Hear for the fear
THERE IS NO BETTER SLASHER SOUNDTRACK MAKER THAN MAESTRO JOHN CARPENTER AND, HE’S BAAAACK …
The panicked piano stabs composed by horror maestro John Carpenter to soundtrack the white-masked psychopath Michael Myers maintain their power to provoke goosebumps and frazzle the nerveendings of filmgoers.
More than 40 years after his Halloween theme announced the arrival of one of the most feared slashers in cinema history, Carpenter’s score remains on top of any poll of horror film soundtracks.
After Hollywood executives declared the 1978 classic wasn’t scary enough after test screenings, its director composed and recorded his mighty movie music in just three days, transforming the viewing experience from a whimper to a bloodcurdling scream.
With no budget and the clock ticking, armed with the DNA of his music professor father and an array of synthesisers, Carpenter perfected the marriage of score and scenes to amplify the plot’s shocks and surprises and trigger the viewer’s emotional anxiety.
“Yeah, that’s the whole point, to provide another voice in there; that’s what we’ve always hoped to do,” the veteran filmmaker says.
While lionised as a filmmaker, Carpenter has generated a cult following for his scores and soundtracks.
He has been composing and recording his own scores since he created the soundtrack to his first film, 1974’s Dark Star, originally as a cost-cutting measure.
But he remained the soundtrack star even as he struck box office gold throughout the ’80s and ’90s with the Halloween franchise and Escape From New York and its sequel.
And the budgets got better. “They sure have. And the time has gotten better than the three days I had in 1978,” he says.
After the 1978 original, Carpenter wasn’t interested in directing any of the sequels as he felt he had already “made that film once”.
But he was brought back into the fold for the slasher series’ reboot as a trilogy helmed by director David Gordon Green and horror hitmaker producer Jason Blum.
They launched with Halloween (same title as the original but entirely different film) in 2018, followed by this year’s Halloween Kills and concluding next year with Halloween Ends.
“There were a few conversations and Jason Blum convinced me to be involved. He said, ‘Look, they’re going to remake this movie with you or without you. So why don’t you lend your voice and make it better instead of sitting on the sidelines and criticise it?’
“And I said, ‘OK, I’ll do that’. It’s worked out pretty well.”
Carpenter again enlisted his musician son Cody and composer Daniel Davies – the son of The Kinks’ Ray Davies – to create the score for Halloween Kills, the 11th
instalment of the slasher series.
The composer says the trio start with the bedrock of his original theme and build on that after watching the rough cut of the film, adding layers of sinister synth tones, dissonant notes and that particular sonic alchemy which steals your breath and sends your pulse racing.
Even the song titles, including Rampage, It Needs To Die, Unkillable and He Appears, are enough to send shudders down your spine.
“I wanna prepare you … Halloween Kills is pretty rough,”
Carpenter says.
“It’s the ultimate slasher film, it’s not for the weak.”
Even after almost five decades as a composer for film – and also with his son and Davies as their side project Lost Themes – Carpenter is no closer to understanding why the horror genre needs music to amplify its impact on the viewer.
“I don’t know why but it does. I decided not to question that years ago, not to ask myself that anymore,” he says.
“It’s just what we need to do to make the movie.”