Paul Giovanni — “The Wicker Man” (1973)
From “Witchfinder General” to “A Field In England,” pastoral horror has been a particularly British concern, one that reached its perfect form with Robin Hardy’s bizarrely terrifying 1973 cult hit “The Wicker Man” and its folk soundtrack by American playwright and director Paul Giovanni. Specially formed for the film, a band called Magnet performs the song-score, which is totally unlike any other horror soundtrack, but then “The Wicker Man,” all daylight cheeriness and creeping dread, is unlike any other horror film. There is something spellbinding afoot in the music, and you can feel yourself, like Edward Woodward‘s stiff sergeant, gradually falling under the sway of the old Celtic gods as it goes on, particularly with its most famous cut, “Willow’s Song.” Among the many things that Neil LaBute’s atrocious remake got wrong, abandoning the music (for an admittedly not-bad Angelo Badalamenti score) might have been one of the biggest errors.
John Carpenter — “The Fog” (1980)
The brace of recent imitators and the director’s recent album “Lost Themes” have reinforced the sense that Carpenter is not just a great genre helmer, but also is a stellar composer for film. And though his “Halloween” soundtrack might be his most influential moment, his score for his follow-up, 1980’s “The Fog,” might have been his finest music. The film itself somehow sells what could have been a silly premise (leprous pirate ghosts shrouded in mists menace a California town in search of vengeance!), and much of that is down to Carpenter’s creepy, atmospheric score. Still leaning on his trademark synths but with a richer and more accomplished bag of tricks than the minimalist shock of awe of “Halloween,” it’s not as instantly iconic as that earlier score, but makes up for it in sheer dread.
Jerry Goldsmith — “Alien” (1979)
If there’s any perfect example of how a score can be less a solo work and more about the team of sound supervisors, director, editor, even studio exec, it must be Goldsmith’s Oscar-nominated “Alien” music. Originally Ridley Scott wanted Japanese composer/genius Isao Tomita for the job, but Fox honcho Alan Ladd Jr suggested the more familiar Goldsmith. His first pass, which builds from lyrical to fearful, was rejected until as Goldsmith put it, he rewrote “the obvious thing: weird and strange, and which everybody loved.” The score was then cut up and interspersed with temp track cues that the editors had grown attached to. But however patchworky/”obvious” it might seem to Goldsmith, the fact remains the “Alien” score is utterly iconic —bloopy underwater drones underlying skittery noises that hover at the hearing threshold, like a critter lurking in your peripheral vision. In space, no one can hear you scream, but that doesn’t mean they can’t hear your fear.
Oh the horror! So much bad blood was created and then spilled in the making of this list that we ought to maybe draft in Carpenter or Morricone to score the movie version. Or Tangerine Dream, who nearly made the cut with “Sorcerer” which was deemed inadmissable because it’s really only their awesome music that brings the grimy thriller into horror territory at all. Though we should also shout out their work on Michael Mann‘s “The Keep,” which just missed out overall (and here’s a feature on their 5 Best Soundtracks to keep you going).
Additionally, in no particular order, there were vocal supporters of the Ralph Jones‘ incongruously great score to “Slumber Party Massacre“; “Phantasm”‘s heavily “Exorcist“- indebted score from Fred Myrow and Malcom Seagrave; Danny Elfman‘s channelling of Bernard Herrmann for “Nightbreed“; Wojciech Kilar‘s bombastic, often recycled music for “Bram Stoker’s Dracula“; John Harrison’s score for Romero’s anthology film “Creepshow“; Richard Band‘s better-than-deserved compositions for the terrible “Troll“; the great Lalo Schifrin‘s score for the original “The Amityville Horror“; a more recent example in Climax Golden Twins’ music for Brad Anderson‘s now cultish “Session 9“; Pino Donaggio’s terrific work with de Palma’s “Dressed to Kill“; Gene Moore’s classic church organ scares in “Carnival of Souls“; and while we’ve featured Bava fils above, we could easily have found room for his father Mario Bava, probably with the funky original music by Libra for his final film “Shock.”
Elsewhere “House of the Devil,” “Chopping Mall” and “Bubba Ho-Tep” are all worth a little earspace, as are the scores for Guillermo Del Toro‘s “Pan’s Labyrinth” (Javier Navarette), Sam Raimi‘s “Drag Me To Hell” (Christopher Young), Romero‘s “Dawn of the Dead” (Goblin again, along with Argento), Tony Randel‘s “Hellraiser 2” (Christopher Young) and the classic “Witchfinder General” (Paul Ferris). But let us know your own favorites in the comments below.
–Jessica Kiang, Oli Lyttelton & Nik Grozdanovic.