottom of the article on this page (48 MB video and smaller 27MB video).